Tag Archives: Terrorism

DHS whistleblower: Obama more concerned with protecting Islamists than Americans

Is Barack Obama focused on protecting the American people?
Is Barack Obama focused on protecting the American people?

This PJ Media article is by Debra Heine.

Excerpt:

Philip Haney, the Homeland Security whistleblower whose investigation into Islamic infiltration of the U.S. might have prevented the San Bernardino attack, has written an important op-ed for The Hill, warning of President Obama’s misplaced priorities when it comes to national security. In brief, says Haney, “the Obama administration is more concerned with the rights of non-citizens in known Islamist groups than with the safety and security of the American people.”

There are terrorists in our midst and they arrived here using legal means right under the noses of the federal law enforcement agencies whose mission is to stop them. That is not due to malfeasance or lack of effort on the part of these officers; it is due to the restrictions placed on them by the Obama administration.

Not only did the Obama administration shut down an important investigation that could have connected enough dots to prevent the San Bernardino terrorist attack, they went back and erased the dots Haney was “diligently connecting.” Worse yet, when he complained to the DHS inspector general, the DHS and the Department of Justice subjected him “to a series of investigations and adverse actions, including one by that same inspector general.”

None of them showed any wrongdoing; they seemed aimed at stopping me from blowing the whistle on this problem.

Debra (Nice Deb) was one of the first people to blogroll me when I was first starting out with blogging.

She links to Gates of Vienna, another of my blogroll friends, and quotes them about that:

The “behavioral indicators” listed to help DHS agents identify potential domestic terrorists include carrying around a copy of the Constitution, promoting First and Second Amendment rights, having a Gadsden flag sticker on one’s car, and advocating for a minimal federal government.

[The Obama administration’s approach] is thus designed to serve a dual purpose: (1) to protect Muslim Brotherhood organizations and their operatives who have penetrated federal, state, and local governments, and (2) to help the Obama administration crack down on its real enemies, domestic conservatives who want to re-establish constitutional governance.

Debra wrote a couple of prior articles on this DHS whistleblower, one from 12/14 and one from 12/11.

So is it really true that the Obama administration – in their mad rush to let in immigrants from countries that don’t like us very much – is not serious about keeping terrorists out?

CBS News reported that 5 different Obama administration agencies failed to detect one of the San Bernadino terrorists:

Tashfeen Malik arrived in the United States with her fiance Syed Farook in July 2014. Just two months earlier, her U.S. government background check found no suspected ties to terrorism.

She was granted a K-1 visa, even though the FBI now believes she was radicalized before she met Farook.

The State Department says Malik was thoroughly questioned during an interview at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan.

[…]Five U.S. agencies also vetted her, checking her fingerprints against two databases. Neither her name nor image showed up on a U.S. terror watch list.

One can only imagine that the questions were like “do you believe in the Constitution?” or “do you attend a Christian church?” or “do you think that abortion should be restricted?”. She would be rejected if she affirmed any of those, of course, but affirming Islamic jihad is nothing to be concerned about – if you’re a Democrat.

Homeland Security's new enemy!
Homeland Security’s new enemy! This little girl who supports the Constitution.

It seems to me our national security agencies have been indoctrinated by their Democrat leaders to target conservative taxpayers instead of radicalized Islamists. And in fact we have evidence of that, reported in the Washington Times way back in 2009:

The Department of Homeland Security is warning law enforcement officials about a rise in “rightwing extremist activity,” saying the economic recession, the election of America’s first black president and the return of a few disgruntled war veterans could swell the ranks of white-power militias.

A footnote attached to the report by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence and Analysis defines “rightwing extremism in the United States” as including not just racist or hate groups, but also groups that reject federal authority in favor of state or local authority.

“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” the warning says.

[…]The nine-page document was sent to police and sheriff’s departments across the United States on April 7 under the headline, “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.”

It says the federal government “will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months” to gather information on “rightwing extremist activity in the United States.”

The joint federal-state activities will have “a particular emphasis” on the causes of “rightwing extremist radicalization.”

According to Democrats, radical Islam is not the real threat. American taxpayers who want to not pay for abortions are the real threat. And it turns out that many Democrat voters think that this is correct, even in an age of Islamic terrorism.

Nile Gardiner writes about a recent Rasmussen Reports poll in the UK Telegraph.

Excerpt:

[A]mong those who approve of the president’s job performance, just 29% see radical Muslims as the bigger threat. Twenty-six percent (26%) say it’s the Tea Party that concerns them most. Among those who Strongly Approve of the president, more fear the Tea Party than radical Muslims.

[…]Twenty percent (20%) of government workers see the Tea Party as the nation’s bigger terror threat.

That’s what we voted for, when we voted for Barack Obama.

Obama administration has admitted over 100,000 immigrants from Syria since 2012

Obama doesn't have time for national security
Obama doesn’t have time for national security

The Obama administration has admitted over 100,000 people from Syria since 2012.

Excerpt:

A proposal to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees to the United States has ignited a bitter debate in Washington, but more than 10 times that number of people from the embattled country have quietly come to America since 2012, according to figures obtained by FoxNews.com.

Some 102,313 Syrians were granted admission to the U.S. as legal permanent residents or through programs including work, study and tourist visas from 2012 through August of this year, a period which roughly coincides with the devastating civil war that still engulfs the Middle Eastern country. Experts say any fears that terrorists might infiltrate the proposed wave of refugees from United Nations-run camps should be dwarfed by the potential danger already here.

[…]Numbers obtained from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection show 60,010 Syrian visa holders have entered the U.S. since 2012, including 16,245 this year through August. Additional numbers provided by a Congressional source showed another 42,303 Syrians were granted citizenship or green cards during the same period.

Should we be concerned about letting in so many people from countries with high levels of support for radical Islam? Let’s take a look at some other news stories and get the facts.

This is from the radically leftist Reuters.

Excerpt:

Two people have been arrested at a refugee center in the Austrian city of Salzburg on suspicion of being connected to last month’s Paris attacks, the Salzburg prosecutors’ office said on Wednesday.

The two are men who are thought to have provided help to members of the group that carried out the attacks on Nov. 13 in which 130 people were killed, two Austrian newspapers reported.

“Two people who arrived from the Middle East were arrested at the weekend in accommodation for refugees on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist organization,” Robert Holzleitner, a spokesman for the Salzburg prosecutor’s office, said.

“As part of the preliminary investigation, evidence suggesting a connection with the Paris attacks is being verified,” he added, declining to comment on the specifics of the newspaper reports.

The men came into contact with the Paris attackers in Austria, local newspaper Salzburger Nachrichten reported, adding that they were found based on information provided by a foreign intelligence service.

National tabloid Kronen Zeitung said they were French, of Algerian and Pakistani origin, and entered Europe through Greece on fake Syrian passports with members of the group that carried out the Paris attacks.

An Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman and a Salzburg police spokeswoman declined to comment.

An article on Breitbart News that listed 30 recent immigrants who were implicated in terrorist attacks.

Here’s are a few: (links to primary sources removed)

  • A refugee from Uzbekistan was convicted of providing material support and money to a designated foreign terrorist organization. According to the Department of Justice, he also procured bomb-making materials in the interest of perpetrating a terrorist attack on American soil. (August 2015)
  • An immigrant from India, who applied for and received Lawful Permanent Resident status by virtue of his marriage to an American citizen, was indicted in federal court on charges of conspiring to provide thousands of dollars to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in order to assist them in their global jihad, and on one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. (November 2015)
  • A second immigrant from India, who is married to a U.S. citizen, and who is the brother of the individual listed above, was also indicted on charges of conspiring to provide thousands of dollars to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in order to assist them in their global jihad, and on one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud. (November 2015)
  • An immigrant from Syria, who applied for and received Lawful Permanent Resident status, and then subsequently applied for and received U.S. citizenship, was charged with smuggling night-vision goggles and rifle scopes from America to a Syrian rebel group that fights alongside and allies itself with an al-Qaeda affiliate. (December 2015)
  • The Boston Bombers were granted political asylum and were thus deemed legitimate refugees. The younger brother applied for citizenship and was naturalized on September 11th, 2012. The older brother had a pending application for citizenship. (April 2013)

I like skilled immigrants from countries that do not have a significant portion of radicalized Muslims. But the problem is that the Obama administration is too politically correct to filter immigrants by weighing the value they offer us as law-abiding taxpayers against the potential threat they pose. The Obama Department of Homeland Security admits people to the United States without even checking social media to see if they have made public statements in support of radical Islam! And in a recent hearing, a DHS official admitted that she had no idea how many Syrian refugees had been admitted to the US. The Democrats are obsessed with political correctness and leftist blame-America ideology – we simply cannot trust them to protect us from threats.

Do you feel safe?

White House cannot name a mass shooting that would have been prevented by gun control

Guns are for self-defense against criminals
Guns are for self-defense against criminals

This is from the Washington Free Beacon.

Excerpt:

White House spokesman Josh Earnest struggled to answer direct questions Thursday about whether any of President Obama’s proposed gun control measure would have prevented the recent mass shootings seen in the U.S.

Reporter Byron Tau brought up Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R., Fla.) remark that no recent mass shootings would have been prevented by gun legislation, a statement rated “True” by the Washington Post fact-checker.

[…]“Can the White House point to a recent mass shooting that would have been stopped by a expanded assault weapons ban or stricter background checks?” Tau asked. “The evidence seems to be that in all these recent mass shootings, these folks either passed background checks or were very determined to circumvent the strict gun laws that are already on the books. Can you point to any that would have been prevented or stopped by the kind of proposals the White House is championing?”

“Again, Byron, I think the same thing applies here, which is it’s not our view that we should wait until somebody who’s on the no-fly list walks into a gun store, legally purchases a gun and kills a bunch of innocent Americans before we pass a law preventing it,” Earnest said. “That’s a common-sense view. The president believes that’s in our national security, and that’s why we believe quite strongly that Congress should take action to address it and close the no-fly, no-buy loophole.”

Tau asked whether any of the mass shooters were on the no-fly list.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Earnest said.

Here’s the the clip:

The Democrats want to prevent people from defending themselves against criminals and terrorists, but they don’t have a plan to do anything to stop the criminals or the terrorists. Their focus is on disarming the law-abiding people, not detecting and punishing the law-breaking people.

The peer-reviewed research

Whenever I get into discussions about gun control, I always mention two academic books by John R. Lott and Joyce Lee Malcolm.

Here is a paper by Dr. Malcolm that summarizes one of the key points of her book.

Excerpt:

Tracing the history of gun control in the United Kingdom since the late 19th century, this article details how the government has arrogated to itself a monopoly on the right to use force. The consequence has been a tremendous increase in violent crime, and harsh punishment for crime victims who dare to fight back. The article is based on the author’s most recent book, Guns and Violence: The English Experience (Harvard University Press, 2002). Joyce Malcom is professor of history at Bentley College, in Waltham, Massachusetts. She is also author of To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an AngloAmerican Right (Harvard University Press, 1994).

Upon the passage of The Firearms Act (No. 2) in 1997, British Deputy Home Secretary Alun Michael boasted: “Britain now has some of the toughest gun laws in the world.” The Act was second handgun control measure passed that year, imposed a near-complete ban on private ownership of handguns, capping nearly eighty years of increasing firearms restrictions. Driven by an intense public campaign in the wake of the shooting of schoolchildren in Dunblane, Scotland, Parliament had been so zealous to outlaw all privately owned handguns that it rejected proposals to exempt Britain’s Olympic target-shooting team and handicapped target-shooters from the ban.

And the result of the 1997 gun ban:

The result of the ban has been costly. Thousands of weapons were confiscated at great financial cost to the public. Hundreds of thousands of police hours were devoted to the task. But in the six years since the 1997 handgun ban, crimes with the very weapons banned have more than doubled, and firearm crime has increased markedly. In 2002, for the fourth consecutive year, gun crime in England and Wales rose—by 35 percent for all firearms, and by a whopping 46 percent for the banned handguns. Nearly 10,000 firearms offences were committed.

[…]According to Scotland Yard, in the four years from 1991 to 1995 crimes against the person in England‟s inner cities increased by 91 percent. In the four years from 1997 to 2001 the rate of violent crime more than doubled. The UK murder rate for 2002 was the highest for a century.

I think that peer-reviewed studies – from Harvard University, no less – should be useful to those of us who believe in the right of self-defense for law-abiding people. The book by economist John Lott, linked above,compares the crime rates of all U.S. states that have enacted concealed carry laws, and concludes that violent crime rates dropped after law-abiding citizens were allowed to carry legally-owned firearms. That’s the mirror image of Dr. Malcolm’s Harvard study, but both studies affirm the same conclusion – more legal firearm ownership means less crime.