RUTHFULLY YOURS

Visas are a component of border security. While much has been made about the need to erect a fence along the U.S. / Mexican border to enhance border security, an effectively administered visa program in essence, moves America’s borders out to the U.S. embassies and consulates in countries around the world where the visa applications for aliens seeking entry into the United States are processed.

Most terrorists who have been identified, entered the U.S. through ports of entry.

An effectively administered visa program essentially moves America’s borders out to the U.S. embassies and consulates around the world where our consular officers adjudicate applications for visas. Aliens who are unable to secure a visa are not only not able to legally enter the United States, they are not even able to board airliners destined to the United States- keeping them as far from our shores as possible.

The very first paragraph of the preface of “9/11 and Terrorist Travel – Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States” makes that nexus between visas and border security crystal clear:

“It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made one.”

Apparently bowing to pressure from a number of deep-pocketed lobbying organizations- especially the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the United States created the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) that strips our nation of a vital layer of security and a half dozen specific ways that the visa requirement can enhance airline safety, national security and the safety and well-being of America and Americans.

It was the worst mass shooting ever on American soil: Omar Mateen, 29, opened fire at the Pulse, an Orlando, Florida gay nightclub, on Saturday night. Mateen murdered at least fifty people and wounded another 53. The death count is almost certain to go higher, as many are quite gravely wounded. Mateen was a Muslim who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and mentioned the Boston Marathon jihad killers in a 911 call just before he started shooting. Thus in the wake of the jihad massacre, it was time for the Leftist political and media elites to do what they always do first and foremost after every jihad massacre: make sure that no one thought ill of Islam.

The FBI, to its credit, immediately declared the massacre a terror attack, but Barack Obama was circumspect about what kind: he declared that it was too early to know “the precise motivations of the killer.” This despite the fact that not only had Mateen pledged allegiance to the Islamic State and made reference to the Tsarnaev brothers, but also the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the FBI is investigating reports that Mateen recited Islamic prayers during the massacre. On top of all that, the attack took place during the Muslim month of Ramadan, during which the Islamic State has called for jihad attacks against Americans.

Nonetheless, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, along with many other Leftists, tried to turn the jihad attack into a commercial for rolling back Americans’ Second Amendment rights, tweeting: “We mourn with the people of Orlando and the LGBT community as a whole on the news that -once again- we have lost precious lives to the gun.” Who knew that guns could be so diabolical and anti-gay?

Leftist responses ranged from the ominous to the absurd. Ominously, Facebook and Reddit turned to censorship to try to prevent people from thinking ill of Islam. Facebook removed the Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) page, which had been up for six years and had over 55,000 members, and Reddit began banning people who dared to mention that the killer was a Muslim.

On the absurd side, ACLU staff attorney Chase Strangio tweeted that the massacre was the fault of conservative Christians: “You know what is gross — your thoughts and prayers and Islamophobia after you created this anti-queer climate.” Does the illustrious Strangio actually believe that Omar Mateen was incited to commit mass murder in the gay nightclub in Orlando by an “anti-queer climate” created by Christian conservatives? He probably does, since, as a Leftist, he knows that non-Muslims are always and everywhere to blame for atrocities that Muslims commit.

There is new information on the horrific terror attack in Orlando last night that has killed at least 50 and wounded more than 100 in the largest mass shooting in American history.

Sources are telling the Daily Beast that suspected killer Omar Mateen had previously been investigated by the FBI in 2013 and 2014, making this yet another “known wolf” terror attack:

Omar Mateen of Port Saint Lucie, Florida, came to the attention of federal authorities twice prior to being identified as the gunman in the Orlando nightclub mass shooting, a senior law enforcement source told The Daily Beast.

Mateen 53 people and shot more than 100 in total at the Pulse gay nightclub early Sunday morning, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.

The senior law enforcement source reports that Mateen became a person of interest in 2013 and again in 2014. The Federal Bureau of Investigation at one point opened an investigation into Mateen but subsequently closed the case when it produced nothing that appeared to warrant further investigation.

“He’s a known quantity,” the source said. “He’s been on the radar before.”

Mateen was a U.S. citizen; his parents are from Afghanistan, CBS News reports.

Man Arrested with Guns, Explosive Ingredient Reportedly Headed to L.A. Pride Parade

The FBI is already circling the wagons that Marteen was just “one of hundreds” of ISIS sympathizers known to the FBI:

The terrorists are pickled in hatred that simply does not allow for the humanity of “the other” and insists that individuals exist only as representations of religions, objects, and social or political points of view.

The American homeland — free speech, religious institutions, open inquiry in academia, our military and our way of life — is under attack.

America’s blessing is a political system built on tolerance of “the other.” Not all of us, not all the time — remember, we used to buy and sell our fellow human beings — but the principle to which we aspire is tolerance of “the other.”

But our national blind spot is not seeing that we share this lovely space with people who want to kill us for the peculiar people we are.

It is a lot to process. Omar Mateen, the American-born son of Afghan parents, murdered 50 people and wounded scores of others in a gay nightclub Sunday. The first surprise is that it was not a surprise, especially to the FBI. Mateen was the subject of investigations in 2013 and 2014. “He was a known quantity,” a source said. “He has been on the radar before.” But Assistant Special Agent Ronald Hopper told reporters, “Those interviews turned out to be inconclusive, so there was nothing to keep the investigation going.”

Omar Mateen’s father probably wasn’t terribly surprised. He told NBC News “that his son became angry after seeing two men kissing a few months ago in Miami.” He speculated that could have triggered his decision to kill. “This has nothing to do with religion,” his father added.

After over 50 Americans were brutally slaughtered and over 50 wounded on their own soil in the latest Islamic terrorism attack, it’s utterly shameful that President Obama cannot bring himself to say the words “radical Islam”. Equally abhorrent are Muslim Brotherhood groups, such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), sending out their taqqiyah deception squads to feign sympathy for victims of Islamic terrorist attacks, and referring to this most recent bloodbath as a hate crime.

President Obama, not to mention Bernie Sanders, is calling for more gun control. Most Western world leaders and politicians are living in fantasyland when they blindly claim that guns are evil rather than condemn the supremacist ideology behind radical Islam, that believes gays, non-believers, apostates, and others, must die, as mandated in the Koran and other Islamic doctrine. “We know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate,” stated President Obama. Not a peep about radical Islamic terrorism.

Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton also refers to the Orlando jihadist attack as an act of terror and hate. “Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism,” Hillary tweeted in November. If Islam has nothing to do with terrorism, then why was only an imam — and not a rabbi, priest, or swami — invited to speak at the first press conference after the Orlando slaughter at the Pulse Nightclub?

Mujammad Musri, president and senior imam of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, also mentioned nothing about radical Islamic terrorism. The imam did, however, warn the media to refrain from “rushing to judgment and from sensationalizing the story, because we do not want the story to be shifted from the focus of what it is. It is a horrible tragedy.” But again, nothing about a jihadist attack.

Is it any wonder that attacks against American citizens are being perpetrated when funding and ideology are being exported from radical Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran to Islamic centers and schools in the U.S.? When radical imams from abroad are welcome to speak at U.S. universities and mosques?

At least 50 people are dead in Florida, killed for their presumed homosexuality by a Muslim who proclaimed his allegiance to ISIS as he opened fire in a nightclub that proudly proclaimed itself “a gun free zone”.

The conclusion, according to the for-the-moment US president, is that more laws must be passed to restrict access to guns:

“How easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school or in a house of worship or a movie theater or in a nightclub,” a reference to other mass killings that have punctuated recent US history.

“We have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be.”

The simple act of passing laws, of course, solves every conceivable problem at a stroke. That is why no America smokes marijuana or snorts cocaine, because there are laws that declare such activities illegal. Similarly, should America’s Second Amendment ever be overturned, no one bent on using terror to make a point will ever be able to obtain a weapon.

Omar Mateen called the cops to pledge his fealty to ISIS as he was carrying out his mass murderer in Orlando early Sunday morning. Twelve hours later, the president of the United States declared that “we have no definitive assessment on the motivation” of Omar Mateen but that “we know he was a person filled with hate.”

So I guess the president thinks Mateen didn’t mean it?

Here again, and horribly, we have an unmistakable indication that Obama finds it astonishingly easy to divorce himself from a reality he doesn’t like — the reality of the Islamist terror war against the United States and how it is moving to our shores in the form of lone-wolf attacks.

He called it “terror,” which it is. But using the word “terror” without a limiting and defining adjective is like a doctor calling a disease “cancer” without making note of the affected area of the body — because if he doesn’t know where the cancer is and what form it takes, he cannot attack it effectively and seek to extirpate it.

So determined is the president to avoid the subject of Islamist, ISIS-inspired or ISIS-directed terrorism that he concluded his remarks with an astonishing insistence that “we need the strength and courage to change” our attitudes toward the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

That’s just disgusting. There’s no other word for it.

Omar Mateen, a U.S.-born son of Afghan immigrants, was already known to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which twice investigated him over hints of radical leanings before closing those cases as inconclusive.

Federal agents are now trying to piece together how the 29-year-old Mr. Mateen became the gunman police say is responsible for the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

The night of the Orlando nightclub attack, Mr. Mateen called emergency services and proclaimed allegiance to Islamic State. The FBI is probing the attack as a terrorism act.

Mr. Mateen’s call echoed FBI concerns about him in 2013, “when he made inflammatory remarks to co-workers alleging possible terrorist ties,” said Ronald Hopper, an FBI official in Orlando. The bureau, “thoroughly investigated the matter, including interviews of witnesses, physical surveillance, and records checks,” he said, and “ultimately, we were unable to verify the substance of his comments and the investigation was closed.”

What triggered the 2013 investigation, said officials briefed on it, were “wild” claims he made to co-workers about having family and friends in al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and connections to the Boston Marathon bombers. When FBI agents first questioned him, he didn’t admit to making the claims and didn’t have a full understanding of the terrorist groups, they said, suggesting he was making up his claims.

When FBI agents questioned him again, he admitted to making the statements, saying it was simply bluster and he hadn’t known what he was talking about, officials said. Those earlier claims have fueled doubts regarding Mr. Mateen’s assertion about acting on behalf of Islamic State.

“He seems to be looking for any opportunity to associate with the terrorist group du jour,” a senior U.S. official said Sunday. CONTINUE AT SITE

A young American Muslim pledging allegiance to Islamic State is now responsible for the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. Can we finally drop the illusion that the jihadist fires that burn in the Middle East don’t pose an urgent and deadly threat to the American homeland?

We hope so after the Sunday morning assault on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando that killed at least 51 and wounded 53 as we went to press. The killer was Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, the son of immigrants from Afghanistan who was heard shouting “allahu Akbar” (God is great) as he fired away. Mateen attacked a popular night spot for gays, who are especially loathed in Islamist theology.
Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, and it rarely does so unless it played some role. CNN and others reported that a U.S. official said Mateen made a 911 call during the attack in which he pledged allegiance to Islamic State and mentioned the 2013 Boston marathon bombing.

Amicus Brief Supporting FBI’s Quest in Identifying Corrupt Public Officials

Dear Director Comey:

The FBI’s recent radio ads asked public assistance in identifying public corruption. This amicus brief is in response to your request, based on my experience as a State Department employee with a top secret clearance and decades of work in corrupt countries from Albania to Zimbabwe. Therefore, I am alarmed by the steady decline of integrity among U.S. government and public official.

I studied law at Yale, Columbia, and New York University, but I am not a practicing lawyer. I worked as an international planner and a treasurer in Mobil Oil Corporation, a manager in the State Department, with a Top Secret clearance, and an international consultant, evaluating legal issues, studying corruption, proposing remedies and negotiating solutions. I am a fellow at the American Center for Democracy.

My letter is based on publicly available sources concerning what I believe to be one of the most astounding corruption cases involving a politician who wishes to lead my beloved country.

I understand that a large number of your agents are carrying out a criminal investigation of these cases, and I hope my enclosed analysis would help your efforts.

Public statements by federal government officials, and journalists indicate that either they do not understand, or refuse to acknowledge that serious laws were broken, not just a bunch of silly rules.

But the Rasmussen Report on a February 3, 2016, survey of 1,000 likely voters showed 81% “strongly believe the federal government is crooked.” Gallup reported on September 19, 2015, in a survey of 1,000 adults, 75% “perceived corruption as widespread in the country’s government.” In 2007, 67% responded the same way.

The U.S. international reputation is similarly appalling. Freedom House listed the U.S. as being perceived by 75% of respondents as one of the most corrupt countries of the world. Only 12 countries of the world were regarded as worse.

Transparency International (TI) says on their website that 72% of people surveyed believe the U.S. government’s efforts to fight corruption are ineffective. Other TI ratings for the U.S. are:

– 16th for corruption index out of 168 countries in 2015;

– 10th in bribe payers’ index out of 28 countries in 2011;

– 5% reported paying a bribe in 2010;

– 86th percentile in control of corruption;

– 5th in financial secrecy index out of 71 countries.

These perceptions are most disturbing. I hope you and the DOJ would not further this corrupt image by allowing political pressure to cover up and obfuscate the facts of your investigations. Our law enforcement agencies must show that politically powerful famous current and former officials are treated as ordinary citizens when they break the law. A failure to indict and prosecute the Clintons and their enterprise will encourage more corruption and the disclosure of more classified information, further endangering the U.S.

You have the reputation of being honest, competent and diligent, and I hope you will soon refer recommendations and backup research for criminal prosecution of the Clintons and their staff to the DOJ. That would ameliorate the decline in the public’s respect for the rule of law. If the DOJ refuses to impanel a grand jury or to prosecute, I hope you and many FBI agents resign in protest. The integrity of the U.S. government and America’s national security are at stake.