Day: December 25, 2022
Homeland Security? What’s That? DHS Neglected to Collect THOUSANDS of Security Cards From Former Employees
BY ROBERT SPENCER
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
You have to understand: the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has had far more important things to do than worry about minor things such as, you know, homeland security. The agency has been too busy, too dreadfully, frightfully busy, to be concerned with enforcing the most elementary safety procedures and collecting security cards from employees who have left the organization. After all, what could possibly go wrong? What could a disgruntled former employee do at the wholly innocuous DHS that would cause any difficulty for anyone?
A report that was published Thursday from the DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG) stated that “the Department of Homeland Security did not always terminate personal identity verification (PIV) card access or withdraw security clearances for separated employees and contractors in accordance with Federal regulations and Department policies.” This negligence has been going on for at least four years: “In 2018, we identified weaknesses in DHS’ controls over PIV card collection, revocation, destruction, and management oversight.” Yet nothing has been done:
Many of the issues we previously reported remain, and further work is required to improve and enhance processes. Specifically, DHS has not prioritized ensuring that PIV cards are terminated when individuals no longer require access. We determined that, in thousands of cases, DHS did not promptly revoke PIV card access privileges or destroy PIV cards of individuals who separated from the Department. In addition, DHS did not always promptly withdraw security clearances of individuals who separated from DHS.
The report noted that it was impossible even to tell how big this problem is, but there are at very least “thousands” of problematic incidents: “We determined that, in thousands of cases, DHS did not promptly revoke PIV card access privileges or destroy PIV cards of individuals who separated from the Department.” But the problem could be much, much bigger than even that: “In addition, DHS did not always promptly withdraw security clearances of individuals who separated from DHS. Unfortunately, we could not determine the exact magnitude of the problem because records in DHS’ information systems were incomplete.”
This has potentially catastrophic consequences: “DHS cannot ensure only authorized individuals have access to its controlled systems and facilities. As a result, there is a risk that individuals who no longer require access to systems and facilities could circumvent controls and enter DHS buildings and controlled areas.”
Related: Biden’s DHS Signals It Wants to Criminalize Political Dissent
Clearly, the DHS has been far too consumed with its duties to care about such trivial matters. Last spring, rather than worry itself about trivialities such as unauthorized people gaining access to areas containing sensitive or classified information, it rolled out the Disinformation Governance Board. According to the office of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), “the Disinformation Governance Board was originally conceived in part to monitor domestic speech regarding ‘conspiracy theories about the validity and security of elections’ and ‘disinformation related to the origins and effects of COVID-19 vaccines or the efficacy of masks.’” Even worse, “DHS planned for a partnership with Twitter to suppress disfavored content and planned a meeting with Twitter executives exploring the concept.” Now we know that Facebook and Twitter were meeting with DHS regularly to discuss what opinions Americans held that should be censored.
So you see: DHS had important censorship work to do, so as to make sure that as few Americans as possible had access to any information that departed from what Biden’s handlers wanted us all to believe and accept as true. It couldn’t possibly spare any time or personnel from that gargantuan, deeply patriotic effort to take care of something so trivial as ensuring that a criminal or terrorist wouldn’t be able to gain access to information that could lead to lives or fortunes lost and lives destroyed. For that, we would need a security agency, and it’s clear that at least during the misrule of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, DHS is anything but a security agency. It’s an enforcement arm for the regime, and a foe of the freedom of speech, not a security agency.
DHS was established in the wake of 9/11 to coordinate activities among the government’s various security agencies. It had signally failed in this mission, as the agencies still often operate at cross purposes with one another, and now compounding the problem is the corruption of the DHS into a weapon of partisan politics and the Left’s advancing authoritarianism. Maybe a future president will have to establish a security agency to coordinate activities among the government’s various security agencies. And then the whole corrupt cycle will begin again.
Nigeria: Muslims slaughter 46 unarmed Christian villagers as security forces do nothing
BY ROBERT SPENCER
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
It’s clear at this point which side the Nigerian government is on.
“Herdsmen, Other Terrorists Slaughter 46 Christians in Nigeria,” Morning Star News, December 23, 2022:
ABUJA, Nigeria (Morning Star News) – Suspected herdsmen and other terrorists killed 46 people Sunday night to Wednesday (Dec. 18-21) in attacks in predominantly Christian areas of southern Kaduna state, sources said.
Attacks by Fulani herdsmen and other terrorists on Malagum and Abun (Broni Prono) villages in Kaura County Sunday through Tuesday (Dec. 18-20) left 38 people dead in the predominantly Christian communities, said Luka Biniyat, spokesmasn for the Southern Kaduna People’s Union (SOKAPU).
“It is with heavy heart and deep sense of loss that we announce the gruesome, mass murder of not less that 38 harmless, unarmed villagers,” Biniyat said in a press statement. “The killings, which lasted long, started around 11 p.m. Sunday night. Not only were these, poor innocent citizens killed, not less than 100 houses were razed, with some victims burned alive.”…
“Apparently, the security forces deployed there did nothing under this glaring potential threat to security,” he said. “Especially as this dastardly act is coming five days after armed herdsmen herded their cattle into a farm owned by Cletus Dunia, 45, in Kpak village, a sub-unit of Kagoro, in Kaura LGA, and shot him dead at close range before mutilating his corpse.”
The herdsmen also shot and killed Levi Zakaria, 19, as he was harvesting yams on a farm on the route taken by herdsmen, who also killed 16-year-old Ezra Sunday about two kilometers away, he said.
“The same herdsmen caused the death of Gaje Habila, 31, when he fell and died of exhaustion while escaping the killer herdsmen, leaving behind a widow and a 6-month-old baby,” Biniyat said.
In southern Kaduna state’s Zangon Kataf County on Tuesday and Wednesday (Dec. 20-21), armed herdsmen invaded homes in predominantly Christian Kamuru village, Ikulu Ward, and killed four persons, he said.
“This is to say that 46 persons were killed in unprovoked attacks in southern Kaduna in the past five days,” he said.
The slaughters follow attacks that have displaced thousands of people from their ancestral homes since 2019, he said.
“Let it be put on record that in the hundreds of attacks that have put many parts of southern Kaduna into ruins and killed thousands since 2014, we have not seen anyone arrested and brought to book over these heinous crimes against humanity,” Biniyat said. “Instead, it is southern Kaduna traditional leaders, clergy and human right activists that do get arrested and put in prison over trumped-up allegations of ‘incitement.’”
Local Council official Mathias Simon confirmed that four Christians were killed in Zangon Kataf County.
“Aside from the four Christians killed, four others also were injured during the attacks by the herdsmen and terrorists,” Simon told Morning Star News in a text message, adding that area Christians have no way of stemming the attacks “but must remain steadfast in prayers and be watchful in order to keep our communities safe.”
Bawa Emmanuel, a youth leader in Kaura County, also confirmed the slaughters.
“Attacks on Kaura LGA have been consistent and multi-dimensional with the efforts of the security operatives and government not seen or felt,” Emmanuel told Morning Star News in a text message.
Numbering in the millions across Nigeria and the Sahel, predominantly Muslim Fulani comprise hundreds of clans of many different lineages who do not hold extremist views, but some Fulani do adhere to radical Islamist ideology, the United Kingdom’s All-Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom or Belief (APPG) noted in a recent report.
“They adopt a comparable strategy to Boko Haram and ISWAP [Islamic State West Africa Province] and demonstrate a clear intent to target Christians and potent symbols of Christian identity,” the APPG report states.
Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians’ lands and impose Islam as desertification has made it difficult for them to sustain their herds….
Afghan officials smuggled $1,000,000,000 out before Taliban takeover as Biden poured in billions more
BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
Business Insider has exposed the level of corruption in the U.S.-backed Afghanistan government. Among the biggest questions that arise is this: How much money did Afghan President Ashraf Ghani leave with, and how much hard-earned American taxpayer cash was among the money that was smuggled out of the country?
Consider the fact that Ghani met with Biden in June 2021, less than eight weeks before Ghani fled the capital amid the collapse of the US-backed government. Although it’s a mystery what Ghani left with, information points to him being a beneficiary of the smuggled assets.
Even as the collapse loomed, the Biden administration continued to pour billions of dollars into Ghani’s government and boasted about the US-Afghan relationship. The investigation into the Afghan corruption points to full knowledge on Biden’s part. So who will now continue this investigation, not only into Ghani (which lead to death threats to the investigator), but particularly into Biden’s knowledge and possible complicity? Not only have large amounts of American cash been lost in Afghanistan, but billions of dollars worth of weaponry was also left behind.
Shocking levels of corruption keep on getting exposed in the Biden administration, which includes the loss of staggering amounts of cash in Afghanistan, cash that could have been used to turn around the American economy. Instead, Biden is keeping the Southern border open, only adding to the financial burden of American citizens, as well as inevitable security costs related to the criminal element that is entering the country.
Biden has now pledged “unlimited” spending to Ukraine. Clearly, he thinks America has unlimited financial reserves. What about American interests?
“Exclusive: Afghan government officials helped smugglers sneak almost $1 billion in cash and gold out of Afghanistan as the US-backed government neared collapse, documents show,” by Mattathias Schwartz and Edris Lutfi, Business Insider, December 20, 2022:
During the final months of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, as the Taliban advanced on the capital, the elected government struggled to reassure its US patrons that it could maintain control. Yet at the same time, smugglers were illegally carrying hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and gold out of the country with the assistance of officials from within the Afghan government, according to internal government documents and former Afghan officials.
The office of Ashraf Ghani, the US-backed Afghan president, had been informed about the problem, insiders say. But it did nothing to stop it.
Documents assembled by Afghanistan’s now-defunct government and obtained by Insider show that $59.7 million in cash and gold went from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan through the port of Hairatan during the first three months of 2021, as the US contemplated withdrawing its forces and the Taliban geared up for the spring offensive that eventually toppled Kabul. During a 13-month period running from May 2019 through May 2020, the total was a staggering $824 million.
Though the couriers failed to declare the money to Afghan officials as it left the country, Uzbek customs agents on the other side of the border did record the cash and gold on handwritten customs forms. Those records were obtained by Afghan anti-corruption officials as part of an investigation into money smuggling, and they form the basis of a scathing report documenting a river of cash flowing out of the impoverished nation.
Much of the money, the Uzbek customs forms show, was bound for the United Arab Emirates, where top Afghan officials would flee when their government collapsed later that year.
Gold and cash totaling four percent of Afghanistan’s GDP was smuggled through one border crossing
Situated on a river with one bridge crossing, Hairatan is the highest-volume customs port in Afghanistan. Insider obtained 457 pages of customs records showing that more than $824 million in cash and gold illegally crossed the border there during the second half of 2019 and the first half of 2020 — roughly four percent of Afghanistan’s GDP and more than the total amount of humanitarian assistance that the US government was providing to the country each year. In early 2021, as the new US administration was evaluating a sped-up withdrawal plan, between $500,000 and $1 million was passing through each day, the documents show.The smuggling flouted Afghan laws requiring travelers to declare cash or gold worth $10,000 or more and a strict ban on exporting $20,000 or more. The Uzbek customs forms don’t specify who the money belonged to or how the smugglers obtained it, but such a large and illicit flight of capital out of the country was one of many warning signs that the Afghan government’s survival could be in jeopardy.
The documents accuse Mirza Mohammad Katawazai, the former deputy speaker of Afghanistan’s parliament, of directing the smuggling ring with the help of a network of Afghan intelligence officials, border guards, and port officials. (Katawazai has denied previous allegations of smuggling ties.) They also accuse Ata Mohammad Noor, the former governor of Balkh province, where Hairatan is located, of providing security for the smugglers and issuing threats to potential competition. The documents identify the two men as being part of the 2021 smuggling ring; they do not allege who was behind the $824 million smuggled in 2019 and 2020….
American officials spent the first months of 2021 publicly extolling the durability of Ghani’s government, which would collapse almost immediately upon the US exit in August. But in private, they were airing serious concerns about corruption. On March 31, 2021, diplomats from the US Embassy in Kabul met with an Afghan government delegation that included members of the team investigating the Hairatan smuggling. According to notes of the meeting obtained by Insider, the Americans told their Afghan counterparts that corruption could only be stopped “if there is will” and expressed concerns about corruption “at the inner circle of the President.”
Meanwhile, the Biden administration continued to pour billions of dollars into Ghani’s government and spoke publicly about an enduring US-Afghanistan partnership. Even after Biden announced in April 2021 that the US military would leave the country by September, the official US plan was to continue funding Ghani’s government, having already spent $2.3 trillion on the war and $145 billion on reconstruction….
Those in Ghani’s inner circle appear to have prospered during their time in power. In June, the Wall Street Journal reported that the former president’s ministers have been snapping up rental properties in California and villas in the UAE, where the bulk of the smuggled money was headed. The UAE is also the home of Ghani and Noor, the former provincial governor with alleged ties to the Hairatan smuggling ring.
Canada: Trudeau government funds assisted suicide activity book for kids
BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
The Trudeau government funded an assisted suicide activity book for kids: The Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Activity Book. Although assisted suicide isn’t available for youngsters under 18, the activity book serves the function of helping kids to:
1. attend an assisted suicide;
2. prepare them in advance to choose an assisted suicide when they reach the age of 18; or
3. normalize assisted suicide.
MAID includes “serious illness, disease or disability.” But it will also include “mental suffering” after March 17, 2023.
The complete disregard for the sanctity of human life and nature (most noted among “progressives”) is gaining increasing traction — from abortion on demand to child grooming by transgender activists, and now to helping young people kill themselves by 18.
A crude and sinister example from the child workbook:
“Canada funded this assisted suicide ‘activity book’ for children,” by Tristin Hopper, National Post, December 21, 2022:
Just as Ottawa publicly acknowledges that its assisted suicide regime might have gone too far, critics have highlighted the existence of a little-known medical assistance in dying children’s activity book that was funded by the Canadian government. The Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) Activity Book was first published in July by the group Canadian Virtual Hospice.
The book is not intended for children who are themselves seeking assisted death, and it’s not subject to mass-distribution through schools or public libraries. Minors are ineligible for medically assisted death in Canada, although there has been a push by the Quebec College of Physicians to extend the practice to severely disabled newborns.
Rather, the activity book is intended for children who may soon be attending a medically assisted death in person. “Created for young people who have someone in their life who may have MAID,” the group declared in a statement.
MAID is defined in the booklet as the use of medicines to stop a “person’s body from working.”
The booklet describes MAID as a last-ditch measure reserved only for consenting adults afflicted with an illness or disability that “hurts their body or their mind so much that it feels too hard to keep living.”
Children are guided through the “three medicines” that constitute the lethal injection process, and are urged not to attempt to change the mind of a family member who has opted for assisted death. “As much as other people may want to change their mind, the person who is choosing MAID probably wishes just as strongly that they could change their illness or condition and how it is affecting their life,” it reads.
Financed by Health Canada, the 26-page booklet was written by Ceilidh Eaton Russell, a McMaster University lecturer and a consultant on grief in children. Russell is also behind the handbook Living Dying: A Guide for Adults Supporting Grieving Children and Teenagers.
The Canadian system of medically assisted death was legalized in 2016 following a Supreme Court of Canada ruling and has rapidly become the world’s most liberalized euthanasia regime. It has attracted international attention in recent months for a string of cases in which patients with chronic illnesses were offered death in lieu of treatment.
This included at least five instances in which Canadian Armed Forces veterans were offered MAID by a Veteran Affairs caseworker after seeking help for chronic conditions including PTSD.
On Tuesday, Minister of Veterans Affairs Lawrence MacAulay called it “harmful misinformation” that veterans were being offered assisted death – despite his own testimony to a House of Commons committee admitting as much……
POLICE STATE New Jersey: Hamas-linked CAIR wants January to be ‘Muslim Heritage Month’
BY LARRY ESTAVAN
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
The New Jersey State Senate is considering joint resolution 105, which would make January “Muslim Heritage Month” in New Jersey. News12 in the Bronx was there to cover Madina Ouedraogo of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) speaking in support of resolution 105. News12 tells us:
The goal is to increase awareness and appreciation of Muslim American communities in the state. The Council of American Islamic Relations testified on behalf of the new bill in Trenton.
Ouedraogo said:
If the state of New Jersey truly takes great pride in the religious and cultural diversity of its residents It is critical to pass Senate Joint Resolution JR105 which would recognize our large community within the state.
News12 added:
The Council hopes the new bill can bring more awareness to the rise of anti-Muslim incidents in the state.
Aware that there is always something wrong with every newscast that features CAIR, we go to the resolution to see what it says. In line 12 of joint resolution 105, we find this:
WHEREAS, Muslims have made significant contributions that shape our world, including notable achievements in philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry, medicine, architecture, music, literature, and the arts…
It is hard to know what exactly they are referring to here. But it sounds as if it might be a rehash of chauvinistic, pro-fascist 1,001 Islamic Inventions propaganda. “1,001 Islamic Inventions” made claims that Muslims invented or discovered chess, the crankshaft, bathing, the circumference of the Earth, manned flight, robots, etc. But these boasts are either fables, such as a single line in an ancient poem, or just warmed-over Greek civilization.
If the resolution is referring to this kind of esoteric knowledge, then the state of New Jersey should not celebrate it. And if CAIR’s endorsement was the first warning sign, the hint of revisionist history was the second.
Eight lines later comes another warning:
WHEREAS, The history of Muslims in the United States dates back to before the country’s founding, originating with enslaved Africans, of whom scholars estimate as many as 30 percent were Muslim, who brought Islamic beliefs and practices with them and contributed in numerous ways to the founding of the nation, including courageous and dedicated military service in every major war from the American Revolutionary War until today.
Again, there is this vague reference to “scholars.” But there are no scholars who will tell you that 30 percent of the slaves brought to America were Muslim. That is because the historical record is not complete enough to know how many people were Muslim.
Also, several of the names that propagandists regularly bring up as examples of a Muslim presence in America are not only outliers but Fulani.
The Fulani people were busy ethnically cleansing their areas at the time of the Transatlantic Slave Trade era. They were supplying the slaves, and they were not enslaving themselves. They were taking non-Muslims into slavery.
Omar ibn Said, Yarrow Mamout, and Abdul Rahman Ibrahima Ibn Sori are used as examples of American slaves who were Muslims. But these men were all ambushed or waylaid Fulani and were not representative of large numbers of Fulani being enslaved.
James H. Johnston wrote about one of these Fulani brought to America, and says it right in the book:
…“Muslim slaves were uncommon”
That’s from From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family, by James H. Johnston.
Another Fulani slave was Rahman Ibrahima Ibn Sori, who was the subject of a Unity Productions movie called “Prince among Slaves.” Daniel Greenfield wrote about it here: “PRINCE OF LIES How a racist Muslim mass murderer of Africans became PBS’s role model.”
Not your typical friendly neighborhood slave.
There is a type of Muslim who will try to appropriate, in the name of Allah, anything that isn’t nailed down. That includes America. CAIR is like that. CAIR is an ardent supporter of teaching the 1619 Project in public schools. The thesis of the 1619 Project is that America began with the arrival of the first slaves.
There is another interesting detail to the Joint Resolution story. One of the bill’s co-sponsors is Ed Durr. Remember Ed Durr? He once spoke bluntly about Islam on social media. But now that he has been elected to the New Jersey State Senate, he is helping CAIR to bring revisionist history into New Jersey classrooms.
My guess is that News12 will not be around for any percentage of that.
“State lawmakers consider a bill to name January ‘Muslim Heritage Month,’” News 12, December 19, 2022:
New Jersey lawmakers are considering naming January “Muslim Heritage Month” in New Jersey.Lawmakers have introduced a bill to make it so. The bill is backed by state Sen. Joe Pennacchio….The Council of American-Islamic Relations testified on behalf of the new legislation.“If the state of New Jersey truly takes great pride in the religious and cultural diversity of its residents, it is critical to pass Senate Joint Resolution, SJR-105, which would recognize our large community in the state,” says Madina Ouedraogo, government affairs manager for CAIR-NJ.CAIR says it hopes the new bill can bring more awareness to the rise of anti-Muslim incidents in New Jersey.
NDAA Fails to Stop Biden’s Purge of Military
BY DANIEL GREENFIELD
SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2022/12/ndaa-fails-to-stop-bidens-purge-of-military;
Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.
“An inappropriate use of taxpayer funds, and should be discontinued by the Department of Defense immediately.”
Unsurprising.
While Republicans rolled back some of Biden’s military cuts and managed to end the vaccine mandate for the military, they failed to reinstate military personnel forced out due to the mandate, they did nothing about wokeness in the military, which at this point is so great a threat that spending hundreds of billions on weapons systems is practically surplus to requirements if there will be no one reliable to operate them.
And the military purge of “extremists” launched by Biden’s political operatives has not been checked.
The “big win” here is a non-binding statement criticizing the political purge of opponents.
The final bill largely eschews issues related to the Pentagon’s efforts to root out extremism, but the Senate Armed Services Committee’s report accompanying its version of the bill calls for those plans to be curtailed, though the language is nonbinding.
The report language was added by Republicans with the backing of Sen. Angus King (I-Maine). It argues that the low instances of extremism in the ranks “does not warrant a Department-wide effort.” It further argues that the Pentagon anti-extremism effort “is an inappropriate use of taxpayer funds, and should be discontinued by the Department of Defense immediately.”
Which everyone is free to ignore.
This is a lawless administration whose Treasury and State Department are in violation of federal law by refusing to comply with SIGAR, the watchdog on Afghanistan. The Biden administration has responded to court setbacks on its student loan bailout or open borders by doubling down.
Senate Republicans get to claim that they did something by way of a non-binding statement in a report.
Mission accomplished.