===
Whether a Federal Judge has been appointed by a Democrat or Republican President, I firmly believe, in most instances, once they don their robes they forget their politics and render opinions based on the law, particularly in the lower courts.
Yes, there are some who lean one way or the other but when it comes to being challenged by those who appear before them they are pretty strict and take umbrage if they are being 'dissed.'
Come July 10, I believe we are in for some post July 4th fireworks. (See 1 below.)
===
This was sent to me by a long time friend, fellow memo reader and a friend of Congressman Robert Pittenger. (See 2 below.)
===
ISIS warding off the U.S.? Obama would also like an escape route!
The biggest weapon at our disposal is the fact that once attacked by American air power and drones, the leaders of ISIS will start arguing with each other and the disunity that exists among Arabs and Muslims will begin to surface.
Let's face it, they hate each other and everyone else and we just need stir the pot.(See 3 and 3a below.)
===
Obama and that open adminsitration he was going to have. (See 4 below.)
===
Dick
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------1)
Judicial Watch: IRS in 'full cover-up mode'
By Chad Groening
- See more at: http://onenewsnow.com/politics-govt/2014/07/02/judicial-watch-irs-in-full-cover-up-mode#.U7S8e_RDuN0A public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption says the IRS failed to notify a federal court that it had "lost" emails requested in a key Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. - See more at: http://onenewsnow.com/politics-govt/2014/07/02/judicial-watch-irs-in-full-cover-up-mode#.U7S8e_RDuN0
Judicial Watch filed last Friday what is known as a Motion for Status Conference in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to confer about the emails of Lois Lerner and other officials at the Internal Revenue Service. Those emails were the subject of longstanding Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and a lawsuit, and which the IRS now claims to have "lost."
The emails Judicial Watch has sought since May 2013 cover portions of the same period for which the IRS on June 13, 2014, notified the House Committee on Ways and Means were lost or destroyed. Yet, according to the Motion, the IRS failed to notify either Judicial Watch or the court concerning the "lost" emails.
Ramona Cotca, senior attorney at Judicial Watch, says they have actually received some e-mails that Congress didn't get. She explains that includes one in particular "regarding a potential meeting with DOJ about possible prosecution of some of these conservative or tea party groups that we disclosed."
Cotca says the IRS claim that it lost the Lois Lerner and other e-mails is very suspicious.
Cotca
"The IRS is unforgiving if taxpayers being investigated with respect to any audit [don't] keep or maintain their records for seven years," the attorney points out. "And the fact and the idea that this very powerful agency – if it just kept e-mails and documents for six months and then they weren't kept or saved – is shocking."
Cotca says every adult American has to deal with the IRS, so she hopes that there will be some accountability – even if the public must wait for a new administration to do it.
Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton says the IRS "is clearly in full cover-up mode" and that it's "well past time for the Obama administration to answer to a federal court about its cover up and destruction of records."
Within hours after submitting the Motion for Status Conference, Judicial Watch was granted a hearing. That hearing is scheduled for July 10
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2) Editor's note: U.S. Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-North Carolina, is chairman of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare and a member of the House Committee on Financial Services. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN) -- As President Barack Obama once again announced his intention to bypass Congress and govern through executive order -- this time with Monday's announcement on immigration -- history will ask, is he being presidential or imperial?
Let us consider how his acute use of presumed authority measures up against rulers of other great nations.
History is replete with the chronicles of kings and leaders from biblical times to the present day. In the Scriptures, we encounter King David, who sought to do good in the eyes of God, observed the limits of his kingly mandate and brought relative security and prosperity to his people. Others, including King Saul, exalted themselves, debasing their character and leading Israel into the vicissitudes of calamity, defeat and ruin.
The great kings of history are known to have protected their sovereignty effectively, some through benevolent decree and others through ignominious achievements. Caesar Augustus brought an extended period of peace to Rome. Genghis Khan expanded his empire with efficient brutality. Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II abolished slavery and serfdom in the Austrian Habsburg dominions. Napoleon Bonaparte was known for his superior military capabilities and established the Napoleonic Code, which forbade privilege based on birth. All ruled with relatively unchallenged decree.
Robert Pittenger
Democracy took root in ancient Greece during the sixth century B.C. Members of society were given a voice and vote in a representative democracy that dispersed political power among the people. Many centuries later emerged the Magna Carta after British subjects demanded from their king the right to vote, personal freedoms and participation in government. Our Constitution contains freedoms original to the Magna Carta.
The evolution of our American democracy came through the wisdom of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Locke and other thoughtful intellectuals who envisioned a purposely divided government, with checks and balances through executive, judicial and legislative branches.
In contrast to this vision and the obligations set forth in the Constitution, Obama has openly asserted that he will utilize his pen and his phone (and already has) to change policy through executive orders (royal decrees). His unilateral display of power through executive orders circumvents the checks and balances of Congress and the limits of constitutional law, which he should know well as a former law professor.
Many presidents have used executive orders to make recess appointments and other actions, but Obama has issued executive orders to force major policy changes by decree, going well beyond the actions of some other leaders, misusing these emergency powers to enact his will and ignoring the people's elected representatives.Our founders created executive orders for emergencies during a time of travel by horseback when swift return by Congress was impossible. This era has passed.
Acting without authorization, the President has altered Obamacare, choosing not to enforce sections harmful to his friends and donors in government, unions and big business. He has expanded the regulatory scope of the Environmental Protection Agency, pacifying his base of environmentalist supporters at the cost of jobs for ordinary, hard-working Americans.
When Congress acted on behalf of the American people and did not seek passage of the Dream Act, the President used executive order (royal decree), leading to our current humanitarian crisis at the border of unaccompanied children unable to provide for themselves.
As if living in a different century, Obama acts unilaterally, uninhibited by what he views as the "nuisance" of Congress.
Most recently, he undermined our national security and impaired the safety of our soldiers by deciding to free five Taliban commanders without consulting Congress before their release.
When we think of kings, we think not only of how they ruled but how they lived. Their lavish castles and opulent feasts. Their lack of consideration as lower classes struggled. "Let them eat cake."
So, too, is the perceived case with our President. In an economy with anemic growth from the President's failed policies, where high unemployment has become the norm with 20 million people either under- or unemployed, a $17.5 trillion debt and dependence on the government required for all too many, Obama appears unaffected.
Our President fully enjoys the pleasures of his office. He vacations extensively, departing at will on Air Force One to luxurious resorts in Florida, California and Hawaii, where his advance team (traveling at taxpayer expense) scopes out the best golf courses. Meanwhile, ordinary tax-paying families are cutting or restricting their vacations.
Obama's behavior seems to fit better the description of royalty rather than president. While history records kings both celebrated and maligned, the President must realize he is not ruling in the centuries of kings.
The media would do well to come to this realization and end their praise of this "President by fiat." We have a carefully, purposely divided government and a system that has proven over two centuries to work remarkably well. The President's contempt for the Constitution and Congress should not be celebrated.
Tragically, Obama will go down neither as a great king nor as a thoughtful president who led the country through the rule of constitutional law and representative democracy
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3) The Islamic State Tries to Ward Off U.S. Intervention in Iraq
Stratfor Analysis
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3) The Islamic State Tries to Ward Off U.S. Intervention in Iraq
Stratfor Analysis
Summary
The Islamic State has grown and thrived due to the largesse of the Sunni sheikhs and the absence of U.S. pressure on the group. As the United States began to offer measured support to the Iraqi government, the group formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant launched a propaganda campaign threatening the United States with violence if it intervened. While the group's ability to back up its threat is limited, a terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland by the group or a grassroots sympathizer could bring the full wrath of the United States down upon the militants, shattering any slim hope of re-establishing the caliphate.
Analysis
Anticipating the deepening involvement of the United States in Iraq, the Islamic State and its supporters launched a substantial social media campaign last week threatening the United States with terrorist attacks if it intervenes in the present crisis. Incidentally, the Twitter campaign used the awkward hashtag #CalamityWillBefallUS, wording that, if one does not understand that the "US" in the hashtag refers to the United States, makes it appear as if the group is prophesying its own destruction. Rather than analyze the Islamic State's use of social media -- a topic already well-covered by J.M. Berger and others -- Stratfor is interested in what the threat says about the group's susceptibility to foreign intervention and the viability of its threat.
Much of the focus has been on the group's audacious claim of founding a new caliphate and the seeming impunity with which it operates in the Sunni areas of Iraq. But the intensity of the organization's anti-U.S. public relations effort demonstrates how much it fears U.S. intervention.
Though there has not been a significant response, it is no wonder that the Islamic State is afraid of a new U.S. intervention in Iraq. Recent history has proved how powerful the U.S. military can be in a campaign against a militant organization -- or a government for that matter -- even if it has a small presence on the ground.
In 2003, U.S. air power shredded the Iraqi military prior to the U.S. ground invasion of Iraq. The Islamic State will also remember the June 2006 U.S. airstrike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of its parent organization, and the April 2010 airstrike that killed Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the group's first Iraqi leader, and his deputy Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
The Islamic State may also have taken note of instances of U.S. military superiority in its near abroad. In 2001, U.S. air power, combined with a few CIA and special operations personnel on the ground, was able to work with the Northern Alliance to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. In 2011, NATO aircraft with substantial U.S. involvement were able to totally turn the tide in Libya's civil war. They rescued the Libyan rebel forces from destruction at the hands of the Libyan military and overwhelmed Moammar Gadhafi's ability to withstand the rebel onslaught.
Air power is not the only thing the United States can bring to the table. The U.S. military also has extensive intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities that would greatly aid the Iraqis' situational awareness and understanding of the battle space. Furthermore, greater direct U.S. involvement would likely pressure Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's administration to accomodate Iraq's Sunni minority. Al-Maliki's intransigence has alienated and angered the Sunni tribal sheikhs, who have either aided or ignored the operations of the Islamic State in their areas. A similar pattern existed when the Islamic State's forerunners were operating in the Sunni areas of Iraq following the U.S. invasion and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
As the United States becomes further re-engaged in Iraq, it will probably renew its ties with the Sunni sheikhs and place heavy pressure on their Saudi patrons. Discontent with the Islamic State's draconian policies already exists among the more moderate Sunni population, and American money can easily tip the balance. The sheikhs could quickly turn on the jihadists, bringing about part two of the Anbar Awakening.
Already, fissures are appearing between the Islamic State and other Iraqi Sunni factions. After initial neutrality, several Sunni tribal factions are reportedly assisting the Iraqi army in Tikrit. It is reasonable to imagine a scenario in which the Sunni sheikhs' local intelligence networks and U.S. air power once again prove to be a powerful combination. Jihadists hiding in heavily populated cities are hard to strike, but with superior intelligence and precision munitions it can be done.
In terms of terrorist attacks outside of Iraq and Syria, the group is perhaps best known for the November 2005 attack on three hotels in Amman, Jordan. The bombings were the first successful mass casualty attack the group had conducted in Jordan after several thwarted and botched attempts. However, a careful examination of that attack revealed that half of the suicide vests dispatched failed to detonate as designed. Had they functioned, the attack would have been far more devastating. In another Amman attack in October 2002, the Islamic State shot and killed U.S. Agency for International Development employee Laurence Foley.
Except for the Amman hotel bombings and the Foley assassination, the Islamic State's attacks have lacked sophistication and resulted in only minor casualties and damage. The group has launched some ineffective rocket attacks in Jordan, and the jihadist attacks seen to date in Lebanon have been pretty amateurish, including a thwarted suicide bombing attempt last week when Lebanese authorities attempted to arrest the bomber at his Beirut hotel.
The bottom line is that while the Islamic State has conducted successful terrorist attacks in moderately hostile places such as Arbil, Basra and Damascus, those are places with inept or corrupt security forces relatively near to the group's bombmakers and operational commanders and where the group has some local support networks. Even if it wanted to, the organization does not appear to have the sorts of skilled operators who can conduct operations inside the United States or Europe.
Even in its attacks in places like Baghdad, the Islamic State has struggled to hit hard targets in recent years. Most of its recent attacks have focused on soft targets in Shiite neighborhoods. It is questionable that it has the ability to hit the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad with a meaningful strike, let alone the U.S. mainland.
Perhaps the greatest threat from the Islamic State is that it will send or inspire a foreign grassroots jihadist like Mehdi Nemmouche to conduct a small attack. There are far more jihadists in Syria and Iraq who possess Nemmouche's skill set than there are operatives who can orchestrate sophisticated attacks, and the Islamic State has developed a significant international following through its social media outreach campaigns. But while such simple attacks can create some panic, they will not be really effective unless they can be conducted frequently.
If the Islamic State was somehow able to pull off an attack in the United States, or to inspire grassroots jihadists to conduct attacks there, the group could face some serious retaliation. As al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula learned after inspiring attacks in Little Rock, Ark., and Fort Hood, Texas, and then attempting attacks like the December 2009 underwear bombing, attacks directed against the United States might help increase a group's profile, but that increased profile comes at a high price. Like the Taliban and al Qaeda before it, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has seen its operations hit hard by sustained U.S. military and intelligence operations.
A large attack in the United States would risk awakening what has been for the past few years a disinterested giant. Indeed, one of the important factors in the growth of the Islamic State is that the United States has not paid much attention to it. Invoking the wrath of the United States would almost certainly bring a calamity upon the Islamic State, spelling the end of any Islamic polity it seeks to create.
3a) Obama Seeks An Escape From the Middle East
By Victor Davis Hanson
In his first term, Barack Obama all but declared victory in America's Middle East struggles.
Those claims echoed Vice President Joe Biden's earlier boast that Iraq somehow would prove Obama's "greatest achievement."
But what exactly was the new Obama strategy that supposedly had all but achieved a victory in the larger war on terror amid Middle East hostility?
We tilted toward Turkey and the Palestinians while sternly lecturing Israel. Military victory was caricatured as an obsolete concept. Leading from behind was a clever substitute.
But there remained one caveat: What had been won on the ground could be just as easily lost if the U.S. did not leave behind peacekeepers in the manner that it had in all its past successful interventions -- the Balkans, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea.
Likewise, the once-derided "war on terror" measures -- Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, military tribunals, preventative detentions, renditions and drones -- by 2009 had largely worked. Since 9/11, America had foiled dozens of terrorist plots against our homeland and neutralized terrorists abroad, killing tens of thousands in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Much of the focus has been on the group's audacious claim of founding a new caliphate and the seeming impunity with which it operates in the Sunni areas of Iraq. But the intensity of the organization's anti-U.S. public relations effort demonstrates how much it fears U.S. intervention.
Past U.S. Responses to Insurgents
To date, the U.S. response to the Islamic State's offensive in Iraq has been modest. The United States established a joint operations center in Baghdad on June 25 to coordinate intelligence gathering efforts. It then delivered 75 Hellfire missiles to bolster the Iraqi army's offensive to take back Tikrit. Most recently, U.S. President Barack Obama on June 30 ordered 200 more troops, in addition to some 300 already deployed, to Iraq to reinforce the U.S. Embassy and to provide additional security at the Baghdad airport. Deliberations on whether to conduct airstrikes -- and the scale and scope of such operations -- are ongoing.Though there has not been a significant response, it is no wonder that the Islamic State is afraid of a new U.S. intervention in Iraq. Recent history has proved how powerful the U.S. military can be in a campaign against a militant organization -- or a government for that matter -- even if it has a small presence on the ground.
In 2003, U.S. air power shredded the Iraqi military prior to the U.S. ground invasion of Iraq. The Islamic State will also remember the June 2006 U.S. airstrike that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of its parent organization, and the April 2010 airstrike that killed Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, the group's first Iraqi leader, and his deputy Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
The Islamic State may also have taken note of instances of U.S. military superiority in its near abroad. In 2001, U.S. air power, combined with a few CIA and special operations personnel on the ground, was able to work with the Northern Alliance to remove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. In 2011, NATO aircraft with substantial U.S. involvement were able to totally turn the tide in Libya's civil war. They rescued the Libyan rebel forces from destruction at the hands of the Libyan military and overwhelmed Moammar Gadhafi's ability to withstand the rebel onslaught.
Air power is not the only thing the United States can bring to the table. The U.S. military also has extensive intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities that would greatly aid the Iraqis' situational awareness and understanding of the battle space. Furthermore, greater direct U.S. involvement would likely pressure Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's administration to accomodate Iraq's Sunni minority. Al-Maliki's intransigence has alienated and angered the Sunni tribal sheikhs, who have either aided or ignored the operations of the Islamic State in their areas. A similar pattern existed when the Islamic State's forerunners were operating in the Sunni areas of Iraq following the U.S. invasion and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Using Tribal Sheiks Against the Islamic State
The tribal sheikhs basically used the jihadists as a tool, and when the United States made concessions to them -- and essentially bought them off -- they quickly turned on the jihadists, who were nearly destroyed. In a December 2013 assessment of the group, Stratfor noted that the Sunni sheikhs did not totally destroy the Islamic State in Iraq because they thought they might need to use the group as a tool again. This dynamic played a large role in the current insurgency. Many Sunni sheikhs were unhappy with al-Maliki's treatment of them, prompting them to allow the jihadists to rise in order to elevate their strategic position against Baghdad.As the United States becomes further re-engaged in Iraq, it will probably renew its ties with the Sunni sheikhs and place heavy pressure on their Saudi patrons. Discontent with the Islamic State's draconian policies already exists among the more moderate Sunni population, and American money can easily tip the balance. The sheikhs could quickly turn on the jihadists, bringing about part two of the Anbar Awakening.
Already, fissures are appearing between the Islamic State and other Iraqi Sunni factions. After initial neutrality, several Sunni tribal factions are reportedly assisting the Iraqi army in Tikrit. It is reasonable to imagine a scenario in which the Sunni sheikhs' local intelligence networks and U.S. air power once again prove to be a powerful combination. Jihadists hiding in heavily populated cities are hard to strike, but with superior intelligence and precision munitions it can be done.
Viability of the Threat: Bluster Can Backfire
The Islamic State does have cadres who possess advanced terrorist tradecraft skills. However, it has historically struggled to project its terrorist power beyond its core areas of operation.In terms of terrorist attacks outside of Iraq and Syria, the group is perhaps best known for the November 2005 attack on three hotels in Amman, Jordan. The bombings were the first successful mass casualty attack the group had conducted in Jordan after several thwarted and botched attempts. However, a careful examination of that attack revealed that half of the suicide vests dispatched failed to detonate as designed. Had they functioned, the attack would have been far more devastating. In another Amman attack in October 2002, the Islamic State shot and killed U.S. Agency for International Development employee Laurence Foley.
Except for the Amman hotel bombings and the Foley assassination, the Islamic State's attacks have lacked sophistication and resulted in only minor casualties and damage. The group has launched some ineffective rocket attacks in Jordan, and the jihadist attacks seen to date in Lebanon have been pretty amateurish, including a thwarted suicide bombing attempt last week when Lebanese authorities attempted to arrest the bomber at his Beirut hotel.
The bottom line is that while the Islamic State has conducted successful terrorist attacks in moderately hostile places such as Arbil, Basra and Damascus, those are places with inept or corrupt security forces relatively near to the group's bombmakers and operational commanders and where the group has some local support networks. Even if it wanted to, the organization does not appear to have the sorts of skilled operators who can conduct operations inside the United States or Europe.
Even in its attacks in places like Baghdad, the Islamic State has struggled to hit hard targets in recent years. Most of its recent attacks have focused on soft targets in Shiite neighborhoods. It is questionable that it has the ability to hit the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad with a meaningful strike, let alone the U.S. mainland.
Perhaps the greatest threat from the Islamic State is that it will send or inspire a foreign grassroots jihadist like Mehdi Nemmouche to conduct a small attack. There are far more jihadists in Syria and Iraq who possess Nemmouche's skill set than there are operatives who can orchestrate sophisticated attacks, and the Islamic State has developed a significant international following through its social media outreach campaigns. But while such simple attacks can create some panic, they will not be really effective unless they can be conducted frequently.
If the Islamic State was somehow able to pull off an attack in the United States, or to inspire grassroots jihadists to conduct attacks there, the group could face some serious retaliation. As al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula learned after inspiring attacks in Little Rock, Ark., and Fort Hood, Texas, and then attempting attacks like the December 2009 underwear bombing, attacks directed against the United States might help increase a group's profile, but that increased profile comes at a high price. Like the Taliban and al Qaeda before it, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has seen its operations hit hard by sustained U.S. military and intelligence operations.
A large attack in the United States would risk awakening what has been for the past few years a disinterested giant. Indeed, one of the important factors in the growth of the Islamic State is that the United States has not paid much attention to it. Invoking the wrath of the United States would almost certainly bring a calamity upon the Islamic State, spelling the end of any Islamic polity it seeks to create.
3a) Obama Seeks An Escape From the Middle East
By Victor Davis Hanson
In his first term, Barack Obama all but declared victory in America's Middle East struggles.
As he precipitously pulled out all U.S. peacekeepers from Iraq, the president had his own "Mission Accomplished" moment when declaring the country "stable," "self-reliant" and an "extraordinary achievement."
Those claims echoed Vice President Joe Biden's earlier boast that Iraq somehow would prove Obama's "greatest achievement."
After the death of Osama bin Laden, and during Obama's re-election campaign, the president also proclaimed that al-Qaeda was a spent force and "on the run."
But what exactly was the new Obama strategy that supposedly had all but achieved a victory in the larger war on terror amid Middle East hostility?
Fuzzy euphemisms replaced supposedly hurtful terms like "terrorism," "jihadist" and "Islamist." The administration gave well-meaning speeches exaggerating Islamic achievement while citing past American culpability.
We tilted toward Turkey and the Palestinians while sternly lecturing Israel. Military victory was caricatured as an obsolete concept. Leading from behind was a clever substitute.
Middle Easterners gathered that a bruised America would limp away from the region and pivot its forces elsewhere, saving billions of dollars to be better spent at home. The new soft-power rhetorical approach sought to win over the hearts and minds of the Arab Street, and thereby deny terrorists popular support.
To grade that policy, survey the current Middle East, or what is left of it: Egypt, the Gulf monarchies, Iraq, Iran, Israel and the Palestinians, Libya, Syria and Turkey. It is fair to say that America has somehow managed to alienate friends, embolden enemies and multiply radical Islamic terrorists.
So what happened?
In short, the Obama administration put politics and ideology ahead of a disinterested and nonpartisan examination of the actual status of the 2009 Middle East.
The more Obama campaigned in 2008 on a failed war in Iraq, a neglected war in Afghanistan, an ill-considered war on terror and an alienated Middle East, the more those talking points were outdated and eclipsed by fast-moving events on the ground.
By Inauguration Day in January 2009, the hard-power surge had largely defeated al-Qaeda in Iraq. It had won over many of the Sunnis and had led to a U.S.-enforced coalition government, monitored by American troops.
But there remained one caveat: What had been won on the ground could be just as easily lost if the U.S. did not leave behind peacekeepers in the manner that it had in all its past successful interventions -- the Balkans, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea.
Likewise, the once-derided "war on terror" measures -- Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, military tribunals, preventative detentions, renditions and drones -- by 2009 had largely worked. Since 9/11, America had foiled dozens of terrorist plots against our homeland and neutralized terrorists abroad, killing tens of thousands in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
Obama for a while privately accepted that truth and thereby continued many of the very protocols that he had once derided.
But there was again one problem. Obama kept posturing to the world that he would close Guantanamo and substitute civilian trials for military tribunals. He continued to say that he did not enjoy using renditions or drones -- even as he upped the latter's deadly missions tenfold.
The results were contradictory messages that encouraged radical Islamists. The conclusion radical Islamists drew was that even the Obama administration had admitted its anti-terrorism protocols were either morally questionable or ineffective.
Blaming a video maker instead of immediately taking out the known jihadists who had murdered Americans in Benghazi only reinforced that mixed message. So did exchanging five terrorist kingpins in Guantanamo for an alleged American military deserter in Afghanistan.
A series of empty Middle East red lines, deadlines and withdrawal dates likewise reinforced the idea of American abdication.
We warned Syria of air strikes and then backed down. We surged in Afghanistan only to simultaneously announce a withdrawal date for our troops. We issued Iran lots of deadlines to stop enriching uranium, only to forget them and end sanctions in hope of negotiations.
As was the case with Russia, at first there were few consequences to such reset diplomacy and promises of easy victory. Al-Qaeda had been nearly wiped out in Anbar province in 2007-08 and was still regrouping. Iran had been crippled by sanctions and was wary of U.S. intentions. Terrorists did not wish to end up at Guantanamo or in a military tribunal.
But newly emboldened terrorists gambled that the old deterrence was stale and now existed mostly as Obama's reset rhetoric. They gambled that it was a great time to go on the offensive. They may have been right.
Once more in the Middle East, Barack Obama is looking to blame others for a mess that has grown since 2009. But mostly he just wants out of the lose-lose region at any cost and wishes that someone would just make all the bad things go away.
--------------------------------------------------------------4)Medical staff warned: Keep your mouths shut about illegal immigrants or face arrest
By Todd Starnes
A government-contracted security force threatened to arrest doctors and nurses if they divulged any information about the contagion threat at a refugee camp housing illegal alien children at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, sources say.
In spite of the threat, several former camp workers broke their confidentiality agreements and shared exclusive details with me about the dangerous conditions at the camp. They said taxpayers deserve to know about the contagious diseases and the risks the children pose to Americans. I have agreed to not to disclose their identities because they fear retaliation and prosecution.
My sources say Americans should be very concerned about the secrecy of the government camps.
“There were several of us who wanted to talk about the camps, but the agents made it clear we would be arrested,” a psychiatric counselor told me. “We were under orders not to say anything.”
The sources said workers were guarded by a security force from the BCFS, which the Department of Health and Human Services hired to run the Lackland Camp.
The sources say security forces called themselves the “Brown Shirts.”
“It was a very submissive atmosphere,” the counselor said. “Once you stepped onto the grounds, you abided by their laws – the Brown Shirt laws.”
She said the workers were stripped of their cellphones and other communication devices. Anyone caught with a phone was immediately fired.
“Everyone was paranoid,” she said. “The children had more rights than the workers.”
She said children in the camp had measles, scabies, chicken pox and strep throat as well as mental and emotional issues.
“It was not a good atmosphere in terms of health,” she said. “I would be talking to children and lice would just be climbing down their hair.”
A former nurse at the camp told me she was horrified by what she saw.
“We have so many kids coming in that there was no way to control all of the sickness – all this stuff coming into the country,” she said. “We were very concerned at one point about strep going around the base.”
Both the counselor and the nurse said their superiors tried to cover up the extent of the illnesses.
“When they found out the kids had scabies, the charge nurse was adamant – ‘Don’t mention that. Don’t say scabies,’” the nurse recounted. “But everybody knew they had scabies. Some of the workers were very concerned about touching things and picking things up. They asked if they should be concerned, but they were told don’t worry about it.”
The nurse said the lice issue was epidemic – but everything was kept “hush-hush.”
“You could see the bugs crawling through their hair,” she said. “After we would rinse out their hair, the sink would be loaded with black bugs.”
The nurse told me she became especially alarmed because their files indicated the children had been transported to Lackland on domestic charter buses and airplanes.
“That’s what alerted me,” she said. “Oh, my God. They’re flying these kids around. Nobody knows that these children have scabies and lice. To tell you the truth, there’s no way to control it.”
I don't mean to upset anyone's Independence Day vacation plans, but were these kids transported to the camps before or after they were deloused? Anyone who flies the friendly skies could be facing a public health concern.
The counselor told me the refugee camp resembled a giant emergency room – off limits to the public.
“They did not want the community to know,” she said. “I initially spoke out at Lackland because I had a concern the children’s mental health care was not being taken care of.”
She said the breaking point came when camp officials refused to hospitalize several children who were suicidal.
“I made a recommendation that a child needed to be sent to a psychiatric unit,” the counselor told me. “He was reaching psychosis. He was suicidal. Instead of treating him, they sent him off to a family in the United States.”
She said she filed a Child Protective Services report and quit her job.
“I didn’t want to lose my license if this kid committed suicide,” she told me. “I was done.”
The counselor kept a detailed journal about what happened during her tenure at the facility.
“When people read that journal they are going to be astonished,” she said. ‘I don’t think they will believe what is going on in America.”
So it was not a great surprise, she said, when she received a call from federal agents demanding that she return to the military base and hand over her journal.
She said she declined to do so.
“I didn’t go back to Lackland,” she said.
Both workers told me while they have no regrets, they want to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.
“They’re going to crush the system,” the nurse told me. “We can’t sustain this. They are overwhelming the system and I think it’s a travesty.”
BCFS spokeswoman Krista Piferrer tells me the agency takes “any allegation of malfeasance or inappropriate care of a child very seriously.”
“There are a number of checks and balances to ensure children are receiving appropriate and adequate mental health care,” she said.
Piferrer said the clinicians are supervised by a federal field specialist from HHS’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. She also said BCFS have 58 medical professionals serving at Lackland.
“Every illness, whether it is a headache or something more serious, is recorded in a child’s electronic medical record and posted on WebEOC – a real-time, web-based platform that is visible to not only BCFS but the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,” she said.
As for those brown shirts, the BCFS said they are “incident management team personnel” – who happen to wear tan shirts.
My sources say Americans should be very concerned about the secrecy of the government camps.
“This is just the beginning,” one source told me. "It is a long-term financial responsibility.”
Editor's Note: The contractor running the refugee camp at Lackland Air Force Base is "BCFS," not "Baptist Family and Children's Services" - as noted in a previous version of this story.
Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. Sign up for his American Dispatch newsletter, be sure to join his Facebook page, and follow him on Twitter. His latest book is "God Less America”
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