Category Archives: Legislation

Terror Ties Vetting Prison Chaplains

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Federal Prisons Using Groups With Terror Ties To Vet Islamic Chaplains

DailyCaller: As Fox News and other news organizations have reported, America’s federal prisons are a “breeding ground” for potential Islamic terrorists — and have been so for years. Despite this disturbing trend, the Obama administration has enlisted Islamic organizations with known terror ties to review and endorse chaplains to work in federal prisons.

In response to an inquiry from Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Federal Bureau of Prisons provided a list of Islamic Chaplaincy Endorsers, which Grassley has since posted online. Included on the list is the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which has long-standing ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and was named by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing case.

In an open letter to the director of the Bureau of Prisons Thomas Kane, Grassley pointed out that “A 2009 federal district court ruling concluded that ample evidence exists showing the Islamic Society of North America’s ties to Hamas, which is designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization.”

Writing about ISNA, Grassley noted: “It appears, therefore, that the BOP is relying on an organization with associations to terrorist organizations and one that the DOJ named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorist financing case to confirm credentials of those attempting to provide religious services to federal inmates. If accurate, this information is deeply troubling.”

And ISNA isn’t even the only organization with radical ties on the list of chaplaincy endorsers. The Islamic Education Center, located in Walnut, Calif., also has ties to terror organizations through its founder, Dr. Ahmad H. Sakr.

In addition to founding the Islamic Education Center, Sakr — originally from Lebanon — was a founding member of both ISNA and the World Council of Mosques, the latter of which has “a long history of providing financial support to terrorist groups,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. Sakr, who passed away just a few months ago, is listed as the contact person on the BOP’s list of chaplaincy endorsers.

“It is imperative that the BOP take every measure possible to ensure the safety of its personnel within federal prisons and take all reasonable measures to ensure that Islamic extremism is stopped at the gates of each prison,” Grassley noted in his letter to Director Kane. “Currently, it is not clear whether the BOP is doing so.”

As a result of the apparent shortcomings, Grassley is asking the Bureau of Prisons to provide further information about “the process by which someone becomes a religious endorsing organization,” in addition to an explanation for why the BOP chose ISNA as a chaplaincy endorser.
Grassley is also seeking the number of currently employed religious contractors from the 2014-15 year with still incomplete background checks.

According to a 2013 article from the Huffington Post, anywhere between 35,000-40,000 inmates convert to Islam every year, presumably with the assistance of the chaplains provided by the prisons. In a 2014 op-ed in The Daily Caller, author Joy Brighton argued that the nation’s prisons have been churning out thousands of radicalized inmates every year. Brighton’s calls were echoed in a Fox News article just last month that cited experts on the subject who called federal prisons a “breeding ground” for potential terrorists.

*** 

In 2003 for the Inspector General:  On March 10, 2003, Senator Charles Schumer wrote a letter to the OIG requesting that we examine the BOP’s process for selecting Muslim chaplains based on concerns that the BOP relies solely on two Islamic groups to endorse its Muslim chaplains, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (GSISS). Schumer noted that the ISNA and the GSISS allegedly are connected to terrorism and promote Wahhabism, which some consider an exclusionary and extreme form of Islam. In addition to Senator Schumer, Senators Jon Kyl and Dianne Feinstein expressed similar concerns and asked the OIG to examine these issues as they relate to the BOP.

In response to these requests, we reviewed the recruitment, endorsement, selection, and supervision of Muslim chaplains and other Muslim religious services providers who work with BOP inmates. We also examined the roles the ISNA, the GSISS, and other organizations have in the endorsement of chaplain candidates.

During this review, the OIG interviewed the BOP’s ten Muslim chaplains, the BOP detailee to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Joint Terrorism Task Force (NJTTF), and officials at BOP Headquarters who are responsible for religious services providers, including the Chief of the Chaplaincy Services Branch and the Senior Deputy Assistant Director (SDAD) of the Correctional Programs Division. We also interviewed FBI counterterrorism officials and representatives of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom at the U.S. Department of State (Commission). Full report here.

From GatesStone: The number of Muslim prisoners in Britain has doubled in the last decade to nearly 12,000. Many of these prisoners, the media reports, are at “significant risk” of radicalization. The solution, authorities claim, lies with the Islamic prison chaplains. Or are they, in fact, part of the problem? Where do these chaplains come from? What sort of Islam are they espousing?

On May 12, the BBC broadcast its own investigation into the radicalization of prison inmates. The documentary featured interviews with former inmates such as Michael Coe, who “went into prison as a gangster and left as Mikaeel Ibrahim, a convert to Islam.” Coe attributes his conversion to his friendship in jail with al-Qaeda terrorist Dhiren Barot, jailed for life by a British court in 2004 for plotting to blow up limousines by packing them with gas canisters. Full article here.

For more facts on the matter: Why Extremist Chaplains Have Access to U.S. Prisons

 

Immigration: Senator Sessions Just Released Shocking Report

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The Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest released a new chart on Thursday exclusively to Breitbart News that shows that the number of fugitive criminal aliens in America outnumbers the populations of every city in New Hampshire.

Fugitive Criminal Aliens Outnumber Populations Of All New Hampshire Cities

The release accompanying the chart shows:

Breitbart: According to data provided to the Subcommittee by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), there are at least 179,027 aliens in the United States who not only have been ordered to leave the country for violating our immigration laws, but who have also been convicted of a criminal offense, and have not left as required or been removed by ICE. Because of the Obama Administration’s lax enforcement policies, ICE removed only 63,539 of these criminal aliens from the interior of the United States in Fiscal Year 2015. At that rate, it would take nearly three years to remove just the existing criminal aliens who have been ordered removed from the United States (not future criminal aliens who will be ordered removed). While the ICE data includes only criminal aliens who have already been ordered removed, Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies, estimates there are more than 2 million total criminal aliens in the United States.

The chart shows that the at-least-179,027 fugitive criminal aliens in the United States outnumber the populations of every single New Hampshire city. Manchester, New Hampshire, the most populous city, has 110,000 people — about 70,000 less people than fugitive criminal aliens in America — while Nashua has 87,000 people. Concord, New Hamsphire’s capital city, has 42,000 people and Dover has 31,000, while Rochester has 30,000.

The subcommittee, which is chaired by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) — the intellectual leader of the modern conservative movement — has essentially proved that no matter where anyone in the first-in-the-nation primary state of New Hampshire lives, there are well more fugitive criminal aliens in the United States than the entire population of their home city. It will be interesting to see how this plays on the campaign trail in the final days.

Feb. 3, 2016

Refugee and Visa Programs

Homeland Security and State Department officials testified at a hearing on security concerns related to U.S. refugee and visa… read more

Homeland Security and State Department officials testified at a hearing on security concerns related to U.S. refugee and visa policy. Francis Taylor told committee members that the Department of Homeland Security was now looking at the social media accounts of refugees coming from “high risk” nations. The change was in response to the mass shooting by a husband and wife team in San Bernadino, California. The wife was a Pakistani immigrant in the U.S. on a visa

Price of Gas at the Pump too Low, Barack’s Proposal

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Obama to call for $10-per-barrel oil tax to fund clean transport

FNC: President Obama will propose a $10 fee for every barrel of oil to be paid by oil companies in order to fund clean energy transport system, the White House announced Thursday — although Republicans were quick to declare the plan “dead on arrival” in Congress.

The fee would be phased in over five years and would provide $20 billion per year for traffic reduction, investment in transit systems and other modes of transport such as high-speed rail, the White House said. It would also offer $10 billion to encourage investment in clean transport at the regional level.

Obama is expected to formalize the proposal Tuesday when he releases his final budget request to Congress. However, the proposal immediately faced resistance from Republicans.

“Once again, the president expects hardworking consumers to pay for his out of touch climate agenda,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement, arguing it would lead to higher energy prices and hurt poor Americans.

Ryan went on to describe Obama’s plan as “dead on arrival” in Congress.

“The good news is this plan is little more than an election-year distraction. As this lame-duck president knows, it’s dead on arrival in Congress, because House Republicans are committed to affordable American energy and a strong U.S. economy,” Ryan said.

The White House claims the added cost of gasoline would incentivize the private sector to reduce the reliance on oil and to increase investment in clean energy technology.

The plan also saw opposition from advocates for the oil industry, who warned it would only harm consumers.

“The White House thinks Americans are not paying enough for gasoline, so they have proposed a new tax that could raise the cost of gasoline by 25 cents a gallon, harm consumers that are enjoying low energy prices, destroy American jobs and reverse America’s emergence as a global energy leader,” API President and CEO Jack Gerard:

“On his way out of office, President Obama has now proposed making the United States less competitive.” Gerard said.

*****

In part from Bloomberg: With the proceeds targeted to transportation and climate initiatives, the proposal announced Thursday deepens Obama’s environmental credentials and signifies his ambitions to aggressively push action on climate change during his final year in office.

“By placing a fee on oil, the president’s plan creates a clear incentive for private-sector innovation to reduce our reliance on oil and at the same time invests in clean energy technologies that will power our future,” the White House said in a statement.

It is unclear who, exactly would pay the tax if it were to pass, and how it would be structured. White House officials repeatedly stressed that the fee would fall on oil companies, but said it wouldn’t be charged at the wellhead and they look forward to working with Congress on the details.

The fee, which drew swift objections from oil industry groups and Republicans, is part of a broader administration plan to shift the nation away from transportation systems reliant on internal combustion engines and fossil fuels. The proposal envisions investing $20 billion to reduce traffic and improve commuting, $10 billion for state and local transportation and climate programs and $2 billion for research on clean vehicles and aircraft.

Environmentalists applauded the move. “President Obama’s vision underscores the inevitable transition away from oil, and investments like this speed us along the way to a 100% clean energy future,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said in an e-mail.

Inadequate infrastructure raises costs for businesses and consumers, including motorists stuck in traffic — a “hidden tax” and a harm to the environment, said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. More here.

 

Obama to Evict Thousands, Julian and Hillary?

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Obama administration considering evictions of thousands from low-income housing

WashingtonTimes:The Department of Housing and Urban development announced Tuesday that it would consider evicting tens of thousands of public housing residents who earn too much money to qualify for public housing.

The announcement comes in response to a July audit from the department’s Office of Inspector General that revealed over 25,000 families had an income that exceeded the maximum level to qualify for government-assisted housing. At least one tenant had roughly nearly $1 million in assets.

Now the department will reexamine tenant’s public housing needs in an effort to root out “over-income” tenants occupying low-income housing that is desperately needed by poorer families.

“Some of those families significantly exceeded the income limits,” HUD wrote in the Federal Register, warning that “scarce public resources must be provided to those most in need of affordable housing.”

Currently, federal law does not prohibit over-income families from continuing to live in low-income housing as long as they met the income requirements when they moved in.

Now HUD is grappling with whether to evict over-income tenants and how long to give them to find new homes.

“An increase in income is a good and welcomed event for families, and when a family’s income steadily rises, it may be an indication that the family is on its way to self-sufficiency,” HUD wrote.

“Any changes that would require the termination of tenancy for over-income families should be enacted with caution so as not to impede a family’s progress,” the agency continued.

The department will seek comment from the public on what to do about over-income families over the next 30 days.

The House is expected to vote Tuesday on an Amendment proposed by Rep. Vern Buchanan, Florida Republican, to tighten income asset verification requirements for public housing applicants.

“It is outrageous that taxpayers are footing the bill for millionaires’ housing,” Mr. Buchanan said in a statement. “This type of abuse hurts truly needy families and erodes faith in government. Holding HUD to the same standards used for other federal benefits will provide much-needed oversight on taxpayer funds and help create consistency across the vast array of assistance programs.”

*** HUD is corrupt and the Secretary of HUD, Julian Castro is just as corrupt. But as a sidebar, he is earnestly jockeying for sharing the presidential ticket with Hillary Clinton.

HUD Secretary Julian Castro attends Maine fundraiser for Clinton

He headlines the private event at the law offices of Preti Flaherty in Portland.

Julian Castro, the U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary and a rising star in the Democratic Party, was in Portland Monday morning for a private fundraiser for presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

The event at the law offices of Preti Flaherty in downtown Portland included U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree and longtime Maine lobbyist and attorney Tony Buxton.

According to an invitation provided by Hillary for America, Castro’s visit was billed as “coffee and conversation.” It was closed to the public and to the media.

Castro arrived at the fundraiser with Pingree and his twin brother, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas. After the event, Julian Castro said the crowd was enthusiastic and looking forward to seeing Clinton win the nomination.

When asked if he would accept if Clinton wins the nomination and asks him to run for vice president, he would say only that he is focused on his work with HUD and campaigning for Clinton.

“Both Joaquin and I are happy to help her out,” he said.

Julian Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, was tabbed by President Obama in 2014 to serve as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. His ethnic background – Mexican American – makes him a powerful surrogate for Clinton, who will likely need strong support from Hispanic voters, both in the Democratic primaries and in the general election, if she becomes the nominee.

During an interview Monday morning on the “Ken & Mike” show on WGAN, the Castro brothers said they have long supported Clinton, whom they described as a tenacious and strong leader.

When asked by the radio hosts if he would accept an invitation to be Clinton’s running mate if she wins the nomination, Julian Castro said he feels “it’s not going to happen.”

“That’s flattering, but I doubt that,” he said. “I fully expect a year from now to be back in Texas.”

So you voters for Hillary, here is some more facts, Julian is a radical, a Marxist.

Mayor Julian Castro of San Antonio, who will be giving the keynote address tonight, is, according to some, the next Obama. But while Obama’s radicalism may have escaped the notice of the DNC in 2004, Castro’s views are bit more transparent.

Indeed, he, along with his twin, Joaquin, currently running for Congress, learned their politics on their mother’s knee and in the streets of San Antonio. Their mother, Rosie helped found a radical, anti-white, socialist Chicano party called La Raza Unida (literally “The Race United”) that sought to create a separate country–Aztlan–in the Southwest.

Today she helps manage her sons’ political careers, after a storied career of her own as a community activist and a stint as San Antonio Housing Authority ombudsman.

Far from denouncing his mother’s controversial politics, Castro sees them as his inspiration. As a student at Stanford Castro penned an essay for Writing for Change: A Community Reader (1994) in which he praised his mother’s accomplishments and cited them as an inspiration for his own future political involvement.

“[My mother] sees political activism as an opportunity to change people’s lives for the better. Perhaps that is because of her outspoken nature or because Chicanos in the early 1970s (and, of course, for many years before) had no other option. To make themselves heard Chicanos needed the opportunity that the political system provided. In any event, my mother’s fervor for activism affected the first years of my life, as it touches it today.

Castro wrote fondly of those early days and basked in the slogans of the day. “‘Viva La Raza!’ ‘Black and Brown United!’ ‘Accept me for who I am–Chicano.’ These and many other powerful slogans rang in my ears like war cries.” These war cries, Castro believes, advanced the interests of their political community. He sees her rabble-rousing as the cause for Latino successes, not the individual successes of those hard-working men and women who persevered despite some wrinkles in the American meritocracy.

[My mother] insisted that things were changing because of political activism, participation in the system. Maria del Rosario Castro has never held a political office. Her name is seldom mentioned in a San Antonio newspaper. However, today, years later, I read the newspapers, and I see that more Valdezes are sitting on school boards, that a greater number of Garcias are now doctors, lawyers, engineers, and, of course, teachers. And I look around me and see a few other brown faces in the crowd at [Stanford]. I also see in me a product of my mother’s diligence and her friends’ hard work. Twenty years ago I would not have been here…. My opportunities are not the gift of the majority; they are the result of a lifetime of struggle and commitment by adetermined minority. My mother is one of these persons. And each year I realize more and more how much easier my life has been made by the toil of past generations. I wonder what form my service will take, since I am expected by those who know my mother to continue the family tradition. [Emphasis Castro’s]

Govt Employees Concerned About Cyber Intrusions, Hillary?

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Not nearly enough when every government employee is not fretting over cyber espionage most of all those at the State Department.

Nearly 9 in 10 Government Employees Concerned about Cyber Breaches in Their Organization

 

The public sector experienced nearly 50 times more cyber incidents than any other industry in 2014, and government agencies consistently cite implementing robust, agile cybersecurity measures as a top priority. As threats continue to evolve in both scale and capacity, it is increasingly essential that organizations devise and implement robust, agile measures to continuously detect, monitor, and address both external and internal vulnerabilities.

In an effort to learn more about the perspective of public sector employees on cybersecurity, Government Business Council conducted a flash poll on the following question:

GBC received responses from 160 federal, state, and local government employees. Nearly 90% stated that they were concerned or very concerned about the impact of cyber attacks; only 5% were not very concerned or not at all concerned about potential breaches. The results also reveal cybersecurity to be a more pressing concern for state and local organizations than for their federal counterparts: 96% of state and local respondents were concerned or very concerned about breaches, a 13-point difference from the percentage of federal employees expressing a similar level of concern.

Lack of resources might make cybersecurity a more pressing issue for state organizations — according to a 2015 survey of state CIOs, 64% cited insufficient funding as a major barrier against addressing cyber threats, and 62% cited inadequate availability of security professionals. There is also a disconnect between perception of state cybersecurity capabilities and reality: while 60% of state officials had a high level of confidence in the ability of states to defend against attacks, only a quarter of state CISOs responded likewise.

Moving forward, state and federal agencies should continue to invest in developing a cohesive cybersecurity strategy, recruiting and retaining personnel with the relevant skill set, and sharing threat information and best practices across organization. As federal CIO Tony Scott puts it, “Cyber threats cannot be eliminated entirely, but they can be managed much more effectively. And we can best do this by aligning and focusing our efforts, by properly funding necessary cyber investments, by building strong partnerships across government and industry, and by drawing on the best ideas and talent from across the country to tackle this quintessential problem of the 21st century.” GBC will revisit this topic in future research posts.

‘This was all planned’: Former IG says Hillary, State Dept. are lying

NYPost: The State Department is lying when it says it didn’t know until it was too late that Hillary Clinton was improperly using personal emails and a private server to conduct official business — because it never set up an agency email address for her in the first place, the department’s former top watchdog says.

“This was all planned in advance” to skirt rules governing federal records management, said Howard J. Krongard, who served as the agency’s inspector general from 2005 to 2008.

The Harvard-educated lawyer points out that, from Day One, Clinton was never assigned and never used a state.gov email address like previous secretaries.

“That’s a change in the standard. It tells me that this was premeditated. And this eliminates claims by the State Department that they were unaware of her private email server until later,” Krongard said in an exclusive interview. “How else was she supposed to do business without email?”

He also points to the unusual absence of a permanent inspector general during Clinton’s entire 2009-2013 term at the department. He said the 5½-year vacancy was unprecedented. Much more to Sperry’s summary is here.

What do the former military special forces have to say on the matter of Hillary and even some betrayal within their own ranks?

Sofrep: A source within the State Department confirmed with SOFREP back in 2012 that Hillary’s top aid within the department pre-interviewed people regarding Benghazi before they were interviewed by the State Department’s own internal Benghazi Accountability Review Board.

The problem with the State Department investigating itself is that the investigation produced no significant change in the dysfunctional leadership, nor did it hold people accountable for clear negligence (the top three at fault being Hillary Clinton, Charlene Lamb, and Patrick Kennedy). The organization continues to rot from the top down.

Hillary, in particular, shares something in common with former Navy SEAL Team 6 member Matt Bissonette: They both potentially disclosed top secret government information, a clear violation of her non-disclosure agreement and oath. They also share pending legal problems with the feds.

The federal government continues to aggressively pursue Bissonette and anyone associated with him for disclosures in his book “No Easy Day” and for new information found on his personal computer that Bissonette turned over to federal investigators. SOFREP knows of at least one additional active-duty member forced to retire early as a result of information found on Bissonette’s laptop. Will the same measure of justice and accountability be applied to the political celebrity and former Secretary of State Clinton?

In a recent New York Times article, the editorial board endorsed Hillary Clinton as an experienced presidential candidate.

As secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton worked tirelessly, and with important successes, for the nation’s benefit. She was the secretary President Obama needed and wanted: someone who knew leaders around the world, who brought star power as well as expertise to the table. The combination of a new president who talked about inclusiveness and a chief diplomat who had been his rival but shared his vision allowed the United States to repair relations around the world that had been completely trashed by the previous administration. -NY Times editorial board 

Hillary leveraged her political star power to secure her position as secretary of state, a clear Democrat concession prize for losing to Obama last time around. It was likely her strategic plan to further build her resume, and wait things out until 2016. She did little to promote American diplomacy or secure global stability abroad (two pillars of the department’s mission statement).

This is a woman that will do and say anything to get what she wants. I have very little respect for her. I know what she said to me and she can say all day long that she didn’t say it. That’s her cross to bear. She knows that she knew what happened that day, and she wasn’t truthful, and that has come out in the last hearings — that she told her family one thing and was telling the public another thing. —Sister of fallen hero Glen Doherty, Kate Quigley  Full article and video is here.