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HOMELAND SECURITY

ISIS at the Border Terrorist infiltration threat increases the stakes. Joseph Klein

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273971/isis-border-joseph-klein

The staggering numbers alone prove there is an unprecedented illegal immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. In just May of this year, 132,887 people were apprehended between ports of entry on the southwest border with Mexico, the highest monthly figure since March 2006. The number of U.S. Border Patrol southwest border apprehensions for the first 5 months of 2019 is more than 2.6 times greater than the number of apprehensions during the same period last year. “We are bursting at the seams,” Randy Howe, executive director of Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations, told reporters last week. “It’s unsustainable and this can’t continue.”

As far as open border Democrats are concerned, however, the only crisis at the U.S. border with Mexico is the plight of the many thousands of migrants themselves as they try to manipulate our loophole-ridden asylum system or otherwise try to enter the country illegally. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives refuses to fix the asylum mess, or to provide monies for effective border security that must include barriers erected in vulnerable locations. Instead, they passed an amnesty bill last week for more than 2 million so-called “dreamers” whose parents brought them to this country illegally as children and individuals who had been designated for “Temporary Protected Status.”

Beyond the sheer number of illegal migrants overrunning the border and straining our resources, the surging flow of migrants traversing Mexico into the United States poses a serious national security risk. Open border Democrats could care less. They say not to worry about terrorists crossing the U.S.-Mexico border since no terrorist attack linked to such migration has happened yet. Beto O’Rourke said during a campaign rally, for example, “[Z]ero, precisely zero, terrorists, terrorist groups, or terror plots have ever been connected with the U.S.-Mexico border to do harm to people within the United States.” Proponents of such a pre-9/11 attitude are either clueless or, in the case of the radical left, are part of the red-green axis. 

Pentagon Condemns Russian Conduct after Warship’s Near-Collision with U.S. Cruiser By Mairead McArdle

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/pentagon-condemns-russian-conduct-near-collision-american-cruiser/

The Department of Defense on Friday condemned the near collision of a Russian destroyer and an American guided-missile cruiser and said the U.S. will file a formal demarcate against the Russians for their part in the incident.

“The behavior’s unsafe and unprofessional,” Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan told reporters on Friday. “We’ll have military-to-military conversations with the Russians, and of course we’ll démarche them.”

  

On Friday morning, the Russian destroyer Udaloy came within 50 to 100 feet of the USS Chancellorsville in the Philippine Sea’s international waters, executing “an unsafe maneuver” that put “the safety of her crew and ship at risk,” according to Commander Clayton Doss, a Navy spokesman. “This unsafe action forced Chancellorsville to execute all engines back full and to maneuver to avoid collision,” Doss said. The Navy also alleged that the Russian ship had violated the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea.

Like Doss and Shanahan, top Navy admiral John Richardson blamed Russia for the incident, saying in a statement that:

This unwise maneuver, combined with the unsafe maneuvers by the Russian aircraft in the eastern Mediterranean earlier this week, make it clear that these dangerous actions by Russian military forces across the globe do not match what the world expects from a responsible and trustworthy world power.

“The U.S. Navy will not be deterred from supporting the free and open use of the seas and skies where international law clearly allows all to operate,” Richardson added.

SpaceX and an Unappreciated Strategic Defense Initiative Legacy By Henry F. Cooper

https://www.newsmax.com/henryfcooper/spacex-strategic-defense-initiative-sdi/2019/06/06/id/919214/

Ambassador Henry F. (Hank) Cooper, Chairman of High Frontier and an acknowledged expert on strategic and space national security issues, was President Ronald Reagan’s Chief Negotiator at the Geneva Defense and Space Talks with the Soviet Union and Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) Director during the George H.W. Bush administration. Previously, he served as the Assistant Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Deputy Assistant USAF Secretary and Science Advisor to the Air Force Weapons Laboratory.

On the eve of the D-Day celebrations, SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule returned from the International Space Station (ISS), completing the private launcher’s 17th resupply mission to the manned orbital research facility. Its June 4 “splash down” completed the Commercial Resupply Services mission 17 (CRS-17) — that delivered 5,500 pounds of supplies for the astronauts and materials for ongoing experiments and research.

Dragon docked at the ISS for about a month, while the crew unloaded its cargo, and then began its de-orbit burn. SpaceX has provided an informative 30-minute recap of the CRS-17 mission, complete with an infrared capture of the return of the Falcon’s first-stage booster for a perfect landing on the drone landing ship “Of Course I Still Love You” in the Pacific Ocean.

This reuse of launchers for space operations was the objective of an important effort in President Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), better known for its advocacy for space-based defenses against ballistic missiles and still the most cost-effective, but as yet unrealized, defense against ballistic missile attack for Americans at home and our overseas troops, friends and allies.

Lest you doubt that impressive SDI efforts preceded the impressive SpaceX achievements, consider the 1993-94 demonstration of SDI’s Delta Clipper-X, or DC-X, and later dubbed the Clipper Graham, after USA Lt. General Danny Graham who persuaded Vice President Dan Quayle and my predecessor SDI Director USAF Lt. General George Monahan to initiate the effort.

Gun-Toting CAIR Leader Hassan Shibly Wants Off Terror Watch List So he meets with and helps fundraise for convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad member. Joe Kaufman

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273920/gun-toting-cair-leader-hassan-shibly-wants-terror-joe-kaufman

CAIR Representative Hassan Shibly is not happy that his and his radical Muslim brethren’s names are found on the United States government terrorist watch list, so he and his organization are suing the federal government to get rid of the list. However, there is a good reason that the list exists and many good reasons for Shibly to be on it, and he just made that case even stronger by meeting with and helping to fundraise for convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad member, Hatem Fariz.

The terrorist watch list or Terrorist Screening Database was established by the US to protect Americans from potential dangers. According to the FBI, the agency that maintains the list, the list includes those who are “known or suspected terrorists.”

Apparently, one of those “suspects” is the Executive Director of CAIR-Florida, Hassan Shibly. Shibly is a plaintiff in a lawsuit put forward by CAIR, in 2016 and continuing to this day, claiming anti-Muslim harassment by authorities and attempting to eradicate the watch list. Indeed, according to reports, Shibly has admitted to having been “searched dozens of times” because of his watch list status and “was once handcuffed” at a border crossing in Detroit, Michigan.

Just being affiliated with CAIR is a ‘red flag’ on Shibly. CAIR or the Council on American-Islamic Relations has both financial and foundational ties to Hamas. The US government has stated as such. Various CAIR representatives have served prison time and/or have been deported from the US for terrorist-related activity, and CAIR, itself, in November 2014, was designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government.

Ben Weingarten :The Democrat-Deep State-Media Cover-Up that Protected the Russiagate Narrative — Revisiting the Awan Cybersecurity Scandal with Luke Rosiak

https://benweingarten.com/2019/05/revisiting-the-democrat-awan-brothers-cybersec

Luke Rosiak  is an investigative reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation where he broke arguably one of the biggest scandals in the history of the federal government — one the media refused to cover and the prosecutors refused to prosecute.

This is the story of Awangate, which proved no match for Russiagate — but should have on its merits.

It is the subject of Rosiak’s Obstruction of Justice: How the Deep State Risked National Security to Protect the Democrats, a book that has taken on new significance as the treasonous Russian collusion narrative collapses.

I had Luke Rosiak on the podcast to reflect on the story of the Awans, and its far broader significance for our nation.

What We Discussed
How the Awans amassed so much power on Capitol Hill
The breathtaking litany of criminality of the Awan conspiracy
Why and how House Democrats and the Department of Justice covered up Awangate – and House Republicans enabled it
Why Rosiak is confident members of Congress were blackmailed and are still susceptible to blackmail by the Awans, how deep the blackmail threat runs and why Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s behavior proves it
How politicians and bureaucrats put self-interest above national security
The inextricably intertwined relationship between Russiagate and Awangate, and what both “investigations” say about the Deep State
The Democrat-Media-Deep State collusion over Awangate
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her underlings’ role in rigging the Awan case for the Democrats’ benefit
The government’s failure to do anything to prevent future Awans from infiltrating Congress

Iran-Linked Individuals Faked Social Media Accounts, Blog Posts, Letters to the Editor By Jim Geraghty

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/iran-linked-individuals-faked-social-media-accounts-blog-posts-letters-to-the-editor/

A private cybersecurity firm, FireEye Threat Intelligence, recently announced that they had identified a network of English-language social-media accounts that engaged in inauthentic behavior and misrepresentation and that “we assess with low confidence was organized in support of Iranian political interests.” This is the second group of social media accounts identified by FireEye as part of an Iranian propaganda or disinformation campaign.

Narratives promoted by these and other accounts in the network included anti-Saudi, anti-Israeli, and pro-Palestinian themes. Accounts expressed support for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal; opposition to the Trump administration’s designation of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization; antipathy toward the Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East (a U.S.-led conference that focused on Iranian influence in the Middle East more commonly known as the February 2019 Warsaw Summit); and condemnation of U.S. President Trump’s veto of a resolution passed by Congress to end U.S. involvement in the Yemen conflict.

This Iranian operation is a little more sophisticated, and potentially more dangerous, than what we saw from Russia in 2016. Quite a few media institutions quoted the Russian Twitter accounts in their articles while covering that year’s presidential election. The Iranian accounts identified by Fire Eye managed to get letters, guest columns, and blog posts published in American publications and web sites, written under false names.

We observed some personas in the network leverage legitimate print and online media outlets in the U.S. and Israel to promote Iranian interests via the submission of letters, guest columns, and blog posts that were then published.

Hezbollah Sleeper Agent Convicted Of Plotting U.S. Terror Attacks Lebanese-born terrorist was a naturalized U.S. citizen. Michael Cutler

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273862/hezbollah-sleeper-agent-convicted-plotting-us-michael-cutler

Tensions and hostilities between the United States and Iran have been ramping up and while the news media focuses on how Iran has been operating throughout the Middle East threatening our allies including Israel, the media has ignored that operatives of Hezbollah have, for many years, been operating widely throughout Latin America in conjunction with drug cartels that engage in the smuggling of huge quantities of narcotics into the United States as well as huge numbers of aliens.

This not only provides a major source of revenue for Iran to fund its wide-ranging terrorist operations but to provide Iran with opportunities to move sleeper agents into the United States.

Of course “Sleeper Agents” not unlike aliens in general don’t just enter the United States illegally by running our borders but also enter the U.S. by various other methods, including by being admitted legally at ports of entry.

The issue of “Sleeper Agents” is not a new threat but one that has been of great concern for many years.

On March 21, 2012 the House Committee on Homeland Security that was then chaired by New York Congressman Peter King, conducted a hearing on the topic, Iran, Hezbollah, and the Threat to the Homeland.  The Huffington Post published a report on the hearing, Peter King: Iran May Have ‘Hundreds’ Of Hezbollah Agents In U.S.

Pompeo slams release of “American Taliban” as unconscionable – Fox Thomson Reuters

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/05/23/pompeo-slams-release-of-american-taliban-as-unconscionable-fox/23733670/

WASHINGTON, May 23 (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized the pending release on Thursday of John Walker Lindh, the American captured in 2001 fighting for the Taliban, and said he believed the decision needed to be reviewed.

“Unexplainable and unconscionable,” Pompeo said in an interview with Fox News. Pompeo said Lindh “still is threatening the United states of America, still committed to the very jihad that he engaged in that killed a great American and a great CIA officer. There’s something deeply troubling and wrong about it.”

America: Willful Blindness Amil Imani

https://www.capitolhilloutsider.com/america-willful-blindness/

It is hard to believe how quickly we’ve forgotten the largest terrorist attack on American soil. So, let me remind our readers once again:

On September 11, 2001, nineteen Muslim terrorists, mostly Saudi Arabian citizens, hijacked four commercial aircraft. In a synchronized attack, the hijackers deliberately flew two of the planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, and a third into the Pentagon. The passengers on the fourth plane launched a counterattack, spurring the hijacker pilot to crash the plane into a field in Pennsylvania.

Approximately 3,000 people died on that day, the single largest loss of life that resulted from a terrorist attack on American soil.

After these attacks, I saw many stickers on many cars saying “Everything I Needed to Know About Islam I Learned on 9/11.” Well, apparently not.

Islam and Sharia continue to stealthily creep into every aspect of American culture. And too few people know it or are talking about it. Why? Because Americans have been conditioned by the liberal elites to be tolerant and compassionate, to embrace multiculturalism and respect each other’s beliefs, ideals and values. That would be wonderful in a Utopian world, but the fact is, Islam doesn’t embrace any aspect of Western civilization—much less American culture.

DHS: Facebook Being Used for Elaborate ‘Terrorist Donation’ Scam By Stephen Kruiser

https://pjmedia.com/trending/facebook-being-used-for-elaborate-terrorist-donation-scam/

Facebook may still be the 800-pound gorilla on the social media block, but that isn’t providing the platform with any kind of immunity from bad publicity. Mark Zuckerberg’s money maker has been getting the side-eye from almost everyone since the 2016 election.

The negativity surrounding Facebook has gotten so bad that a co-founder of the site recently wrote an op-ed for The New York Times calling for its breakup.

Many who disagreed with that sentiment still believe that Facebook should be punished for a variety of things.

There is now a new twist on the awfulness that is Facebook:

According to a new warning from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General, the scammers make contact through a messaging app or even Words with Friends and sometimes fake a romantic interest. Eventually, the scammer makes up a story about financial hardship and asks for money.

The day after the victim sends the money, they receive a phone call from the fraudster who poses as a law enforcement official — often spoofing the caller ID of a legitimate agency such as DHS.

The caller tells the victim that they gave money to a criminal enterprise or terrorist group the day before, such as the Islamic State or Al Qaeda and threatens them with imprisonment.