Category: Obama

State Department press briefing sounds like an audition for the Jon Stewert Daily Show

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is how it went today at a background briefing on Somalia and humanitarian aid in the Horn of Africa where the ISLAMIC terror group Al Shabaab has disallowed the delivery of aid—you know they will kill whoever brings food and then steal the food.

Here are a few comments at a mysterious press briefing by mysterious briefers likely hastily called because the New York Times and the Washington Post want to know what Obama is doing about starving Somalis:

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Let me just remind everybody that this is – this call is on background and ask that if you find quotes that you want to use that you attribute those to Senior Administration Officials. And I think what we’re going to do is I will try to offer a sort of a quick chapeau of where we are and what our concerns are and invite both [Senior Administration Official Two] and [Senior Administration Official Three] to add to that. And then we’ll be happy to take your questions.

A “quick chapeau” (a hat?) follows, then Senior Administration Official One turns the call over to Senior Administration Official Two from Mystery agency number two, well it has to be number two because Senior official one must be from the US State Department (this is on their letterhead).

So that is sort of the quick overview of where we are. I think you’ve probably seen stories in both The Washington Post and The New York Times today that describe this evolving situation, and let me ask [Senior Administration Official Two] from [Agency Withheld] if she’s got anything to add.

Senior Administration Official Two does have something to say:

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL TWO: Yeah. Thanks, [Senior Administration Official One]. I just want to underscore how deeply concerned we are about the situation, really throughout the Horn as [Senior Administration Official One] described, but particularly in southern Somalia….

Now One turns it over to Senior Official Three (are you keeping up with this?):

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Thanks, [Senior Administration Official Two]. Let me ask [Senior Administration Official Three] from [Agency Withheld] if she has anything to add to this.

Of course she does:

SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL THREE: I’d like to reiterate what [Senior Administration Official Two] and [Senior Administration Official One] are already highlighting for everybody. It’s – I mean, obviously, the conditions are really terrible and it’s – it is no coincidence that the worst-affected areas are those that are under the control of al-Shabaab.

You get the drift, you can read the whole press briefing here.

Now here is my question for readers—WHAT THE HECK ARE THESE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION PARAGONS OF TRANSPARENCY SO SCARED ABOUT?  Or, is this just a spoof—-an audition for the Jon Stewart Daily Show?

Are they afraid of…

1) Al Shabaab hunting them down and killing them in their beds tonight if they reveal their names? or

2) Those evil Tea Party budget cutters will get wind that money is being shipped overseas and know exactly which agency is behind it?  or

3)  They don’t want some poor suckers in the US military knowing who is sending them into Somalia (again!)? or

4)  Michelle Obama will tell them what food needs to be sent to a real food desert? or

5)  The most likely one—they don’t know how the hell to solve this.  The Administration has no idea what to do and no one wants to take responsibility?

Do you have a better guess?  Tell me.

Uzbek “student” arrested in Alabama for threatening to kill Obama

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update August 14th:  Uzbek “student” pleads not guilty, here.

Once again, I’m behind in posting.  This story is now a few days old.   How many of you heard it on the national news?  I didn’t.  Every day we’ve heard about the US Army Muslim who went AWOL and planned a reenactment of the Fort Hood massacre, but nary a peep about this Muslim wanting to kill Obama.

(Update: Here is a tiny peep at the Washington Post four days ago, but LOL! the “M” word is missing.  Can you just see those Post editors saying, damn we have to mention the story but let’s leave anything incendiary out?  The Post surely had access to all the details from the US Attorney’s office in Alabama, here.)

This guy was here on a student visa (he didn’t come in the mystery shipment of extremist Muslim Uzbeks who were airlifted here against their will by the US State Department a few years ago and dubbed refugees.)*

Here is a tip to extremist Muslims (on student visas) who are here to do us harm—at least make some effort to go to school!  Not signing up for a  few college classes is a surefire tip-off to Homeland Security (of course the big question for the general public is, how long does it take the feds to figure out you aren’t in school?).

I thought Muslims liked Obama?

From the Birmingham News:

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — An Uzbekistan native was indicted by a federal grand jury today for threatening the life of President Barack Obama and illegally possessing weapons, including a fully automatic weapon and a grenade, federal authorities announced.

Ulugbek Kodirov, 21, of Uzbekistan, was charged with four counts of threatening the president – on July 9, July 10, July 11 and July 13. He also was charged with being an illegal alien in possession of a firearm and unlawfully possessing a fully automatic weapon. Both of those weapons counts refer to a Sendra Corporation Model M15-A1 rifle which he bought from undercover law enforcement agents before his arrest on July 13, according to court documents.

The indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in Birmingham, also charges Kodirov with receiving and possessing an unregistered grenade on July 13. He had four grenades, but the powder was not in them, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

A very strict Muslim

According to an affidavit by a Secret Service agent supporting issuance of the search warrant, Kodirov had contacted an FBI confidential reliable source on July 9 and July 10 and made an inquiry “regarding possible ways to kill President Obama, including shooting the President from a long distance, and asked the CS#1 (confidential source) to assist him.”

“Kodirov further stated that he did not care if he lost his own life killing President Obama,” according to the search warrant.

Kodirov told a second confidential source on or about July 11 that he wished to kill Obama. That second confidential source said that Kodirov was a “very strict Muslim, who has previously expressed support for Islamic extremists.” That second source also stated that Kodirov views Jihadist websites.

Came to the US in 2009 on a student visa!  (you know, another one of those LEGAL immigration programs)

Kodirov came to the United States in June 2009 and remained in the country on a student visa. His student visa was revoked April 1, 2010, for failure to enroll in school, according to the arrest affidavit.

* At some point I need to look more closely at the case of the Uzbek refugee airlift to the US in the wake of the Andijan uprising.  In a thumbnail, Uzbekistan’s President is a secular Muslim (if there is such a thing) and a group of fundamentalist Muslims were working on an uprising, so supposedly government soldiers, at President Islam Karimov’s direction, open-fired on a demonstration and killed many (the 2005 Andijan massacre).  The survivors went to nearby countries to escape and thus became “refugees.”

Please remember this is a very simplified version of events.  So, they were designated refugees but wished to stay in Europe (they were initially taken to camps there and wanted to stay near their families still in Uzbekistan).  The US State Department, in its infinite wisdom, said, NO, we are taking you to American towns and cities and dropping you off whether you like it or not!  So, we actually expedited the process and flew an unknown number to your neighborhoods.

We first learned about the  Refugee Program as a strategic political weapon when we looked into this story (here) about a couple of Uzbek young men who died mysteriously in Boise, ID.   Somehow, maybe for access to their airbase, we were helping solve Uzbekistan’s little problem by just removing the people.  Heck we are doing it with the Burmese, the Bhutanese, the Bosnians, the Iraqis, and the Meshketian Turks (others too, those are just some off the top of my head).  We will just bring them to the magical American melting pot and help solve some other government’s problem!

It’s a win-win-win-win!  The caring class will be happy for more refugees to love, the governments we help with their problems will be happy, the federal resettlement contractors will be happy to keep their money coming in, and the Democrats will be happy with new voters!  Only the American taxpayer loses—both in personal security and in the pocketbook!

Palestinians in Libya have no place to go

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

As the Obama/NATO bombing continues in Libya, here is a writer who says that Gaddafi had welcomed Palestinians (most Arab countries do not resettle Palestinian refugees) to the country, many have been there for decades, and now, desperate to escape, they have no place to go.

The article is a bit confusing but some things I gathered from it:  Palestinians have died in the bombing, the UN agencies are confused over who has authority for helping Palestinians since they have their own UN agency (UNRWA), but its jurisdiction is geographically limited.  UNHCR then has helped some, but its outside their authority. The Palestinian Authority has sought permission from Egypt for some to be transported across Egypt to Gaza, but that doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.  Egypt has refused them entry into Egypt.  Israel offered to take 300.  Some may be be supportive of the Muslim Brotherhood rebels, others deny it.

The trapped Palestinians sent out this appeal, so far no response:

“We the Palestinians living in Libya, some for more than 35 years have come from Lebanon to flee (civil) war and resided among our brothers in Libya where we got married and worked. However, after the 17 February insurrection and the worsening security situation, we are trying to leave the country via its ports but were not allowed because of inadequate travel documents. We are now stranded and sell our belongings to eat; we do not have work or shelter and do not know what to do or where to go.”

Read the whole article.  It’s the first I’ve seen about Palestinians trapped in Libya.

An afterthought!  I just remembered that in 2009 when NO ARAB COUNTRY WOULD TAKE ITS FELLOW PALESTINIAN ARABS trapped in Iraq, we started to bring them to the US, here.

Sounds like Obama Administration snow job on Iraqi refugee terrorists today

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Here is the first story (from Bloomberg) I’m seeing on the Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing today on just how those Iraqi alleged terrorists got into the US through the Refugee Program.  Sure sounds like it was a complete waste!

Obama administration officials defended policies for admitting Iraqi refugees into the U.S. at a Senate hearing on preventing terrorists from entering the country.

Programs such as granting special immigrant visas for Iraqis working on behalf of the U.S. government were intended to fulfill a “special responsibility” to these people, Janice Jacobs, assistant secretary of state for consular affairs, told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Officials make “every effort to streamline” the visa process while ensuring that those who receive them “do not pose a threat to the security of the United States,” Jacobs said.

Concerns about the program were underscored by the May arrests in Kentucky of two Iraqis who had entered the U.S. through the resettlement program and were charged with conspiring to provide weapons, money and other support to al- Qaeda in Iraq.

Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, urged tougher controls in granting the special immigrant visas. He said he didn’t fault the government for “missing the needle in the haystack, but you need to make the haystack smaller. It’s hard to know who your friends are and who your foes are.”

About 58,000 Iraqi refugees have come to the U.S. since 2007, with about 30,000 still in Iraq who have been approved for resettlement, said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican and her party’s ranking member on the committee.  [possibly a few more needles in the hay stack!—ed]

I’ll see what other stories I find tomorrow.

By the way, these Special Immigrant Visas were one of the last “gifts” we got from Senator Ted Kennedy in a late night maneuver before he left to join Mary Jo (oh, that’s right he and Mary Jo are likely in different places).

Just ‘marry’ a gay or lesbian and stay in the USA

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

One more backdoor amnesty from the Obama Administration—they were busy last week.  One day we had Janet Napolitano telling Congress that any illegal alien kid in school wouldn’t be deported, and at the same time, with the decision in this case, seems all you have to do is ‘marry’ someone gay and you are in!  Problem is that most states do not recognize gay marriage.

From Fox News:

The federal decision to stop deportation proceedings against a Venezuela-born New Jersey man who legally married his same-sex partner in the United States — effectively recognizing gay marriage — is an “abuse of executive authority” by the Obama administration, immigration experts told FoxNews.com.

Henry Velandia, a 27-year-old professional salsa dancer from Caracas now living in New Jersey, legally married U.S. citizen Josh Vandiver, 30, in Connecticut last year, but due to the Defense of Marriage Act — a 1996 federal law that defines marriage as between a man and a woman — Vandiver was not allowed to sponsor Velandia for a green card in the same way a heterosexual person could for his or her spouse. The Department of Homeland Security nevertheless decided to drop deportation efforts against him Wednesday.

Velandia told FoxNews.com that Wednesday’s ruling was a “big, uplifting moment” and the product of a year’s worth of hard work on behalf of the couple’s attorney, Lavi Soloway.

“I can now be with Josh, my husband, in this country without fear of being torn apart,” he said on Friday. “It’s like our first day building up our life together. But we know the fight is not over. We’re going to keep fighting for marriage equality for all the couple who are in the same situation.”

CIS:  Obama Administration abusing executive authority

But Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, said the decision is misguided prosecutorial discretion that could “destroy the credibility” of immigration law in the United States.

“This is another instance of the Obama administration’s abuse of executive authority on behalf of select groups of removable aliens that it thinks are sympathetic to make a run around Congress and provide amnesty to as many illegal aliens as possible,” Vaughan said. “These people are props for the administration, which is uncomfortable in its mission to enforce immigration laws. What they’re really doing here with this policy of discretion is giving a free pass to huge numbers of people who have been living here illegally.”

By the way, this whole LGBT business is now the next big asylum excuse!  What! Do we just take peoples’ word for it that they are homosexual, or bi-sexual or transgender?

Oh, and did you see that the Pakistanis are p*****-off at the US State Department for an Embassy LGBT pride event; they called it cultural genocide by the US against Pakistan.