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Obama Admin Will Not Commit to Barring Iranian Access to U.S. Dollar

May 19, 2016

Obama Admin Will Not Commit to Barring Iranian Access to U.S. Dollar, Washington Free Beacon, , May 19, 2016

(On and on it goes; where it stops or if it will nobody knows. — DM)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks during a media conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday, May 19, 2016. NATO foreign ministers this week will discuss how the alliance can deal more effectively with security threats outside Europe, including by training the Iraqi military and cooperating with the European Union to choke off people-smuggling operations in the central Mediterranean. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry speaks during a media conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday, May 19, 2016.  (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

The Obama administration will not commit to halting its effort to help Iran access the U.S. dollar, despite past commitments to do so, according to a new congressional inquiry obtained by the Washington Free Beacon into the Treasury Department’s refusal to uphold its promises.

Leading senators are threatening to block all consideration of Treasury Department nominees until the administration ends its bid “to enable Iranian access to U.S. dollars” throughout the international financial system, according to a letter sent Thursday to the Treasury Department by Sens. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Mark Kirk (R., Ill.).

Potential Iranian access to the U.S. dollar has caused friction between Congress and the Obama administration, which initially vowed during negotiations with Iran that such a move was out of the question.

However, senior administration officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry, have publicly sought to encourage Europeans to reengage in business with the Islamic Republic following last summer’s comprehensive nuclear agreement.

“We want to make it clear that legitimate business, which is clear under the definition of the agreement, is available to banks,” Kerry said in London last week.

The administration has been intentionally side-stepping questions about methods to give Iran backdoor access to the U.S. dollar, according to senior congressional sources informed of the matter.

The administration has assured lawmakers it will not grant Iran direct access to the U.S. financial system. However, it will not discuss backdoor methods in which U.S. dollars are given to Iran via international banks, source said.

“Whenever the administration gets asked whether it’ll allow Iran’s terror-sponsoring regime access to dollarized transactions outside of the U.S. financial system, a transaction that some people are starting to refer to as ‘Z-turn’ transactions, it flat-out avoids the question and instead says it doesn’t plan to allow Iran to engage in so-called ‘U-turn’ transactions or direct access to the U.S. financial system, something which lawmakers already know,” the source explained.

“This is the equivalent of giving an answer about oranges when you’ve been repeatedly asked about apples, and doesn’t change the fact that the critical questions about ‘Z-turn’ transactions for Iran really need to be clearly answered by the Treasury Department, once and for all,” the source said.

The apparent shift in the administration’s rhetoric on the issue has deepened concerns on Capitol Hill about alleged White House efforts to mislead Congress and the American people about the contents of the nuclear deal.

Rubio and Kirk are threatening to block all Treasury Department nominees from Senate consideration until the Obama administration answers questions about efforts to help Iran get access to U.S. dollars in the international marketplace, according to the letter obtained by the Free Beacon.

“We are disappointed that you ignored the request in the March 30th letter from Senators Rubio and Kirk to provide ‘assurances that the United States will not work on behalf of Iran to enable Iranian access to U.S. dollars elsewhere in the international financial system, including assisting Iran in gaining access to dollar payment systems outside the U.S. financial system,’” the senators wrote. “We do not support the consideration of Treasury Department nominees until our request is directly answered.”

Kirk and Rubio initially petitioned the Treasury Department in March to seek firm assurances that officials would commit to blocking Iranian access to the U.S. dollar.

The Treasury Department, in a May 11 response to Kirk and Rubio’s initial inquiry, declined to address specific questions regarding efforts to promote Iranian access to the U.S. dollar via foreign transactions outside the American financial system.

A month ago, the Obama administration launched a quiet push on Capitol Hill to reassure lawmakers that it would not grant Iran any access to the U.S. dollar or American financial markets, according to a Free Beacon report at the time.

That stance appears to have shifted in recent weeks, prompting concern from Iran deal critics such as Rubio and Kirk.

The Obama administration is now going above and beyond the purview of the nuclear agreement to help boost Iran’s economy, the senators allege.

“In its determined effort to provide Iran’s terror-sponsoring regime with benefits that were not expressly included in the ill-conceived Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Administration is on a path toward undermining the reputation of the United States as a global leader in antimoney laundering and countering terrorism financing,” they write.

“Access to the U.S. dollar is not an international right. But if Tehran wants access, the onus should be entirely on Iran to clean up its act—including by verifiably ending its sponsorship and financing of terrorism, its ballistic missile program, and its human rights abuses against the peoples of Iran and other nations—and reduce the risks that any financial transaction with Iran poses to the global financial community,” the letter states.

The outgoing Obama administration is waging a public campaign to encourage businesses to reenter the Iranian market place, which has been known as a key front for money laundering and terrorism funding, despite Iran’s continued pursuit of ballistic missile technology, which could carry a nuclear payload over great distances.

“Sadly, the Administration appears to be more focused in capitulating to Tehran than in forcing Iran’s terror regime to fundamentally change its behavior,” the lawmakers write. “It’s high time for the U.S. to stop making unreciprocated concessions and to start holding Iran fully accountable for continuing its dangerous and destructive behavior.”

The Senate Banking Committee is scheduled to hold two hearings on Iran next week and sources disclosed that this issue will be a primary focus for Congress.

Categories: Europe, Iran - sanctions relief, Iran and dollar trade, Kerry, Obama and Iran, U.S. Congress
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Dems Seek Quicker Admission of Syrian Refugees Despite Terrorism Concerns

May 18, 2016

Dems Seek Quicker Admission of Syrian Refugees Despite Terrorism Concerns, Washington Free Beacon, , May 18, 2016

Syrian-refugee-family-in-eastern-Lebanese-town-APSyrian refugee family in eastern Lebanese town / AP

Senate Democrats sent a letter to President Obama Wednesday pressing the administration to accelerate the admission process for Syrian refugees to settle in the United States.

Obama vowed last year that the U.S. would resettle up to 10,000 individuals seeking haven from the Syrian civil before September, but according to Reuters only 1,736 refugees have been admitted.

27 senators, including the No. 2 Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I, Vt.), signed the letter urging the Obama administration to “devote the necessary resources to expeditiously and safely resettle Refugees from Syria.”

“We are deeply concerned about the slow pace of admissions for Syrian refugees in the first seven months of the fiscal year,” the senators wrote in the letter obtained by Reuters.

The letter arrived three weeks after Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that the Islamic State terrorist group has “taken advantage” of the migrant crisis in Europe, advising E.U. nations to maintain awareness.

One of the suicide bombers who conspired in the November Paris attacks that killed 130 people entered Greece using a fake Syrian passport posing as a refugee. He then traveled the same route fleeing migrants use to make his way into Western Europe.

The revelations have ignited criticism from Republicans who contend that the president’s plan would lead to similar attacks in the U.S. without a stringent vetting process in place.

More than 30 governors have called on the U.S. to halt the refugee resettlement program and have tried implementing restrictions to prevent them from entering their states. Only one of those states was home to a Democratic governor.

The Democratic signatories demanded in their letter that the administration provide specific details as to how the nation would carry through on its vow to resettle the remaining 8,264 Syrians during the next five months.

“Other nations, including ours, can and should do much more,” the senators wrote.

The U.S. has so far resettled more than 6,000 refugees from Myanmar and more than 5,000 from Iraq.

Categories: Democrats, Islamic immigration, Islamic refugees, Islamic terrorism, Obama and Islam, Syria, Syrian refugees, U.S. Congress
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Democrats Try to Outlaw Trump’s Muslim Immigration Ban

May 16, 2016

Democrats Try to Outlaw Trump’s Muslim Immigration Ban, Front Page Magazine, Robert Spencer, May 16, 2016

(Since Islamic jihad has been deemed un-Islamic, and is therefore claimed to have no nexus with Islam, there is presently no effective way to bar Islamic terrorists from entry. Perhaps those who oppose Trump’s proposed temporary ban on Muslim immigration until ways are found to keep jihadists out should try to find ways. — DM)

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Love him or hate him, Donald Trump has certainly turned American politics on its head. Has it ever happened before in American history that a political party began to frame legislation against an opposing candidate’s proposals before he was even elected – much less one whose election was as inconceivable as the mainstream media would have us believe about Donald Trump? Yet that is exactly what the Democrats are doing: Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) is spearheading a bill that would block a President Trump from instituting the temporary halt on Muslim immigration into the United States that he has proposed.

“It’s very narrow in scope,” says Beyer of his Freedom of Religion Act. “We’re not going to discriminate when it comes to immigration based on religion.” He added that his bill was intended to “appeal to hope rather than fear.” In our pusillanimous and puerile age, “fear” is not just a weakness of character, but a moral flaw: if you fear being beheaded or blown up by Islamic jihadists, you’re an evil person. And to be sure, fear is never to be encouraged or given into, but its opposite is not hope, it’s courage and resoluteness.

Beyer is not offering courage or resoluteness. He is proposing a ban on using someone’s religion as a reason for blocking them from entering the country based on the politically correct fiction that Islamic jihad terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, and that therefore to be concerned about jihad terrorists entering the country along with peaceful Muslim refugees is simply a manifestation of bigotry, racism and “Islamophobia.”

What Beyer is offering is “hope” and a rejection of “fear.” We should “hope” that there will be no jihadis among the immigrants. We should “hope” that there will not be another jihad attack a la San Bernardino perpetrated by another refugee like Tashfeen Malik, the San Bernardino jihad murderer who had passed five separate background checks from five separate U.S. government agencies. We should “hope” that the Islamic State will not make good on its threat to send jihadis into Europe and North America among the refugees. We should “hope” that we can continue to pursue self-destructive and suicidal policies without suffering any negative consequences.

To reject all of Beyer’s “hopes” would be, in his view, to succumb to “fear,” and remember: fear is morally wrong. Trump, after all, is like Hitler for even suggesting this temporary moratorium: hard-Left journalist Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahill told Bill Maher on Real Time Friday: “I believe that what we’re seeing with Trump has whiffs of how Hitler rose to power.” Yes, of course: Hitler stopped emigration of Jews and kept them in Germany so he could kill them, while Trump proposed a temporary ban on Muslim immigration so that jihadis won’t kill us — clearly they’re the same thing, if you’re a hardcore doctrinaire Leftist.

Meanwhile, those who vilify Trump for proposing this have never actually come up with any viable alternative proposal for keeping jihadis out of the country. We’re just supposed to reject “fear” and rely on “hope” that it won’t all blow up on us – you know, the “hope” that prevented the jihad attacks in Paris and Brussels and San Bernardino and Garland and Chattanooga and Boston and Fort Hood. The “hope” that leaves us defenseless in the face of the advancing jihad, for fear of appearing “Islamophobic.”

For Leftists like Don Beyer and Jeremy Scahill, the mass murder of innocent non-Muslim civilians in the U.S. is preferable to taking any effective action to defend our nation – for to do so would be to succumb to “fear,” that fear that our Leftist moral superiors insist is a character defect. Why did the U.S. declare war on Japan after Pearl Harbor? Instead of giving in to “fear,” it should have laid down its arms and opened the door to unrestricted Japanese immigration. Britain should have done the same thing after Hitler invaded Poland: instituted a ban on anti-Nazi legislation and opened its arms and its shores to the Germans. What could possibly have gone wrong? Primitive man should never have fashioned a spear; he should instead have let the lion maul him; instead, he gave in to “fear.”

Don Beyer and the Democrats are, for the umpteenth time, demanding that the nation choose defeat and suicide.

Categories: Donald Trump, Islamic immigration, Islamic jihad, Multiculturalism, U.S. Congress
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D.C. ‘Terror Analyst’ Still Thinks Muslim Brotherhood a ‘Firewall Against Violent Extremism’

May 6, 2016

D.C. ‘Terror Analyst’ Still Thinks Muslim Brotherhood a ‘Firewall Against Violent Extremism’ PJ Media, Robert Spencer, May 5, 2016

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Is the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, or one of the world’s foremost bulwarks against terrorism? Numerous mainstream terror analysts in Washington contend that it is the latter.

They have to ignore a mountain of evidence to do so.

Arguing in the Washington Post that Congress should not designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization, Mark Lynch of George Washington University and the Project on Middle East Political Science asserts:

The Muslim Brotherhood’s firewall against extremism [was] a very real thing in the decade following 9/11.

However, Lynch thinks that, because of the al-Sisi government’s crackdown on the Brotherhood:

… the key mechanisms by which the firewall operated have now dramatically eroded.

More from Lynch:

Prior to the Arab uprising, I argued that mainstream Islamists served as a firewall against more violent extremists … [because] the Brotherhood publicly articulated an ideology of nonviolence and democratic participation. It competed with al-Qaeda for recruits and for public influence, and kept its members tightly embedded within its institutional structures. The Brotherhood could compete with al-Qaeda and other extreme groups in ways that liberals and state elites could not.

Hmm.

Lynch is apparently unaware that al-Qaeda founders Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden, as well as its current leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, were all members of or trained by the Muslim Brotherhood. Even more importantly, in building his case that the Muslim Brotherhood is a competitor to and bulwark against al-Qaeda and other jihad terror groups, Lynch ignores the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda have exactly the same ultimate goal.

In his 2002 letter to the American people, Osama bin Laden wrote:

The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam. … You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire. You separate religion from your policies, contradicting the pure nature which affirms Absolute Authority to the Lord and your Creator.

The Muslim Brotherhood shares the goal of replacing democratic rule with Sharia, as even CNN acknowledged in 2013:

The Muslim Brotherhood is a religious and political group founded on the belief that Islam is not simply a religion, but a way of life. It advocates a move away from secularism, and a return to the rules of the Quran as a basis for healthy families, communities, and states.

The key difference between the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda — and other jihad groups — is that the Brotherhood works through the democratic process in order to undermine that process and ultimately destroy it. The jihadis choose the path of violently attacking the installations of democratic governments, but with the same goal of ultimate destruction.

For Lynch and other Washington policy analysts, this is an all-important distinction. In reality, it is a distinction without a difference. The Brotherhood and the jihad groups are two sides of the same coin, working for the same goal via different means.

What’s more, the assertion that the Brotherhood eschews violence is egregiously false.

Lynch writes:

[D]espite post-coup propaganda and arrests by the Egyptian regime, there is very little to substantiate the charge that the Brotherhood behaved like a terrorist organization during Egypt’s transition or embraced violence either ideologically or strategically.

Beltway fantasy, meet reality: Egypt’s El Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation of Victims of Violence documented 359 cases of torture by the Muslim Brotherhood regime during its one year in power. By way of comparison, this was ten times more than the number of cases documented annually during the notoriously brutal Mubarak regime — the regime Obama and his Beltway terror analysts helped replace with the Brotherhood.

Even worse, when the Brotherhood was toppled from power, it blamed its failure on Egypt’s Christians – and that’s when Lynch’s “bulwark” against terror really began its campaign of, yes, terror.

Brotherhood members and supporters burned and looted nearly seventy churches, and destroyed 1,000 Christian businesses and homes. According to the Rev. Khalil Fawzi of Kasr El Dubarrah Evangelical Church, the Middle East’s largest evangelical church:

The Muslim Brotherhood were the ones who called for aggression. They are responsible.

In light of the Brotherhood’s willingness to engage in violence to further its ends, and the Sharia goal it shares with violent jihad organizations, Lynch’s recommendation that the U.S. work to strengthen the Brotherhood as a bulwark against al-Qaeda is the height of folly. It would be tantamount to aiding Mussolini in order to defeat Hitler, or electing Hillary Clinton to roll back the policies of Barack Obama.

By contrast, the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act is more realistic. It quotes testimony from former FBI Director Robert Mueller:

[E]lements of the Muslim Brotherhood both here and overseas have supported terrorism.

Supporters of terrorism richly deserve the terrorism designation. Mainstream analysts such as Mark Lynch have led the U.S. down numerous policy blind alleys. His viewpoint needs to be decisively rejected now.

Categories: Islamic terrorism, Muslim Brotherhood, Obama and Muslim Brotherhood, U.S. Congress
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Top Senate Democrat chides Netanyahu over ‘untimely’ Golan remarks

April 22, 2016

Top Senate Democrat chides Netanyahu over ‘untimely’ Golan remarks, Jerusalem Post, April 22, 2016

(So Netanyahu should remain silent when Obama and Putin propose to give Golan to Israel’s long time enemy, Syria? — DM)

Sen. Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, counseled Israel to focus more on peace with the Palestinians.

Sen. Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, said declaring Israeli ownership of the Golan Heights was not “timely” while Syria was mired in civil war.

He counseled Israel to focus more on peace with the Palestinians.

“Syria is in a state of war, the whole area is in flux,” Cardin, D-Md., said Thursday when he was asked about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration this week that “the Golan Heights will forever remain in Israel’s hands.”

“I don’t think it’s timely to figure out what’s happening in the north when there is an active war in Syria,” Cardin said of Netanyahu.

“Ultimately you’re going to need to have some type of recognition factor and you don’t have a government you can negotiate with and talk with in Syria,” said Cardin, who was meeting foreign policy reporters during a break from Senate votes.

The Obama administration this week reiterated longstanding US policy that the strategic plateau captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War was not part of Israel, and that its fate should be determined through negotiations.

“I would love to see a peace process and deal with the West Bank and Gaza,” he said. “And that to me is the most important chapter for Israel right now, is to advance the peace process toward a two-state solution for the Palestinians and Israelis. That to me is the most urgent need.”

Cardin is close to pro-Israel groups and has made clear in the past that he believes it is wrong to place the burden on Israel to renew talks, saying that the Palestinians must end incitement and return to talks with Israel suspended in 2014.

He was one of just four Senate Democrats who voted last year against the Iran nuclear deal, which Netanyahu vehemently opposed, and the senator was in the region just weeks ago, and met with Netanyahu.

Cardin also said he favors renewing the Iran Sanctions Act, due to expire this year, although Obama administration officials fear its renewal would rankle Iran and undercut the sanctions relief for nuclear rollback deal.

Cardin said there was broad agreement in Congress that the act needs renewing in order to keep in place sanctions that would be revived if Iran violates the deal. Obama administration officials say the president has the discretion to kick in sanctions should he need to.

The senator said he also hopes to pass new sanctions against Iran for testing ballistic missiles, a violation of UN Security Council resolutions. Current Republican proposals to renew the Iran Sanctions Act or to sanction Iran for its missile testing seem aimed at undercutting the Iran deal, Cardin said, a path he opposes even though he voted against the deal.

Categories: Democrats, Golan, Israel borders, Netanyahu, Syria, U.S. Congress
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Muslim Brotherhood Orgs Gather on Capitol Hill

April 19, 2016

Muslim Brotherhood Orgs Gather on Capitol Hill, Front Page Magazine, Robert Spencer, April 19, 2016

(Please see also, Will vs. Way Explains Islam vs. West. — DM)

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[A] May 1991 internal Muslim Brotherhood document . . .  states that Brotherhood operatives in the U.S. “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.” 

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The US Council of Muslim Organizations said that its 2nd Annual National Muslim Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill Monday was “designed to connect national, regional and state Muslim organizations, community members with their elected representatives in Congress.” However, the ties that some of the foremost organizations making up this coalition have to the Muslim Brotherhood reveal the sinister aspect of this agenda – and underscore the necessity of passing S. 2230, the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act.

Among the principal members of the US Council of Muslim Organizations is the Muslim American Society, which the Chicago Tribune reported in 2004 was one of the chief arms of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S.: “In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation’s major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members.”

The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), which openly states its goal of establishing a global caliphate and was listed in a May 1991 internal Muslim Brotherhood document that was later discovered by law enforcement officials. Entitled An Explanatory Memorandum on the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America, the document lists ICNA as an allied group and states that Brotherhood operatives in the U.S. “must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

Also listed in this document among the “organizations of our friends” is the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), the parent group of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). FBI officials ended ties with CAIR in 2008 after evidence in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial – the largest terror financing trial in U.S. history – revealing links between the HLF’s founders including CAIR co-founder and Executive Director Nihad Awad and the terrorist group Hamas, which describes itself in its charter as “one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine.”

There is much more than its links to Hamas to establish that the Brotherhood is a terrorist organization. The Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act itself sets out ample evidence that the Brotherhood richly deserves the terror designation, including February 2011 testimony by then-FBI Director Robert Mueller, who declared that “elements of the Muslim Brotherhood both here and overseas have supported terrorism.” Al-Qaeda founders Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden and its current leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, were all members of or trained by the Muslim Brotherhood.

This support for jihad terror is in line with the Brotherhood’s goal since its founding. Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna’s  ambition was to restore the caliphate (which had been abolished in 1924, four years before he founded the Brotherhood), creating a global Islamic superstate instituting Sharia as a universal law. Al-Banna insisted that it was a “duty incumbent on every Muslim to struggle towards the aim of making every people Muslim and the whole world Islamic, so that the banner of Islam can flutter over the earth and the call of the Muezzin can resound in all the corners of the world: Allah is greater [Allahu akbar]!”

That includes the United States. Brotherhood leader Muhammad Mahdi Othman Akef said in 2004: “I have complete faith that Islam will invade Europe and America.” He was referring not to a military invasion, but one driven by propaganda. Five years later, a powerful friend of the Brotherhood entered the White House. Barack Obama made sure that Muslim Brotherhood members were in the audience when he gave his Cairo speech in June 2009, and came out in favor of the uprisings against Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak even when it became clear that the Brotherhood stood to be their chief beneficiary. Protesters against the Brotherhood regime in Egypt as it was driven from power in 2013 accused Obama of supporting terrorism.

If anyone should know whether or not the Brotherhood is a terrorist group, those protesters should: they lived through the Brotherhood’s rocky year in power, and saw its abuses up close. Likewise Coptic Solidarity, a group dedicated to defending the rights of one of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s chief terror targets, last week began an advocacy campaign in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act.

Coptic Solidarity President Alex Shalaby declared: “It is unconscionable that the US still has not taken this action when countries such as Egypt, Syria, Russian, UAE, and Saudi Arabia have all declared the Muslim Brotherhood to be a terrorist organization.” Indeed it is. The designation will enable the next President and Congress to move decisively against the Brotherhood – maybe just in the nick of time.

Categories: CAIR, Islam - submission, Islamic indoctrination, Islamic supremacy, Islamisation, Islamists in America, Islamists visit Congress, Muslim Brotherhood, U.S. Congress
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Saudi Arabia Threatens To Sell Off $750 Billion In U.S. Assets If Congress Allows 9-11 Families To Sue

April 18, 2016

Saudi Arabia Threatens To Sell Off $750 Billion In U.S. Assets If Congress Allows 9-11 Families To Sue, Jonathan Turley’s Blog, Jonathan Turley, April 18, 2016

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The Obama Administration is shrugging off the insult to our legal system by a country that violates every core principle of due process and civil liberties in their own country.

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While the level of protection afforded Saudi Arabia in Washington is hardly a secret, the level of that support was on display this month when officials pushed the Obama Administration to release long-withheld pages from the 9-11 report, as we previously discussed. Those pages reportedly implicate Saudi Arabia in the 9-11 attacks. Saudi Arabia response with an express threat to sell off hundreds of billions of dollars of assets if Congress were to pass a bill allowing the Kingdom to be held liable for the attacks. One would think that the response would be outrage at the threat. After all, the bill would only allow citizens to sue and a bipartisan group of Senators have joined to support the 9-11 families. Saudi Arabia could still defend itself (and according to its government, vindicate itself) in a court of law. Of course, the United States has a real court system as opposed to the government controlled, Sharia “courts” used in the Kingdom to mete out medieval justice.

The Administration not only is staying silent about this insulting threat but is doing precisely what the Saudis are demanding in trying to block the bill. When push comes to shove between the victims or 9-11 and the Saudis, the choice appears clear.

So that there would be no mistake about the threat, Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom’s message personally last month — threatening a sudden sell-off of $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets to cripple the economy. The rationale is to avoid the assets from being frozen by American courts. Interestingly, this assumes that you are likely to be found guilty of complicity in the worst terrorist attack in United States history. What is interesting is that the use of al-Jubeir seemed calculated to maximize the threat. The same message could have been delivered through leaks that the Saudis were preparing such a selloff for strategic reasons. The open threat was a serious miscalculation by the Saudis in my view. Few Americans would take the threat as anything short of a slap in the face of the victims of 9-11 and the country as a whole.

The Obama Administration is shrugging off the insult to our legal system by a country that violates every core principle of due process and civil liberties in their own country. Instead, it is suggesting that holding Saudi Arabia liable for American deaths could put Americans at legal risk overseas. Whatever the merits of the argument against the access to the courts for these citizens (and I would be very interesting to hear them), the Administration should have delivered a clear message that we do not respond to such threats, particularly when another country is balancing American lives against foreign investments.

What do you think?

Categories: 9/11, Foreign policy, Obama and Islam, Obama and Saudi Arabia, Obama's weakness, Saudi Arabia, U.S. Congress, U.S. courts
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IRS Corruption Fuels Billions in Fraudulent Payments to Illegal Aliens

April 17, 2016

IRS Corruption Fuels Billions in Fraudulent Payments to Illegal Aliens, Breitbart, Tom Tancredo, April 16, 2016

GettyImages-57134468-640x480Hector Mata/AFP/Getty Images

I am sorry to report that the IRS practice described in this recent FORBES headline is not new. It’s an old story that continues to shock most — but not all — Americans:

            “IRS admits it encourages illegals to steal Social Security numbers”

Imagine my surprise when I found a pile of IRS 1040 tax returns among the tons of trash at a “lay-up site” used by illegal border jumpers near the Mexican border west of Douglas, Arizona. There are dozens of such places where the thousands of border invaders change clothes, discard trash and wait to be taken by their “coyote” to their pick-up location for moving on to Phoenix or El Paso or Houston.

The IRS 1040 forms were filled out and had been used. Hey, who says illegal aliens don’t pay taxes?

I collected the 1040 forms and we noticed all had claimed Earned Income Tax Credits and all also had claimed around nine deductions for children. The average refund was around $4,000. It occurred to me only much later that the American taxpayer may be funding the coyote’s $1,500 fees for smuggling poor Mexicans, Salvadorans — and Iraqis and Vietnamese — across our southwest border.

When I sent the 1040 forms to the Social Security Administration and the IRS, I was told that the practice described in the FORBES article was the one being followed in dealing with these returns. I tried to amend the appropriations bills for the IRS to be the practice, but I got nowhere. My Republican colleagues didn’t want to hear about it and were ticked at me for bringing it up.

Illegal aliens use “the system” to report income and also gain every possible “refund” the tax law — and IRS collusion — allows. Who can blame them when the welcome sign is in bright green neon letters?

This FORBES headline should not shock anyone. The IRS collusion with illegal alien tax fraud is not a secret. Over the past decade, there have been regular news stories exposing tax fraud by illegal aliens– and IRS indifference to the scandal.

The shocking thing is that the FORBES headline is not an exaggeration. The IRS knows illegal aliens are using stolen Social Security numbers and is glad they are doing it. But that is only the tip of the iceberg called illegal alien tax fraud.

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen made the revelation in congressional testimony this past week, but no one was really shocked. The IRS wants illegal aliens working illegally to file tax returns and pay taxes on their illegal earnings like everyone else. So, the government figures it is a smart thing to make it easy for them to do so. The government doesn’t care whether the Social Security number used is stolen or not, it’s the tax filing itself that is important to the IRS.

  • When asked why the agency has a policy to ignore notifications from the Social Security Administration that a number does not match the name used on the tax filing, the agency replies, literally, “That’s not our job.”
  • The IRS deliberately and unapologetically avoids telling you when your SSN is being used unlawfully by another person — or ten or twenty other people.
  • Efforts in Congress to fix that problem are criticized as “racist.”

But as I said, that IRS scandal is only the beginning of the story of tax fraud by millions of illegal aliens. Millions of illegal workers are filing tax forms not to pay their taxes but to claim and then receive refundable tax credits– that is, cash refunds– and those cash payments run into the billions annually.

It’s politically correct in Washington, DC, to say that illegal aliens are willing, even anxious, to “pay their fair share of taxes.” It’s part of the mythology of the noble “undocumented worker” seeking the American dream. Even the Republican National Committee believes it.

This week the RNC sent a fundraising letter to a few million prospective donors using the tired gimmick of a “poll” on critical issues. One question asked voters if they support legalization for illegal aliens if they meet a number of tests, one of them being “paying back taxes.” We all know illegal aliens are anxious to do that to prove they have earned the right to stay here and contribute to the economy.

The problem is they already have a way to pay back taxes if they want to do it, but millions are doing just the opposite. Millions of illegal aliens are collecting refundable tax credits– that is, cash — by filing fraudulent claims. And the IRS doesn’t care.

An April 2012 investigative report by an Indiana television station found numerous cases of tax fraud in the Child Tax Credit and Additional Child Tax Credits programs.

  • Four illegal alien tax filers had used the same address and claimed a total of 20 children for refundable tax credits of up to $1,000 for each child. Only one child actually lived at the address, and the other 19 lived in Mexico and had never even visited the United States.
  • That aspect of the fraud is in fact not really illegal: the child you claim on the tax form does not have to live in the United States. the child can be living with Aunt Rosa in Peru or Grandpa Felix in Algeria.
  • The IRS response to the fraudulent payments? They refused to comment or to confirm any investigation and refused to meet with reporters to answer questions.

IRS refusal to act on documented fraud by illegal aliens is legendary. For a decade the agency’s own Inspector General has complained of inaction by agency managers.

  • According to reports of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA), millions of illegal aliens are filing tax forms in order to claim refundable tax credits and receive billions in tax dollars — even if they have never paid one dollar in federal income taxes.
  • Illegal aliens are accessing not only the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) but the Child Tax Credit (CTC) and Additional Child Tax Credit ACTC) to the tune of billions annually.
  • And according to testimony of the Treasury Department’s Inspector General, the IRS has refused to take steps to curtail illegal aliens cashing in on these programs.

You may be thinking that the government surely would take action if the tax fraud is costing the Treasury millions of dollars. It’s fraud on a small scale, right? Nope. It’s costing billions, not millions.

While I was in Congress back in 2007, I tried to blow the whistle on this IRS partnership with schemes costing taxpayers billions.

  • A brave IRS employee in one of the agency’s Western regional offices called my office and met with my staff clandestinely at a restaurant in the capital of one of our southwestern states. He offered concrete, credible information and internal reports that showed there was a huge problem– and that it was being ignored by agency management.
  • His regional office team had studied a random sample of Child Tax Credit claims by tax filers using “ITIN” numbers– tax ID numbers given lawfully to persons who do not qualify for Social Security numbers but are employed and need to file tax returns.
  • Their sample revealed a high rate of fraud which suggested widespread fraud involving hundreds of millions of dollars. But he and his regional colleagues could get no action from headquarters to investigate it further.

Can you guess who blocked any congressional action to demand the IRS investigate illegal alien abuse of these “refundable tax credit” programs? The Congressional Hispanic Caucus threatened massive protests against “discriminatory practices” if the IRS pursued the issue.

At that time, Democrats were in the majority in the House and the Senate and thus controlled the committees, so no investigation was ever conducted. But did Republicans undertake to clean up the mess when they gained the majority in the 2010 election? No.

There is no evidence the problem of tax fraud by illegal aliens is something the IRS cares about.

  • A December 2014 report by Watchdog.org revealed that an IRS audit documented a 24 percent error rate in claims made under the EITC — a loss of $14.2 billion in unlawful tax refunds in the year 2012.
  • A similar audit of the Additional Child Tax Credit program in 2012 revealed erroneous payments in the range of 25 percent to 31 percent.
  • But did the audits result in corrective actions? No.

Adding all of the fraud rates together from three separate refundable tax credit programs suggests total tax fraud in the realm of several billion dollars. Of course, not all of the fraud is by illegal aliens. But the lack of IRS interest in curtailing illegal alien abuse of these tax credit programs tells us the problem will only get worse in the years ahead.

Let’s add the shameful, willful taxpayer-funded philanthropy toward illegal workers to the many reasons why IRS Commissioner Koskinen should be impeached and a new management team put into the agency to conduct a thorough house cleaning.

What are the odds of that happening under President Hillary Clinton? Or President John Kasich?

Categories: Illegal immigrants, Internal Revenue Service, Mexico, U.S. borders, U.S. Congress
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Where are we Now?

April 16, 2016

Where are we Now? Power Line, Steven Hayward, April 15, 2016

One lesson of the Trump phenomenon is that it has revealed that conservatives have been way too timid or conciliatory in confronting the Left—that the latitude for effectively confronting political correctness is much greater than we thought.

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That’s the open-ended title of the panel I spoke on last weekend at the West Coast Retreat of the David Horowitz Freedom Center (and special thanks to all of the Power Line readers in the audience who introduced themselves). Where do you go with such a wide-ranging title? I spoke from a few short notes that I scratched out the night before (which I have now lost), but I think it went pretty much something like this:

I’m not going to talk about the election, partly because so much of what I have said up to this point, especially about Trump’s prospects, have turned out to be wrong. Instead I think this panel’s title—Where Are We Now?—begs for taking a step back and looking at some longer term factors that overshadow the election, no matter who wins.

Lately I’ve been thinking of two sayings by foreigners—one probably familiar to most everyone, and one likely not. The first is Bismarck’s famous quip that “God looks after drunks, fools, and the United States of America.” I’m hoping this is still true. To the extent that accident and chance play a huge role in determining political life (the teaching of the classics), I think we’d have to say that America has been pretty lucky though most of its history. Thank God it was Harry Truman, and not Henry Wallace, who was vice president in April 1945 when FDR died; Truman was far from perfect, but he was right on a lot of important questions at that important moment.

The second saying comes from my late Hungarian-born friend Peter Schramm. Peter grew up under Communism, and when the Soviet tanks rolled through the country in 1956, his father said—“That’s it: we’re going to America.” “Why are we going to America, dad?” “Because, son, we were born American, just in the wrong place.” That was back at a time when people around the world understood clearly what America meant. I’m not so sure it is as clear to the world any more just what America means, or what it stands for, let alone whether it can be counted upon to defend the West.

Anyway, Peter told me that a favorite Hungarian saying is, “Things are serious—but not yet bad!” Now, I’m starting to think that things are bad. It is likely possible to recover from eight years of Obama with the right leadership, but if Obama is succeeded by Clinton or Sanders—or by a clueless Republican—the damage might be so long-lasting as to be near-irreversible.

A few observations:

First, events of just the last 10 days should remind us once again that our politics have become all out war—a fact that conservatives, and their weak vessel, the Republican Party, do not like to recognize. Conservatives like order and moderation (in the Aristotelian sense), and recoil from the idea of political warfare, because when things reach that stage, it means things are out of hand. But avoiding the unpleasantness of political life—and avoiding confronting it directly—will not make it go away, but instead guarantee that it will grow worse.

One lesson of the Trump phenomenon is that it has revealed that conservatives have been way too timid or conciliatory in confronting the Left—that the latitude for effectively confronting political correctness is much greater than we thought. It ought to be a matter of supreme embarrassment and shame that the most forceful and cogent response to the irresponsible demagoguery of Black Lives Matter has come from Bill Clinton. Never mind that he walked it back yesterday—that’s his problem. Our problem is no public figure on our side has spoken out as forcefully and as plainly as Clinton did.

In this regard, if we can’t win the Bathroom Wars, we might as well load up the lifeboats right now and become the refugees from our own country that the Left longs for us to be. And the most outrageous part of the recent controversy over bathrooms in North Carolina is the role played by big business, which is the most potent force in coercing states like North Carolina to back down from a common sense understanding of human nature. Why have big corporations become adjuncts to leftist identity politics? I suspect a study of corporate HR departments will find they are a hotbed of graduates with degrees in gender and ethnic studies, etc.

About Congress, I will just say that for those who have been critical of Republican leadership over the last few years, the problem is deeper and worse than you think. This is a long subject, having to do with the way in which the Democratic Party deliberately sought over decades to degrade the constitutional role of Congress in ways that many Republican members of Congress do not understand or perceive clearly enough. And it is going to take more than just a Republican president to fix this problem, though I think Ted Cruz understands this issue more profoundly than most of the rest of the GOP presidential field. But this is a very long subject, worthy of a separate complete panel all by itself.

Likewise, our response to the latest outbreak of radicalism on campuses is weak. The new mob of the campus Left says: racism, homophobia, sexism, oppression, and patriarchy. To which we have responded—free speech and academic freedom! This response is wholly inadequate. It concedes the premise of the Left: are we really for free speech on behalf of racism? Of course not, but we need to take the next step and throw back in their faces that their narratives of oppression are completely wrong, contemptible, and not to be taken seriously. That and a few expulsions (and more firings of many more professors like Melissa Click) might do the trick.

In summary, the central point of my remarks is to vindicate what I’m going to call the Horowitz Heuristic, or “David’s Desideratum.” For as long as I have known David, he has been saying that conservatives, and their defective organizational vehicle—the Republican Party—have not been vigorous enough in recognizing that the Left is conducting political warfare, and that it can only be beaten back by engaging in political warfare in return. Maybe a few more people are starting to figure out what David has understood all along. Is it too late? As Lincoln said about a real shooting war, “Wars are not won by blowing rosewater through cornstalks.”

Categories: Conservatives, Democrats, Freedom of speech, Leftists, Obama's America, Political correctness, Political warfare, U.S. 2016 elections, U.S. Congress
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The Perils of Not Listening to Iran

April 7, 2016

The Perils of Not Listening to Iran, Gatestone Institute, Shoshana Bryen, April 7, 2016

♦ The Iranian firing of a missile within 1500 yards of U.S. aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman in December, and the kidnapping and photographing of a U.S. Navy ship and crew (the photographs were a violation of the Geneva Convention) were test cases. Other than an apparent temper tantrum by Secretary Kerry, there was no American response. Oh, actually, there was. Mr. Kerry absolved his friend Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif of responsibility.

♦ The Iranians were confident that the Americans could be counted on not to collapse the whole discussion over violations along the edges. Their model was American behavior in the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process.” The Palestinians violate agreements and understandings with impunity because they know the Administration is more firmly wedded to the process than the specific issues on the table.

Supporters of President Obama’s Iran deal (JCPOA) are starting to worry — but that is because they believed him when his lips moved. They heard “snapback sanctions” and pretended those were an actual “thing.” They are not, and never were. They heard Treasury Secretary Jack Lew say the U.S. would never allow Iran access to dollar trading because of the corruption of the Iranian banking system and Iranian support for terrorism — and they wanted to believe him. And sanctions? The administration said that sanctions related to non-nuclear Iranian behavior — support for terrorism, ballistic missile development, and more — would be retained.

Supporters believed Secretary Kerry when he said sanctions on Iran would be lifted only by a “tiny portion,” which would be “very limited, temporary and reversible… So believe me, when I say this relief is limited and reversible, I mean it.” They all but heard him stamp his loafer.

The mistake was not just listening to the administration say whatever it was Democrats in Congress wanted to hear, while knowing full well that once the train left the station it would never, ever come back. The bigger mistake was not listening to Iran. The Iranians have been clear and consistent about their understanding of the JCPOA.

Days before Congress failed to block the JCPOA, Maj. Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, outlined Iran’s red lines.

  • To block “infiltration” of “Iran’s defense and security affairs under the pretext of nuclear supervision and inspection… Iranian military officials are not allowed to let the foreigners go through the country’s security-defense shield and fence.”
  • “Iran’s military officials are not at all allowed to stop the country’s defense development and progress on the pretext of supervision and inspection and the country’s defense development and capabilities should not be harmed in the talks.”
  • “Our support for our brothers in the resistance [Hezbollah, Assad, Yemeni Houthis, Hamas, Shiites in Iraq] in different places should not be undermined.”
  • A final deal should be a “comprehensive one envisaging the right for Iran to rapidly reverse its measures in case the opposite side refrains from holding up its end of the bargain.”
  • “Iran’s national security necessitates guaranteed irreversibility of the sanctions removal and this is no issue for bargaining, trade, or compromise.”
  • “Implementation… should totally depend on the approval of the country’s legal and official authorities and the start time for the implementation of undertakings should first be approved by the relevant bodies.”
  • Iran would not be limited in transferring its nuclear know-how to other countries of its choosing.

The Iranians deliberately and openly conflated what the Administration claimed would be limited sanctions relief related to specific Iranian actions on the nuclear program with the larger issues of sanctions for other Iranian behavior. The Iranians were confident that the Americans could be counted on not to collapse the whole discussion over violations along the edges. Their model was American behavior in the Israeli-Palestinian “peace process.” The Palestinians violate agreements and understandings with impunity because they know the Administration is more firmly wedded to the process than the specific issues on the table.

The Iranian firing of a missile within 1500 yards of U.S. aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman in December, and the kidnapping and photographing of a U.S. Navy ship and crew (the photographs were a violation of the Geneva Convention) were test cases. Other than an apparent temper tantrum by Secretary Kerry, there was no American response. Oh, actually, there was. Mr. Kerry absolved his friend, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, of responsibility, noting, “it was clear” that the footage did not come from the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He blamed the Iranian military, as if they do not work together.

Iran’s announcement that it would pay $7,000 to each family of Palestinian terrorists killed by Israel “to enable the Palestinian people to stay in their land and confront the occupier,” elicited the disclosure that Mr. Kerry was “extremely disturbed.”

Iran’s ballistic missile test in November, in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions, prompted U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power to say, “The U.S. is conducting a serious review of the reported incident,” and if the reports were confirmed, the Obama administration would bring the issue to the UN and “seek appropriate action.”

By February, however — after yet another ballistic missile test, in which the missiles carried explicit threats to Israel, Mr. Kerry said he was prepared to let the matter drop. “We’ve already let them know how disappointed we are.”

1323 (1)Iran’s firing of a missile within 1500 yards of a U.S. aircraft carrier in December, and its kidnapping and photographing of a U.S. Navy crew were test cases. Other than an apparent temper tantrum by Secretary of State John Kerry, there was no American response, except that Kerry absolved his friend Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif of responsibility. Pictured above: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (left) and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (right).

Responding to Senator Lindsay Graham’s suggestion that Congress might increase sanctions against Iran, Mr. Kerry replied, “I wouldn’t welcome [that] at this time given the fact that we’ve given them a warning and if they decide to do another launch then I think there’s a rationale.”

Kerry may not have to wait long.

Just this week, Iranian Deputy Chief of Staff Brig-Gen Maassoud Jazzayeri was quoted by the FARS News Agency reiterating, “The White House should know that defense capacities and missile power, specially at the present juncture where plots and threats are galore, is among the Iranian nation’s red lines and a backup for the country’s national security and we don’t allow anyone to violate it.”

Now, he is believable.

Congress is beginning to breathe fire, but it is not yet clear what it can or will do in the face of the Obama Administration’s executive actions. Last week, angry congressmen were reduced to threatening to “name and shame” American companies that do business with Iran because they cannot figure out how to stem the tide of the Obama Administration’s indulgence of Iranian provocations. That reaction is not even close to good enough.

Categories: Iran - sanctions relief, Iran and Israel, Iran scam, Iranian military, Iranian missiles, Iranian nukes, Iranian proxies, Israel, Obama and Iran, U.S. Congress
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