Thursday, September 11, 2014

Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, September 11, 2014


Remember 9-11-01...
(*PURSED LIPS*)
...and never forget - or forgive - 9-11-12.
 
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12 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/u-s-confirms-isil-planning-infiltration-of-u-s-southern-border/

A senior Homeland Security (DHS) official confirmed to Congress on Wednesday that militants associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) are planning to enter the United States via the porous southern border.

Francis Taylor, under secretary for intelligence and analysis at DHS, told senators during a hearing that ISIL supporters are known to be plotting ways to infiltrate the United States through the border.

“There have been Twitter, social media exchanges among ISIL adherents across the globe speaking about that as a possibility,” Taylor told Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) in response to a question about “recent reports on Twitter and Facebook of messages that would urge infiltration into the U.S. across our southwestern border.”

“Certainly any infiltration across our border would be a threat,” Taylor said, explaining that border security agents are working to tighten measures that would prevent this from taking place.

“I’m satisfied we have the intelligence and the capability on our border that would prevent that activity,” Taylor said.

However, McCain was dubious, referring to recent videos released by activist James O’Keefe showing him crossing the border while wearing an Osama bin Laden mask.

Asked by McCain why agents did not stop O’Keefe, Taylor could not provide an answer.

“You can’t answer it because they weren’t there to stop him,” McCain responded.

“The fact is there are thousands of people who are coming across our border who are undetected and not identified, and for you to sit there and tell me that we have the capability or now have the proper protections of our southwest border, particularly in light of the urgings over Facebook and Twitter [by ISIL] for people to come across our southwestern border, is a great concern to the citizens of my state.”

* NOW... GET THIS:

UPDATE 7:28 P.M.: Following publication of Francis Taylor’s remarks, a DHS spokesperson contacted the Washington Free Beacon to "clarify" his comments about the exact threat ISIL poses to the southern border.

“There is no credible intelligence to suggest that there is an active plot by ISIL to attempt to cross the southern border,” the DHS spokesperson said.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

* BTW... THE ACRONYMS ISIL AND ISIS ARE INTERCHANGEABLE.

September 11, 2014 at 1:50 PM
William R. Barker said...

* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)

http://dailysignal.com/2014/09/11/one-border-hot-spot-concern-federal-prosecutors-cooled-security/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonvK%2FOZKXonjHpfsX56%2BorWa6zlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4DTsdmI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrLBMa1ozrgOWxU%3D

Officials in Yuma County, Ariz., a border region long a hot spot for illegal immigration, say Eric Holder's Justice Department is scaling back an established program that uses prosecution and imprisonment to discourage illegal border crossings.

* THE SHOULD SCALE BACK THE PRISON. IT SHOULD BE PROSECUTION, CONVICTION, PUBLIC WHIPPING, FORFEITURE OF ALL ASSETS, FOLLOWED BY IMMEDIATE DEPORTATION.

* AHH... BUT THAT'S MY FANTASY...

Arizona’s two U.S. senators wrote U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder seeking confirmation that federal prosecutors based in the state — following directions from Washington — no longer will prosecute first-time border crossers under the program, Operation Streamline.

* BUT WILL THEY BE DEPORTED?

The new move, directed specifically at the U.S. Border Patrol’s Yuma sector, would put it in line with other areas that don’t follow Yuma’s “no tolerance” policy.

* GREAT...

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

In an Aug.19 letter to Flake, Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot wrote: "This new guidance is of great concern because it undermines the mission of local law enforcement agencies throughout Yuma County for 100% prosecution of those entering the U.S. illegally in order to curb re-entries."

(Justice Department officials did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment...)

In civil immigration courts across the country, deportation cases are handled as violations of the nation’s administrative code. But courts used for the Justice Department’s Operation Streamline treat the act of illegally crossing the border as a federal crime.

* AND THAT'S WHAT OBAMA WANTS TO CHANGE...

* BTW... HASN'T THE ADMINISTRATION ARGUED IN THE PAST THAT IT'S NOT A FEDERAL CRIME TO BE HERE ILLEGALLY PER SE? I KNOW LIBS HAVE! WELL...???

* TO BE CONTINUED...

September 11, 2014 at 2:53 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)

The idea is that everybody arrested is prosecuted for illegal entry or re-entry, before earning a conviction and prison time — and then being immediately deported.

* FAIR ENOUGH... AT LEAST UPON INITIAL "CATCH AND DEPORT." (ONLY I'D ADD CAPITAL PUNISHMENT... AT THE VERY LEAST FORFEITURE OF ALL MONEY AND PROPERTY - INCLUDING CLOTHING...) (YEAH... LET THE MEXICANS CLOTH 'EM AS WE TOSS 'EM OVER THE BORDER!)

David Inserra, an expert on homeland security at The Heritage Foundation, said that under the Immigration and Nationality Act, those charged with illegally entering the U.S. can get six months behind bars for a first-time entry — a misdemeanor — and a two-year sentence for a re-entry — a felony.

* REMEMBER THE BIG DEBATE A FEW YEARS AGO WHEN ARIZONA'S TOUGH POLICIES OF MIRRORING ACTUAL FEDERAL LAW (ONLY ACTUALLY ENFORCING IT!)? WEREN'T WE CONSTANTLY TOLD "MERE" ILLEGAL ENTRY WASN'T A CRIME... WASN'T A FELONY? (RHETORICAL QUESTION!)

* FOLKS... AGAIN... THEY'LL LIE AND LIE AND LIE AND LIE...

Until the program began, many who crossed the border illegally were allowed to return home voluntarily if they didn’t have a criminal record or a high number of prior illegal entries.

* AGAIN... THEY SHOULD SUFFER PHYSICAL PUNISHMENT AND FORFEITURE OF ALL PERSONAL PROPERTY AND MONEY! (THEN KICKED OUT!)

Shawn Moran, vice president for the National Border Patrol Council, confirmed to The Daily Signal that federal officials recently announced they will move forward with the new prosecution procedures in the Yuma sector. “Before it was 100% prosecutions; now you would get a free pass on the first arrest,” Moran said. The union official added: "We think it’s a bad idea. You are taking something that works for that system and changing it. Illegal activity in Yuma was basically locked down in part due to 100% prosecution of those who cross illegally."

* AGAIN, FOLKS... OBAMA/HOLDER ARE LITERALLY CONSPIRING WITH THE ILLEGAL INVADERS! ASSISTING THEM TO BREAK OUR LAWS! WORKING WITH THEM!

Moran said the Yuma sector is the “only place” he knows of that had enforced 100% prosecution.

* WHICH IS NO DOUBT WHY THEY'RE BEING TARGETED!

September 11, 2014 at 2:54 PM
William R. Barker said...

* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)

http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-09-10.html

* NOTE: I DESPISE ANN COULTER PROBABLY HALF THE TIME... THE OTHER HALF - INCLUDING NOW - SHE'S RIGHT ON TARGET!

President Obama now says he will wait until after the November elections to implement an "executive amnesty" for 11 million illegal aliens, so as not to hurt Democrats' chances this year.

Instead of waiting to be enraged in December, voters, could you please be enraged now?

(Once the holiday season kicks off, you'll be too busy going to parties and Christmas shopping to notice that you're suddenly living in Mexico.)

Getting Obama to postpone a rancid idea isn't something to celebrate." Yay! We did it! We forced him to delay doing something the country doesn't want for SIX WEEKS!"

(*SNORT*)

* INSTEAD...

Every Republican candidate better be jamming Obama's threat down the throats of their Democratic opponents!

(*THUMBS UP*)

Obama is claiming to have the powers of a dictator.

Amnesty was considered by Congress, but - here's the important thing: It didn't pass.

It only passed the Senate, with the votes of all Democrats and 14 not-bright Republicans. After that, widespread public revulsion prevented Marco Rubio's amnesty bill from even being considered in the House.

* GOOGLE "I'M JUST A BILL ON CAPITAL HILL" (SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK!)

But according to Obama, the only reason illegals haven't already been given amnesty is that Congress is not "doing its job." What does Obama imagine Congress' "job" is? Being his errand boys?

Their job is to represent their districts.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

September 11, 2014 at 3:44 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONTINUING... (POINT 2 of 3)

I promise you, House members are doing a better job representing their districts than at least a dozen senators are at representing their states - or than Obama is doing representing the country. It's called the "People's House" for a reason.

* AND IN ANY CASE... IT'S THE CONSTITUTION! (DON'T LIKE IT; THEN MOVE TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION!)

Noticeably, every Republican senator running for re-election this year claims to oppose amnesty - even the ones who voted for it.

* SCUMBAGS... (I ONLY WISH COULTER WOULD NAME NAMES!)

Obama's base isn't even looking for representation. We could have a 1929-level stock market crash, Obama could commit a murder on the White House lawn, and they would still support the first minority president!

* YEP. I BELIEVE THIS TO BE LITERALLY TRUE! (DEPENDING UPON WHO THE MURDER VICTIM WAS!)

But Obama says he can do whatever he wants on immigration because it's "a serious issue and Congress chooses to do nothing."

* HE SHOULD BE IMPEACHED JUST FOR SAYING THIS! SERIOUSLY! IT SHOWS A COMPLETE LACK OF RESPECT FOR THE CONSTITUTION AND RULE OF LAW!

If bills became law provided only the Senate and president agreed, the Nicaraguan Contras would have been funded out of the U.S. Treasury, Reagan would have gotten his MX missiles in 1982 and the Soviet Union would have fallen five years sooner, school busing would have been eliminated without waiting for the courts to act a decade later, and most of George W. Bush's tax cuts would have been made permanent. In all those cases, a president wanted to do something - and the Senate agreed! But the House said no, so it never happened.

Obama can't ignore the House and make amnesty happen either. That's why he's talking about an "executive amnesty," which sounds like the top-tier donation category at one of the 4 million fundraisers Obama has held since becoming president, where the dinner starts at $25,000 per couple and you might bump into Jay-Z in the men's room.

(Actually, it just means Obama publicly, openly, officially stops enforcing immigration law.)

Except in his own mind, Obama can't make illegals legal. But he can direct the entire immigration apparatus of the federal government to act as if amnesty has passed. The theory is that once they've been treated as if they're legal for a few years, it's a fait accompli, and no future president will resume enforcement of the law.

* TO BE CONTINUED...

September 11, 2014 at 3:46 PM
William R. Barker said...

* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)

Not only do we have Obama's promise that he'll refuse to execute the law - it's not as if he took some kind of oath, after all - but there's good reason to believe him: After this election, Obama's got nothing to lose. Democrats will have two years to sign up 30 million illegal immigrants for Social Security benefits, food stamps and voting cards.

* ONE MORE TIME...

After this election, Obama's got nothing to lose. Democrats will have two years to sign up 30 million illegal immigrants for Social Security benefits, food stamps and voting cards.

(*FROWN*)

There is no more important political issue than this: Republicans must take the Senate this year.

* WHICH IS WHY COULTER DIDN'T "NAME NAMES" UP ABOVE.

You know how much you've been enjoying the courts overturning state referendums prohibiting gay marriage? Get ready for a lot more of your hard-won political victories to be nullified by the courts if Republicans don't take a Senate majority.

(*NOD*)

Have you heard about the federal judge conspiring with Attorney General Eric Holder and the ACLU to bring deported illegal aliens back from Mexico? Yes, he's bringing them back. That judge, John A. Kronstadt, can't be impeached unless Republicans take the Senate.

With Republican majorities in both the House and Senate, Congress should just keep passing bills and sending them to the White House (or whatever golf course Obama's on, busily not executing the law). If Obama vetoes their bills, Republicans can...

* HOPEFULLY COBBLE TOGETHER A COALITION OF THE SANE TO OVERRIDE OBAMA'S VETOS!

Surveying the wreckage of a mere two years of a Democratic president with a Democratic Congress, all Americans should be focused like a laser beam on putting the Senate in Republican hands.

Won't you be angry if our power-mad president grants millions of illegal immigrants "executive amnesty" on the basis of his non-existent constitutional authority to ignore the law? The surge of needy foreigners across our Southern border, so far, will be nothing compared to what's coming if Obama does this.

* AND...

Obama says he will.

He thinks voters are too stupid to notice.

Prove him wrong.

September 11, 2014 at 3:47 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/us-threatened-massive-fine-to-force-yahoo-to-release-data/2014/09/11/38a7f69e-39e8-11e4-9c9f-ebb47272e40e_story.html

The U.S. government threatened to fine Yahoo $250,000 a day in 2008 if it failed to comply with a broad demand for user data that the company believed was unconstitutional, according to court documents unsealed Thursday that illuminate how federal officials forced American tech companies to participate in the NSA’s controversial Prism program.

* 2008. GEORGE W. BUSH WAS PRESIDENT; DEMOCRATS CONTROLLED BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS.

The documents, roughly 1,500 pages worth, outline a secret and ultimately unsuccessful legal battle by Yahoo to resist the government’s demands. The company’s loss prompted Yahoo to become one of the first companies to join Prism, a program that gave the National Security Agency extensive access to records of online communications by users of Yahoo and other U.S.-based technology firms.

“The released documents underscore how we had to fight every step of the way to challenge the U.S. Government’s surveillance efforts,” said company General Counsel Ron Bell in a Tumblr published Thursday afternoon.

The program, which was discontinued in 2011, was first revealed by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden last year, prompting intense backlash and a wrenching national debate over allegations of overreach in government surveillance.

* DICONTINUED IN 2011... NOT 2009... NOT 2010. (OBAMA WAS PRESIDENT; HIS DEMOCRATS CONTROLLED BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS.)

Federal Judge William C. Bryson, presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, ordered the documents from the legal battle unsealed on Thursday as part of broad effort by the court system to declassify the arguments that formed the legal foundation for Prism.

The original order to Yahoo came in 2007 and set off alarms at the company because of the sweep of its requests and its side-stepping of the traditional requirement that each target be subject to court review before surveillance could begin. The order, said Yahoo officials, required only that the target be outside of the United States at the time, even if the person was a U.S. citizen.

* 2007... BUSH WAS PRESIDENT; DEMOCRATS CONTROLLED BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS...

The company challenged the order on constitutional grounds but lost repeatedly, both at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and an appeals court, the Foreign Intelligence Court of Review. The government requested and obtained permission to share the ruling with other companies as it gradually pressured most of the major players in the American tech industry — including Google, Apple and Facebook — to comply with the data demands.

The requests concerned not the content of e-mails but what it called “metadata,” which detailed who users exchange emails with and when. It is not known if e-mail collection continues in some other form.

September 11, 2014 at 4:30 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/10/dc-public-schools-homework-assignment-compare-bush/

A D.C. public school gave a sixth grade class a homework assignment that required students to draw comparisons between former President George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler.

* NICE...

The assignment was given out this week at McKinley Tech Middle School in Northeast and has angered at least one parent who complained about the homework.

* AT LEAST ONE PARENT...

* HOW'BOUT THE PRINCIPAL? SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS? PTA OFFICERS?

A copy of the assignment, made by the parent, instructs students to draw examples from two texts they were assigned and to fill in a Venn diagram with similarities and differences between the two men.

“Now that we have read about two men of power who abused their power in various ways, we will compare and contrast them and their actions. Please refer to your texts, ‘Fighting Hitler — A Holocaust Story’ and ‘Bush: Iraq War Justified Despite No WMD’ to compare and contrast former President George W. Bush and Hitler. We will use this in class tomorrow for an activity!” reads the text at the top of the assignment.

* THIS SO-CALLED "TEACHER" SHOULD BE FIRED AND HER LICENCE REVOKED.

The parent, who asked not to be named...

* AND DOESN'T THAT TELL YOU ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE "CLIMATE" OF THIS SCHOOL DISTRICT?

...said when he called the school office to complain he was told that the assignment was part of a curriculum unit approved by the school system.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

* CAN ANY SANE LIBERAL DEMOCRAT APPROVE OF THIS...?

A spokeswoman for D.C. Public Schools said the two readings were among suggested curriculum the school system had previously approved but that the texts were not meant to be compared in the manner assigned by the teacher.

“The teacher deeply regrets this mistake, and any suggestion to malign the presidency or make any comparison in this egregious way,” spokeswoman Melissa Salmanowitz said.

* YEAH... I'M SURE THE TEACHER "REGRETS"... REGRETS GETTING CAUGHT!

September 11, 2014 at 7:05 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.wric.com/story/26512900/army-officer-denied-entry-to-his-daughters-high-school-for-wearing-his-uniform

* WONDERED IF THIS STORY WAS A HOAX... SO I GOOGLED. NO HOAX!

When Lt. Colonel Sherwood Baker tried to meet his daughter, who was sitting in the counseling office at her high school, the Army officer was denied entrance by school security.

* ILLEGALLY DENIED ENTRANCE...

When Baker asked why he couldn't enter the office building, security told him that the school's policy does not allow military uniforms because it may 'offend students.'

* THE SCHOOL HAS NO AUTHORITY - NO LEGAL RIGHT - TO ENFORCE SUCH A RIDICULOUS "POLICY."

The incident occurred at Rochester Adams High School in Oakland County, MI near Detroit.

Sherwood's wife, Rachel Ferhadson, was waiting in the car said that Barker was told he would not be allowed on school property unless he changed his attire. The security officer claimed that men and women dressed in uniform were not allowed on the campus.

"They told him some kids might not understand and might be offended. So they gave him a choice, told him he could phone in to the office or go home and change his clothes," said Ferhadson.

Baker was told of the same policy by four individual staff members at the school.

* THIS... IS... INSANITY...

Rochester superintendent Robert Shaner, himself a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, has since issued an apology to Baker and his family.

* FUCK HIS "APOLOGY." THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS "POLICY" SHOULD BE FIRED IF EMPLOYEES AND IMPEACHED IF SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS. AGAIN... FORGET THE SHEER IDIOCY... SUCH A POLICY WOULD BE ILLEGAL!

Shaner said that there is no district policy banning those in uniform, and believes the incident occurred because of staff's misunderstanding of current policy.

* NAME NAMES AT LEAST!

Baker has served in the U.S. Army for 24 years, including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

* THOSE "SECURITY OFFICERS" ARE LUCKY BAKER DIDN'T LOSE IT!

September 11, 2014 at 10:52 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/11/army-concerned-with-number-of-white-men-leading-co/

U.S. Army sociologists are worried that a lack of black officers leading its combat troops will have detrimental effect on minorities and lead to fewer black officers in top leadership posts.

* WHY ARE THERE "U.S. ARMY SOCIOLOGISTS...???" (SERIOUS QUESTION!) I SAY DEFUND THE SOCIOLOGISTS AND SPEND THE MONEY ON MORE SNIPERS!

“The issue exists. The leadership is aware of it,” Brig. Gen. Ronald Lewis told USA Today on Thursday. “The leadership does have an action plan in place. And it’s complicated.”

* SOMETHING TELLS ME I WOULDN'T LIKE BRIG. GEN. RONALD LEWIS...

The Army reports that only 10% of its active-duty officers are black, which has contributed to its dearth of black officers leading soldiers with occupational specialties in infantry, armor and artillery.

“It certainly is a problem for several reasons,” Col. Irving Smith, director of sociology at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, told USA Today.

* DOUBTFUL I'D LIKE COL. SMITH...

“First we are a public institution. And as a public institution we certainly have more of a responsibility to our nation than a private company to reflect it. In order to maintain their trust and confidence, the people of America need to know that the Army is not only effective but representative of them.”

* I'M PRETTY SURE WE WANNA ERR ON THE SIDE OF TOO MUCH EFFECTIVENESS...

USA Today’s research found that 25 relevant brigades it looked at did not have a single black commander in 2014.

* AND... THAT'S... BECAUSE...???

For 2015, the paper reported that there will be two black commanders of combat brigades.

* AND... THAT'S BECAUSE...???

Capt. Grancis Santana, 33, spoke to the paper and asserted that it wasn’t discrimination that was causing a lack of minority officers in key posts — the supply of desired soldiers in his military occupational specialty simply wasn’t there.

* AND SO... WE... er... DO WHAT? IGNORE REALITY? DISCRIMINATE AGAINST WHITE OFFICERS? LOWER STANDARDS?

“It’s not a good feeling when you’re one of the few,” Capt. Santana told USA Today. “There was no discrimination; there are just not a lot of people like you.”

* SO BE PROUD OF WHO AND WHAT YOU ARE, SANTANA! (SOUNDS LIKE THE ARMY HAS A TWOFER HERE - HISPANIC-BLACK!?)

The paper also noted that of the 238 West Point graduates commissioned to be infantry officers in 2012, only seven were black.

* AND...???

One of the Army’s plans for addressing the issue will be to put more emphasis on recruiting and mentoring minority officers.

(*ROLLING MY EYES*)

* HOW'BOUT THIS: WORK AT WINNING WARS AND KEEPING THEM WON! WHEN'S THE LAST TIME THAT HAPPENED... 1945?

September 11, 2014 at 11:19 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/09/10/president-obama-iraq-war-islamic-state-syria-editorials-debates/15424651/

The grisly beheadings of our two countrymen, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, got Americans' blood up, and we want to punish their murderers.

* EHH... (*SHRUG*)

* FRANKLY... I'M MORE CONCERNED WITH MURDERS IN AMERICA.

This can and should be done without another Iraq War.

(*NOD*)

It's grotesque that the foreign policy elite has seized on the outrage at the deaths of Foley and Sotloff to sell the public on another U.S. war whose success turns on remaking the region's politics.

If we should have learned anything from the Iraq War — and the Obama administration's failed policies in Afghanistan and Libya — it's that we can't fix other countries' political pathologies at an acceptable cost.

And make no mistake: The administration's strategy can't work unless politics in Iraq and Syria change.

Progress in Iraq used to hinge on Nouri al-Maliki changing Iraq's politics. When he failed, we helped get rid of him and bring in Haider al-Abadi. Perhaps al-Abadi will have the extraordinary political skills that his several predecessors since our invasion in 2003 lacked. Perhaps Iraq's politics are finally turning toward liberalism and unity. Perhaps.

The Syria policy seems equally dim. President Obama says U.S. policy is to destroy ISIS but in doing so we don't want to help the Assad regime, whose rule in Syria it challenges. So Obama says he'll do more to help moderate rebels. For their part, the Sotloff family says their son was sold to ISIS by a "moderate" group much like the ones the administration aims to help.

ISIS is a symptom of a number of problems: the regional conflict between the Gulf Arabs and Iran; the civil war in Syria; and Iraqi political disputes set loose by the 2003 regime change.

If a new U.S. war doesn't cure those diseases, they will remain to cause similar symptoms in the future. As Chas Freeman, the former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, put it, "The contradictions and incoherence of our strategy really beggar the imagination."

Our aim in response to the Foley and Sotloff killings should be simple: punishment. Several years on, when we look back on our latest Wilsonian experiment in the Middle East, perhaps even Barack Obama will see its folly.

* DOUBTFUL.

September 11, 2014 at 11:34 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/387754/if-yemen-model-ian-tuttle

"This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines,” said President Obama in his Wednesday-evening address, “is one that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”

* WTF...?!?! IS HE SMOKING CRACK IN THE WHITE HOUSE...?!?!

Successfully?

In February 2006, 23 al-Qaeda suspects — including Osama bin Laden’s onetime secretary, Nasser al-Wuhayshi — tunneled out of a maximum-security prison in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and into freedom. Three years later, Wuhayshi and several prisoners released from Guantanamo Bay formed al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, AQAP, a deadly offshoot of the “core” al-Qaeda organization.

The Guantanamo Bay connection is noteworthy. The Obama administration would, for political purposes, like very much to empty the detention center still operational in Cuba. But of the approximately 150 prisoners remaining there, more than half are from Yemen. The vitality of AQAP makes it too dangerous to send them back to their home country.

How active is AQAP?

Testifying before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security just hours before the president’s speech on Wednesday, National Counterterrorism Center deputy director Nicholas J. Rasmussen said: “AQAP remains the al-Qaeda affiliate most likely to attempt transnational attacks against the United States.”

In fact, it might outstrip the threat presented by the Islamic State: Nearly simultaneously the Office of the Director of National Intelligence tweeted, “ISIL’s ability to carry out complex significant attacks in the West is currently limited,” adding, “Nevertheless the United States is not immune.”

The threat posed by AQAP to the United States is not hypothetical. In May 2012 the White House declared a national emergency “to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States constituted by the actions and policies of certain members of the Government of Yemen and others.”

In May of this year, they issued a continuation.

A month before, the president continued a 2012 declaration of national emergency with respect to Somalia.

* AND THESE ARE THE OBAMA "SUCCESS STORIES...?!?!"

The Christmas Day 2009 “underwear bomber,” the attempted bombing of U.S.-bound cargo planes in October 2010, a third foiled airliner attack in May 2012 — AQAP is responsible for these and more, Francis Taylor, undersecretary in the Homeland Security department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, told Congress on Wednesday.

Although the United States has run a low-cost shadow war, using drones and limited ground combat operations to cripple the leadership structures of AQAP and Somalia’s al-Shabaab, these organizations continue to threaten their respective countries’ weak governments. In certain areas of Yemen, AQAP has grown stronger. In August 2013, the United States and Great Britain withdrew their embassies’ staffs from the country citing, in the words of the State Department, a “specific and immediate threat.”

* YOU'RE READING THIS, FOLKS... RIGHT?

In February...

* AS IN FEBRUARY 2014 - SEVEN SHORT MONTHS AGO...

...U.S. officials warned of the possibility of a terror attack directed at international air travelers; officials cited “chatter” about AQAP bombmaker-in-chief Ibrahim al-Asiri.

This was al-Qaeda “on the run.”

(*BANGING MY HEAD ON THE DESK*)

Last month the Yemen Times reported an alarming new development: AQAP has announced “solidarity with our Muslim brothers in Iraq against the crusade.” “Their blood and injuries are ours, and we will surely support them,” a statement purportedly from the group said.

According to a Yemeni official quoted in the article, AQAP and Islamic State militants have been training together. This is what American “success” looks like in Yemen: the cooperation and collaboration of America’s bloodthirsty Middle East enemies.

(*SILENCE*)

September 11, 2014 at 11:44 PM

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