Image: DHS Official: I Was Ordered to Purge Records of Islamic Terror Ties
By Sandy Fitzgerald | Saturday, 06 Feb 2016 03:39 PM
A veteran official with the Department of Homeland Security claims he and other staff were ordered to destroy records on a federal database that showed links between possible jihadists and Islamic terrorist groups.
“After leaving my 15-year career at DHS, I can no longer be silent about the dangerous state of America’s counter-terror strategy, our leaders’ willingness to compromise the security of citizens for the ideological rigidity of political correctness—and, consequently, our vulnerability to devastating, mass-casualty attack,” the former employee, Patrick Haney, wrote in an explosive column that was published late Friday on The Hill website.
Haney alleges that the Obama administration has been “engaged in a bureaucratic effort” to destroy the raw material and intelligence the Department of Homeland Security has been collecting for years, leaving the United States open to mass-casualty attacks.
His story starts in 2009, when during the holiday travel season, a 23-year-old Nigerian Muslim, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, boarded Northwest Airlines Flight 253, with explosives packed in his underwear and the hopes of slaughtering 290 travelers flying on Christmas Day from the Netherlands to Detroit, Michigan. Passengers subdued the jihadist and he was arrested, thwarting the plot.
After the attempt, Haney writes, President Barack Obama “threw the intelligence community under the bus for its failure to ‘connect the dots,’ saying that it was not a failure to collect the intelligence that could have stopped the attack, but rather “‘a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had.'”
But most Americans were not aware that the Department of Homeland Security’s employees suffered enormous damage to their morale from Obama’s words, Haney said.
Further, many were infuriated “because we knew his administration had been engaged in a bureaucratic effort to destroy the raw material — the actual intelligence we had collected for years, and erase those dots. The dots constitute the intelligence needed to keep Americans safe, and the Obama administration was ordering they be wiped away.”
Just one month before the attempted attack, Haney said, his DHS supervisors ordered him to either delete or modify the records for several hundred people tied to Islamist terror organizations, including Hamas, from the Treasury Enforcement Communications System, the federal database.
Those records give DHS the ability to “connect dots,” explained Haney, and every day, the agency’s Custom and Border Protection officials use the database while watching people who are associated with known terrorist affiliations seeking patterns that could indicate a pending attack.
“Enforcing a political scrubbing of records of Muslims greatly affected our ability to do that,” said Haney.
“Even worse, going forward, my colleagues and I were prohibited from entering pertinent information into the database,” he wrote.
And even weeks after the attempted Christmas Day attack, Haney said, he was still being ordered to delete and scrub terrorists’ records, making it more difficult to connect dots in the future.
The number of attempted and successful Islamic terrorist attacks kept increasing, notes Haney, including the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, conducted by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev; Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez’ shooting of two military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee last year; the attack conducted by Faisal Shahzad in May 2010; Detroit “honor” killer Rahim Alfatlawi in 2011; Amine El Khalifi, who plotted to blow up the U.S. Capitol in 2012; and Oklahoma beheading suspect Alton Nolen in 2014.
He believes it is “very plausible” that one or more of those homeland incidents could have been prevented, if DHS subject matter experts had been allowed to keep doing their jobs.
“It is demoralizing — and infuriating — that today, those elusive dots are even harder to find, and harder to connect, than they were during the winter of 2009,” Haney concluded.
Breaking News at Newsmax.com
DHS Official: I Was Ordered to Purge Records of Islamic Terror Ties
An update from Ammon Bundy
Dear Friends,
Hundreds of people were freely coming into the refuge to get education on their rights. Many group presentations were given each day. On Saturday, the 24th, ten ranchers from Oregon, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona nullified their grazing contracts with the BLM and U.S. Forest Service. On Saturday, the 24th, grand jury administrators from Nebraska and Florida were forming a grand jury to review the abuses in the Hammond case. Tuesday, the 27th, the day LaVoy was killed, we began releasing documents exposing criminal acts by the government. The evening of the 27th, a meeting was scheduled with Grant County residents to give a presentation with those at the refuge. To give their presentation to hundreds of people in the county, including the county Sheriff.
The FBI attacked those who were to give the presentation on the way to this peaceful meeting, leaving hundreds at the meeting with no speakers. On Wednesday, the 28th, a follow up meeting was scheduled with Harney County residents with those at the refuge to finalize actions to claim back lands that were taken by the BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and United States Forest Service. This included plans to take action to begin logging again in Harney County and to restore the thriving economy once known to the Harney County residents. On Thursday evening, the 29th, a meeting was scheduled with Malheur County residents with those at the refuge to give a presentation on the constitution as it pertained to federal limits to land ownership inside the states. This meeting was to occur in Ontario, Oregon. Hundreds were expected to attend. The sheriff’s Department also accepted the invitation and was scheduled to attend.
On Friday afternoon, the 30th, residents surrounding Jordan Valley, Oregon, had scheduled a seminar with those at the refuge to come out and inform them of how they can protect themselves from a national monument that is to be signed in by President Obama this year, 2016. This monument is twice the size of Yellowstone, takes up a third of the county’s land mass, and will put over 250 ranchers out of business as they know it. Ranchers from Malheur county were scheduled to nullify their contracts with the U.S. Forest Service.
In the following weeks, meetings were scheduled in Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, and the State of Washington. Multiple Skype meetings were also set up throughout the Western U.S. All these meetings were to discuss how they would stand against the unconstitutional land control by the federal government. Those at the refuge collected over 50 testimonies of ranchers who lost their family property to the U.S. Government in Harney and surrounding counties. Hundreds of government documents were compiled by those at the refuge. Many of the documents exposed abusive actions by federal government officials, Judge Grasty, Harney County Sheriff’s Department and direct abuses to the Hammond family.
Escalation of force from the FBI, OSP, and the Sheriff’s Department incrementally increased as the education from the refuge expanded. Government officials knew that if they did not take forceful preemptive action to stop the expanding the influence of the refuge, many would begin to stand for land rights as protected by the United States Constitution. Make no mistake about it: those that were educating at the refuge and are now suffering in jail at this time are political prisoners.
Those at the refuge never pointed a gun and never pulled a trigger to kill. They chose to educate, giving others the freedom to choose. The government promoted fear and forceful tactics to control and stop this education. And ultimately, they used force by the barrel of the gun.
Please watch the video below.
Sincerely,
Ammon Bundy, 2/4/16
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7U0ssZBU4w
Link: To contribute to Ammon’s defense: https://www.fundedjustice.com/en/projects/28054-Ammon-Bundy—Legal-Defense-Fund
We believe people should have a say in how much they are taxed
The Taxpayers Can Win if We Vote March 15th To early vote Call Will County Clerk 815-740-4626 and ask for a ballot to be mailed or online at http://www.thewillcountyclerk.com/elections/voter-services/vote-by-mail/
My name is Steve Balich. I have been advocating for elected officials to treat taxpayer money as it was their own for many years without many positive results. I hear people on Boards say their tax increase is just a little money or people won’t mind because we are giving them something. They forget these Boards are giving you something using your money without asking you if you want it. In our Representative Democracy citizens are elected to represent the “people”. The “will” of the people is reinforced when there is a vote by referendum on a specific issue.
The Homer Township Tax Referendum on the March 15th 2015 Ballot says we believe people in Homer Township should have a say in how much they are taxed. (The Question on the Ballot: Shall each taxing body located partially or wholly within Homer Township be required to seek voter approval by referendum prior to increasing its annual total property tax Levy? Yes or No). This is not a Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian issue. It is a citizen and Business issue.
Although this is an Advisory Referendum, meaning the taxing Bodies can ignore the will of the people, it is the strongest statement citizens can make to elected officials, clearly stating what the citizen’s want. This is your opportunity to make a difference and make your voice heard. If a person on a Board goes contrary to the will of the people, that person needs to be voted out. Names of those defying the will of the people need to be made Public in Newspapers and Social Media at the time of their vote and when they are up for election or appointment.
The point is; in this time of hopelessness when people feel helpless in getting a voice in their government, taking back some control can be accomplished. In a time when many people don’t vote because they feel their vote doesn’t matter; they will see, when enough people work together, what seemed impossible can be grasped.
Once this is approved by the voters this March, other Townships will take up the call to get control their Property Taxes. We in Homer Township which includes Homer Glen and half the City of Lockport will need to hold our elected officials accountable to the will of the people. We need to demand this directive by the voters be obeyed. If elected officials do contrary, our Representative Democracy demands they be voted out of office. This is the strongest statement we voters can make.
This is your opportunity to make a difference. Please Vote!
Steve Balich 815 557-7196
Life after Speaker Madigan
When the alpha dog leaves the House: Life after Speaker Madigan
With the election season squarely upon us, Madigan’s members who are running for re-election tiptoe on slabs of shifting ice. They don’t want to acknowledge his power. They don’t want to offend him. They don’t want to defend him. They want to appear independent.
They can’t have it all ways.
Besides, his superpowers are in writing.
To fully grasp the influence of one person over state government, look no further than the 129 pages of House rules — the day-to-day rules that govern how and when bills get introduced and passed.
I’ll sum it up for you: Everything is up to the speaker.
Over the years, the House rules have been tweaked and massaged to accommodate his top-down approach toward governing. The House rules are now Madigan’s personal handbook on how to control the process.
Every bill, including spending and borrowing legislation, goes straight to Madigan’s Rules Committee. It’s nearly impossible to discharge a bill unless he agrees. If a bill gets assigned to a committee, it’s a committee Madigan has chosen. He picks the majority of members, committee chairmen and vice chairmen. And he’ll often swap out committee members if he wants to manipulate an outcome. He also approves if and when committees should meet.
“Subject to approval by the Speaker” is a phrase sprinkled throughout the rules book, along with accommodations for the speaker to suspend the rules or change the order of business at virtually any time. There’s little opportunity, if any, for members of the minority party to fight back with bills of their own.
New additions to House rules include a provision allowing the House to rebuke gubernatorial executive orders. Gee, I wonder where that came from.
The Senate’s rules are half as long, and Senate President John Cullerton’s leadership style is to collaborate more with his members anyway.
So how much is Madigan to blame for the state’s dismal condition? Based on House rules alone, a lot. Nothing gets to the governor’s desk in this state without his imprint. Nothing.
If the speakership changed hands, rewriting House rules would be one of the first orders of business. It happened in 2002 when Republicans revolted against their leader, Lee Daniels, and it would most assuredly be part of the process if Democrats did the same. Life after Madigan would be more inclusive.
Of course, Madigan has no intention of leaving — at least not until the next gubernatorial election, when his daughter, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, might jump in the race. She said in 2013 she would not run for governor unless her father retired from office. The only other avenue for a post-Madigan General Assembly would be if he loses his House race in the 22nd District. He has a real opponent this time, Jason Gonzales.
Madigan is drenched in power and his members tolerate it, even to their own detriment. The stringent House rules have allowed Madigan to block popular, progressive legislation that would qualify as “core Democratic principles,” the phrase he often cites as justification for blocking Gov. Bruce Rauner’s agenda. Madigan has ignored legislation to raise the minimum wage, pass a progressive income tax, institute term limits, reform the redistricting process, allow for an elected school board in Chicago and end the city’s red-light camera program.
He recently announced a task force to explore the unjust school funding formula after years of downplaying that problem, too. Madigan once told me he stopped reading Phil Kadner’s column in the Daily Southtown because Kadner wrote repeatedly about the unfairness of the formula. More recently, Madigan couldn’t be bothered to appoint House members to a school funding task force that, under Sen. Andy Manar, D-Bunker Hill, did yeoman’s work trying to recalibrate the $30 billion spent on public schools annually.
Now, suddenly, the speaker is interested in school funding.
Democratic lawmakers and Springfield insiders try to spread the blame for the state’s condition. Complacent Republicans are to blame. The Great Recession that ended in June 2009 is to blame. Rauner is to blame. It’s not the longtime speaker’s fault, they say.
But that’s malarkey. It’s in writing.
When voluntary is no longer voluntary/Wellness Programs
Employers can now force employees to take work-sponsored health assessments and biometric screenings against their will, a federal judge in Madison, Wisconsin has ruled.The ruling in the case of Dale Arnold, an employee for plastics maker Flambeau, overturned a ruling by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which had previously determined Flambeau’s wellness program did not comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. It’s just the latest in a series of losses in federal court by employees who can now be penalized under the color of law for desiring to keep their privacy and individual sovereignty and for what they choose to do on their own time.
Language in the ADA limits companies from requiring medical exams or personal health information from workers. But in a fascist and oligarchic system where government controls the insurance and medical cartels and seeks to control all aspect of the people’s lives, the “law” is of little consequence when the government sees an opportunity to grasp more power.
Arnold took his case to the EEOC after Flambeau revoked his health insurance coverage when he refused to participated in the company’s “voluntary” work-sponsored health assessment and biometric screen. Flambeau uses its “voluntary” employee wellness program to cut insurance costs by encouraging healthy employee habits. To participate, employees submitted to on-site tests of blood pressure, body mass and cholesterol. That information was then stored in a database used by the insurance company and employer.
Companies are devising wellness programs in a self-defense move designed at curbing rising health insurance costs. Obamacare requires an extensive database of health information to be collected to be used to determine what treatments and drugs it will approve and the payment schedule it will use. Obamacare and other federal and state regulations on health coverage have driven insurance premiums and deductibles through the roof.
And with Obamacare regulations requiring everyone to carry some type of insurance, employees who are dropped from their employer-based coverage are forced into hyper-expensive COBRA plans or onto expensive, inadequate and/or limited choice Obamacare plans.
That government control of health insurance is destroying privacy rights and individual liberty is no surprise to many of us. In fact, I warned this was coming three years ago in “CVS demonstrates your future under Obamacare.” I wrote:
Now, legal drug pusher CVS Caremark pharmacy is telling its employees they must report specific personal health information or pay an extra $600 per year for their health insurance coverage.
Among the measures employees are required to report are their weight, body fat, cholesterol, blood pressure and blood sugar levels. Employees must also be tobacco-free or enroll in an addiction program.
“These changes aren’t just about costs, they’re about us, each of us taking personal accountability for our own health,” said Lisa Bissacia, CVS senior vice president and chief human resources officer, in a recorded video released by the company.
The irony that a company that peddles to an unsuspecting public pharmaceuticals with a list of side effects as long as your arm and responsible for millions of adverse reaction events and 106,000 deaths annually would actually be concerned about their employees’ health is no doubt lost on Bissacia. On top of that, such a policy is an egregious violation of the employees’ rights.
Employment lawyers predicted that CVS’s wellness program would not stand legal scrutiny. But at the time I wrote:
With government running healthcare, expect programs like this to expand and the information to be used to force behavior modifications for everyone forced to buy into Obamacare.
Now we are there. Next step is a corporate/government mandate to “treat” all diseases and conditions found through the “voluntary” wellness screening with drugs and surgeries under penalties of loss of insurance, loss of work, fines and/or imprisonment. Never mind that orthodox medicine in the U.S. kills more than 200,000 people each year.
Health insurance is and always has been a scam anyway, and Big Insurance and government interference in the medical market combined to drive the prices of health insurance and health services up to stratospheric levels.
None of this would be a problem without government meddling. People should be buying medical services they need straight from doctors and hospitals at market prices, not through a third party insurer or — especially — through government.
If health insurance is necessary, it should be sold in a free market, across state lines, without onerous government coverage mandates, and insurers should be free to tailor plans for individuals and families.
The Left is Pushing Hard Against Privacy Bills
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Changes to the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015
U.S. State Department Announce Changes to the Visa Waiver Program Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015
Reed Smith Client Alerts
Effective immediately, under the Act, travelers in the following categories are no longer eligible to travel to or be admitted to the United States under the VWP:
- Nationals of VWP countries who have travelled to or been present in Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria on or after March 1, 2011 (with limited exceptions for travel for diplomatic or military purposes in the service of a VWP country).
- Nationals of VWP countries who are also nationals of Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria.
What this means For the purposes of this client alert, non-U.S. persons eligible under the VWP who have travelled to Iran and Iraq after March 1, 2011 will no longer be able to enter the United States under the Electronic System for Travel Authorizations (“ESTA”) process. Travelers with existing ESTAs and who have previously indicated holding dual nationality with one of the four countries listed above on their ESTA applications have now had their current ESTAs revoked. For example, a UK citizen holding an Iranian passport will have already received an email notification from the State Department informing him that his ESTA has been revoked.
The official description of these changes is provided at the bottom of this alert. It should be noted that such description clearly states that the military and government-employment exceptions are not available to persons with dual nationality, such as UK and Iranian nationals.
Using discretionary powers, the Secretary of Homeland Security may, on a case-by-case basis, waive the new restrictions under the Act, if it can be determined that such a waiver is in the national security interests of the United States.
In the past, several organizations, NGOs and journalists have operated in Iraq, Iran, Sudan and Syria. Such categories of travelers who are with international and regional organizations and sub-national governments on official duty; NGOs on official duty; journalists; and Individuals who traveled to Iran for legitimate business-related purposes following the conclusion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (July 14, 2015), may be eligible for a waiver under the Act. Additionally, individuals who have travelled to Iraq for legitimate business-related purposes may also be eligible for a waiver. The latter may provide some comfort to legitimate non-U.S. organizations involved in the energy, construction and defense sectors within Iraq, Syria, Iran and Sudan.
Travelers who have received a notification that they are no longer able to travel under the VWP may still visit the United States. However, such travelers will require a valid, non-immigrant visa issued by a U.S. embassy or consulate. This process will inevitably be more costly and time-consuming to travelers.
A specific degree of caution should be considered in connection with the recent lifting of certain U.S. sanctions against Iran. Non-U.S. persons interested in doing business in Iran are cautioned when considering visits to Iran at this stage. This is especially important for organizations or persons with businesses that involve dollar-denominated transactions and operations and travel interests in the United States.
From the FAQ section of U.S. Customers and Border Patrol website1:
What are the specific changes to the VWP? Under the Act, travelers in the following categories are no longer eligible to travel or be admitted to the United States under the VWP:
- Nationals of VWP countries who have traveled to or been present in Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria on or after March 1, 2011 (with limited exceptions).
- Nationals of VWP countries who are also nationals of Iran, Iraq, Sudan, or Syria.
These restrictions do not apply to VWP travelers whose presence in Iraq, Syria, Iran, or Sudan was to perform military service in the armed forces of a program country, or in order to carry out official duties as a full-time employee of the government of a program country. These military and official government services exceptions, however, do not apply to the dual national restriction.
Travelers who are known to fall into the dual national category noted above will receive notice via email on or about January 21, 2016 that their current ESTA is no longer valid.
The Act also requires that all VWP travelers use an electronic passport for travel to the United States by April 1, 2016. Finally, the Act includes other changes to the VWP to promote enhanced information sharing of terrorism and criminal data, and use of INTERPOL databases and notices for border screening purposes.
The vast majority of VWP eligible travelers will not be affected by the legislation.
Client Alert 2016-030
Homer 33C kindergartners explore science
News Release
Homer CCSD 33C
Goodings Grove Luther J. Schilling William E. Young William J.Butler
Hadley Middle Homer Jr. High
Contact: Charla Brautigam, Communications/Public Relations Manager
cbrautigam@homerschools.org | 708-226-7628
For Immediate Release:
Feb. 3, 2016
Homer 33C kindergartners explore science
Ask a few kindergartners what their favorite subject is at Schilling School and you’ll probably get the same answer each time — science.
“Our little 5 and 6 year olds love being able to get down on the floor to explore and experiment,” said kindergarten teacher Michele Lane. “It’s our favorite part of the day.”
Science is a recent addition to the kindergarten curriculum in Homer Community Consolidated School District 33C.
In the past, teachers focused on reading, phonics and math because that’s all they could accommodate in a half-day kindergarten program. This year, Homer 33C introduced a full-day kindergarten program, giving students and teachers time to explore science, social studies, physical education, journal writing and music/library/computer readiness — on top of reading, phonics and math.
“We know how important it is to our community that we prepare students for a globally changing world,” said Superintendent Kara Coglianese. “Our full-day kindergarten program is going to help achieve that.”
Kindergartners recently completed a unit on weather and are now focusing on the physics of Push, Pull, Go.
“It’s amazing to me to hear my students talk about ‘force,’ `observations’ and ‘predictions,’” said Lane, who had students put their “scientist glasses” on and discover what would happen when they lined a row of Dominoes up at various distances and formations.
Sometimes the Dominoes would fall over when they touched the first tile; sometimes they would not.
Next door, kindergarten teacher Jennifer VanHeest had students build miniature slides from a kit and predict how far rubber balls would travel when they were launched from the top of the slide and from the middle of the slide.
“Did the balls stop at the same point?” she asked students, after explaining how the balls are pulled down by gravity, gaining energy and speed as they travel down the slide.
“No,” they replied in unison.
“Why did the one that started on top go further?” she asked.
“It got a lot of speed,” replied a boy.
The district’s full-day kindergarten program has been a dynamic addition, enabling teachers to delve deeper into subject matter and integrate themes across the curriculum, said Kathleen Robinson, assistant superintendent for instruction.
“Providing time for our youngest learners to explore and collaborate will strengthen their ability to solve problems and communicate with their peers,” she added.
Illinois Board of Elections declares Cruz a natural-born citizen/New Hampshire also ruled in favor of Cruz
Illinois Board of Elections declares Cruz a natural-born citizen
POSTED AT 8:51 AM ON FEBRUARY 3, 2016 BY ED MORRISSEY from Hot Air
I know, I know … what does Illinois know, anyway? As the Washington Examiner points out, the Board of Elections decision isn’t the first ruling on this matter, but it may be the strongest yet in debunking claims that Ted Cruz is ineligible for the presidency. The board rejected a challenge to Cruz’ inclusion in the March 15th primary in no uncertain terms (via Instapundit):
“The Candidate is a natural born citizen by virtue of being born in Canada to his mother who was a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth,” the board said, explaining Cruz met the criteria because he “did not have to take any steps or go through a naturalization process at some point after birth.”
That explanation has formed the basis of a broad consensus ever since Cruz’ status was first challenged. He was born a US citizen by virtue of his mother regardless of where the birth took place. (The same would have been true of Barack Obama, too, although the state of Hawaii has made it clear on multiple occasions that he was born there.) While the phrase “natural born citizen” did not get a clear definition by the framers of the Constitution, that has been the accepted definition in legal circles for more than a century.
The board emphasized that it’s not interested in entertaining any further challenges, either:
A ballot commission in New Hampshire also ruled in favor of Cruz in January, but the language in Monday’s decision by the Illinois board took a stronger tone than the previous ruling, warning other skeptics, “Further discussion on this issue is unnecessary.”
That’s what they think. Never underestimate the power of conspiratorial thinking, nor the impulse to go to court over it. And don’t expect Donald Trump to stop harping on this, although it hardly did him any good in Iowa, and probably won’t do much better in New Hampshire either. It’s a low-cost zinger that guarantees a cheer line at rallies among the faithful, and right now Trump needs to rally them more than ever.
