On Friday, the President delivered surprise remarks to the press about the Trayvon Martin case and race in general. His main point: a plea for understanding.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: There are very few African-American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store, that includes me. I don't want to exaggerate this but those sets of experiences inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: And that's true. Many black Americans harbor at least some resentment for past injury. But what President Obama surely knows is that you cannot reach a fair criminal verdict or design effective public policy that solves present problems by dwelling on the sins of the past. "Talking Points" believes the President was correct in addressing the race issue and framing it with the Martin case. He's the leader of America and the country is talking about this.
By the way, when you hear a pundit or politician saying we should have a quote, "conversation" about race, that means you are in for a sea of bloviating which will likely lead nowhere.
The sad truth is that from the President on down, our leadership has no clue, no clue at all about how to solve problems within the black community. And many are frightened to even broach the issue. That's because race hustlers and the grievance industry have intimidated the so- called "conversation," turning any valid criticism of African-American culture into charges of racial bias.
So many in power simply walk away leaving millions of law abiding African-Americans to pretty much fend for themselves in violent neighborhoods. You want racism? That's racism.
Thus, it is time for some straight talk, and I hope the President is listening tonight because we need him to lead on this issue.
Trayvon Martin was killed because circumstances got out of control. He was scrutinized by a neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman, because of the way he looked. Not necessarily his skin color, there is no evidence of that but because he was a stranger to Zimmerman and was dressed in clothing sometimes used by street criminals.
It was wrong for Zimmerman to confront Martin based on his appearance. But the culture that we have in this country does lead to criminal profiling because young black American men are so often involved in crime, the statistics overwhelming.
But here is the headline: young black men commit homicides at a rate 10 times greater than whites and Hispanics combined. When presented with damning evidence like that, and like the mini-holocaust in Chicago where hundreds of African-Americans are murdered each year the civil rights industry looks the other way or makes excuses. They blame guns, poor education, lack of jobs, rarely do they define the problem accurately. So here it is. The reason there is so much violence and chaos in the black precincts is the disintegration of the African-American family.
Right now about 73 percent of all black babies are born out of wedlock. That drives poverty. And the lack of involved fathers leads to young boys growing up resentful and unsupervised. When was the last time you saw a public service ad telling young black girls to avoid becoming pregnant? Has President Obama done such an ad? How about Jackson or Sharpton? Has the Congressional Black Caucus demanded an ad like that? How about the PC pundits who work for NBC News?
White people don't force black people to have babies out of wedlock. That's a personal decision; a decision that has devastated millions of children and led to disaster both socially and economically. So raised without much structure, young black men often reject education and gravitate towards the street culture, drugs, hustling, gangs. Nobody forces them to do that; again, it is a personal decision.
But the entertainment industry encourages the irresponsibility by marketing a gangster culture, hip hop, movies, trashy TV shows to impressionable children. In fact, President Obama has welcomed some of the worst offenders in that cesspool to the White House when he should be condemning what these weasels are doing. These so-called entertainers get rich while the kids who emulate their lyrics and attitude destroy themselves.
And then there is the drug situation. Go to Detroit and ask anyone living on the south side of the eight-mile road what destroyed their city? They will tell you narcotics. They know addiction leads to crime and debasement. But what do the race hustlers and limousine liberals yell about? The number of black men in prison for selling drugs. Oh, it's so unfair. It's a nonviolent crime and blacks are targeted. That is one of the biggest lies in the history of this country.
The thugs who sell hard drugs, no matter what color they are, deserve to be put away for long periods of time. They sell poison, they sell a product that enslaves and kills. They are scum.
When was the last time you heard the Congressional Black Caucus say that? How about Jackson and Sharpton? How about President Obama?
The solution to the epidemic of violent crime in poor black neighborhoods is to actively discourage pregnancies out of marriage, to impose strict discipline in the public schools, including mandatory student uniforms, and to create a zero tolerance policy for gun and drug crimes imposing harsh mandatory prison time on the offenders.
And finally, challenging the entertainment industry to stop peddling garbage. Hey listen up you greed heads, if a kid can't speak proper English, uses the "f" word in every sentence, it's disgraceful, it's disrespectful -- it's disrespectful in his or her manner. That child will never, never be able to compete in the marketplace of America... never. And it has nothing to do with slavery. It has everything to do with you Hollywood people and you derelict parents. You're the ones hurting these vulnerable children.
You want a conversation, you got it. You want a better situation for blacks, give them a chance to revive their neighborhoods and culture. Work with the good people to stop the bad people. Pumping money into the chaos does little. You can't legislate good parenting or responsible entertainment. But you can fight against the madness, with discipline, a firm message and little tolerance for excuse-making.
It is now time for the African-American leadership, including President Obama to stop the nonsense. Walk away from the world of victimization and grievance and lead the way out of this mess.
And that's "The Memo."
- You can catch Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo" weeknights at 8 and 11 p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel and any time on foxnews.com/oreilly. Send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com.
Military inaction, political corruption, professional malpractice and fraud at the highest levels of the Obama administration involving Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (and perhaps the president himself) were revealed at the recent Benghazi hearings (“In Benghazi hearings, GOP criticizes misplaced State priorities,” Web, Dec. 20).
A review board concluded that “systemic failures” at the State Department prevented an adequate response to security threats in Libya. Adm. Mike Mullen, while speaking for the board, stated that a military response to every one of the many crisis spots in the world was not feasible and cannot be expected on short notice. At about the same time, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta was quoted in press releases contending there is a lack of military rescue by a ready-to-go U.S. Marine reaction force in Rota, Spain, and a U.S. special operations forces team in Sicily. He seemed to be covering for Mr. Obama by saying that the basic principle is to refrain from deploying forces in harm’s way without understanding the situation on the ground. According to lawmakers at the hearings, the lack of U.S. response resulted in the sacrifice of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.
The hearings and accountability review report also revealed political theater for the 2016 presidential elections. Sen. John F. Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, and the other Democrats put a spin on testimony to shield Mrs. Clinton from responsibility for mistakes made by the Obama administration. Further, the false narrative propagated by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the attack being a response to a video was again revealed as fraud during the hearings. No one on the day of the murderous attacks had even heard of the video, and its producer now sits in an American jail.
LT. COL. DOMINIK GEORGE NARGELE
U.S. Marines (retired)
Arlington
EXCLUSIVE: Jailed filmmaker vows to finish film wrongly blamed for Benghazi attack By Joshua Rhett Miller
EXCLUSIVE: The controversial filmmaker whose crude Internet trailer was wrongly blamed by the White House for sparking last year's deadly Benghazi attack vowed to finish his movie, which he said is aimed at fighting terrorism, not denigrating Islam.
Breaking his silence from inside a facility under the authority of the federal Bureau of Prisons in southern California, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula told FoxNews.com in a series of phone interviews that his film "Innocence of Muslims" has been widely misunderstood, and not just in being singled out as causing the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that left U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans dead.
"It is not [a] religion movie,” he said. “I have a lot of Muslim friends and not all the Muslims believe in the terrorism culture. Some of them believe in this culture. That’s why we need to fight [against] the culture, not the Muslims. My enemy is the terrorism culture; this is my enemy.
“My enemy is the terrorism culture; this is my enemy.”
- Nakoula Basseley Nakoula
“I am the blood voice for everybody who gets killed, or hurt, in this culture,” he continued. “I dedicate my life to fight with this culture … I’m never afraid.”
Nakoula, who was thrust into the international spotlight — and then federal prison — after the White House wrongly blamed the 14-minute, amateurish trailer for the attack, says he has more than two hours of footage to complete the film, for which he hopes to find a distributor upon his release on Sept. 26.
"Of course I'm proud of it. If I could go back, I would do it again,” said Nakoula, 55, a Coptic Christian born in Egypt who came to the United States in 1984. “Everybody gets hurt in this culture. We need the world free of this culture. We have to fight it.”
The crudely produced clip that has gained millions of Internet views since being pinpointed as the cause of the attack begins with Egyptian forces merely watching as Muslims burn the homes of Egyptian Christians. It goes on to depict the Prophet Muhammad — an act considered blasphemous on its face — as a womanizer, homosexual and child molester. Muhammad is portrayed by an actor sporting a cartoonish beard and the film suffers from disjointed dialogue and decidedly low-tech editing and production.
The trailer was blamed by then-Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice in a Sunday morning news show blitz five days after the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that left Stevens, embassy staffer Sean Smith and two security contractors and former Navy SEALs, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, all dead. The talking points read by Rice were later discredited, with some critics charging the administration used Nakoula and his film as pawns in an effort to play down the threat of terrorism during the election run-up.
In November, Nakoula was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Christina Snyder to one year behind bars for lying to his probation officer about his film and using fake names in the production of the project, which made him a target for militant Muslims around the world. The deceptions violated the terms of his probation for a bank and credit-card fraud conviction in 2010. Nakoula declined to comment on the sentence.
Yet, Nakoula, who must serve four years of supervised release following his prison term, refused to criticize the Obama administration.
“Who am I to criticize the commander in chief?" Nakoula said. "Who am I? He knows more than me.”
When asked if he believed his film was used as a scapegoat, or if he was unfairly prosecuted — charged with probation violations related to his film — Nakoula became tight-lipped.
“No comment,” said Nakoula, who declined to be interviewed on camera and spoke to FoxNews.com in a series of phone calls from a location he did not want disclosed.
In the next breath, Nakoula profusely thanked the U.S. government “from the top to the bottom” for protecting him since his arrest.
“I would like to thank the United States government from the top to the bottom for protecting me,” he said. “They treat me very, very good since this happened until now.”
When asked about Rice's promotion last week to National Security Adviser after she became the face of the White House effort to substitute him for Al Qaeda as the cause of the Benghazi attack, Nakoula was again unwilling to be critical of the Obama administration.
“Who am I to criticize the United States’ commander in chief? This is his decision,” he said. “It’s not my responsibility. It’s not my job.”
Nakoula expressed his sympathy for relatives of those who died in the Benghazi attack, including Stevens and Woods, whose father, Charles Woods, claims then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told him the “person who made that film” would be brought to justice following the incident.
"I would like to say sorry to everybody,” Nakoula said.
Once freed, Nakoula said he hopes to reconcile with his three estranged children, who he says shunned him in the wake of the Obama administration's accusations.
“I lost everything,” he said. “Everybody left me.”
Arielle Davis and Benjamin Landsburg tied the knot this summer at a place that held special meaning for them—Camp Ramah in the Poconos. The couple became the first to get married at the Conservative movement camp when they wed on June 2.
The couple both said that although they didn’t officially know each other as campers at Ramah when they were younger, they knew of each other. The newlyweds actually met on staff at Ramah in 2008 when both were counselors.
The couple has deep roots in South Jersey. Ben, the son of Robin Sue and Bill Landsburg, was born and raised in Cherry Hill. Arielle’s parents, Mali Mizrahi Davis and Philip Davis are also connected to Cherry Hill. Arielle’s father grew up here, and he and his three brothers all went to Ramah. Arielle’s mother was born and raised in Israel.
Arielle’s family moved quite a bit when she was young, but she always felt connected to Cherry Hill because of her grandparents, Debbie and Stephen Davis. According to Ben, “When I was born, my mother, who had just had her fourth son, called Arielle’s grandmother (Debbie Davis), who was also the mother of four boys, to ask her for advice. Our families knew each other before we did, as both were from Cherry Hill.” Interestingly, Ben’s parents (Robin Sue and Bill) also met at Camp Ramah.
Although the newlyweds worked as counselors at Camp Ramah again this summer, Arielle, who attended Temple University, started her own event planning business, “Wishful Thinking Events.” Ben attended Philadelphia University and is pursuing a career in the real estate industry.
According to Arielle, “We both said separately that we think it would be nice to have a wedding at camp. We both felt that since camp was such a huge part of our lives and we grew up there, began our journey there, and got engaged there, that it only made sense for us to get married there.”
Prior to their Sunday wedding, about 60 of their closest friends and family arrived to camp to spend Shabbat with them before the wedding. “It was the perfect camp Shabbat,” Ben said.
“Since I work in the events industry, I knew it would be a fun challenge for me to plan the first wedding at Ramah in the Poconos, especially since it was my own,” said Arielle.
“Many of the other Ramahs are ‘better equipped’ for holding special events, but we had a vision and the drive to make it happen, so we worked with what we had and I think it really turned out beautifully,” said Arielle. Because of the camp’s extensive transformation, “many of our guests, who were also Ramahniks, were shocked that they were in some of the same facilities where they played sports.” One guest remarked that Camp Ramah looked like it had been “gift wrapped.”
There was an 85 percent chance of thunderstorms and heavy winds predicted for the exact time the couple was due to walk down the aisle to the gorgeous chuppah that had been set up inside the outdoor synagogue that fronts the camp’s lake. Instead, nature provided only a light drizzle to accompany them as they walked down the aisle. “Our wedding was perfect,” Ben and Arielle agreed. It was everything they wanted.
Embattled Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner and an attorney in the Federal Election Commission’s general counsel’s office appear to have twice colluded to influence the record before the FEC’s vote in the case of a conservative non-profit organization, according to e-mails unearthed by the House Ways and Means Committee and obtained exclusively by National Review Online. The correspondence suggests the discrimination of conservative groups extended beyond the IRS and into the FEC, where an attorney from the agency’s enforcement division in at least one case sought and received tax information about the status of a conservative group, the American Future Fund, before recommending that the commission prosecute it for violations of campaign-finance law. Lerner, the former head of the IRS’s exempt-organizations division, worked at the FEC from 1986 to 2001, and was known for aggressive investigation of conservative groups during her tenure there, too.
"Several months ago... I spoke with you about the American Future Fund, a 501(c)(4) organization that had submitted an exemption application the IRS [sic],” the FEC attorney wrote Lerner in February 2009. The FEC, which polices violations of campaign-finance laws, is not exempted under Rule 6103, which prohibits the IRS from sharing confidential taxpayer information, but the e-mail indicates Lerner may have provided that information nonetheless: “When we spoke last July, you had told us that the American Future Fund had not received an exemption letter from the IRS,” the FEC attorney wrote.
The timing of the correspondence between Lerner and the FEC suggests the FEC attorney sought information from the IRS in order to influence an upcoming vote by the six FEC commissioners. The FEC received a complaint in March 2008 from the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party alleging that the American Future Fund had violated campaign-finance law by engaging in political advocacy without registering as a political-action committee. The American Future Fund responded to that complaint in June 2008, telling the commission that it had applied for tax exemption in March of that year and was a “501(c)(4) social-welfare organization that was organized to provide Americans with a conservative and free-market viewpoint and mechanism to communicate and advocate on the issues that most interest and concern them.” According to the e-mail correspondence, a month after receiving the American Future Fund’s response, the FEC general counsel’s office — which is prohibited under law from conducting an investigation into an organization before the FEC’s six commissioners have voted to do so — contacted Lerner to investigate the agency’s tax-exempt status.
The FEC general counsel’s office, in its recommendation on the case, apparently didn’t tell the agency’s commissioners about how it had obtained the information about the group’s tax-exempt status. Recommending that the commissioners prosecute the American Future Fund, the general counsel’s office wrote, “According to its response, AFF submitted an application for tax-exempt status to the Internal Revenue Service... on March 18, 2008.” The footnote to that sentence reads, “The IRS has not yet issued a determination letter regarding AFF’s application for exempt status. Based on the information from the response and the IRS website, it is likely that the application is still under review.” In fact, an FEC lawyer knew that the organization had yet to obtain tax-exempt status because Lerner provided the confidential information.
The general counsel’s report was issued in September 2008, but it was over five months before the six FEC commissioners voted, in late-February 2009, on whether to prosecute the American Future Fund for violations of campaign-finance laws. (The typical lag time between the submission of a general counsel’s recommendation and a commission vote is about a month, according to a source familiar with the workings of the commission.) As the vote approached, on February 3, 2009, the FEC lawyer went back to Lerner for an update on the status of the American Future Fund’s application. “Could you please tell me whether the IRS has since issued an exemption letter to the American Future Fund? Also if the IRS has granted American Future Fund’s exemption, would it be possible for you to send me the publicly available information and documents related to American Future Fund?”
Despite the recommendations of the general counsel’s office, the six FEC commissioners split on whether to pursue the American Future Fund’s case and voted six-to-zero to close the case.
House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp and oversight-subcommittee chairman Charles Boustany are calling on the IRS, in the wake of these revelations, to provide all communications between the agency and the FEC between 2008 and 2012. “The American public is entitled to know whether the IRS is inappropriately sharing their confidential tax information with other agencies,” Camp and Boustany write in a letter they will send to acting IRS administrator Danny Werfel on Wednesday.
The FEC enforcement attorney also inquired about the tax-exempt status of another conservative organization, the American Issues Project. “I was also wondering if you could tell me whether the IRS had issued an exemption letter to a group called the American Issues Project? The group also appears to be the successor of two other organizations, Citizens for the Republic and Avenger, Inc.” Also sought were “any information and documents that would be publicly available in relation to the American Issues Project, Citizens for the Republic, or Avenger, Inc.”
Lerner was placed on paid administrative leave in late May after she revealed the IRS had inappropriately targeted conservative groups. The IRS has yet to respond to requests from lawmakers about her current employment status with the agency.
UPDATE: This piece has been amended since its initial posting.
President Barack Obama issued an Executive Order on March 16 giving the White House absolute control over all the country’s natural resources in case of a natural disaster or during a time of war.
In the order, the National Defense Resources Preparedness Order, the President granted to himself the authority to approve the dispensing of all domestic energy, production, transportation, food, and water supplies as he deems necessary to protect national security.
Despite the national defense hurdle that ostensibly must be jumped in order for the order to take effect, the text of the document itself does not limit implementation to a time of war. In fact, the specific sections of the order make it clear that the President may take complete command and control of the country’s natural resources in peacetime, as well.
In fact, the President may invoke the powers of this order to “meet national defense requirements” in “the full spectrum of emergencies.” The relevant sections read:
Section 101. Purpose. This order delegates authorities and addresses national defense resource policies and programs under the Defense Production Act of 1950, as amended (the "Act").
Sec. 102. Policy. The United States must have an industrial and technological base capable of meeting national defense requirements and capable of contributing to the technological superiority of its national defense equipment in peacetime and in times of national emergency. The domestic industrial and technological base is the foundation for national defense preparedness. The authorities provided in the Act shall be used to strengthen this base and to ensure it is capable of responding to the national defense needs of the United States.
Sec. 103. General Functions. Executive departments and agencies (agencies) responsible for plans and programs relating to national defense (as defined in section 801(j) of this order), or for resources and services needed to support such plans and programs, shall:
(a) identify requirements for the full spectrum of emergencies, including essential military and civilian demand;
(b) assess on an ongoing basis the capability of the domestic industrial and technological base to satisfy requirements in peacetime and times of national emergency, specifically evaluating the availability of the most critical resource and production sources, including subcontractors and suppliers, materials, skilled labor, and professional and technical personnel;
The underlying legal authority for the execution of such a radical order is found in the Defense Production Act of 1950, the President claims. That law combined with the rights vested in him as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces supposedly empowers the President to endow himself with these expansive powers.
Just how expansive are the claimed powers and what resources are included in their scope? Livestock? Yes. All food “resources” and “resource facilities?” Yes. Veterinary clinics? Yes. All forms of energy? Yes. Will the President control the water supply? Yes.
Read on:
Sec. 201. Priorities and Allocations Authorities.
(a) The authority of the President conferred by section 101 of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2071, to require acceptance and priority performance of contracts or orders (other than contracts of employment) to promote the national defense over performance of any other contracts or orders, and to allocate materials, services, and facilities as deemed necessary or appropriate to promote the national defense, is delegated to the following agency heads:
(1) the Secretary of Agriculture with respect to food resources, food resource facilities, livestock resources, veterinary resources, plant health resources, and the domestic distribution of farm equipment and commercial fertilizer;
(2) the Secretary of Energy with respect to all forms of energy;
(3) the Secretary of Health and Human Services with respect to health resources;
(4) the Secretary of Transportation with respect to all forms of civil transportation;
(5) the Secretary of Defense with respect to water resources; and
(6) the Secretary of Commerce with respect to all other materials, services, and facilities, including construction materials.
(b) The Secretary of each agency delegated authority under subsection (a) of this section (resource departments) shall plan for and issue regulations to prioritize and allocate resources and establish standards and procedures by which the authority shall be used to promote the national defense, under both emergency and non-emergency conditions. Each Secretary shall authorize the heads of other agencies, as appropriate, to place priority ratings on contracts and orders for materials, services, and facilities needed in support of programs approved under section 202 of this order.
(c) Each resource department shall act, as necessary and appropriate, upon requests for special priorities assistance, as defined by section 801(l) of this order, in a time frame consistent with the urgency of the need at hand. In situations where there are competing program requirements for limited resources, the resource department shall consult with the Secretary who made the required determination under section 202 of this order. Such Secretary shall coordinate with and identify for the resource department which program requirements to prioritize on the basis of operational urgency. In situations involving more than one Secretary making such a required determination under section 202 of this order, the Secretaries shall coordinate with and identify for the resource department which program requirements should receive priority on the basis of operational urgency.
(d) If agreement cannot be reached between two such Secretaries, then the issue shall be referred to the President through the Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor and the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.
(e) The Secretary of each resource department, when necessary, shall make the finding required under section 101(b) of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2071(b). This finding shall be submitted for the President's approval through the Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor and the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism. Upon such approval, the Secretary of the resource department that made the finding may use the authority of section 101(a) of the Act, 50 U.S.C. App. 2071(a), to control the general distribution of any material (including applicable services) in the civilian market.
That’s right. The last line of the quoted material gives the President of the United Staes the power to “control the general distribution of any material (including services) in the civilian market.” This seems to be no less than the nationalization of all food, energy, water, and healthcare pipelines and providers in the country. And to help him keep tabs on all this responsibility, he assigns a cabinet member to each category of control.
Presidents have issued similar orders in the name of national defense. For example, during the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln famously (infamously) suspended habeas corpus and the right to an impartial trial as protected by the Sixth Amendment.
Then, during World War I, President Woodrow Wilson, frustrated with Congress’s reluctance to grant him a full panoply of power over natural resources, invoked the powers given him under an executive order to assume absolute and unilateral authority over the same range of resources as are included in President Obama’s latest fiat.
As any student of history can testify, when government begins to interfere with the free flow of goods and commodities (especially life-giving resources such as food and water), then it may manipulate the availability of these items, as well as the prices thereof. Typically, such fluctuations result in civil disturbances and a demand for greater security from those unwilling to abide by the new “laws.” And, in exchange for greater security, those clamoring for it are often willing to give up their fundamental freedoms.
The White House has issued no statement regarding the purpose for the signing of this Executive Order. There is no accompanying explanation of why this power should be placed before the President at this time — or at any time for that matter. Is it in place to prepare for expansion of the hostilities in the Middle East, or is it something to do with his vaunted algae initiative?
Perhaps the President is taking the first few steps necessary to cloak himself in the powers required to "legally" (albeit unconstitutionally) step outside the boundaries of his constitutional authority and ascend to a level of supervision witnessed in all the former republics of history just before their devolution into mobocracy and mayhem.
The Obama administration is mired in a fresh scandal of its own making. The revelation that the Justice Department has been snooping into the phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors indicates that the administration's ruthlessness when it comes to trying to protect its reputation and sources knows no bounds. Attorney General Eric Holder, always a poor choice for a cabinet post, should resign. Coupled with the revelation that the IRS has been selectively targeting Tea Party groups and the botched handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack, the administration confronts a second term that appears to be ending even before it has even really begun.
Obama has always prided himself on being squeaky clean when it comes to governing. He campaigned for transparency in government. He said he was against soft money. He said that members of his administration would have to demonstrate the highest ethical standards ever. Well, that was then. He has nominated the tax-dodging billionaire Penny Pritzker, who bankrolled his political ascendancy, to serve as his Commerce secretary. He has hoovered up any and all funds he can attract, infuriating proponents of campaign finance reform. And now his administration, in its mad and obsessive and destructive pursuit to quash any leaks, has besmirched itself by targeting journalists for investigation.
Leaks have always plagued presidents. They are a function of a national security state that has always aspired to total control in the post-World War II era—in 1986, Ronald Reagan's Chief of Staff Don Regan proposed creating a standing cadre of FBI agents to ferret out leaks. But the ability of the state to exercise surveillance over its citizens was always limited. No longer. Technology has marched on. The president who can order an assassination by using drones—and initially claimed that he could target a U.S. citizen in America until Sen. Rand Paul denounced him—is also busily snooping on the media. The Associated Press says that Holder and his minions ran amok: They monitored
incoming and outgoing calls, and the duration of each call, for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters, general AP office numbers in New York, Washington and Hartford, Conn., and the main number for AP reporters in the House of Representatives press gallery.
Was Obama aware of this program? Did he order it? Or was it done solely on Holder's initiative? White House press spokesman Jay Carney says it had "no knowledge" of the secret program. If it didn't, maybe the White House should pay more attention to what is going on in the ranks of its administration.
It seems that the investigation of the AP journalists was prompted by the revelation that a U.S. spy inside the ranks of a Yemeni Al Qaeda group had helped to foil an airliner bomb plot. An aggrieved administration went on the offensive to try and discover who leaked the information. Instead, it has only embarrassed itself.
The fixation with leakers is counterproductive. The problem with targeting leakers, of course, is that they often play a valuable role in helping to inform the public about what, exactly, is taking place in the government when it comes to foreign affairs. Sometimes leaks redound to the benefit of an administration or allow it to spin the news. Obama, however, has displayed a kind of compulsive desire to stifle leakers from the outset of his presidency.
The result is what AP chief Gary Pruitt is calling a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into civil liberties and press freedoms. Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists told the Washington Post, "“This investigation is broader and less focused on an individual source or reporter than any of the others we’ve seen. They have swept up an entire collection of press communications. It’s an astonishing assault on core values of our society.” It is no small irony that Obama, who declared that he would halt the George W. Bush administration's violations of personal freedoms, has exceeded the mendacity of his predecessors in creating a new star chamber to hunt down his detractors and enemies. Obama isn't protecting American freedoms. He's going rogue. If this keeps up, Obama may accomplish the impossible and create a wave of nostalgia for Mitt Romney.
How Prosecutors Fought to Keep Rosen’s Warrant Secret By Ryan Lizza
The Obama Administration fought to keep a search warrant for James Rosen’s private e-mail account secret, arguing to a federal judge that the government might need to monitor the account for a lengthy period of time.
The new details are revealed in a court filing detailing a back and forth between the Justice Department and the federal judges who oversaw the request to search a Gmail account belonging to Rosen, a reporter for Fox News. A 2009 article Rosen had written about North Korea sparked an investigation; Ronald C. Machen, Jr., the U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a former State Department adviser who allegedly leaked classified information to Rosen, insisted that the reporter should not be notified of the search and seizure of his e-mails, even after a lengthy delay.
E-mails, Machen wrote, “are commonly used by subjects or targets of the criminal investigation at issue, and the e-mail evidence derived from those compelled disclosures frequently forms the core of the Government’s evidence supporting criminal charges.”
He argued that disclosure of the search warrant would preclude the government from monitoring the account, should such a step become necessary in the investigation. Machen added that “some investigations are continued for many years because, while the evidence is not yet sufficient to bring charges, it is sufficient to have identified criminal subjects and/or criminal activity serious enough to justify continuation of the investigation.”
Machen insisted the investigation would be compromised if Rosen was informed of the warrant, and also asked the court to order Google not to notify Rosen that the company had handed over Rosen’s e-mails to the government. Rosen, according to recent reports, did not learn that the government seized his e-mail records until it was reported in the Washington Post last week.
The new details indicate that the government wanted the option to search Rosen’s e-mails repeatedly if the F.B.I. found further evidence implicating the reporter in what prosecutors argued was a conspiracy to commit espionage.
According to recently unsealed documents in the case, the Obama Justice Department sought an extensive amount of information from Rosen’s e-mail account. In addition to Rosen’s correspondence with Kim, the government wanted to know about Rosen’s contacts with other government officials, including “records or information relating to the Author’s communication with any other source or potential source of the information disclosed in the Article.”
The government, which accused Rosen of being an “aider, abettor, and/or co-conspirator” in the Kim case, cast a wide net in its search of Rosen’s e-mail. Among other things, the search warrant requested access to:
—“Records or information related to Stephen Kim’s or the Author’s knowledge of laws, regulations, rules and/or procedures prohibiting the unauthorized disclosure of national defense or classified information.”
—“Any classified document, image, record, or information, and any communications concerning such documents, images, records, or information.”
—“Any document, image, record, or information concerning the national defense, including but not limited to documents, maps, plans, diagrams, guides, manuals, and other Department of Defense, U.S. military, and/or weapons material, as well as sources and methods of intelligence gathering, and any communications concerning such documents, images, records, or information.”
—“Records or information related to the state of mind of any individuals seeking the disclosure or receipt of classified, intelligence and/or national defense information.”
In addition, the Justice Department searched the account for any Internet services Rosen may have accessed and records of “data transfer volume,” suggesting the government was looking for evidence that Rosen downloaded large quantities of potentially classified information.
The new documents show that two judges separately declared that the Justice Department was required to notify Rosen of the search warrant, even if the notification came after a delay. Otherwise: “The subscriber therefore will never know, by being provided a copy of the warrant, for example, that the government secured a warrant and searched the contents of her e-mail account,” Judge John M. Facciola wrote in an opinion rejecting the Obama Administration’s argument.
Machen appealed that decision, and in September, 2010, Royce C. Lamberth, the chief judge in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, granted Machen’s request to overturn the order of the two judges.
Rosen was not indicted in the case. Kim was indicted for making unauthorized disclosures of national defense information and for making false statements to F.B.I. agents about his contacts with Rosen.
Yesterday, hours after President Obama said, in a speech at National Defense University, that he had asked Attorney General Eric Holder to review the Justice Department’s policies concerning investigations of the media, NBC News reported that the warrant to search Rosen’s e-mail account was personally approved by Holder.
Photograph by Maria Lokke.
CBS News: Someone was pulling data from Sharyl Attkisson’s computer; Update: CBS report added By Ed Morrissey
Remember this from last month? On the heels of the revelation that the Department of Justice had been snooping on James Rosen’s e-mails because of his attempt to gain classified information on the administration’s efforts on North Korea from a leaker, Sharyl Attkisson told Chris Stigall on his radio show that her computer had been mysteriously hacked. Attkisson, who has reported on Operation Fast and Furious and Benghazi and sparked ire from the White House while doing do, demurred on the source of the hacking but said CBS News was investigating it.
Erik Wemple reported earlier that CBS has corroborated Attkisson’s claim, and that whoever conducted it went after her material:
“A cyber security firm hired by CBS News has determined through forensic analysis that Sharyl Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012. Evidence suggests this party performed all access remotely using Attkisson’s accounts. While no malicious code was found, forensic analysis revealed an intruder had executed commands that appeared to involve search and exfiltration of data.
This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.
CBS News is taking steps to identify the responsible party and their method of access.”
Attkisson took to Twitter to report the official statement herself:
CBS Statement: A cyber security firm hired by CBS News has determined through forensic analysis that Sharyl Attkisson’s computer…
What was going on in “late 2012″? Well, that would have been the controversy over the terrorist attack on our consulate in Benghazi. And, checking the record, we see that Attkisson had a very interesting scoop on October 20th, relying on anonymous military sources that called into question the Obama administration’s claim that they couldn’t have responded in time to assist in the attack:
CBS News has been told that, hours after the attack began, an unmanned Predator drone was sent over the U.S. mission in Benghazi, and that the drone and other reconnaissance aircraft apparently observed the final hours of the protracted battle.
The State Department, White House and Pentagon declined to say what military options were available. A White House official told CBS News that, at the start of the attack, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “looked at available options, and the ones we exercised had our military forces arrive in less than 24 hours, well ahead of timelines laid out in established policies.”
But it was too late to help the Americans in Benghazi. The ambassador and three others were dead.
A White House official told CBS News that a “small group of reinforcements” was sent from Tripoli to Benghazi, but declined to say how many or what time they arrived.
Retired CIA officer Gary Berntsen believes help could have come much sooner. He commanded CIA counter-terrorism missions targeting Osama bin Laden and led the team that responded after bombings of the U.S. Embassy in East Africa.
“You find a way to make this happen,” Berntsen says. “There isn’t a plan for every single engagement. Sometimes you have to be able to make adjustments. They made zero adjustments in this. They stood and they watched and our people died.”
Until CBS News releases more from its investigation, we won’t know who hacked into Attkisson’s computer. It could have been a competitor, or someone else with a grudge against her, although one would expect that kind of hack to go after personal details rather than work product. Before the Rosen revelation, the DoJ would have been unthinkable as a suspect. If I were CBS now, though, I’d be executing a FOIA demand to know whether Eric Holder and the Department of Justice acquired a Rosen-like warrant on Attkisson in the days after that scoop went live.
Several months ago, Attkisson had reported suspected intrusions of her computers, including her CBS News work computer, prompting CBS News to hire a firm to look into the hacking.
Friday’s announcement comes on the heels of last month’s revelation that the Justice Department had seized the emails and phone records of Fox News correspondent James Rosen.
To be clear, the federal government has not been accused in the intrusion of Attkisson’s computer; CBS News is continuing to work to identify the responsible party.
To be sure, it doesn’t pay to jump to conclusions, but it also doesn’t pay to dismiss possibilities, either.
Conservative Watchdog group Judicial Watch has obtained United States Defense Department education materials that expose the indoctrination that is being attempted within their ranks. The documents warn of "extremists" who "talk of individual liberties, states' rights, and how to make the world a better place."
The documents were obtained by Judicial Watch in response to a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA) that was filed on April 8, 2013. The FOIA requested "Any and all records concerning, regarding, or related to the preparation and presentation of training materials on hate groups or hate crimes distributed or used by the Air Force."
Judicial Watch claims that the Defense Department is teaching that conservative and liberty-minded individuals' views are "extremist."
Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute, a Defense Department-funded diversity training center, reportedly authored the materials. On top of that they cite the racist, hate group Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as their source for defining "hate groups." Isn't that telling?
SPLC, a hate group unto themselves, identified the Family research Council (FRC) as a hate group on its website, along with other well-known conservative organizations such as the American Family Association, concerned Women for America, and Coral Ridge Ministries. SPLC cannot stand for people to tell the truth about abortion being murder and homosexuality being a perversion. As a result of their identifying FRC in this manner, 28 year old year old Floyd Lee Corkins II, used his computer to access SPLC's website to target FRC and other organizations. He then went into the FRC building wanting to kill as many people as possible, then smear their faces with Chick-Fil-A sandwiches and kill the guard. He was able to wound the guard, Leo Johnson, but Johnson was still able to subdue him until police arrived.
There are 133 pages of lesson plans and PowerPoint slides provided by the Air Force. Included in those plans is a January 2013 Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute "student guide" titled "Extremism," which begins on page 32 of the downloadable PDF. Though the documentation reads "do not use on the job" and "for training purposes only," it does cause one to wonder why the Defense Department would invest so much money and time into "education materials" that are not to be used.
Following Corkins conviction, FRC President Tony Perkins said the SPLC "can no longer say that it is not a source for those bent on committing acts of violence."
"The day after Floyd Corkins came into the FRC headquarters and opened fire wounding one of our team members, I stated that while Corkins was responsible for the shooting, he had been given a license to perpetrate this act of violence by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has systematically and recklessly labeled every organization with which they disagree as a 'hate group,'" Perkins said.
Judicial Watch highlights some of the sections:
The document defines extremists as "a person who advocates the use of force or violence; advocates supremacist causes based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or national origin; or otherwise engages to illegally deprive individuals or groups of their civil rights."
A statement that "Nowadays, instead of dressing in sheets or publically espousing hate messages, many extremists will talk of individual liberties, states' rights, and how to make the world a better place."
"[W]hile not all extremist groups are hate groups, all hate groups are extremist groups."
Under a section labeled "Extremist Ideologies" the document states, "In U.S. history, there are many examples of extremist ideologies and movements. The colonists who sought to free themselves from British rule and the Confederate states who sought to secede from the Northern states are just two examples."
In this same section, the document lists the 9/11 attack under a category of "Historical events."
"[A]ctive participation…with regard to extremist organizations is incompatible with military service and, is therefore prohibited." [Emphasis in original]
The document details the "seven stages of hate" and sixteen "extremists' traits."
The SPLC is listed as a resource for information on hate groups and referenced several times throughout the guide.
Of the five organizations besides the SPLC listed as resources, one is an SPLC project (Teaching Tolerance) and one considers any politically or socially conservative movement to be a potential hate group (Political Research Associates).
Other than a mention of 9/11 and the Sudan, there is no discussion of Islamic extremism.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said the "Obama administration has a nasty habit of equating basic conservative values with terrorism."
"And now, in a document full of claptrap, its Defense Department suggests that the Founding Fathers, and many conservative Americans, would not be welcome in today's military," he added. "And it is striking that some the language in this new document echoes the IRS targeting language of conservative and Tea Party investigations. After reviewing this document, one can't help but worry for the future and morale of our nation's armed forces."
AFP Photo / Win Mcnamee
Homeland Security employee running racist site placed on paid leave
A Homeland Security employee who runs a racist website that predicts an “unavoidable, inevitable clash with the white race” has been placed on paid administrative leave by the agency.
Ayo Kimathi, an acquisitions officer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, calls himself the “Irritated Genie” and runs an
anti-white, anti-gay website called the War on the Horizon (WOH).
At the agency, the Homeland Security employee is in charge of the procurement of guns, handcuffs and ammunition for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Kimathi has worked at the Homeland Security Department since 2009. But the black supremacist spends nights and weekends preparing for a violent race war that he believes will soon sweep over the country.
“Warfare is eminent, and in order for black people to survive the 21stcentury, we are going to have to kill a lot of whites – more than our Christian hearts can possibly count,” Kimathi wrote on his website, advocating the mass murder of white people, gays, those of mixed races and blacks who integrate with whites. He calls African-Americans who mix with other races “black-skinned Uncle Tom race traitors.”
The WOH lists enemies of the group, which include Rev. Al Sharpton, Oprah Winfrey, President Barack Obama, Lil Wayne, Condoleezza Rice, “Colon” Powell and Whoopi Goldberg for being “treasonous mulatto scum dwellers… who will fight against reparations for Black people in amerikkka, but in favor of fag rights for freaking in amerikkka and Africa.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization, last week reported Kimathi’s role in running the website. One of the man’s former supervisors told the SPLC that “everybody in the office is afraid of” Kimathi and that co-workers fear “he will come in with a gun and someday go postal.”
“This guy is filled with hate,” the supervisor said. “…I am astounded he’s employed by the federal government, let alone Homeland Security.”
Employees who work at the ICE are required to obtain the government’s permission before engaging in organized activities outside of the agency, such as taking outside jobs at McDonalds, running a bingo game at a church, volunteering or running a website.
Kimathi received permission to run his website, but lied about the nature of his work. The employee allegedly told the agency that it was an entertainment website, and refused to disclose the title of the page, the SPLC reports.
“He told management that it was an entertainment website selling videos of concerts and lectures,” the report said. “He called it simply WOH, never saying that WOH stood for War on the Horizon.”
The DHS supervisor said if Kimathi had honestly described the organization, he would have probably been denied permission to run the website.
After the SPLC exposed the website, the Department of Homeland Security placed Kimathi on paid administrative leave. Since news broke about the DHS employee’s involvement in a racist website, the agency has been scrutinized both for employing him and for placing him on paid rather than unpaid leave.
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin was particularly outraged by the incident, describing it “unflippingbelievable” on her Facebook page.
“His fellow employees say they’re astounded he is employed by the taxpayers,” she wrote. “His side ‘job’ running the ‘War On the Horizon’ website was reportedly approved by supervisors. Really, Fed? Really?”
Kimathi has so far refused to comment to the media.
