Thursday, May 9, 2013
Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, May 9, 2013
Good mornin', folks!
Just to let you know, Benghazi updates - new Benghazi newsbites - will continue to be posted within yesterday's "Benghazi Hearing" post's comment section.
In fact... I just posted a four-part newbite of today's NYT front page hearings coverage there!
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http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/watchdog-says-government-tried-to-silence-him-91110.html
The watchdog who tracks the billions of taxpayer dollars spent to rebuild Afghanistan says government officials have tried to silence him because they think he's embarrassing the White House and Afghan President Hamid Karzai by pointing out the waste and fraud.
John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction...
* SPECIAL INSPECTOR GENERAL FOR AFGHANISTAN RECONSTRUCTION...
...used a speech at the New America Foundation on Wednesday to blast government “bureaucrats”' who have told him to stop publicizing damning audits that detail case after case of waste, corruption and mismanagement of rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan.
* NAMES! I WANT NAMES!
Some government officials have even complained that they aren't allowed to pre-screen or edit his reports, he said.
* NAMES! I WANT NAMES!
“Over the last 10 months, I have been criticized by some bureaucrats for not pre-clearing my press releases with them, for not letting them edit the titles of my audits, for talking too much to Congress, for talking too much to the press … and, basically, for not being a 'team player' and undermining 'our country’s mission in Afghanistan,'” he said.
“Many in our government, even some surprisingly senior officials you think would know better, seem to believe that an inspector general should be their partner — or, more correctly, their silent partner,” he said. “In their opinion, my reports should be slipped in a sealed envelope in the dead of night under the door — never to see the light of day — because those reports could embarrass the administration, embarrass President Karzai, embarrass Afghanistan.”
* N*A*M*E*S...!!!
“Since my appointment by the president last summer, I have been surprised to learn how many people both in and out of the government do not understand the role of an independent inspector general,” Sopko said.
Since taking office last July, Sopko has increased the number of audits and investigations threefold. His office has made 73 recommendations to government agencies that he says would save at least $450 million if enacted.
Sopko defended his aggressive oversight of billions of taxpayer dollars being spent in Afghanistan, saying he's just trying to do the right thing.
“I am not a cheerleader. I’m a watchdog — it is my job to point out what isn’t working, so it can be fixed. To do it any other way is to just muddle along and then nothing will change,” he said.
http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2013/05/09/school-officials-address-video-of-fight-among-students-at-chester-high-school/
* WATCH THE VIDEO...
On Wednesday, police arrested five students they say were involved in the fight at Chester High School.
* A "FIGHT?" FOLKS... I WAS IN PLENTY OF FIGHTS ALL THROUGHOUT K-12 AND EVEN ONCE IN COLLEGE; THIS WASN'T A "FIGHT." THIS WAS A BREAKDOWN OF CIVILIZATION.
The video shows a group of students not only throwing punches, but using chairs to attack and beat a 16-year-old boy inside the library of Chester High School.
Police tell us the incident happened Tuesday afternoon. They confirm they were not notified by the school but rather by a student Tuesday night after the student saw the video on Facebook.
* I DON'T KNOW IF THESE "SCHOOL OFFICIALS" CAN BE CHARGED WITH A CRIME FOR NOT REPORTING THE "INCIDENT," BUT AT THE VERY LEAST THEY SHOULD BE FIRED. (BUT I DOUBT THEY WILL BE...)
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-intelligence-report-vulnerability-boston-bombing-20130509,0,7305052.story
Five days before two bombs tore through crowds at the Boston Marathon, an intelligence report identified the finish line of the race as an "area of increased vulnerability" and warned Boston police that extremists may use "small scale bombings" to attack spectators and runners at the event.
The 18-page report was written by the Boston Regional Intelligence Center, a command center funded in part by the Department of Homeland Security that helps disseminate intelligence information to local police and first responders.
* AND WHO MANS THIS BOSTON REGIONAL INTELLIGENCE CENTER? BOSTON POLICE? HOMELAND SECURITY? FBI? ALL THREE? ADDITIONAL AGENCIES?
The "joint special event assessment" is dated April 10. It notes that at the time there was "no credible, specific information indicating an imminent threat" to the race.
* AGAIN... DEFINE "JOINT."
"The FBI has not identified any specific lone offender or extremist group who pose a threat to the Boston marathon," the report reads.
* SO... A THREAT... RIGHT? UNIDENTIFIED... BUT STILL A THREAT. A SPECIFIC THREAT LOCATION!
Since the blasts, the FBI has acknowledged that agents had interviewed one of the suspected bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in 2011 but determined that he did not pose a threat.
* YEAH, YEAH... WE KNOW...
Customs agents were aware that Tsarnaev had traveled to Russia in 2012, but decided that he didn't require additional questioning when he returned to the U.S. later that year.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
What was known to the FBI and other agencies before the Boston bombings was being examined by the House Homeland Security Committee on Thursday in the first of a series of hearings investigating the attacks.
Top police officials in Boston testified to the panel that the FBI never shared with local law enforcement agencies that Tsarnaev had visited Dagestan and that FBI and Russian officials were concerned he and possibly his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, might become radicalized extremists.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
“We would have liked to have known,” said Edward F. Davis III, commissioner of the Boston Police Department. But, he said, “we were not aware of the two brothers, we were not aware of their activities.” In fact, Davis testified, it was more than three days after the April 15 bombing, after Tamerlan was killed in a police shootout and Dzhokhar was on the run, before he learned about the Tsarnaevs.
* THIS... IS... UNACCEPTABLE...!!!
Kurt N. Schwartz, Massachusetts undersecretary for homeland security, added that “at no time were we told about the brothers.”
* HOMELAND "SECURITY," HUH?
Former Sen. Joe Lieberman, at one time chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said that if the FBI had shared the information on the Tsarnaevs, it “could have prevented all this from happening,” referring to the three killed and 260 injured at the marathon.
* "COULD" BEING THE OPERATIVE WORD. (SO... JOE... ARE YOU CALLING FOR BIG SIS TO RESIGN? ARE YOU CALLING FOR HOLDER TO RESIGN? NAH... DIDN'T THINK SO.)
Local communities, Lieberman said, “are going to be your first line of defense. So I’d say the fact that neither the FBI nor the Department of Homeland Security notified the local members of the Joint Terrorism Task Force is really a serious and aggravating omission.
* BUT I BET NO ONE GETS FIRED! HECK... I'D BE SURPRISED (PLEASANTLY SURPRISED) IF ANY OF THE INCOMPETENT FEDS EVEN GETS DEMOTED!
“Nobody bats 1,000 percent, it's true,” he said. “How do you explain it? People are imperfect.”
* VERY GLIB. DID YOU EVER THINK THAT THIS "GLIBNESS" IS WHY WE'RE IN THE SHAPE WE'RE IN? INCOMPETENCE IS SIMPLY "TSK-TSKED" AWAY. PLENTY OF HARM... BUT NO OFFICIAL "FOUL."
House Homeland Security Committee member Peter King (R-NY) agreed, recalling that FBI officials also never told the New York Police Department that they were aware of an unfolding plot to bomb Times Square before an arrest was made there.
* AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THOSE INCOMPETENT FBI OFFICIALS?
“The failure to share information is absolutely indefensible,” King said.
* AND, YET... APPARENTLY NOT GROUNDS FOR DISCIPLINARY ACTION.
http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2013/05/08/kevyn-orr-detroit-is-in-worse-shape-than-i-thought/
Detroit’s emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, says the city is bleeding much more red ink than originally thought.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
* THE LEGACY OF DEMOCRAT POLITICAL CONTROL...
Orr uses charts and graphs to paint the bleak picture of the city’s finances, including over $15 billion in long-term debt and an accumulated operating deficit of $325 million.
“We’ve been collecting operating deficits at about $18 million to $20 million a year. That’s nobody’s fault, I think, frankly, the mayor and the council has done the best they can with what they have.
* HUH...?!?! NO ONE'S FAULT...?!?! CLEARLY IT'S THE FAULT OF THOSE IN POWER WHO SPENT MORE MONEY THAN THE CITY WAS TAKING IN! GEEZUS... THIS AIN'T ROCKET SCIENCE, FOLKS!
The city has probably cut as much as it can cut to the bone now, and so its been trying to operate on the basis of borrowing short-term loans all the time,” he said.
* NO! KEEP CUTTING! ADDING EVEN MORE DEBT TO ALREADY UNSUSTAINABLE DEBT SHOULD BE UNDERSTOOD AS A NO-GO!
Orr said he isn’t ruling out bankruptcy for the city just yet.
* WHICH WOULD MEAN...???
“Frankly, from my perspective, if I can accomplish what I need to accomplish without bankruptcy, I’d be elated,” he said. “I can’t guarantee that [bankruptcy won't happen] in the least, in fact, to a large degree that’s going to be dependent upon the positions of a lot of other stakeholders that they have in this, some of whom might prefer a court order to make them do the things they need to do.”
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
http://cnsnews.com/sites/default/files/documents/Law%20Enforcement%20Letter%20To%20Congress.pdf
http://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/bill-gives-dhs-sec-virtually-unlimited-discretion-waive-any-manner-crimes-ice
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) entered a letter from law enforcement officials nationwide warning of the dangers of the immigration bill S.744 into the judiciary committee record today.
The letter to Congress from the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council of the American Federation of Government Employees Affiliated with AFL-CIO warns of the discretionary power the bill gives to “political appointees” and takes away from law enforcers:
“Congress can and must take decisive steps to limit the discretion of political appointees and empower ICE and CBP to perform their respective missions and enforce the laws enacted by Congress.
Rather than limiting the power of those political appointees within DHS, S. 744 provides them with nearly unlimited discretion, which will serve only to further cripple the law enforcement missions of these agencies.”
They warn that the Senate immigration bill gives DHS Sec. Janet Napolitano “virtually unlimited discretion to waiver” prohibitions on obtaining legal status, such as criminal activity or previous deportation:
“This same section (Section 2101 of S. 744) gives the Secretary of Homeland Security virtually unlimited discretion to waive any manner of crimes that would otherwise make an individual ineligible for legal status - for such expansive reasons as family unity, humanitarian purposes, or what the Secretary believes is in the public interest.”
“At least two of these standards appear undefined by S. 744 or current law, providing political appointees with broad authority to establish their own definitions of these terms and pardon criminal acts under almost any circumstance.”
* GEEZUS...
“The bill states that individuals who have previously been deported or otherwise removed from the country are ineligible to apply for legal status. However, the Secretary is given the 'sole and unreviewable discretion' to waive that ineligibility for large classes of qualifying aliens.”
* GEEZUS...
The letter concludes that ICE officers would continue to be “powerless” to protect the public and do their jobs if the bill becomes law:
“If this legislation were enacted tomorrow, ICE officers would continue to be powerless to effectively enforce our nation’s laws and provide for public safety as S. 744 does nothing to end these dangerous agency- and department-level directives.”
* FOLKS... S. 744 ISN'T A PROPOSED "LAW" AS MUCH AS IT IS A NEW AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL DELEGATION OF POWER TO POLITICAL APPOINTEES.
* FOLKS... THE PRESIDENT HAS PARDON POWER. (VIA THE CONSTITUTION!) GOVERNORS HAVE PARDON POWER. (VIA THEIR STATE CONSTITUTIONS!) JUDGES MAY VACATE GUILTY VERDICTS "IN THE INTERESTS OF JUSTICE" AND WITH REGARD TO MILITARY JUSTICE THE "CONVENING AUTHORITY" HAS THIS SAME POWER. ALL OF THIS IS IN LINE WITH THE COMMON LAW OF THE WEST WHICH IS THE BASIS OF OUR GOVERNMENTAL SYSTEM. BUT THIS... THIS NEW SCHEME... IS EXTRA-CONSTITUTIONAL AT BEST... A DELIBERATE ASSAULT UPON THE RULE OF LAW AT WORST!
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