Nearly 1 Million Immigrants Ignoring Deportation

Posted on July 1, 2016July 1, 2016 by Denise Simon

It is quite interesting that the Obama administration can release proven known terrorists from the Guantanamo Detention Center to either home countries or any other country that the administration colludes with to accept them.

We have a former detainee that was released to Uruguay that has fled alleged to Brazil.

MiamiHerald

But…..this policy does not seem to apply to the Department of Homeland Security or ICE.

Specifically, the law states:

On being notified by the [DHS Secretary] that the government of a foreign country denies or unreasonably delays accepting an alien who is a citizen, subject, national, or resident of that country after the [DHS Secretary] asks whether the government will accept the alien under this section, the Secretary of State shall order consular officers in that foreign country to discontinue granting immigrant visas or nonimmigrant visas, or both, to citizens, subjects, nationals, and residents of that country until the [DHS Secretary] notifies the Secretary that the country has accepted the alien. (8 U.S.C. § 1253(d); Emphasis added.)

Nearly 1 million immigrants — including more than 170K convicts — ignoring deportation

WashingtonTimes: Nearly 1 million immigrants are ignoring deportation orders to remain in the U.S. — including more than 170,000 convicted criminals, according to a new report Thursday that suggests the government’s deportation efforts are still falling short.

Only a small fraction of the immigrants are even being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), meaning most of them remain free on the streets, where they can commit crimes and continue living in the shadows, according to the study by Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director at the Center for Immigration Studies.

“The fact that almost 10 percent of the illegal resident population has already been ordered removed and is still here illustrates just how dysfunctional our immigration enforcement system is. It also should be of great concern that 20 percent of them are conviction criminals, and that most of these are at large in our communities,” Ms. Vaughan said.

She said the 925,193 aliens who were still here despite a deportation order break down into three categories. In some cases their home countries refuse to take them back, and U.S. officials feel constrained by law to release them; other times they are released by sanctuary cities, who help thwart deportations; and still others abscond on their own.

Mexicans account for the most aliens, with nearly 200,000 ignoring deportation orders. About a third of those are convicted criminals, Ms. Vaughan said. El Salvador accounts for more than 150,000 of the aliens, but just 10,000 of them are convicted criminals.

Perhaps most troubling is that the population is steadily growing, with the Obama administration tracking down fewer than 10,000 fugitives a year on the streets. Even when criminals snagged by checking local prisons and jails are included, the number of those deported from the interior of the U.S. is far less than 100,000.

But some 179,040 new criminal aliens were given final orders or removal in 2015 yet remained in the country, Ms. Vaughan said, citing data obtained by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Related reading: The law requires the State Department to impose visa sanctions on countries that won’t take their own citizens back, a requirement Secretaries Clinton and Kerry have simply ignored. NRO

Univ. of Phoenix, Obama’s Post Presidency Career?

Posted on June 30, 2016June 30, 2016 by Denise Simon

Okay, let the investigations begin…..the collusion, the government subsidies and partners….hummm

Bid to buy for-profit college by former Obama insiders raises questions

‘There is at least a taste of unseemliness involved in this,’ a former top education official said.

Longtime Obama friend Marty Nesbitt’s private equity firm Vistria Group has mounted a charm offensive on Capitol Hill to talk up the proposed sale of the for-profit University of Phoenix. | Getty

Politico: As the Obama administration cracks down on for-profit colleges, three former officials working on behalf of an investment firm run by President Barack Obama’s best friend have staged a behind-the-scenes campaign to get the Education Department to green-light a purchase of the biggest for-profit of them all — the University of Phoenix.

The investors include a private equity firm founded and run by longtime Obama friend Marty Nesbitt and former Deputy Education Secretary Tony Miller. The firm, Chicago-based Vistria Group, has mounted a charm offensive on Capitol Hill to talk up the proposed sale of the troubled for-profit education giant, which receives more than $2 billion a year in taxpayer money but is under investigation by three state attorneys general and the FTC.

What stands out about the proposed deal is that several key players are either close to top administration officials, including the president himself, or are former administration insiders — especially Miller, who was part of the effort to more tightly regulate for-profit colleges at the very agency now charged with approving the ownership change. For-profit college officials have likened those rules to a war on the industry, and blame the administration for contributing to their declining enrollments and share prices.

The proposed sale carries high stakes for taxpayers, students and investors: The University of Phoenix’s financial stability may depend on the $1.1 billion acquisition. If the company were to fail, more than 160,000 students could be displaced and the government would be on the hook for hundreds of millions in student loans.

But the investors’ effort to seek Education Department approval of the school’s ownership change also raises questions about potential conflicts of interest.

“There is at least a taste of unseemliness involved in this,” said Mark Schneider, a former top education official under President George W. Bush. “They regulate it. They drive the price down. …They are buying it for pennies on the dollar.”

Vistria Group said it isn’t seeking special treatment. “We expect the Department to evaluate this proposed transaction on the merits,” the company said in a statement.

Vistria is part of a consortium of investors involved in the proposed acquisition, which has already won over shareholders of the school’s parent company, Apollo Education Group. But now the investors need the Education Department and the school’s accreditors to sign off on the ownership change to keep the federal money flowing — most of it in the form of student loans and Pell Grants.

Related reading: Apollo Education

Related reading: Vistria Money

With those decisions looming, Miller and at least one other former Obama insider have met with staff to Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), looking to reassure some of the loudest critics of for-profit colleges in the president’s own party, several Senate aides confirmed to POLITICO. Those lawmakers have pushed Obama’s Education Department to be even tougher on for-profit colleges.

Miller has also met with staff members working for other committee members, including Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), and Bob Casey (D-Pa.), as well as with Sen. Lamar Alexander, the Tennessee Republican who chairs the Senate education committee. Nesbitt was not part of those Capitol Hill meetings, according to the aides.

The investors’ pitch is that they will turn around the beleaguered education company company and boost student outcomes. In announcing the sale, Miller said in a statement that the investors are committed to running the University of Phoenix “in a manner consistent with the highest ethical standards.”

But the specter of former insiders pushing the sale of a company in an industry that has long been in the administration’s crosshairs is not lost on critics. For seven years, the Obama administration has waged a crackdown on poor quality and predatory practices at many for-profit colleges, with the president himself excoriating some schools for “making out like a bandit” with federal money, but saddling students with big debts and leaving them unprepared for good jobs. He did not name the schools.

“It’s ironic that a former senior official at the Department of Education — an agency that has intentionally targeted and sought to dismantle the for-profit college industry — would now take the reins at the country’s largest for-profit college,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, a North Carolina Republican who leads the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s higher education subcommittee.

“Mr. Miller will soon learn firsthand how the harmful regulations he helped develop will limit the choices of students and create burdensome red tape for his institution,” she added.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) — a longtime defender of the University of Phoenix — told POLITICO he blames the administration’s hard-charging regulatory approach for helping to drive down the company’s stock price and contributing to its decision to sell.

“I know it was the attacks that drove the stock price down,” McCain said. “It’s very clear.”

The sale price, which shareholders approved last month after initially balking at a lower price, is considered a bargain by some industry observers. The day Obama was sworn into office on Jan. 20, 2009, the company’s stock closed at $86.54 per share. Today, it’s trading at around $9, although a recovering economy, unfavorable media coverage and the for-profit industry’s general slump have also contributed to that drop.

Some Senate Democrats said they are also uneasy with the investors’ plan to take the university private, which means it would no longer have to publicly disclose information such as executive compensation, lawsuits or when it’s a target of investigations. Those details are useful to prospective students, they say, at a time when the school faces inquiries from both state and federal authorities.

“Essentially, a company that receives more than $2 billion annually from federal taxpayers — nearly 80 percent of its revenue — is going dark, and it’s happening at a time when the University of Phoenix has come under increased scrutiny from state and federal regulators,” Durbin wrote in a March letter to the Education Department.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said the university’s “questionable track record is already a point of concern, and there are many questions as to whether the sale of its parent company is in the best interests of both students and taxpayers.”

Who’s who

Several players in the deal have close ties to the Obama administration they’re now attempting to influence.

Former Deputy Education Secretary Tony Miller was part of the effort to more tightly regulate for-profit colleges at the very agency now charged with approving the ownership change. | AP Photo

First among them is Miller— the former No. 2 in Obama’s Education Department until he left in 2013 and who is now a partner and chief operating officer of Vistria Group. He would become chairman of the university’s parent company if the sale goes through.

Miller, who spent more than four years as a top Education Department official, represented the administration during nearly a dozen meetings with for-profit education companies — including the very company his firm is now seeking to buy, department records show. The meetings centered on controversial “gainful employment” proposals to cut off financial aid from programs where students leave with high debt and poor job prospects.

Other players in the Capitol Hill effort include Jonathan Samuels, who was responsible for pushing Obama’s agenda through Congress during his nearly six years working in legislative affairs at the White House. Samuels, who now works for Vistria Group, has joined Miller in at least some of his meetings on the Hill, according to a Senate aide. Vistria has also enlisted former White House Deputy Communications Director Amy Brundage, who is working at the Washington public affairs firm SKDKnickerbocker.

“The irony is not lost on us,” said one Republican congressional aide, who asked for anonymity to speak freely. “It’s quite rich, when you have former Obama administration officials who used to denigrate for-profit education now profiting off it.”

Nesbitt, meanwhile, is a co-founder and co-CEO of Vistria Group and widely considered the president’s closest friend. He is Obama’s frequent golf and basketball partner, while his wife, Anita Blanchard, is an obstetrician who delivered Malia and Sasha Obama. Nesbitt acted as treasurer for both of the president’s campaigns and heads the Obama Foundation, which is planning his presidential library.

Nesbitt is also a former business associate of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker; he set up Vistria Group in 2013, more than a year after the sale of The Parking Spot, an airport parking company he started with Pritzker’s backing. One of Vistria’s investors has been a charitable foundation called The Pritzker Traubert Foundation, started by Pritzker, federal tax records show. Pritzker resigned from her position at the foundation when she became a cabinet member in 2013. A Commerce Department official said she has not been involved with discussions about the University of Phoenix sale.

Nesbitt, Miller, Samuels and Brundage all declined to comment to POLITICO about the nature of Vistria’s meetings with lawmakers or whether they had reached out to Education Department officials to discuss the potential sale. At the request of the company’s public relations firm, reporters submitted written questions about the meetings, allegations of possible conflicts of interest and how the company plans to turn around the University of Phoenix. Vistria responded with a four-sentence statement.

“We believe that the University of Phoenix, with our support, is poised to be a leader serving the adult learner, by graduating students with the knowledge and skills that employers value, at a cost to the student that ensures a compelling return on her or his educational investment,” the statement said.

“We believe that high-quality outcomes, whether from nonprofit or for-profit institutions, is what is needed in the sector and what matters most. We expect the Department to evaluate this proposed transaction on the merits. The parties have engaged in the formal acquisition review process through regular order.”

The Education Department also declined to answer POLITICO’s questions about whether Nesbitt, Miller or Samuels had discussed the proposed sale with department officials. It refused to provide a copy of the paperwork the investors submitted to kick off the regulatory approval process.

Vistria is one of three investment groups involved in the deal — the others are Wall Street giant Apollo Global Management (no connection to Apollo Education) and Najafi Companies. A spokeswoman for a firm representing Apollo Education declined to say how much each investor had agreed to contribute. But in addition to capital, Vistria brings Obama administration connections that could help pave the way for a smooth approval process and working relationship with government regulators afterward.

It’s quite common for for-profit education companies to hire people who were former regulators, accreditors, politicians or established higher education officials, said Kevin Kinser, an education professor at the State University of New York at Albany who has studied for-profit colleges.

Kinser said it gives the schools a “sense of legitimacy” and understanding of how systems work “for them to do what they need to do.”

Durbin, a reliable Obama ally in the Senate, said he’s not close enough to Nesbitt to know why he got involved with the acquisition.

“He’s an investor, and I’ll just say he thinks this is a good investment,” Durbin said. “I hope that Marty will bring to this endeavor a sense of reform and will create a new for-profit school that truly does serve its students.”

The holding company set up by the investors to buy the University of Phoenix has also paid $80,000 to lobbyists. The lobbying team includes Marc Lampkin — a longtime counsel to former House Speaker John Boehner — at the high-powered D.C. firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

Trace Urdan, a for-profit college analyst who heard Miller describe Vistria’s plans at a recent conference, said Miller appeared “quite earnest.” Miller emphasized that the prospective owners plan to use data to monitor student performance and to make improvements, Urdan said.

“He thinks the size of the university is a real strength to be exploited and the implication is there is a lot of data, so you can analyze the data and figure out what works and doesn’t work,” Urdan said.

The potential sale offers a potential lifeline for the university. But there’s pressure to get the government’s approval quickly since the parent company has warned in regulatory filings that if the sale isn’t completed by October, its worsening financials might sink the deal. Either way, the company says that a further decline in its stock price could lead to regulatory problems that “severely stress” its liquidity.

If the company were to fail, either before or after the proposed sale, current students would be entitled to have their loans forgiven. Taxpayers have already spent more than $90 million on student loan forgiveness resulting from last year’s collapse of the Corinthian Colleges chain.

The Phoenix juggernaut

Founded in 1976, with a class of just eight students, the University of Phoenix became a pioneer in the burgeoning field of career education for adults ― providing flexibility for busy working adults looking for vocational education, especially after the advent of online programs in the late 1980s.

But as the school grew larger, hitting more than half a million students in 2010, critics say it lost its way in terms of the quality of its programs, high costs and aggressive recruiting tactics.

In recent years, scrutiny from state and federal authorities, a flurry of negative media stories and an improving economy combined to send enrollment plunging by more than two-thirds. In April, the university announced it would lay off 470 employees, or nearly 8 percent of its workforce.

The university currently faces investigation by the attorneys general of California, Massachusetts and Florida, according to regulatory filings. Its parent company disclosed last year that the FTC had requested information on a “broad spectrum” of its business practices, including “marketing, recruiting, enrollment, financial aid, tuition and fees, academic programs, academic advising, student retention, billing and debt collection, complaints, accreditation, training, military recruitment, and other compliance matters.”

Early in the Obama administration, in 2009, the Justice Department announced the University of Phoenix had agreed to pay $78.5 million to settle allegations the school had been fraudulently collecting taxpayer money. Two former recruiters had alleged the school created fake employee personnel files to hide the fact it was illegally giving recruiters gifts and free trips based on the number of students they brought in. The university did not acknowledge any wrongdoing in the settlement.

Last fall, the Pentagon took the unusual step of temporarily prohibiting the University of Phoenix from recruiting on military bases. The alleged violations included the misuse of military seals and trademarks, and conducting activities on military bases without proper permission. The ban was reversed three months later.

Many of the university’s students struggle with debt: Data released by the Obama administration’s College Scorecard last year shows that a majority of students who took out federal loans to attend the University of Phoenix did not end up making even a dollar’s worth of progress in paying down their debt after five years ― a sign their debts may not be manageable.

Yet the school continues to be popular, especially with veterans. Last year, about 45,000 GI Bill recipients enrolled at the University of Phoenix, at a cost of $290 million to taxpayers.

The university’s parent company is also seeing big international growth: Its global division serves more than 150,000 learners worldwide, with online and campus-based programs in countries such as Australia, India, Mexico and Chile, according to a company filing. While the international schools are a small share of total revenue, the footprint of its global division has been expanding.

‘Black box’ approval process

The process by which the Education Department will make a decision on the ownership change — and who will make that decision — has been shrouded in secrecy, say some for-profit college critics.

Bob Shireman, a former Obama Education Department official who was one of the architects of the for-profit college crackdown, called the approval process for college ownership changes a “black box.”

While the White House keeps logs to document who comes and goes to speak to executive branch officials, no one knows who is lobbying the Education Department on the sale, said Ben Miller, a former Obama Education Department staffer who is now senior director for postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress.

Asked about its decision-making process, a department official said the approval of the ownership change will be handled by the Office of Federal Student Aid, the department’s business operations arm, “in consultation with a variety of other offices,” which they declined to name.

“As we have said in the past, what’s good for students is at the heart of our review of this sale,” Dorie Nolt, the department’s press secretary, said in a statement. “We will work with Apollo to ensure that the new owner is focused on improving student outcomes.”

Shireman and Ben Miller say they want the department to use its leverage to impose conditions on the approval of the ownership change, such as requiring the university to rely less heavily on federal Pell Grants and other taxpayer programs, and to seek out more students who are willing or able to pay out of pocket.

Even if those conditions happen, Durbin said he’s skeptical the investors can pull off a turnaround, which he said previous owners failed to accomplish.

“I have met with the Apollo [Education Group] people over the years,” Durbin said. “Every meeting was preceded by ‘we’re different,’ and then it would turn out … they weren’t so different.”

Miller insists this ownership team will turn things around. In a letter to The Wall Street Journal in February, he said his company is committed to making the University of Phoenix “the most trusted provider of career-relevant higher education for working adults in the country.”

The new owners will prevail on the merits, he said.

“Success in today’s environment,” he wrote, “isn’t predicated on special treatment from regulators or legislators.”

FEC Dems Voted to Punish Fox News

Posted on June 29, 2016June 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

Is there ANY Federal government agency that is not partisan? Heh….just listening to the White House spokesperson, Josh Earnest, you would think that anyone across the country that is not a leftist liberal not only is mentally defective but should be on trial for sedition, or something. So, we have the Federal Election Commission this time.

Perhaps here would be a good place to install a reminder about Lois Lerner, of IRS targeting fame. In part from Forbes:

Al Salvi’s a pretty sophisticated lawyer and he talked to the lawyer at the other end of the line and said to that person, ‘Give me the person, and let me talk to the person who had authority on this case. Because you don’t understand—I won, you lost, I’m not going to pay any money. Let me talk to the person with authority on the case at the Federal Election Commission.’ That person got on the phone with Al Salvi and said this, ‘If you pledge never to run for office again, we’ll drop this case.’ Al Salvi said, ‘Put that in writing.’ The person said, ‘We don’t put that in writing and we never lose.’ That person was Lois Lerner.

Now, you take that disposition. You take that attitude. You take that long arm of a bureaucrat and reach into the sanctity of the ballot booth. And you’ve got a real problem. And you up the wattage on that, and you move her over, and you give her the type of authority not that the Federal Election Commission has, but the Internal Revenue Service. To grab somebody by the throat and do whatever they want with them with the possibility of imprisoning them. That is a problem. And that’s a problem that Representative Renacci is trying to make go away. Full story is here.

Fox targeted by FEC Dems in first-ever vote to punish debate sponsorship

WashingtonExaminer: Finally making good on long-harbored anger at conservative media, Democrats on the Federal Election Commission voted in secret to punish Fox News’ sponsorship of a Republican presidential debate, using an obscure law to charge the network with helping those on stage.

It is the first time in history that members of the FEC voted to punish a media outlet’s debate sponsorship, and it follows several years of Democratic threats against conservative media and websites like the Drudge Report.

The punishment, however, was blocked by all three Republicans on the commission, resulting in a 3-3 tie vote and no action.

A Republican FEC commissioner leading that fight, Lee E. Goodman, revealed the vote to Secrets Wednesday and said the official report of the May 26 executive vote will be released Thursday.

Goodman has led the fight against several other efforts to censor conservative media by Democrats on the FEC.

“The government should not punish any newsroom’s editorial decision on how best to provide the public information about candidates for office,” he said. “All press organizations should be concerned when the government asserts regulatory authority to punish and censor news coverage.”

At issue was the August 6, 2015 Fox presidential debate. Initially, the network planned to host one debate featuring 10 candidates. But as the date got close and the nearly two dozen GOP presidential candidates were close in the polls, Fox added a second debate that included seven other candidates.

One of the candidates left out filed a complaint to the FEC, charging that Fox was essential making an contribution to the 17 candidates in the debate by letting them have a voice in the debate.

CNN did the same thing, but there is no indication that they faced a complaint.

Goodman provided details about the vote to Secrets in hopes of highlighting the anti-conservative agenda pushed by Democratic FEC Commissioners Ann Ravel, Ellen Weintraub and Steven Walther.

In a statement, Goodman wrote:

A complaint was filed with the FEC alleging that Fox News’ editorial decision to expand the debate from one debate to two debates, and to include 7 candidates in the undercard debate, constituted an illegal corporate contribution by Fox News to the candidates who participated in the debate. The FEC had to decide whether to enforce the corporate contribution ban against Fox News.

Astonishingly, three FEC commissioners (Weintraub, Ravel, Walther) concluded that Fox News violated the Federal Election Campaign Act by making a prohibited corporate contribution to the 7 candidates invited to the debate. That is, by expanding the debate format to a broader group of candidates, Fox News violated the law.

He added:

Three FEC commissioners (Lee Goodman, Matthew Petersen, Caroline Hunter) blocked this regulatory overreach into newsroom editorial judgments. Commissioners Petersen and Hunter and I voted to free Fox News’ editorial judgments from the FEC’s regulatory jurisdiction under the Free Press Clause of the Constitution and the Press Exemption in the Federal Election Campaign Act. Congress included in the Act an explicit exemption for the press and we respect Congress’ decision.

Only once has the commissioned threatened sponsorship of debates. In 1980, the commission moved to censor the Nashua, N.H. Telegraph for planning a debate between Ronald Reagan and then Vice President George H.W. Bush. The paper pulled out, so Reagan paid the costs himself. It is a debate famous for Reagan barking “I’m paying for this microphone” when a moderator tried to cut him off.

Cruz Led Senate Hearing on Militant Islam, Who Refused to Show?

Posted on June 28, 2016June 28, 2016 by Denise Simon

Willful Blindness

Code Pink Confronts Cruz at Senate Hearing on Islamic Terror, Says He Has a ‘Serious Case’ of Islamophobia

Washington, D.C. – Code Pink was in attendance for Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) hearing to address to White House’s downplaying of Islamic terror on Tuesday – and they immediately made their presence known. Standing in their infamous bright pink shirts with signs that read “Islamophobia is un-American,” they began by asking the room if anyone was “suffering from Islamophobia.”

When Cruz walked in, they asked him the same thing.

The senator kept his cool, slammed down the gavel and began the hearing. He opened his remarks by referencing the terror attack at Fort Hood in 2009 waged by Nidal Hasan. Cruz noted the innocent people Hasan had slaughtered and how he chanted “allahu akbar” during his rampage. When Cruz accidentally mispronounced “allahu Akbar,” Code Pink and other attendees laughed out loud. More from TownHall

Hearing objective and summary.

Obama Admin Refuses to Inform Congress of ‘Islamic Terrorism’ in U.S.

Officials ignore congressional call to testify about radicalism

FreeBeacon: Senior Obama administration officials refused to appear before Congress on Tuesday to explain the recent decision to purge all references to “Islamic terrorism” and radicalism from public documents, according to disclosures made Tuesday on Capitol Hill.

Top officials from the Justice Department and FBI declined to appear on Capitol Hill to answer questions from lawmakers about domestic terror attacks and an administration policy of scrubbing references to Islamic terrorism and similar terms from government materials, lawmakers said.

The policy has thwarted attempts by federal authorities to stop an increasing series of terror attacks from taking place on United States soil, according to Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), chair of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on oversight.

In the past year the Obama administration has twice ordered that mentions of the terror group ISIS and “Islamic terrorism” be purged “from highly significant public records,” Cruz said.

One such effort took place in the aftermath of the recent terrorist shooting in Orlando in which the administration censored 911 transcripts of calls made by the shooter.

These efforts came amid other campaigns by the Department of Homeland Security to force its personnel to remove references to “jihad,” “sharia,” and other similar terms from material focused on methods to counter violent extremism, Cruz said.

“I would like nothing more than to speak with a government official about these bizarre decisions and omissions, especially in light of the most recent terrorist attack in Orlando by a radicalized man who had been interviewed three times by the FBI,” Cruz said.

“Indeed, this subcommittee invited two such witnesses: John P. Carlin, an assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, and Michael B. Steinbach, the executive assistant director for the FBI’s National Security Branch,” he said. “Both have refused to appear.”

Cruz blamed the administration’s policy for contributing to recent terror attacks in Orlando, San Bernardino, and Boston.

There has been a “consistent effort by this administration to scrub any reference to radical Islamic terrorism, to pretend the threat does not exist, and tragically as a consequence of that, over and over again, we have instances where the administration has ample evidence of radical Islamic terrorists,” Cruz said.

“The consequence of a willful blindness, of a policy that is a matter of administration policy, refusal to acknowledge the threat, means over and over again this administration has allowed the threats to go forward,” he added.

The administration “had declined to appear and explain” this policy and rationale behind it despite multiple requests from Congress.

“Are government officials prohibited from debating anything about Islam?” Cruz asked. “We would like to hear an explanation for that.”

The efforts to avoid using these terms have been longstanding in the Obama administration.

Muslim advocacy groups forced the FBI to purge some 876 documents from its training materials because they were deemed “offensive” in March 2012, Cruz explained.

“One article was purged because it was ‘highly inflammatory’ and ‘inaccurately argues the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization,’” he added.

In lieu of the Obama administration officials, the subcommittee heard from a range of outside terrorism experts and the government whistleblower who disclosed attempts by the Obama administration to purge many names from the U.S. terror watch list.

The Obama administration has come under further criticism for failing to properly combat ISIS abroad, a strategy that some lawmakers say could enable the terror group to carry out attacks inside the United States.

“I fear that in spite of continued attacks on our homeland, our military response to ISIS does not adequately reflect the direct nature of this threat to the United States,” Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said during a separate Tuesday hearing on the U.S. strategy to combat ISIS.

“I think many of us grow frustrated when the administration’s optimistic rhetoric often does not match the results,” Corker said.

Kerry Sells Graduates on a Borderless World

Posted on June 28, 2016June 28, 2016 by Denise Simon

Kerry advised graduates that a border wall would not deny entry to terrorists.

“Many of you were in elementary school when you learned the toughest lesson of all on 9/11,” he said, according to The Washington Examiner. “There are no walls big enough to stop people from anywhere, tens of thousands of miles away, who are determined to take their own lives while they target others.” More from DailyCaller.

Do you ever wonder what the grand plans and objectives are of the elites that run U.S. policy? Do you wonder who they tell their stories to and who accepts them as tenets of facts to mobilize future voters? The college campuses are the leftist and statists fusion centers where the incubation of progressivism begins by professors and gets validated by the likes of John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and the rest.

The president of Northeastern University is Joseph Auon, Lebanese born and a student of Noam Chomsky. Chomsky is the author of: Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media Sigh….

Read the Kerry graduation speech for yourself. It is a presentation on how policy, money, aid and objectives are sold globally since the students already have bought in.

Read John Kerry’s Northeastern University Commencement Address

“You are Donald Trump’s worst nightmare”

Time: Secretary of State John Kerry gave the commencement address at Northeastern University on Friday, describing the graduating class—which he said is the most diverse in the university’s history—as “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare.”

Later in his speech, Kerry appeared to reference Trump’s promise to build a wall along the Mexican border and his “make America great again” campaign slogan.

“I think that everything that we’ve lived and learned tells us that we will never come out on top if we accept advice from soundbite salesmen and carnival barkers who pretend the most powerful country on Earth can remain great by looking inward and hiding behind walls at a time that technology has made that impossible to do and unwise to even attempt,” Kerry said. “The future demands from us something more than a nostalgia for some rose-tinted version of a past that did not really exist in any case.”

SECRETARY KERRY: President Aoun, thank you for your very generous introduction and thank you for the invitation to be here on this very, very special day. Jim Bean, Henry Nasella, members of the board, faculty, parents, friends, and especially the brilliant and charismatic class of 2016. (Applause.)

The Garden is about as good as it gets for a commencement. All you have to do is just look up there at the banners heralding the Boston Bruins’ Stanley Cup championship in 2011. (Applause.) I know some of you come from somewhere else, but you’re here. (Laughter.) The 17th Celtics championship banner thanks to the second coming of the “Big Three.” (Applause.) And with my chauvinism of 28 years representing the state in the Senate, I’ll tell you this is a living reminder that Boston is the number-one sports town anywhere. (Applause.) Now, at the moment, for the Red Sox “anywhere” just happens to be first place, while the Yankees are in last. (Applause.) So don’t let anyone tell you that our country is not moving in the right direction. (Laughter.)

Now, graduating class, I got to tell you, you really do look spectacular. I want you to – I mean, just look around you. Classmates of every race, religion, gender, shape, size – 85 countries represented and dozens of languages spoken. You are the most diverse class in Northeastern’s history – in other words, you are Donald Trump’s worst nightmare. (Applause.) Now, you may not know it, but there is at least one thing that truly unites you: You’re all going to be in really big trouble if you forget that Sunday is Mother’s Day. (Laughter.)

Now, to the parents who are here – moms and dads – if you feel anything like I did when my daughters graduated, your emotions have to be mixed – a little bit sad, a little bit relieved – (laughter) – incredibly proud, and absolutely blown away by how short the interval is between diapers and diplomas. (Laughter.)

Now, speaking of blown away, I want to congratulate you guys for just getting here in time for this ceremony. (Laughter.) I’m told you had to report at 8:00 a.m.

AUDIENCE: (Inaudible.)

SECRETARY KERRY: Well – (laughter) – I mean, I got to tell you, that’s either crazy early or crazy late depending on whether you actually went to bed. (Laughter.) But why would the last night be different from the rest of your college career, right?

Now, I’ve given a few commencement speeches before, and the biggest challenge is always to follow everything that’s come before you, particularly the student speakers. And I want to thank Annika and Ben, and I want to thank (inaudible) and Distilled Harmony for making my job a lot tougher today. (Applause.) Thank you.

I really want you to know that I accept this honor with great humility, and particularly because Northeastern was kind enough to bestow an honorary degree on my daughter Vanessa last year, who was involved in a global health program which you recognized. I come here absolutely promising not to sugarcoat reality because that is the last thing that you need. No one here needs to be told that life can be a struggle, whether it’s over grades or affording tuition or something more complicated – friends, family, illness, or the death of a loved one. No words of mine can change those realities, and no lecture can lessen the loss.

And as we were reminded earlier, you are still mourning the tragic loss of Victoria McGrath and Priscilla Perez Torres. Even before, on Patriot’s Day 2013, when Victoria was among those hurt by a terrorist’s bomb, this community felt the weight of a wounded world. So this morning, we grieve and we celebrate all at the same time. And in a way, there is no better shorthand description of life itself. And no better two-word summary of this gathering, I think, today than, “Northeastern strong, Huskies strong.”

Now, I have learned – (applause) – I have learned that resilience is really just the beginning of what Northeastern is all about. Service is at the heart of this institution. So it’s no surprise that Northeastern’s effort to keep faith with those who keep America safe is actually unparalleled. We can be proud that Northeastern graduates veterans at a rate 30 percent above the national average. (Applause.) And to soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, from one veteran to so many others, I am proud to say that the class of 2016 is the rule, not the exception. Thank you, Northeastern, and thanks to all of you who have worn or wear our nation’s uniform. (Applause.)

Now, I am honored this morning to address a university family that thankfully is unafraid, utterly unafraid to look beyond our borders and into the future. And it’s also almost cliche to say that you have global vision, but Northeastern really does, and it’s different. President Aoun tests the limits – your bold commitment to experiential learning, your leadership on the environment, the opportunities for international study, a new campus in Silicon Valley, and cutting-edge research in things like high-rate nano-manufacturing. And class of 2016, believe me, if you are mastering a technology that your parents can’t even pronounce, you are doing something right. (Laughter and applause.)

And just think, after today you’re going to have a leg up on Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. You’ll actually have a college degree. (Laughter.) In fact, Northeastern’s example should speak to every one of us about the massive transformation that is taking place around the world. Northeastern’s gone global. Our leading corporations are going global. Health and medicine and film are going global. And you don’t have to be great at math to understand that our economy can’t grow if we don’t sell things to the 95 percent of the world’s customers who live in other countries. You don’t have to be a doctor to understand that we can’t be healthy if we can’t fight things like Ebola and Zika that may originate overseas but makes us just as sick as the people they first hurt far, far from our shores. And many of you were in elementary school when you learned the toughest lesson of all on 9/11. There are no walls big enough to stop people from anywhere, tens of thousand miles away, who are determined to take their own lives while they target others. Not in a clash of civilizations, but in an assault, a raw assault on civilization itself.

So I think that everything that we’ve lived and learned tells us that we will never come out on top if we accept advice from soundbite salesmen and carnival barkers who pretend the most powerful country on Earth can remain great by looking inward and hiding behind walls at a time that technology has made that impossible to do and unwise to even attempt. The future demands from us – (applause) – the future demands from us something more than a nostalgia for some rose-tinted version of a past that did not really exist in any case. And I think that everyone here, especially the class of 2016, understands that viscerally, internally, intellectually. You’re about to graduate into a complex and borderless world. You heard President Aoun talk in his description about the view from space. You’re about to embark on careers that will take many of you to companies not yet founded, using devices not yet developed, based on ideas not yet conceived. That is how fast things are moving. And that doesn’t mean you have to succumb to science fiction; you’re not going to all be replaced by robots, because the economy of tomorrow will have enormous space for those with the energy, the training, and the courage to compete.

And Northeastern has made sure that you have that and more, because this university is blessed with a global vision and so are you its graduates now. Believe me, that is critical, because you’re entering a world where thinking globally is absolutely essential to seizing opportunities and confronting the challenges that we face.

When I was younger, we had more than our share of national traumas, including a long and bloody war in Southeast Asia. But it was also a time when the dividing line between ideologies was simpler, when the primary forces shaping our world were governments of recognized states.

Today, we face a world that is much more complicated, less hierarchical, where non-state actors play a central role; where disturbing images and outright lies can circle the globe in an instant; where dangers like climate change, terrorism, and disease do not respect borders or any of the norms of behavior; and where tribal and sectarian hatreds are as prominent as they have been in centuries. Now, for some people, that is all they need simply to climb under the sheets, close their eyes, and wish the world away. And shockingly, we even see this attitude from some who think they ought to be entrusted with the job of managing international affairs.

It seems obvious that understanding to – the need to engage with the greater world, with the wider world should be a threshold requirement for those in high office. And yet the specter of isolationism once again hovers over our nation. I thought we had learned the lessons from the 20th century when an isolationist foreign policy and a protectionist tariff policy contributed to two global wars and the Great Depression.

Well, the desire to turn inward and to shut out the world may be especially seductive in an era as complicated as this. But it is not a responsible choice for the most prosperous and powerful nation on the planet – which happens to also be the leader of the free world. (Applause.)

Now, as Secretary of State, let me assure you: when you consider the range of challenges that the world is struggling with, most countries don’t lie awake at night worrying about America’s presence; they worry about what would happen in our absence.

So we cannot be seduced. For us, the lessons of history are clear.

We don’t see an excuse for inaction. We see a mandate to lead. Because the greatest challenges that our world confronts are best addressed – and in some cases can only be addressed – by good and capable people working in common cause with citizens of other nations.

You often hear politicians talking about American exceptionalism, and indeed, this nation is exceptional. But remember, please, we’re not exceptional because we say we are and keep repeating it; we’re exceptional because we do exceptional things.

In other words, greatness isn’t about bragging. It’s about doing. It’s about never being satisfied. It’s about testing the limits of what we can achieve together – of what America and its partners can accomplish in the world. And that is exactly what we are trying to do with the United States already now, today, more deeply engaged on more important issues, in more parts of the globe, than ever before in our history. And we are profoundly conscious of the gravity of the challenges. In the words of the Haitian proverb, there are mountains beyond the mountains.

One of those mountains is the effort to safeguard future generations from the harmful effects of climate change. I am proud to say that the United States is leading the way together with many other nations, and last month, with my granddaughter on my lap, I formally committed the United States to set an example for the 196 nations that have pledged to curb greenhouse gas emissions and make progress towards a low carbon energy future. (Applause.)

I want you to think about that, because with just a few exceptions – including, I am sad to say, an embarrassing coterie of naysayers and science-deniers here in the United States – the whole world has now, in Paris and in New York, for the first time accepted the need for a revolution in how we produce and use energy.

Ladies and gentlemen, last March was the hottest March in recorded history; last year, the hottest year in recorded history; the last 10 years, the hottest decade in recorded history; the one before that, the third hottest. The facts are simply staggering. And yet, despite all the science, one of my former colleagues thought it would be persuasive to walk onto the floor of the Senate with a snowball in his hand and point to it as evidence that climate change is a hoax. Well, I hate to tell him it proves something, that’s for sure, but not what he intended. (Applause.)

At the same time, just in the past four years, a record $230 billion was spent in the United States of America in response to extreme weather events. Just the other day in Houston they had 17 inches of rain in 24 hours. That is the entire amount of rain – more than – than they had last year in the entire summer. But just imagine if we had put even a small fraction of that 230 billion into efforts to prevent or at least prepare for the worst impacts of climate change.

And there’s one more thing to remember. Don’t believe the doubters who claim that we have to make a choice between protecting the environment or growing the economy. That’s a lie. There are millions of jobs to be created, businesses to be built, fortunes to be made in tapping the potential of renewable energy, and I hope that many of you will share in that future. (Applause.)

In Paris last December, we took an unprecedented step with our first ever international agreement to combat climate change. It is literally, though – I mean, it isn’t the solution in itself because it’s not going to guarantee we hold the Earth’s temperature to a warning of 2 degrees centigrade. But what it does is it sends a massive signal to the marketplace for private entrepreneurs, for scientists, for creative minds to go to work to find the alternative, for the next Elon Musk, for the next Steve Jobs, whoever it is that’s going to produce the battery storage or the ability for us to solve this problem. Paris is the beginning of what we have to do to meet this challenge.

And in the years ahead, we will need an all-out global commitment to clean air, clean harbors, clean coasts, renewable energy, and the preservation of our endangered ocean and marine resources. And I say to you today with certainty, this is one of the great challenges of our time.

And hand-in-hand with this challenge is another mountain to scale – the effort to eliminate poverty from the world. Now, your instant reaction may be to say wow, that’s just too big, that’s not possible. But the truth is it’s not only possible, we’re making enormous progress in trying to achieve it right now.

Today, extreme poverty worldwide has fallen below 10 percent for the first time in history. The revolution that is taking place on a global basis has brought hundreds of millions of people in India, hundreds of millions of people in China into the middle class. And while that’s welcome news, we’re not satisfied because 700 million people still have to survive on less than what it costs for us to grab a couple of Dunkin Donuts a day, because the gap – the gap that was referred to earlier between rich and poor – remains far too wide.

So at the UN last fall, the world came together and agreed to move forward on an agenda that not only will reduce poverty further but will ensure that every boy and girl can attend school, that every mother gets the health care that needs to survive, and that every available resource is used to win the fight against epidemic diseases. After all, my friends, we defied predictions by stopping Ebola. Remember? Experts said that a million people would be dead by Christmas of 2014 without action. Well, we took action. President Obama had the foresight to send 3,000 troops to West Africa to build capacity, to provide care and aid, and to stem the spread of the epidemic. And now, thanks to unprecedented global response – global response, not one country, not turning inwards and avoiding responsibility but accepting responsibility – today the most affected countries are virtually Ebola-free. (Applause.)

There is absolutely no reason – (applause) – there is absolutely no reason to believe that we can’t do the same for malaria and the same for the Zika virus. Right now, if we uphold and continue our commitments to critical global health programs in Africa, we can see the birth of the first AIDS-free generation – an extraordinary accomplishment. (Applause.)

And yet another mountain that we have to climb, which stands in the way of the calm that we want in our lives and the stability that we need to achieve many of the things we want to achieve, is the scourge of violent extremism that threatens communities around the world. And there can be no peace without eliminating this scourge.

I mentioned Victoria McGrath earlier, who was injured in the Boston Marathon attack. So Boston and Northeastern need no lessons in how important it is to win the battle against terrorists. I want you to know, without exaggeration, we will win it and we are even winning it now. In Syria and Iraq, we have degraded the leadership of the terrorist group known as ISIL or Daesh, and we and our partners have liberated a third of the land that it once occupied, and we are continuing to move. They have not taken one piece of territory and held it since May of last year, but we’re not going to be successful in the long run – (applause) – we’re not going to be successful in the long run if the world continues to turn away from other kinds of problems and allows the production of terrorists at such an alarming rate. And that is why it is critical that we expand our commitment to taking on violent extremism at the roots.

We know that there are millions of young people across the globe with no jobs, no opportunity, but they have smartphones in their hands. They can see what the rest of the world has. And in the seeing of that, they also see and know what they don’t have. I want you to know that the fruit vendor who ignited the Arab Spring in Tunisia – he wasn’t religiously motivated. There was no religion at all in what he did. He was tired of being slapped around by a corrupt policeman who wanted a bribe, and he was so frustrated by his inability to sell his own fruit where he wanted that he self-immolated. And that ignited a revolution that saw a dictator of 30 years driven out of the country. That’s what ignited Tahrir Square. There was no religion in Tahrir Square in terms of what motivated it. It was young people like you who wanted an opportunity like you have here, but they wanted it in their home and for their country. We need these young people to know that their countries and their communities will not be abandoned to the clutches of terrorists and extremists.

Experts tell us that a 50 percent reduction in youth unemployment could lift the global living standards by 6 percent or more. So our mission – your mission – is to create jobs not just in a few places but in many places. And that’s going to require the deep involvement jointly of the private sector, civil society, academic institutions, international organizations, and governments everywhere, and still there will be no guarantees. And let me make it clear: Doing this is not about charity. It’s not about giving something for nothing. It’s about building our own security and preventing the conflicts of the future that may inevitably see us having to become involved.

There used to be a famous song during World War I, “Over There,” sang about the distant shores where our soldiers traveled to fight. But in our time, in your time, there is no “over there;” in a digital, well-traveled world – in a global marketplace – those distant shores are practically always right at our doorstep.

So all of us need to do much more to build relationships with partners overseas, to deliver assistance to families and communities abroad, to promote stability worldwide. And we need to do this not because it is morally right, which it is; not just because it’s in keeping with our national ethos, which is also true; but because our own security and prosperity demand it.

My friends, we are blessed to live in a country with a $17 trillion economy, and yet we spend just one penny on every dollar of our federal budget on all of our foreign aid.

The fact is there is much more that we can do and must do to encourage and reward innovation, to diversify economies, to improve governance, to stop corruption, to ensure the education of young people and that it actually teaches young people what they need to know and keeps them from being radicalized.

Now, there is much more that we can invest and many more projects for my generation and yours to take on as you take on your careers in the days ahead.

Now, I ask you just for a moment to think about the careers of the three distinguished Americans who preceded me in receiving honorary degrees from this university today. Over a period of decades, Susan Hockfield dedicated her vision and her talent to the fight against brain cancer. Through a combination of genius and high purpose, Tom McCarthy has reached the pinnacle of his art, the storytelling. Charlie Bolden has been an aviator, an astronaut, a military commander, the administrator of NASA, and above all, an inspiring leader of women and men.

None of them would be here today if they were easily satisfied – and the accomplishments, which earned their degrees, came about because they dared to always explore the outermost limits of what they could do.

Thinking especially of Charlie, and my own Dad – who flew in the Army Air Corps in the year prior to Pearl Harbor – I want to tell you in closing about a group of people who called – who were called on years ago to test themselves under the most extreme conditions.

The setting was Asia; the time a few months after the start of World War II. Enemy planes dominated the traditional air routes. So to get supplies from India to friendly forces in China, American aviators had to fly hundreds of miles over some of the world’s highest mountains, including the towering Himalayas. They called it “flying the hump,” and nothing similar had ever been attempted.

The airplanes they flew came straight from the factory and were untested. The pilots were given no charts, so they drew their own. They were asked to fly higher than any aviator had flown; higher than they had been trained to fly; and they did so over the globe’s most forbidding terrain. Amid clouds or in darkness, a hidden peak or a crag could appear at any moment and bring them down. And yet, each night, plane after plane flew off into the unknown because, had they not, allied forces would have stood no chance.

Eventually, the Pentagon sent an officer to observe and talk to the pilots, deciding in each case whether the strain had become too much and the aviator should be sent home. Now, the officer reported back that some of the flyers were mentally drained after the first trip; others began to crack in a couple of weeks or months. Only a few were able to go on and on, much longer than their buddies. In four years, more than a thousand pilots were lost, but together, these courageous airmen – none of them famous or with big reputations – they kept the supply lines open and they helped to win the war.

Now, some of these pilots were better able than others to persevere, but here’s the point: none failed, because all went as far as their own capabilities allowed; each pushed – like a dedicated marathoner has to push – to plumb those final reserves of strength and find the spark of greatness within them.

That is the most that anyone could have asked of them. It’s what history demands from the United States of America. And it’s what the future asks of you.

You graduate today with an increasing reservoir of knowledge and skills – but how you use those gifts, how far you push yourselves, whether you give your own capabilities a full chance – that’s not just about education; that’s a question of character, and a question that only you can answer.

When Robert Kennedy was running for president in 1968, he raised with students at the University of Kansas some basic questions about dignity and purpose.

He pointed out that what we now call our GDP was measured, among other things, in items like the size of our military, the capacity of our jails, the production of our weapons, and the pollution emanating from our factories. It was not, he lamented, measured in the things that mattered most in our daily lives.

Kennedy said, “The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom or our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.”

My friends, we are under no illusions about the gigantic challenges before us. But we should remember that, compared to any earlier generation, we have tremendous advantages. A child today is more likely than ever before to be born healthy, more likely to be adequately fed, more likely to get the necessary vaccinations, more likely to attend school, more likely to live a long life.

Individuals and companies around the world thrive on new technologies that have made possible incredible breakthroughs in communications, education, health care, economic growth. And the number of democracies has doubled while the number of nuclear weapons has fallen by two-thirds in just the last 30 years.

And all of this isn’t because of any one country or because of what governments do alone. It’s what happens when people have faith in their own values, in their own skills; when they respect the rights and dignity of each other; and when they believe in the possibility of progress no matter how many setbacks may stand in their way.

That is not a complicated formula. But it gives me a powerful sense of confidence in what together we can achieve now and in what you can achieve in the years and the decades ahead. Because meeting those challenges, pursuing arenas that excite your passions, completing the mission to teach and serve and heal and give back – that is what makes life worthwhile.

And I encourage you to search for the greatness within while you push for the outermost horizons. And remember always as you do this what Nelson Mandela said: “All the hardest jobs seem impossible until they are done.”

Congratulations again to all of you, and thank you for letting me share this day with you. (Applause.)