RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Obama administration hits just keep on coming…

A House Armed Services Committee report set to be released Thursday accuses the Obama administration of misleading Congress and violating federal law during a controversial prisoner exchange.

The report compiled by the GOP majority charges that the administration did so when it bypassed Congress in negotiating the exchange of five Taliban prisoners for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was being held in Afghanistan. They suggested that the White House had put politics and expediency ahead of proper procedure in making the deal.

This is the same administration that put politics and expediency ahead of common sense when “ending” the war in Iraq, so this is really no surprise. This president puts politics ahead of everything. If the Republicans are against it, national security be damned. The quickest way to get rid of Obamacare may be to have every Republican in Congress embrace it.

As this entire weird story played out, it always did seem that the administration’s interest in Bergdahl was motivated solely by a need to stick it to Republicans. The timing and the rush to get it done never made sense. It was almost as if the president got bored.

It’s always good to keep in mind that half of the job of “lawmaking” is proposing dead-end bills or amendments designed to score political points against your opposition. Today, Sen. Patrick Leahy steps up to the plate with a “sense of the Senate” exercise in moral preening:

Congress is set to vote on Thursday on what some have called an “unprecedented” right that would allow immigrants easier access to relocate to the United States, according to new legislation offered by a Democratic senator. The legislation, which is being offered by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) as an amendment to a larger bill governing nuclear safety, would prohibit the U.S. government from barring any individual from entering the country based on their religion.

The bill comes amid a fierce national debate about immigration to America, particularly for individuals coming from Muslim-majority nations. Critics of the Obama administration’s refugee plan, which would permit up to 10,000 Syrians into the country, maintain that there are not enough oversight measures in place to ensure that immigrants are not linked to terrorists or various terror organizations, such as the Islamic State.

Many who closely follow the dueling Islamic terror narratives emanating from the White House are mystified by Mr. Obama’s inability (or deliberate unwillingness) to utter the phrase “Islamic terrorists.” Many are curious, too, about why he refuses to call ISIS “ISIS,” steadfastly insisting instead that everybody in his administration call the terror group “ISIL.” What’s the difference, and why is it important? The agendas behind each diverge widely. In fact, the variance between the two is elephantine in scale.

ISIS stands for the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria,” a terror group controlling a large swath of both Iraq and Syria in which the terrorists claim to have established a “caliphate,” a state in which Islamic sharia law is imposed upon all living in the area, anyone who fails to adhere to strict Muslim guidelines has his head removed. Obama’s contrary assertions aside, ISIS is by no means contained. In fact, the savage group (which prefers to be called the “Islamic State” or “IS”) has metastasized on maps like immense pools of blood covering the ancient borders that once divided parts of Syria and Iraq.

After San Bernardino, American Muslims have to come to terms with an ever more apparent truth: that we, and our mainstream Muslim brethren, are the only ones who can lead a winning fight against the radicalism crippling our faith.

What’s most troubling about the San Bernardino massacre is that Syed Farook seemed to have been, by almost all accounts, an ordinary American. He was an educated and employed 28-year-old first-generation citizen, born to Pakistani immigrants.

Like many Americans, I have a similar background, which makes the attack all the more concerning. It seems unthinkable that someone in such a position could be susceptible to radicalization. Yet we have seen this happen time and again, particularly among younger Muslims in the Middle East, Europe and now America.

Attacks like last week’s underscore the importance of countering extremist propaganda. While sophisticated attacks by terrorist groups can be effectively prevented by law enforcement and national-security measures, the truth is there isn’t much that can be done—not even stricter gun-control laws—to completely eliminate the possibility of a radicalized lone wolf wreaking havoc. Only defeating the ideology that inspires these attacks can do that. A propaganda war must be waged on radical Islam, and American Muslims have to be on the front lines for it to be credible.

Congressman David Scott recently lambasted the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for its “deceitful” auto-loan regulation based on “shamefully flawed” information. Now it looks like the Georgia Democrat was being kind.

The Republican staff of the House Financial Services Committee has released a trove of documents showing that bureau officials knew their information was flawed and even deliberated on ways to prevent people outside the bureau from learning how flawed it was.

The bureau has been guessing the race and ethnicity of car-loan borrowers based on their last names and addresses—and then suing banks whenever it looks like the people the government guesses are white seem to be getting a better deal than the people it guesses are minorities. This largely fact-free prosecutorial method is the reason a bipartisan House supermajority recently voted to roll back the bureau’s auto-loan rules.
The vote occurred before the release of the House committee report, which shows that the regulators were guessing and knew that they weren’t even making good guesses. A May 2013 draft of a memo for bureau Director Richard Cordray prepared by bureau staff including Assistant Director Patrice Ficklin reported they had “reason to believe that our proxy is less accurate in identifying the race/ethnicity of particular individuals than some proprietary proxy methods that use nonpublic data.”

At least four of the terrorists involved in last month’s deadly Paris attacks were French citizens. This means that, under the terms of the Visa Waiver Program, they could have legally entered the U.S. with nothing more than their passports. After Paris the Obama administration announced updates to the program, such as better tracking of “past travel to countries constituting a terrorist safe haven” and “fines from $5,000 to $50,000 for air carriers that fail to verify a traveler’s passport data.” These measures aren’t nearly enough.

The Visa Waiver Program allows as many as 20 million citizens from 38 countries—including Japan, Australia and much of Europe—to travel to the U.S. for up to 90 days without the extra layers of security attached to their procuring a visa at a U.S. consulate. The program has encouraged tourism and business that benefit America. It also allows Americans to travel abroad to these countries with minimal hassle.

But the program has two serious security gaps. The first is that the U.S. has become wholly dependent upon the competence and thoroughness of the countries that participate. Visitors’ eligibility for entry under the Visa Waiver Program is determined by the Electronic System for Travel Authorization. But a 2012 audit by the Government Accountability Office found that roughly 364,000 people reached the U.S. in 2010 “without verified ESTA approval.” This security gap, long ignored, has now become enormously important.