Leading senators on Monday petitioned multiple Obama administration agencies to stop stonewalling a congressional investigation into the immigration histories of at least 113 foreign-born individuals implicated in terrorist operations after legally entering the United States, according to a copy of the letters.
The latest investigation comes just days after the Washington Free Beacon disclosed that an additional 41 foreign-born individuals who legally entered the United States had been arrested for planning a number of terror attacks.
Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) and Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) disclosed Monday that they had been pressuring the Obama administration for months to disclose the immigration histories of these foreign-born individuals implicated in terror plots.
Agencies including the Departments of State and Homeland Security have stonewalled these efforts, declining since mid-2015 to provide Congress additional information. This move has prompted speculation among lawmakers that the administration is withholding information to prevent the exposure of major gaps in the U.S. screening process for new immigrants.
“The American people are entitled to information on the immigration history of terrorists seeking to harm them,” Cruz and Sessions wrote to the secretaries of State and Homeland Security and the attorney general.
Similar requests for information issued sent in August and again in December have not been answered by the administration
The letter cites a recent Free Beacon report detailing that an additional 41 foreign-born individuals had been snagged on terrorism-related charges since 2014. The disclosure of these previously unknown accused terrorists brings the total number of foreigners brought up on terrorism charges to 113.
Sessions and Cruz note that at least 14 of those foreigners accused of terrorism were granted legal entrance to the United States as refugees.
[…]The letter comes amid a debate over immigration and an Obama administration plan to boost the number of refugees granted residence in the United States. Under the administration’s plan, an additional 170,000 new migrants from Muslim-majority countries will enter the country in 2016.
[…]The United States has issued 680,000 green cards to immigrants from Muslim-majority nations during the past five years.
Something to think about, given the permissive attitude of members of the Democrat party when it comes to acts of terrorism committed by radical Islamists. It’s almost as if they would rather punish people who have concerns about safety than do anything to make it harder for terrorists to harm us. Is this what we are paying taxes for? So that politicians can be nice to people who want to kill us? I understand that Democrats love to embrace evil and shame good, in order to achieve their goal of equality, but I don’t think we should be paying them to do it. We’re paying them to protect us, not to expose us to harm.
U.S. commentators reporting on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s personal welcome of Syrian refugees are drawing comparisons with the angry anti-refugee politics in their own country.
The story of Trudeau greeting refugees at the airport in Toronto Thursday night was the top story for awhile yesterday on the New York Times website.
A video and similar items appeared on Newsweek, the BBC, NBC, Paris Match, and the UK Guardian, Independent and Daily Mail.
[…]The headline on the G-Q website was, “Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Just Gave U-S Politicians a Refreshing Lesson in Compassion.”
He welcomed in tens of thousands of Syrian refugees, as the leftist New York Times reported:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greeted a planeload of weary Syrian refugees landing in Toronto early Friday, telling the first to disembark that “you’re safe at home now” as he handed them winter coats.
“Tonight they step off the plane as refugees, but they walk out of this terminal as permanent residents of Canada,” Mr. Trudeau told government employees gathered at the airport.
Trudeau gave them full benefits as permanent residents – included access to the single payer health care system and retirement benefits.
And he also said this before the recent election:
The Liberal Party has always favored importing massive numbers of unskilled immigrants from foreign countries. They want them collecting welfare benefits right away, and to start voting right away, too. I wonder who these new immigrants vote for? The party of smaller government, or the party of a socialist welfare state?
Two men have been charged with attempted murder in the Canadian city of Calgary after a nightclub shooting early Sunday morning. Mohamed Elmi, 31, and Mohamed Salad, 29, also face a host of other charges, including unauthorised possession of a firearm, aggravated assault and possession of a firearm with an altered or defaced serial number.
A 38-year-old man was sent to hospital immediately after the attack with serious soft tissue injuries to his torso.
[…]Canadian media has been careful not to make any link between the suspects named and their religion. The word ‘jihad’ is conspicuously absent in media coverage, something that is irritating social media users who are openly speculating whether or not they have been banned from making any connection with radical Islam.
Canada does not allow non-criminals to carry weapons – only criminals are allowed to carry them. Canadian politicians don’t want to offend criminals by allowing their victims to shoot back at them when they’re shot at.
Police office shot in Philadelphia
Last week, there was news about a shooting in Philadelphia:
On January 8, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney (D) rejected ties to Islam in the ambush shooting of Philadelphia police officer Jesse Hartnett and suggested the big lesson is that we need more gun control.
Hartnett was shot with a gun that was stolen from a police officer’s house. And the suspected gunman, Edward Archer, “allegedly told authorities he targeted an officer because police defend laws that are contrary to the Quran.”
6 ABC reports that Archer “confessed” to having carried out that attack “in the name of Islam” and that Archer “pledged his allegiance to ISIS.”
However, during Mayor Kenney’s speech, while flanked by city and law enforcement officials, he said, “In no way, shape, or form does anyone in this room believe that Islam, or the teaching of Islam, has anything to do with [the shooting of Officer Hartnett].”
Fox News reports that Kenney said the shooting shows the need for more gun control: “There are too many guns on our streets and I think our national government needs to do something about that.”
The weapon was stolen from a police officer. And in the past we have seen how political correctness created new lower hiring requirements on police officers have resulted in criminals being able to overpower them and take their weapons, as in this case of a criminal overpowering a woman police officer and taking her weapon. The Obama administration is doing the same thing to integrate women into combat units, as well, which will reduce the combat effectiveness of our military forces. And the same thing is being done by fire departments. Political correctness is more important than effectiveness for the taxpayers who pay the bills.
The Obama administration
Now the Obama administration tends to describe attacks like this Philadelphia attack as “senseless violence”, “workplace violence”, and “random violence”.
Here is how Obama responded to the recent San Bernadino terrorist attack:
The Obama administration did, however, announce a plan to respond to these attacks.
Speaking to the audience at the Muslim Advocates’ 10th anniversary dinner Thursday, Lynch said her “greatest fear” is the “incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric” in America and vowed to prosecute any guilty of what she deemed violence-inspiring speech.
“The fear that you have just mentioned is in fact my greatest fear as a prosecutor, as someone who is sworn to the protection of all of the American people, which is that the rhetoric will be accompanied by acts of violence,” she said.
[…]After touting the numbers of “investigations into acts of anti-Muslim hatred” and “bigoted actions” against Muslims launched by her DOJ, Lynch suggested the Constitution does not protect “actions predicated on violent talk” and pledged to prosecute those responsible for such actions.
This is the same woman who declined to charge Lois Lerner for using the IRS as a weapon to persecute conservative groups in an election year.
The deputy director of the ACLU of Michigan said in an op-ed Monday that she refuses to condemn radical Islamic terrorism in order to prove her allegiance to the United States.
Rana Elmir wrote that she’s “consistently and aggressively asked” to condemn Islamic terrorism, and is tired of having her religious views linked to atrocities like the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and in Paris and San Bernardino this year.
“I emphatically refuse,” she wrote in an opinion piece in The Washington Post.
The op-ed was titled: “Stop asking me to condemn terrorists just because I’m Muslim.”
I just want to say two things at the end of this post. First, half my relatives are Muslim, but they’re the peaceful kind. Second, I’m all for welcoming in skilled immigrants who can work, follow the law, and avoid collecting government benefits.
First, let’s see this news story from the CBS local news.
Excerpt:
Police say a 65-year-old woman shot a man who tried to rob her Monday night, leading to that man’s arrest.
Michael Bontaites, 23 of Manchester, was charged with attempted robbery and held on $5,000 bail. He was charged and arraigned Tuesday at Elliot Hospital, where he had gone for treatment after he was shot.
The incident began after the woman noticed an unknown dark-colored sedan following her as she was driving home from her job around 11:30 p.m. Monday night, which she said gave her “heightened concern.”
“Your instincts will tell you. Your gut will tell you when something isn’t right,” the woman, who did not wish to be identified, told WBZ-TV.
The Manchester grandmother said the sedan followed her into the parking lot of her apartment complex on South Porter Street and parked near her. When she left the car to walk into her building, she said a man in a dark hooded sweatshirt got out of the sedan, ran to block her path, and reached out to grab her.
The woman, who holds a valid concealed carry gun permit, pulled a handgun from her pocket and shot the man once in the chest at close range.
[…]The woman tells WBZ she has had her permit to carry for 10 years.
“No one has the right to do that to anybody,” she said of the would-be robber. “And if you can defend yourself, all the power to you.”
Now, over at the Manchester Union Leader, we find out that this guy was actually able to avoid serious jail time for a previous crime:
The alleged mugger shot on Monday by a Manchester grandmother once threatened a woman with a knife after an automobile accident, according to records.
Michael Bontaites, 23, who is now in Valley Street Jail with a bullet wound in his chest, pleaded guilty to felony criminal threatening after a June 2012 traffic accident on Route 28 bypass in Derry, according to a Rockingham County prosecutor. Derry police say he got out of the car with a knife in hand, had words with the driver and passenger and then drove off.
Bontaites was facing felony charges that could have landed him in prison for 3 1/2 to seven years. But as part of a plea bargain, he agreed to six months of incarceration at Rockingham County jail. The sentence also called for an anger management evaluation and a year of probation.
Democrats are not serious about protecting the public – they even opposed sanctions against sanctuary cities. But now all that pro-criminal behavior is being taken a step further, and it has something to do with the self-defense story above.
Obama’s gun ban
What if the old woman in the story was not allowed to own a firearm? Well, it turns out that this is exactly what Obama would like to do.
The most legally problematic part of the White House statement involves persons who are, in the terms of Gun Control Act, “adjudicated as a mental defective.” 18 U.S. Code sect. 922(g)(4). Under the Social Security Act, a beneficiary can designate a personal representative to manage payments and interactions with the Social Security bureaucracy; for example, a widow who has no experience in financial affairs might designate a family member as her representative.
Should any Social Security beneficiary who has designated a personal representative be considered “adjudicated as a mental defective”? This question was raised by an Obama administration proposal in 2015. It was resisted by a bill introduced in the U.S. Congress. Imposing a gun ban on Social Security beneficiaries who have designated a financial representative would contradict almost half a century of established interpretation of the Gun Control Act of 1968. Nobody who advocated for the 1968 gun law suggested that it would have any impact on Social Security beneficiaries.
The Tuesday White House “executive action” regarding Social Security was simply an announcement of a plan to promulgate a regulation according to the ordinary process. Because a new regulation has not yet been published in the Federal Register, it is impossible to say whether the White House plan is constitutional. The devil will be in the details.
So, if you are collecting Social Security, and you have designated someone to be your personal representative, then the Obama administration thinks that maybe you shouldn’t own a gun, and be able to defend yourself from criminals. So I guess if the older lady in the news story happened to be in that situation, then maybe she should just let herself be robbed, raped and murdered, instead of fighting back.
WINTERY KNIGHT 