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Posts Tagged Obama administration
Condi Rice and Bob Gates on U.S., Russia Relations
Posted by Brian in Opinion, Threat Watch on 11/Oct/2015 07:00
From The Washington Post:
One can hear the disbelief in capitals from Washington to London to Berlin to Ankara and beyond. How can Vladimir Putin, with a sinking economy and a second-rate military, continually dictate the course of geopolitical events? Whether it’s in Ukraine or Syria, the Russian president seems always to have the upper hand.
The fact is that Putin is playing a weak hand extraordinarily well because he knows exactly what he wants to do. He is not stabilizing the situation according to our definition of stability. He is defending Russia’s interests by keeping Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power. This is not about the Islamic State. Any insurgent group that opposes Russian interests is a terrorist organization to Moscow. We saw this behavior in Ukraine, and now we’re seeing it even more aggressively — with bombing runs and cruise missile strikes — in Syria.
Canceling The F-22 Was A Mistake
From Foxtrot Alpha:
As if they suddenly came to an epiphany, the United States Air Force brass is now admitting what many of us have been screaming about for so long: We didn’t build nearly enough F-22s, and the F-35 cannot simply pick up the slack. So why aren’t those who pushed so hard to cancel the F-22 program being held accountable?
At the same time that the Raptor was coming online and proving itself, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, of both the Bush and Obama Administrations, was calling for the F-22’s demise. This was said to be due to the aircraft cost and use as “only†an air-to-air, destruction of enemy air defense, and deep strike platform.
Special Treatment May Have Been Given To Female Rangers
From People.com:
“A woman will graduate Ranger School,” a general told shocked subordinates this year while preparing for the first females to attend a “gender integrated assessment” of the grueling combat leadership course starting April 20, sources tell PEOPLE. “At least one will get through.”
Multiple sources told PEOPLE:
• Women were first sent to a special two-week training in January to get them ready for the school, which didn’t start until April 20. Once there they were allowed to repeat the program until they passed – while men were held to a strict pass/fail standard.
• Afterward they spent months in a special platoon at Fort Benning getting, among other things, nutritional counseling and full-time training with a Ranger.
• While in the special platoon they were taken out to the land navigation course – a very tough part of the course that is timed – on a regular basis. The men had to see it for the first time when they went to the school.
• Once in the school they were allowed to repeat key parts – like patrols – while special consideration was not given to the men.
• A two-star general made personal appearances to cheer them along during one of the most challenging parts of the school, multiple sources tell PEOPLE.
Military Looks The Other Way on Afghan Pedophilia: “It’s their culture”
From The New York Times:
In his last phone call home, Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley Jr. told his father what was troubling him: From his bunk in southern Afghanistan, he could hear Afghan police officers sexually abusing boys they had brought to the base.
“At night we can hear them screaming, but we’re not allowed to do anything about it,†the Marine’s father, Gregory Buckley Sr., recalled his son telling him before he was shot to death at the base in 2012. He urged his son to tell his superiors. “My son said that his officers told him to look the other way because it’s their culture.â€
The policy of instructing soldiers to ignore child sexual abuse by their Afghan allies is coming under new scrutiny, particularly as it emerges that service members like Captain Quinn have faced discipline, even career ruin, for disobeying it.
NRA Stands Up For First Amendment
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 30/Aug/2015 07:00
From NRA-ILA:
As we reported in June, the Obama Administration’s State Department (DOS) proposed a revision of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) on June 3 that would require anyone seeking to make certain types of information about firearms publicly available to first obtain government approval. Prior restraints of the sort contemplated by the proposal are among the most disfavored regulations of speech under First Amendment case law. Our original alert encouraged gunsmiths, manufacturers, reloaders, serious hobbyists, and others who rely on design, development, production or manufacturing information about firearms to file comments with the State Department opposing the rule and explaining its problems.
Laura Poitras Sues U.S. Government
Posted by Brian in Law, News, Threat Watch on 9/Aug/2015 07:00
From EFF:
Washington, D.C. – Academy and Pulitzer Prize Award-winning documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras sued the Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. transportation security agencies today demanding they release records documenting a six-year period in which she was searched, questioned, and often subjected to hours-long security screenings at U.S. and overseas airports on more than 50 occasions. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is representing Poitras in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, DOJ, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Iran Trashes United States After Nuclear Deal
From Washington Free Beacon:
Iranian cleric Ayatollah Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, who was handpicked by the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader to deliver the prayers, delivered a message of hostility toward the United States in the first official remarks since a final nuclear deal was signed between Iran and world powers in Vienna last week.
A Persian-language message on the podium declared, “We will trample upon America†while the English phrase “We Defeat the United States†can be seen underneath.
Do Recent Supreme Court Rulings Threaten Gun Rights?
From Townhall.com:
Those efforts are bound to continue, especially now that the United States Supreme Court appears to be open to reaching decisions based on political considerations and public pressure, as opposed to basing their decisions solely on the U.S. Constitution.
Initially there will probably be regulatory steps implemented to restrict certain types of ammunition purchases, adding excessive amounts of taxes to various calibers or types of ammo so that it becomes cost-prohibitive to buy. You can’t target shoot with an AK-47 if the ammunition is so expensive that you can’t afford to buy it. The same goes for all the other so-called “assault weaponsâ€.
Feds Want To Restrict Talking About Guns On The Net
The State Department has proposed new ITAR rules that would cover merely talking about guns according to the NRA.
From The Washington Examiner:
…the NRA boiled it down for gun owners with this warning:
“In their current form, the ITAR do not (as a rule) regulate technical data that are in what the regulations call the ‘public domain.’ Essentially, this means data ‘which is published and which is generally accessible or available to the public’ through a variety of specified means. These include ‘at libraries open to the public or from which the public can obtain documents.’ Many have read this provision to include material that is posted on publicly available websites, since most public libraries these days make Internet access available to their patrons.
“The ITAR, however, were originally promulgated in the days before the Internet. Some State Department officials now insist that anything published online in a generally-accessible location has essentially been ‘exported,’ as it would be accessible to foreign nationals both in the U.S. and overseas.
“With the new proposal published on June 3, the State Department claims to be ‘clarifying’ the rules concerning ‘technical data’ posted online or otherwise ‘released’ into the ‘public domain.’ To the contrary, however, the proposal would institute a massive new prior restraint on free speech. This is because all such releases would require the ‘authorization’ of the government before they occurred. The cumbersome and time-consuming process of obtaining such authorizations, moreover, would make online communication about certain technical aspects of firearms and ammunition essentially impossible.”
Former Civil Servant: Hillary’s Email Excuse is Laghable
From Politico:
In this case, which is truly unprecedented, no matter what Secretary Clinton would have one believe, she managed successfully to insulate her official emails, categorically, from the FOIA, both during her tenure at State and long after her departure from it—perhaps forever. “Nice work if you can get it,†one might say, especially if your experience during your husband’s presidency gives you good reason (nay, even highly compelling motivation) to relegate unto yourself such control if at all possible.
ATF Backsdown on Bullet Ban
From The Washington Post:
Gun-rights supporters responded angrily. Right-wing media accused the Obama administration of an illegal move to restrict the Second Amendment. U.S. Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) wrote a letter co-signed by 236 members of Congress to express their “serious concern.” Fifty-two senators also expressed their displeasure with the ATF’s proposal.
From The New York Times:
But in a Twitter post on Tuesday, the agency acknowledged the intense opposition to the change and said it would shelve the proposal for now.
“You spoke, we listened,†the post said. “@ATFHQ plans more study on the proposed AP Ammo exemption framework.â€
A statement on the agency’s website said the agency had received more than 80,000 opinions even before the comment period for the proposed regulatory change was due to end next Monday. The agency said the “vast majority of the comments received to date are critical†of the proposal.
“Accordingly, A.T.F. will not at this time seek to issue a final framework,†the statement said. “After the close of the comment period, A.T.F. will process the comments received†and “further evaluate the issues raised.â€
Obama Admin Tells Border Patrol Not To Arrest Drunk Drivers
From Judicial Watch:
Obtained by Judicial Watch this week, the notice is titled “Enforcement Options With Alcohol-Impaired Drivers†and directs the 4,000-plus U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Tucson, Arizona sector to “release†individuals under the influence and “allow them to go on their way.†The document acknowledges that this feels counter-intuitive for Border Patrol agents, but eases concerns by answering a hypothetical question for the officers who have sworn to uphold the law: “If you allow this driver to continue down the road and they kill someone, aren’t you liable?†The answer is no, according to the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo. “There is no legal requirement for a Border Patrol agent to intervene in a state crime, including DUI,†the order says, adding that “therefore there is generally no liability that will attach to the agent or agency for failing to act in this situation.â€
This is another example that police and/or the federal government are not responsible for your safety even though they will tell you otherwise in different venues.
Firearms Manufacturers Still on Edge
Posted by Brian in Law, News, Threat Watch on 3/Feb/2015 07:00
From National Review:
But there’s more to the industry’s concerns than the fear that the punch bowl might soon disappear, if indeed sales haven’t already peaked. And in spite of the boost Obama’s given their sales, many would rather have a president who was less obviously hostile to their industry and their livelihoods. Johanna Reeves, executive director of the F.A.I.R. Trade Group – the Firearms Import/Export Roundtable – expressed it this way: The Obama administration, and the ATF in particular, are “pushing the envelope and testing the boundaries to see how far they can go.â€
The ATT and other U.N. programs play into this. As Reeves and a colleague put it in a recent piece on the treaty, their concern is that the “legitimate trade and industry will bear the brunt of ‘norms’ that will develop out of these instruments, norms that will further restrict the ability of U.S. firms to import and export firearms and ammunition.†Indeed, the worries stem fundamentally from the trade’s realization that the gun-control battle is moving from the national political level, where the Second Amendment has rarely looked healthier, to the international, national administrative, and state and local levels. In other words, the challenges are becoming more diffuse and harder to combat — or even, in the case of administrative restrictions, to follow.
Pentagon Tried to Stop Secretary of State Clinton From Going to War in Libya
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch, Warriors on 2/Feb/2015 15:29
From The Washington Times:
Mrs. Clinton’s main argument was that Gadhafi was about to engage in a genocide against civilians in Benghazi, where the rebels held their center of power. But defense intelligence officials could not corroborate those concerns and in fact assessed that Gadhafi was unlikely to risk world outrage by inflicting mass casualties, officials told The Times. As a result, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, strongly opposed Mrs. Clinton’s recommendation to use force.
Instead of relying on the Defense Department or the intelligence community for analysis, officials told The Times, the White House trusted Mrs. Clinton’s charge, which was then supported by Ambassador to the United Nations Susan E. Rice and National Security Council member Samantha Power, as reason enough for war.
“The decision to invade [Libya] had already been made, so everything coming out of the State Department at that time was to reinforce that decision,†the official explained, speaking only on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.