Category Archives: U.S. Constitution

Time to Challenge Separation of Church and State

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He is 7 years old. The schools don’t know the law. Political correctness has our country completely sideways. Beyond schools, how many other places are Constitution free zones?

Click here to see how this phrase of separation of church and state came to be.

Elementary School Calls Police on 7-Y-O Boy for Sharing Bible Verses

ChristianNews: First grader Adam Kotzian (C) does a spelling drill with classmates in his classroom at Eagleview Elementary school in Thornton, Colorado, March 31, 2010.

A California public school called a Los Angeles Deputy Sheriff in Palmdale to reprimand a 7-year-old student for handing out Bible verses, warning that such actions are “offensive.”

Santa Monica Observer reported that the student, who attends Desert Rose Elementary, had been handing out Bible verses given to him in the form of short notes from his mother, Christina Zavala, alongside his lunch.

The young boy distributed the Bible verses while standing on a public sidewalks outside the school.

He also shared other verses and short Bible stories among his friends, until a first-grade teacher saw one of those notes. The teacher reportedly publicly rebuked the boy, and then called his parents, warning them that such actions go against the separation of church and state.

The boy, however, allegedly continued to distribute Bible verses out at the school gate, and subsequently he and his parents were told by the school’s principal that what they were doing is not permitted.

Later that day, a Los Angeles deputy sheriff went to the family’s home to inform the parents that Desert Rose Elementary School had filed a report against the child for sharing Bible verses.

The Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit litigation organization which specializes in defending religious freedom, has since sent a letter to the Palmdale School District to inform the administration of the correct interpretation of the clause establishing separation of church and state, arguing that pupils have the right to exercise freedom of speech through printed materials.

“Therefore, it was improper to ban student religious discussion during lunchtime. The district cannot suppress and censor this discussion, or the one-page notes consisting of Bible stories and verses placed by C’s mother in C ‘s lunch for his own personal enjoyment and edification; which he voluntarily chose to share with his little friends during non-instructional time; which interested classmates were free to accept or refuse, at their own discretion,” the letter stated.

“The additional copies requested by C from his mother, for his friends (who had specifically requested them from him), are likewise protected, and fall into no classification of material that might be lawfully prohibited by the school district,” it added.

“The consigning of C’s speech to the ‘schoolhouse gate,’ and then the prohibition of it even there, is unconstitutional, and must fall. Finally, if being censured for religious expression by one’s First Grade teacher in front of one’s classmates is not intimidating and humiliating enough, the message of hostility to a child’s religious expression is underscored by the District calling law enforcement for a ‘follow-up visit ‘ to his house.”

Public schools in America often face questions regarding the separation of church and state when it comes to Bible verses used on school campus.

Some compromises include allowing the distribution of biblical material have allowed other groups to hand out their religious, or anti-religious material, such as atheist handbooks, and satanist pamphlets.

 

IRS Targeting List, Much Worse than Reported

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What say you when it is proven that a government agency does go after individuals and organizations for their beliefs and there is no consequence? It is tyranny but does anyone care anymore?

Congressman Jason Chaffetz, the Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has been on an assertive mission to impeach the IRS Commissioner with good reason, but in truth there are many more that need to be in that impeachment net beyond John Koskinen.

   

Where is the outrage? Has this report been turned over to the FBI? Will the Department of Justice seek any prosecutions? This matter is in our hands, what are you willing to do about it? Anything?

IRS finally reveals list of tea party groups targeted for extra scrutiny

WashingtonExaminer: More than three years after it admitted to targeting tea party groups for intrusive scrutiny, the IRS has finally released a near-complete list of the organizations it snagged in a political dragnet.

The tax agency filed the list last month as part of a court case after a series of federal judges, fed up with what they said was the agency’s stonewalling, ordered it to get a move on. The case is a class-action lawsuit, so the list of names is critical to knowing the scope of those who would have a claim against the IRS.

But even as it answers some questions, the list raises others, including exactly when the targeting stopped, and how broadly the tax agency drew its net when it went after nonprofits for unusual scrutiny.

The government released names of 426 organizations. Another 40 were not released as part of the list because they had already opted out of being part of the class-action suit.

That total is much higher than the 298 groups the IRS‘ inspector general identified back in May 2013, when investigators first revealed the agency had been subjecting applications to long — potentially illegal — delays, and forcing them to answer intrusive questions about their activities. Tea party and conservative groups said they was the target of unusually heavy investigations and longer delays,

Edward D. Greim, the lawyer who’s pursuing the case on behalf of NorCal Tea Party Patriots and other members of the class, said the list also could have ballooned toward the end of the targeting as the IRS, once it knew it was being investigated, snagged more liberal groups in its operations to try to soften perceptions of political bias.

“As we have identified in our filings in this case, important questions still exist regarding changes to the IRS‘ case listings that occurred after the IRS learned that the [inspector general] and congressional investigations had begun,” he said. “Based on these changes, which to date remain unexplained, a very real possibility — if not probability — exists that the IRS modified its targeting in light of the investigations, packing its own internal lists of targeted groups to support its preferred narrative, including by adding ideologically diverse groups.”

He said if that did happen, it would have “tainted” the list the IRS has now released.

The IRS declined to comment, saying its filing spoke for itself.

A series of investigations found the IRS did ask intrusive questions and did delay applications for years, in violation of policy. But so far no investigation has found any order from the White House to conduct the targeting.

‘Tea’ and ‘patriot’ groups

 

Sixty of the groups on the list released last month have the word “tea” in their name, 33 have “patriot,” eight refer to the Constitution, and 13 have “912” in their name — which is the monicker of a movement started by conservatives. Another 26 group names refer to “liberty,” though that list does include some groups that are not discernibly conservative in orientation.

Among the groups that appear to trend liberal are three with the word “occupy” in their name.

And then there are some surprising names, including three state or local chapters of the League of Women Voters — a group with a long history of nonprofit work.

Some of the most active and prominent tea party groups snared in the targeting aren’t on the class-action list. At least some of them opted not to be part of the joint legal action to preserve their own lawsuits.

 

Congressional Republicans say IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who was brought in by President Obama to clean up the agency after the targeting scandal, has failed — and even misled Congress during the investigation. Some Republicans are even pursuing impeachment against Mr. Koskinen, accusing him of defying a subpoena for former senior IRS executive Lois G. Lerner’s emails by allowing computer backup tapes to be destroyed.

Even outside of impeachment, the House GOP has proposed a new round of budget cuts for the IRS, aimed at trying to deliver a message that Mr. Koskinen’s tenure has been unacceptable.

And the tax agency is still defending itself in a series of court cases. In addition to the NorCal class action case, the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., is currently considering an appeal by tea party groups who argue the targeting is still going on.

“One thing remains clear: Continued litigation is the only way to force the IRS‘ hand in order to expose its targeting scheme that was coordinated with the help of the DOJ and other federal agencies so that we can obtain justice for those patriotic Americans who were unconstitutionally targeted by their own government,” said Jay Sekulow, chief counsel at the American Center for Law and Justice, which is representing some of the plaintiffs in the appeals case.

In yet another case, the conservative group Cause of Action has been pursuing the IRS to turn over documents the group believed would show White House officials requesting secret taxpayer information on conservatives.

But in a filing Friday, the IRS said it has conducted a final search and can’t find any evidence that the White House either asked for or received protected information.

Damn Hillary, What the Heck?

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So exactly how does the Hillary team and all her Democrat friends keep defending this? Maybe some questions need to be asked what violations of the Espionage Act is in their respective history.

What does Dianne Feinstein know? Are they emails between George and Amal Clooney and Hillary?

Off the shelf encryption software, unprotected mobile phone calls, text messages on foreign communications networks, and then has anyone asked if she shredded the hardcopies she always asked to be printed and delivered to her personally?

Hillary Clinton posted and shared the names of concealed U.S. intelligence officials on her unprotected email system.

Breitbart: Federal records reveal that Clinton swapped these highly classified names on an email account that was vulnerable to attack and was breached repeatedly by Russia-linked hacker attempts. These new revelations — reminiscent of the Valerie Plame scandal during George W. Bush’s tenure — could give FBI investigators the evidence they need to make a case that Clinton violated the Espionage Act by mishandling national defense information through “gross negligence.”

Numerous names cited in Clinton’s emails have been redacted in State Department email releases with the classification code “B3 CIA PERS/ORG,” a highly specialized classification that means the information, if released, would violate the Central Intelligence Act of 1949.

The State Department produced a document to Judicial Watch in April 2014 that identifies different types of “(b)(3)” redactions, including “CIA PERS/ORG,” which it defines as information “Specifically exempted from disclosure by statute … Central Intelligence Act of 1949.”

“That’s what it suggests,” Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton told Breitbart News, referring to the indication that Clinton disclosed the names of CIA-protected intelligence sources, based on the B3 redactions.

The CIA justifies “(b)(3)” redactions with this description: “(b)(3) Applies to the Director’s statutory obligations to protect from disclosure intelligence sources and methods, as well as the organization, functions, names, official titles, salaries, or numbers of personnel employed by the Agency, in accord with the National Security Act of 1947 and the CIA Act of 1949, respectively.”

The State Department declined to comment. “Per the colleague who handles this issue, we are not speaking to the content of emails,” State Department spokeswoman Nicole Thompson told Breitbart News.

 

Here are some examples of (b)(3) redactions;

Naming the defense attaché in Malta

On October 16, 2011, recent U.S. Ambassador to Malta Douglas Kmiec sent an email to Cheryl Mills with the subject line “TIME SENSITIVE AND CONFIDENTIAL – Malta Trip Backgrounder for the Secretary – Confidential.”

Kmiec wrote to Mills, “I know from current events that your life must be a whirlwind. I know that if there ever was someone who could tame the whirlwind, it would be you. Just read the news report of the Secretary’s stop in Malta next week. Thank you for arranging this. This letter and the accompanying clips I believe will help make the Secretary’s visit a highly successful and well received one.”

In the memo, Kmiec revealed the name of a top defense attaché in the country. That name was later classified by the State Department with three different classifications: 1.4 (D) to connote “Foreign relations or foreign activities of the US, including confidential sources,” B1 to connote “Information specifically authorized by an executive order to be kept secret in the interest of national defense or foreign policy,” and “B3 CIA PERS/ORG.”

“The largest part of our US team in the embassy is the navy/coast guard/ ncis contingent that has established a Maritime training program with the AFM to good success. The defense attaché there now is new [REDACTED] beloved and hardworking – and to good effect, patrolling the waters and the ports for [illegible] traffickers and terror related figures,” Kmiec wrote.

Mills forwarded the memo directly to Clinton’s private email account at clintonemail.com with the note “Fyi background.”

Clinton replied to Mills and CC’ed Huma Abedin with the confidential information, writing, “I need enough time there to meet. Hague is there today and doing all the right meetings. So, I’m copying Huma to reinforce my desire to squeeze more out of a too quick trip.”

When he sent the memo to Mills, Douglas Kmiec had been out of his Ambassador to Malta job for several months. Kmiec was a big supporter of President Obama. He garnered criticism in a 2011 inspector general report for ignoring directives from Washington and for spending too much time writing articles about religion.

Naming the guest in her office 

On December 15, 2011, Clinton’s office manager Claire Coleman sent out Clinton’s daily schedule to Clinton’s private email account and to Abedin and others.

The schedule included a five-minute Presidential Daily Briefing in the Secretary’s office between 8:35 AM and 8:40 AM.

“Note: Official Photo following w/ [Redacted]” the schedule read, blanking out the name of the person who Clinton was taking a photo with. That redaction was marked “B3 CIA PERS/ORG” in addition to other redactions.

Clinton’s public schedule released for that day begins at 9 AM, after the classified photo op.

Petraeus’ chief of staff

On March 14, 2012, a redacted name sent Cheryl Mills an email with the subject line “URGENT — From Dave Petraeus’s Chief of Staff…”

The sender’s name was marked with a “B3” redaction to connote violation of the CIA statute.

“Dear Cheryl,” the email began, followed by a vast section of redacted material. Those paragraphs were marked with several classifications including “B3 CIA PERS/ORG.”

The email’s closing paragraphs were also marked with B3 redactions.

“Does all of that sound ok to you?” the message continued. “If so, may I please ask you to get word around immediately [B3 Redaction] only in those circumstances where he deems that to be appropriate and the best way forward? Thanks much and cheers, [B3 Redaction].”

Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

On September 15, 2012, a B3 redacted name sent an email to Jake Sullivan numerous redacted names with a redacted subject line, most of text redacted, “Per the discussion at Deputies, here are the revised TPs for HPSCI [The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence].”

The email was later forwarded to Clinton, who told an aide, “PLs print.”

“Iran Insights”

On September 2, 2009, Jackie Newmyer of Long Term Strategy Group in Cambridge, Massachusetts sent an email directly to Clinton’s private account with the subject line “Iran Insights From [Redacted]” that included the B3 redaction code:

Secretary Clinton,

Last week I traveled to Israel [REDACTED] in an Iran-related seminar and simulation exercise with the IDF general who is likely to become Israel’s next chief of military intelligence and his team and, separately, [REDACTED]. Yesterday, [REDACTED] Iran workshop in Washington involving DoD and think tank experts. Despite the fact that the meetings were with defense [REDACTED] personnel, there was universal sentiment that a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be counterproductive, on the one hand, and that incremental measures would be perceived by Iran as an indication of weakness, on the other.

The email included sensitive information including the following:

If Iran acquires a nuclear capability, no single American/allied countermeasure will be adequate. Something like the “flexible response” posture from the Cold War will be required, necessitating a range of actions from enhancing the US deterrent presence — nuclear submarines carrying ballistic missiles in the Arabian Sea — to bolstering regional actors’ defenses.

Israeli leaders should be able to contain the damage to the Israeli population’s morale from an Iranian bomb, but this will require careful management of public statements. There is a tension between building up support for action against the Iranian nuclear program now and delivering the kind of reassurance that will be necessary once the capability has been acquired.

Clinton replied that she would like to discuss the matter with Jackie.

Jackie replied:

I will be in Washington for a day-long meeting on Thursday this week [B3 REDACTED] and my travel plans are flexible, so I could meet you any time on Wednesday afternoon, after 5 pm on Thursday, or any time on Friday morning. If those times do not work, I would be happy to come down at your convenience.

Clinton and Jake Sullivan then set up a meeting with Jackie.

Naming someone at the ‘Pre-Brief’

On November 11, 2011, Clinton’s special assistant Lona J. Valmoro sent an email directly to Clinton’s private email address with the subject line “Pre-Brief.”

Valmoro wrote:

“MS — Kurt said that he has no reservations about Toria joining the pre-brief so I will confirm.

The manifest for the meeting will be:

Kurt Campbell

Jake Sullivan

Evan Mederios, NSS

Admiral Willard

Kin Moy

Toria Nuland

[REDACTED] per Kurt’s request”

That last name on the list was redacted with “B6” and also “B3 CIA PERS/ORG” classifications.

‘See Traffic’

On March 14, 2012, Mills sent an email to then-U.S. Ambassador to Algeria Henry Ensher with the subject line “Connecting.”

“I hope your visit to DC is going well,” Mills said before writing a chunk of text that is redacted with 1.4 (D), B1, and also “B3 CIA PERS/ORG” redactions.

Mills’ redacted text clearly included a name because she then wrote, “B/f I could respond w/our protocol he advised that the matter had been resolved. Can you advise as to what accommodation was worked out?”

Ensher replied, “Sorry. Had not seen this until en route back to post. Accommodation was to have elizabeth go to a dinner meeting, but not the next day session with senior counterpart. Bare objectives of visit were achieved but we blew an opportunity to make the larger point about civ control of mil, which is critical in dealing with algerian leaders.”

Ensher’s next paragraph is redacted with 1.4 (D), B1, and also the “B3 CIA PERS/ORG” redactions.

“Good work on com conf. Thx,” Ensher concluded.

After sending another email to Ensher, Mills forwarded the chain to Clinton’s private email account and said “See traffic.”

The departing diplomat

On December 12, 2011, Mills sent an email to Clinton’s private email account with the subject line “FW: Thank you for your time today.”

“[REDACTED] last day is Thursday,” Mills wrote, adding that “Lona” would arrange a photograph for the man with Clinton and his daughter and asking Clinton for feedback on the employee. The redacted portion had a B6 and a “B3 CIA PERS/ORG” redaction.

“He did a good job,” Clinton replied.

The Taliban

On March 25, 2012, Jake Sullivan forwarded to Clinton’s private email address a chain involving a meeting involving Pakistan and the Taliban that had a “B3 CIA PERS/ORG” redaction in it. The subject line was “Fw: MG-Z in Dushanbe.”

Hill testimony

On January 23, 2013, Mills forwarded to Clinton’s private email address a transcript of Clinton’s testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee with the subject line “Fw: Testimony as Prepared for Delivery to SFRC & HFAC.”

The chain included an email that a person with a redacted name sent to Mills saying, “You know, she’s pretty damned good.”

The chain also included an email that Mills sent with the transcript to various people including White House adviser Ben Rhodes and various individuals with redacted names, including two people whose names are blotted out with “B3 CIA PERS/ORG” redactions.

CC’s

On July 25, 2010, Jake Sullivan forwarded Clinton a long email chain with the subject line “Fw: Digest from NyTimes and Guardian [Full E-Mail List].”

The highly redacted email chain was at one point forwarded to “[Full E-Mail List]” and includes on multiple occasions an individual whose name is blotted out with a “B3 CIA PERS/ORG” redaction.

Smuggling Network, Terror Hotbeds, Southern Border

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Smuggling network guided illegals from Middle East terror hotbeds to U.S. border

WashingtonTimes: A smuggling network has managed to sneak illegal immigrants from Middle East terrorism hotbeds straight to the doorstep of the U.S., including helping one Afghan man authorities say was part of an attack plot in North America.

Immigration officials have identified at least a dozen Middle Eastern men smuggled into the Western Hemisphere by a Brazilian-based network that connected them with Mexicans who guided them up to the U.S. border, according to internal government documents reviewed by The Washington Times.

Those smuggled included Palestinians, Pakistanis and the Afghan man who Homeland Security officials said had family ties to the Taliban and was “involved in a plot to conduct an attack in the U.S. and/or Canada.” He is in custody but the Times is withholding his name at the request of law enforcement to protect ongoing investigations.

Some of the men handled by the smuggling network were nabbed before they got to the U.S., but others actually made it into the country, including the Afghan man who was part of a group of six from so-called “special interest countries.”

The group, guided by two Mexicans employed by the smuggling network, crawled under the border fence in Arizona late last year and made it about 15 miles north before being detected by border surveillance, according to the documents, which were obtained by Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican.

Law enforcement asked The Times to withhold the name of the smuggling network.

It’s unclear whether the network succeeded in sneaking other “special interest” illegal immigrants by border officials, but the documents obtained by Mr. Hunter confirm fears of a pipeline that can get would-be illegal immigrants from terrorist hotbeds to the threshold of the U.S.

Just as troubling, the Border Patrol didn’t immediately spot the Afghan man’s terrorist ties because the database agents first checked didn’t list him. It wasn’t until they also checked an FBI database that they learned he may be a danger, the documents say.

“It’s disturbing, in so many ways,” said Joe Kasper, Mr. Hunter’s chief of staff. “The interdiction of this group validates once again that the southern border is wide open to more than people looking to enter the U.S. illegally strictly for purposes of looking for work, as the administration wants us to believe. What’s worse, federal databases weren’t even synched and Border Patrol had no idea who they were arresting and the group was not considered a problem because none of them were considered a priority under the president’s enforcement protocol. That’s a major problem on its own, and it calls for DHS to figure out the problem — and fast.”

Mr. Hunter wrote a letter to to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson this week demanding answers about the breakdowns in the process.

Both U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which is the chief agency charged with sniffing out smuggling networks, and Customs and Border Protection, which oversees the Border Patrol and which initially failed to sniff out the terrorist connections, declined to comment. Homeland Security, which oversees both agencies, didn’t provide an answer either.

The group of six men nabbed after they already got into the U.S. — the Afghan and five men identified as Pakistanis — all made asylum claims when they were eventually caught by the Border Patrol. Mr. Hunter said his understanding is that the five men from Pakistan were released based on those claims, and have disappeared.

The government documents reviewed by The Times didn’t say how much the smugglers charged, but did detail some of their operation.

Would-be illegal immigrants were first identified by a contact in the Middle East, who reported them to the smuggling network in Brazil. That network then arranged their travel up South America and through Central America, where some of them were nabbed by U.S. allies.

In the case of the Afghan man with terrorist ties, he was smuggled from Brazil through Peru, then Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and finally Mexico.

He was caught near a ranch 15 miles into the U.S., after his group’s movements were detected by one of the Border Patrol’s mobile detection trucks. He told agents his group had crawled under the border fence near Nogales.

In the documents obtained by Mr. Hunter, Homeland Security officials said they considered the case a victory because it showed how they can use apprehensions on the southwest border to trace smuggling networks back to their source.

But the documents had worrying signs as well. When agents first ran the man through the Terrorist Screening Data Base, he didn’t show up as a danger. Indeed, a November report from KNXV-TV in Arizona said authorities said “records checks revealed no derogatory information about the individuals.”

That turns out not to be true, according to the documents. The Afghan man was listed in the FBI’s Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) database as having suspect relations.

Mr. Hunter told Mr. Johnson the discrepancy between the databases was troubling.

The government documents also said some of the special interest aliens caught at the border were previously identified by authorities in other Latin American countries — but had different sets of biometric identifiers associated with them. That raised questions of whether those countries are sharing accurate information with the U.S.

Networks capable of smuggling potential terrorists has long been a concern, but the Obama administration had tamped down those worries, arguing that the southwest border wasn’t a likely route for operatives.

Still, evidence has mounted over the last couple of years, including a smuggling ring that snuck four Turkish men with ties to a U.S.-designated terrorist group into the U.S. in 2014. they paid $8,000 apiece to be smuggled from Istanbul through Paris to Mexico City, where they were stashed in safe houses before being smuggled to the border.

At the time, Mr. Johnson said the men were actually part of a group that was fighting against the Islamic State, and questioned whether they should have even been designated as part of a terrorist group.

But behind the scenes Mr. Johnson’s agents were already at work trying to roll up smuggling rings under an action dubbed Operation Citadel.

Lev Kubiak, assistant director at ICE Homeland Security Investigations’ international operations branch, testified to Congress earlier this year that Operation Citadel resulted in 210 criminal arrests in 2015. One part of the effort, known as Operation Lucero, dismantled 14 human smuggling routes, including some operations designed to move people from the Eastern Hemisphere to Latin America and then into the U.S., he said.

Next up is the U.S. State Department Report by Country on Terrorism

Country Reports on Terrorism 2015

Chapters –Chapter 1. Strategic Assessment
–Chapter 2. Country Reports: Africa Overview
–Chapter 2. Country Reports: East Asia and Pacific Overview
–Chapter 2. Country Reports: Europe Overview
–Chapter 2. Country Reports: Middle East and North Africa Overview
–Chapter 2. Country Reports: South and Central Asia Overview
–Chapter 2. Country Reports: Western Hemisphere Overview
–Chapter 3: State Sponsors of Terrorism Overview
–Chapter 4: The Global Challenge of Chemical, Biological, Radiological, or Nuclear (CBRN) Terrorism
–Chapter 5: Terrorist Safe Havens (Update to 7120 Report)
–Chapter 6. Foreign Terrorist Organizations
–Chapter 7. Legislative Requirements and Key Terms

Annexes

–National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism: Annex of Statistical Information [Get Acrobat Reader PDF version   ]
–Terrorism Deaths, Injuries and Kidnappings of Private U.S. Citizens Overseas in 2015

Full Report

–Country Reports on Terrorism 2015 (PDF)

DHS Approves/Admits 4700 Syrians + 7900?

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4,700 Syrian refugees approved resettlement to U.S.: Homeland Security chief

Reuters: The United States has approved 4,700 Syrian refugees who are awaiting resettlement to the country, while an additional 7,900 are awaiting security review, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said on Thursday.

Syrian refugee children play as they wait with their families to register their information at the U.S. processing centre for Syrian refugees, during a media tour held by the U.S. Embassy in Jordan, in Amman, Jordan, April 6, 2016. REUTERS/Muhammad Hamed

Johnson, speaking to a homeland security advisory panel at the Department of Homeland Security, was defending against critics who say the Obama administration is falling behind meeting its goal of bringing in 10,000 Syrian refugees into the country by the end of fiscal year 2016.

Meanwhile:

Sanctioned Syrian Official Invited To D.C. Event Delivers Outrageous Defense Of Assad

There is no moderate opposition and nobody is starving in Syria, according to Bouthaina Shaaban.

HuffPo: WASHINGTON — A panel discussion that had been billed as an effort to create a global alliance to defeat the so-called Islamic State spiraled downward Thursday into a tense two-and-a-half hour event dominated by a top Syrian official who has been sanctioned by the U.S. government. She insisted that her country’s brutal crackdown on its own people is just part of the war on terrorism.

Khaled al-Hariri/Reuters
Bashar Assad spokeswoman Bouthaina Shaaban was invited to speak via Skype despite facing U.S. sanctions.

“There is no such thing as moderate opposition,” Bouthaina Shaaban, spokeswoman for Syrian President Bashar Assad, said during the event hosted by an obscure group called the Global Alliance for Terminating ISIS/al-Qaeda (GAFTA).

In a lengthy pre-recorded speech, which was aired at the National Press Club event, Shaaban blasted Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Western countries for backing Syrian opposition fighters in her country’s civil war. She accused them of directly aiding both the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda offshoot.

During a subsequent question-and-answer session, Shaaban sparred with reporters via Skype, dismissing accusations that the Assad regime had blocked humanitarian groups from delivering food to besieged areas of Syria and had aided ISIS by releasing its members from prison and purchasing oil from the terrorist group.

“It is a very fertile land. Nobody is starving in Daraya,” Shaaban said, despite well-documented reports of the Assad regime’s “surrender or starve” tactics in areas like Daraya and Madaya.

In 2011, the U.S. sanctioned Shaaban, along with Assad and a handful of other regime officials, in response to the Syrian government’s violent repression of its people. The sanctions froze any assets the officials had in the U.S. and prohibited Americans from providing “financial, material, or technological support” to them.

It is unclear whether GAFTA, a Florida-based nonprofit, violated the sanctions by hosting Shaaban electronically. Ghassan Mansour, GAFTA’s treasurer, claimed that the group did not know about the sanctions until the day before the event.

A Treasury spokeswoman declined to comment on the specific case, only vaguely suggesting that the arrangement could be problematic. “Transactions with designated persons are generally prohibited,” she told The Huffington Post.

GAFTA founder Ahmad Maki Kubba, speaking at the event, defended the invitation to Shaaban as part of an effort to hear from all parties involved in the fight against ISIS and claimed that the group has no allegiance to either side. But the Thursday discussion was decidedly one-sided, and there are indications that GAFTA itself is sympathetic to Assad and his allies.

The organization’s Facebook page contains numerous news stories that frame the Assad regime and its ally Russia in a flattering light. Mansour himself was previously accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of participating in a money-laundering operation to aid the Lebanese militia group Hezbollah, which has fought on behalf of Assad in Syria. Mansour denies the 2011 allegation.

“We are not associated with [Shaaban] or anybody,” he told HuffPost in a phone interview. “We’re trying to fight an evil. Is there sanctions against that?”

 

In the lead-up to the panel discussion, critics of the Assad regime accused GAFTA of providing a propaganda platform for a top-level Syrian official in violation of the spirit of the sanctions, if not the law itself.

“The point of sanctioning someone is to change their behavior, isolate them and force them to reconsider the actions they were taking. This is not in line with that,” one House Republican aide said of inviting Shaaban.

Mansour said his group has reached out to members of Congress but has had little luck securing meetings in Washington.

 

Others accused GAFTA of undermining the United Nations-led peace process by giving Assad’s spokeswoman a direct line to a U.S. audience. “She is regularly the one who speaks for the regime,” said Joseph Bahout, a visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “She’s been propagandizing, denying the use of chemical weapons, denying massacres.”

Bahout rejected GAFTA’s argument that hearing from the Syrian regime at Thursday’s event was part of an effort to resolve the civil war.

“I’m sorry to be blunt, but this is the classical, usual bullshit used every time someone is trying to open a channel with the regime. If you want to negotiate with the regime, there are proper channels in Geneva,” Bahout said, referring to the U.N.-led talks.

 

The Syrian American Council, a U.S.-based group that has lobbied for more support for the Syrian opposition, said that it had pushed the National Press Club to remove Shaaban from the event, but as of Wednesday evening, had not heard back from Bill McCarren, executive director of the club. McCarren also did not respond to a request for comment from HuffPost.

“This is supposed to be about combating ISIS, and the Assad regime is directly responsible for not only fueling the rise of ISIS, but for supporting it financially through lucrative oil deals,” said Mohammed Ghanem, director of government relations for the Syrian American Council. “It’s unacceptable for a prestigious venue such as the National Press Club to be turned into a platform to spew propaganda.”