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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Abbie VanSickle :Obama administration placed children with human traffickers, report says

The Obama administration failed to protect thousands of Central American children who have flooded across the U.S. border since 2011, leaving them vulnerable to traffickers and to abuses at the hands of government-approved caretakers, a Senate investigation has found.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services, failed to do proper background checks of adults who claimed the children, allowed sponsors to take custody of multiple unrelated children, and regularly placed children in homes without visiting the locations, according to a 56-page investigative report released Thursday.

And once the children left federally funded shelters, the report said, the agency permitted their adult sponsors to prevent caseworkers from providing them post-release services.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) initiated the six-month investigation after several Guatemalan teens were found in a dilapidated trailer park near Marion, Ohio, where they were being held captive by traffickers and forced to work at a local egg farm. The boys were among more than 125,000 unaccompanied minors who have surged into the United States since 2011, fleeing violence and unrest in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

[Overwhelmed federal officials released immigrant teens to traffickers in 2014]

Knife Intifada – Mum’s the Word By Marilyn Penn

An ISIS video instructs Muslims to kill infidels wherever they are, all over the world, using any device at hand from can openers to cars. Sheikh Muhammad Salah in the Gaza Strip holds up his knife and exhorts his followers to stab the Jews and cut them into body parts. He extends his fatwa to the Americans, allies of the Jews, infidels of the Great Satan who stand as a rebuke to Allah’s will. Since then, incidents have happened throughout Europe, some thwarted heroically, some ending in tragic massacres. In Israel, the knife intifada has taken the lives of almost thirty people, including too many young women.

In NYC, there have been 286 stabbings or slashings during this first month of 2016, including three in the subway this past week alone. In November, a Muslim engineering student in Santa Clara, Ca stabbed 4 people to death on the campus at U.C. Merced. In Washington D.C., a Muslim man slashed a woman at Union Station. Yet, there has not been one single speculation or comment by the police on a possible connection between this dramatic rise in stabblings and the knife intifada ordered by Islamic Jihadists. The NY police suggested that one of the slashers was high on drugs – that leaves only 285 other local incidents begging for a motive.

The reluctance to even acknowledge the synchronicity of the Islamic commands to kill with the startling rise in local stabbings is an example of how frightened the law is of being charged with Islamophobia, a preposterous charade invented by CAIR and perpetuated by the liberal press and politicians.

Islam and Islamism in America in 2015: Part II April-June 2015 by Soeren Kern

More than half (51%) of Muslims in America believe they should “have the choice of being governed according to Sharia.” Only 39% of those polled said that Muslims in the U.S. should be subject to American courts. Nearly a quarter believed that, “It is legitimate to use violence to punish those who give offense to Islam by, for example, portraying the prophet Mohammed.” Nearly one-fifth of Muslim respondents said that the use of violence in the U.S. is justified in order to make Sharia the law of the land in this country. – Poll commissioned by the Center for Security Policy, Washington, D.C.

“Ramadan is a special prayer time, a time for religion. We double-park here every Friday and they [allow it], but today they gave us all tickets, almost 100 cabs. This has never happened before. I can’t help but to think they are being prejudiced. They don’t understand. We have to be here.” – Mohammad Zaman, New York City cab driver.

“We have no way … to know who these people are … we don’t have databases on these individuals so we can’t properly vet them, to know where they came from, to know what threat they pose.” – Michael McCaul, Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, commenting on the Obama administration plan to resettle Syrian refugees in the U.S.

ISIS is operating training camps just a few miles from El Paso, Texas. – Judicial Watch, citing Mexican law enforcement and intelligence sources.

Officials at Mason High School in Mason, Ohio, canceled “hijab day” after parents expressed opposition. Female students were asked to wear a headscarf, or hijab, for an entire school day, followed by a time for reflection and discussion.

A study by the Population Reference Bureau estimated that 507,000 women and girls in the United States are at risk or have already undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), more than twice the number estimated in 2000.

Emails show billionaire Democrat conspiring with EPA to undermine agency critics By Rick Moran

Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer’s trade association coordinated with the EPA to debunk a federally commissioned study that was critical of the EPA’s impact on the power grid.

Emails between the agency and the Advanced Energy Economy (AEE), a trade association of about 80 companies, show that there was an exchange of ideas on how to handle the critical report and lessen its impact.

Washington Free Beacon:

AEE is one of three politically oriented groups run out of and coordinated by Steyer’s office. While his political and policy efforts garner more press attention, emails obtained by the Energy and Environment (E&E) Legal Institute through Freedom of Information Act requests reveal ways in which his coalition of green energy businesses also affects public policy.

Arvin Ganesan, AEE’s vice president for federal policy, emailed a handful of EPA and White House staffers in January 2015. “Several of us talked last month about rebutting” a November study from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a nonprofit tasked by the federal government with monitoring and developing standards for electricity reliability.

Critics of the EPA’s power plant regulations were already citing NERC’s study, which questioned the impact of EPA power plant regulations on electrical grid reliability and suggested they delay the rule’s implementation.

“NERC’s report underscores the growing reliability concerns with EPA’s unworkable plan,” Rep. Ed Whitfield (R., Ky.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s panel on energy and power, said of the report’s release.

80 Islamist Terrorist Plots: The U.S. Needs to Redouble Its Counterterrorism Efforts By David Inserra and Riley Walters

It is less than a month into 2016, and two terrorist plots have occurred, one foiled and the other successful. Additional information has become available regarding a case from December 2015, resulting in another addition to The Heritage Foundation’s list of terrorist plots and attacks. The FBI’s release of more information in December about the shooting at two Chattanooga military facilities in July 2015 also adds to the list, bringing the total number of Islamist-inspired terrorist plots and attacks against the U.S. since 9/11 to 80.
Chattanooga, No. 74

The Heritage Foundation is now adding the July 16, 2015, shooting at two military facilities in Chattanooga that killed four Marines and a sailor to its list of Islamist terrorist plots. While there were news reports pointing to an Islamist motivation, Heritage preferred to wait for the outcome of the FBI’s investigation before making a final determination.

In December 2015, FBI Director James Comey announced that the shooter, Mohammad Abdulazeez, “was inspired, motivated by a foreign terrorist organization’s propaganda.”[1] Comey further claimed that it was difficult “to untangle which particular source,” as there “are lots of competing [terrorist] poisons out there.”[2] The FBI, however, certainly knows the general kind of terrorist poisons to which Abdulazeez was attracted: They were of a violent, Islamist nature.

The FBI’s failure to provide the American people with this information means that other sources need be relied upon. Multiple news organizations reported that Abdulazeez attacked these facilities for Islamist reasons. Counterterrorism sources for ABC reported that Abdulazeez searched the Internet to learn how such violence could remove his sins and found justifications and guidance on violent Islamist websites.[3] Reuters reported that Abdulazeez was inspired by the general propaganda of violent Islamists.[4] Sources for NBC reported that Abdulazeez had downloaded audio recordings of al-Qaeda cleric and propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki.[5] The FBI conclusion, added to varied news reports is enough evidence to add the Chattanooga attack to the list of Islamist-inspired attacks.
Mohamed Elshinawy, No. 77

Over the course of 2015, Mohamed Elshinawy conspired with others to support ISIS. Starting in February 2015, Elshinawy discussed with a co-conspirator the possibility of attacking the U.S., being careful to avoid discussing specific plans because he feared that he was being monitored. Elshinawy and his co-conspirator regularly took precautions to avoid detection by using false names and different phones, lying to authorities, and concealing connections to ISIS and to each other.[6]

The Obama Administration Needs to Abandon Its Petraeus Obsession See note please

I admire V.D. Hanson and agree about the hypocrisy of Obama on the general’s amatory transgressions, but this statement about David of Surgeistan is ridiculous: “Petraeus was not just any four-star general. He was the most effective and talented American general since General Matthew Ridgway, who saved what appeared to be a lost Korean War. Petraeus and his team promoted the so-called surge of troops into Iraq, and enlisted tens of thousands of Iraqis to join the American effort to defeat radical terrorists and insurrectionists.” Huh? The rules of engagement enforced by General Petraeus put our soldiers in harm’s way to respect the sensibilities of barbarians and avoid “collateral damage”….As a result, soldiers responding to attacks by armed “civilians” in religious garb were punished for their response….rsk

In politically driven moods, the ancient Romans often wiped from history all mention of a prior hero or celebrity. They called such erasures damnatio memoriae.

The Soviet Union likewise airbrushed away, or “Trotskyized,” all the images of any past kingpin who became politically incorrect.

The Obama administration seems obsessed with doing the same to retired General David Petraeus.

Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter is now thinking of retroactively taking away one or two of Petraeus’s four stars. The potential demotion in rank, opposed by the Army, is intended as further punishment for the misdemeanor to which he pleaded guilty last year. Petraeus accepted two years of probation and paid a $100,000 fine for allowing his mistress, Paula Broadwell, to read classified information for research on the biography she was writing about Petraeus.

South Florida Muslim Leader Posts Material from Hitler Supporter AMANA’s Sofian Zakkout once again refers to Jews as “pigs” and “monkeys.” Joe Kaufman

Sofian Zakkout wears a number of hats. First, he is the director of a prominent South Florida Muslim organization, the American Muslim Association of North America (AMANA). Second, he sits on boards of civic groups, including those devoted to fighting crime, such as the local chapters of Citizens’ Crime Watch and Crime Stoppers, whose leadership safeguards him. And third, he’s a raving anti-Semite who embraces terrorist groups and preaches violence. In 2016, he has started off the year in true form by targeting Jews on social media.

The night of Monday, January 11th, was a hate-filled one for Sofian Abdelaziz Zakkout. On this night, he aimed his wrath at the Jewish community.

He began by posting onto Facebook side-by-side photos of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and American Jew and former National Director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Abraham Foxman (shown clawing his hand). Under the photos, along with lines from the Bible intentionally misquoted to make Jews appear as enslavers and murderers, the following is read (with some grammatical repairs): “[T]ell [me] again why my tax money along with most Americans are giving [these] pigs $18 billion annually in financial aid to [these] f**ks in Israel?”

Zakkout attacking the ADL’s Foxman may be retaliation for a July 2010 ADL report condemning Zakkout and his group AMANA for featuring what the ADL called a “venomous” anti-Semitic, anti-Israel video on the AMANA website. The video was produced by and featured white supremacist leader David Duke. Zakkout has since posted a number of Duke videos on social media and has praised Duke as “a man to believe in!”

Feminist Internet: Citing Studies Linking Obesity to Health Problems Is ‘Oppressive’ By Katherine Timpf

According to Feminist Internet, worrying about obesity, a health problem that plagues our society, isn’t a nice thing to do — in fact, it’s a very mean, “oppressive” thing called “concern trolling.”

A post co-authored by Melissa A. Fabello and Linda Bacon for the blog Everyday Feminism defines “concern-trolling” as “the act of a person participating ‘in a debate posing as an actual or potential ally who simply has concerns they need answered before they will ally themselves with a cause.’”

In case that buzzword salad didn’t make any sense to you, the authors gave a few examples of the the kinds of unacceptable, “oppressive” phrases that people needed to “stop” using, including, “I’m just concerned about their health.”

Now, you might see absolutely nothing wrong with that kind of statement — especially considering that obesity has been repeatedly found responsible for a huge number of preventable deaths in the United States.

But apparently, true feminists are supposed to ignore facts if those facts have the potential to hurt someone’s feelings:

“It’s disheartening to see feminists – people who we generally trust to engage with content and have their status quo boundaries pushed – rush to quote sketchy research and throw oppressive ideologies around all in the name of, supposedly, ‘health,’” the article states.

The Data Breach You Haven’t Heard About Foreign hackers may be reading encrypted U.S. government communications, yet basic information about what happened still isn’t available.By Will Hurd

Rep. Hurd, a Republican from Texas, sits on the House Homeland Security Committee and is chairman of the IT Subcommittee on Oversight and Government Reform.
A security breach recently discovered at software developer Juniper Networks has U.S. officials worried that foreign hackers have been reading the encrypted communications of U.S. government agencies for the past three years. Yet compared with the uproar over the Office of Personnel Management breach, first disclosed last June, this recent breach has gone largely unnoticed.

On Dec. 17 the California-based Juniper Networks announced that an unauthorized backdoor had been placed in its ScreenOS software, and a breach was possible since 2013. This allowed an outside actor to monitor network traffic, potentially decrypt information, and even take control of firewalls. Days later the company provided its clients—which include various U.S. intelligence entities—with an “emergency security patch” to close the backdoor.

The federal government has yet to determine which agencies are using the affected software or if any agencies have used the patch to close the backdoor. Without a complete inventory of compromised systems, lawmakers are unable to determine what adversaries stole or could have stolen.

If government systems have yet to be fixed then adversaries could still be stealing sensitive information crucial to national security. The Department of Homeland Security is furiously working to determine the extent to which the federal government used ScreenOS. But Congress still doesn’t know the basic details of the breach.

Missing in America: Millions of Non-Immigrant Aliens DHS report documents hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who entered last year. Michael Cutler

In January 19, 2016 The Department of Homeland Security posted a notice in its official website about a report with important national security implications “DHS Report: Entry/Exit Overstay Report for FY 2015.”

The actual report “Entry and Exit Overstay Report, Fiscal Year 2015” focused only on the arrival and departure of nonimmigrant aliens (temporary visitors) though international airports and seaports but did not include aliens who were admitted at land border ports of entry.

This report noted that hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who have failed to depart the United States represented a very small percentage of the total number of nonimmigrant aliens who departed from the United States within the time limit imposed at the time they entered the United States- however, we must remember that we are still dealing with hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who had been admitted into the United States during FY 2015 and that each and every year more such aliens enter the United States and fail to depart or otherwise violate the terms of their admission into the United States.

The DHS report noted that the number of overstays represented only a tiny proportion of the number of aliens who left the United States within the time they were granted to visit the United States, however, the number of aliens who violated the terms of their admission approached a half million and this is without including aliens who entered through land border ports of entry and/or aliens who may have otherwise failed to abide by the terms of their admission.

The administration has done virtually nothing to locate these illegal aliens.