Friday, June 12, 2015

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Decorated Green Beret threatened with court martial for blowing whistle on "dysfunctional" hostage recovery effort


Lt. Colonel Jason Amerine, a decorated Green Beret who was among the first on the ground in Afghanistan after 9/11, is now under investigation by the U.S. Army and was threatened with court martial for sharing information with lawmakers about what he calls a “dysfunctional bureaucracy” preventing the recovery of American hostages held by Islamist terrorists.
"Warren Weinstein is dead. Colin Rutherford, Joshua Boyle, Caitlin Coleman and the child she bore in captivity remain hostages in Pakistan. I used every resource available but I failed them,” Amerine told a Senate committee during a hearing on whistleblower protection Thursday, listing the names of American hostages.
 “One of those resources was my constitutional right to speak to members of Congress." But he testified that "after I made protected disclosures to Congress, the Army suspended my clearance, removed me from my job, and sought to court martial me.”
Amerine told lawmakers he is now being punished by the Army for speaking to members of Congress about his concerns over an incoherent U.S. hostage policy.
He said he reached out first to Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., because of his position on the House Armed Services Committee and because he wanted to repair a “broken” hostage recovery system.
“Here is someone who is trying to save lives and who puts it on his sleeve basically what he is doing and he got slammed for it by the Army,” Hunter said in an interview with Fox News.
 “So you have them doing a retaliatory investigation of a great soldier. This is the kind of guy we want in the Army. This is who we want out there fighting for us,” Hunter said of Amerine, who received the Bronze Star with Valor for his actions in Afghanistan.
Hunter showed his support for Amerine Thursday by sitting behind the decorated soldier during the hearing on Capitol Hill as Amerine testified along with other whistleblowers who also had faced retaliation.
Five years ago, Amerine was tasked by Gen. John Campbell, currently the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to find ways to bring home Taliban prisoner U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl after Army commanders realized there was no coherent plan to do so. 
While working to free Bergdahl, Amerine realized there were other American hostages being held by Al Qaeda and Pakistan as well, but with all eyes on Bergdahl, the civilian hostages were forgotten and there was no plan to rescue them, he said.
Amerine believed a one to seven trade-off of the “Afghan Pablo Escobar,” Haji Bashir Noorzai, currently serving a life sentence in the United States, for all the Americans was possible.
Instead, Bergdahl was traded for five senior Taliban leaders who had been serving indefinite sentences at the U.S. military’s prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- a deal he said had been rejected by senior U.S. officials years ago. 
"My team had a difficult mission and I used all legal means available to recover the hostages. You, the Congress, were my last resort,” he told lawmakers. “I am before you because I did my duty and you need to ensure all in uniform can go on doing their duty without fear of reprisal."
He said he is being retaliated against because the FBI and others were angry when Hunter revealed the Defense Department had tried to pay a ransom for Bergdahl, which is against U.S. law.
Amerine said he drew their ire when Hunter submitted a complaint to the Inspector General alleging an “illegal or questionable” ransom had been potentially paid in a failed attempt to free Bergdahl.
“There was a good deal of evidence that it occurred and a lot of questions as to how it occurred,” Amerine told Senator Ron Johnson, R-Wisc, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.
Amerine accused the State Department, FBI and CIA of not sharing information with the military and described turf battles and bureaucratic “stove pipes” that he said have hindered the return of American hostages such as Caitlin Coleman, who recently gave birth in captivity in Pakistan, and Warren Weinstein, who was killed in a CIA drone strike in January.
The Army denied there was any retaliation against the decorated Special Forces officer.   
"As a matter of policy, we do not confirm the names of individuals who may or may not be under investigation to protect the integrity of a possible ongoing investigation, as well as the privacy rights of all involved. However, I note that both the law and Army policy would prohibit initiating an investigation based solely on a Soldier's protected communications with Congress," a spokeswoman for the U.S. Army said in a statement.
The FBI declined comment when contacted by Fox News.
Meanwhile, the Army has cancelled Amerine’s planned retirement this summer.

'He did nothing wrong': Florida principal ousted after defending Texas cop


A Florida high school principal, who defended the Texas police officer at the center of that infamous pool melee, has become the latest victim of radical speech police hell-bent on trying to silence public discourse.
Alberto Iber lost his job as the principal at North Miami Senior High School after he wrote a comment about the McKinney, Texas incident on the Miami Herald’s website.
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“He did nothing wrong,” Iber wrote. “He was afraid for his life. I commend him for his actions.”
Three sentences. Sixteen words. Sixty-two characters.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools released a statement on June 10 announcing that Mr. Iber had been removed from his position at the high school and reassigned to an administrative position.
The district said they require their employees to conduct themselves “in a manner that represents the school district’s core values.”
Superintendent Carvahlo sent a very chilling message to his employees – any opinion that is contrary to liberal ideology must be silenced. And those who dare to voice such an opinion in the public marketplace must be severely punished.
“Judgment is the currency of honesty,” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho wrote in a statement. “Insensitivity – intentional or perceived – is both unacceptable and inconsistent with our policies, but more importantly with our expectation of common sense behavior that elevates the dignity and humanity of all, beginning with children.”
The district’s statement seems to borrow heavily from an ideology that suggests while Americans have free speech – there’s a price to pay for speaking out.
Mr. Iber addressed the firestorm of controversy and affirmed his support for the police in a statement that was released to the Miami Herald.
“I support law enforcement, and also the community and students that I serve as the proud principal of North Miami Senior High,” he wrote. “The comment I posted was simply made as the result of a short video that I watched and my personal opinion.”
He also said it was not his intention to upset people – and he regretted that his three-sentence message had become newsworthy.
He did not retract what he wrote nor did he apologize for what he wrote.
Local news organizations suggested the reason Iber’s opinion became newsworthy is because North Miami is a “diverse” neighborhood – meaning most of the residents are black.
“If you’re running a majority black school and you say a remark such as that people will not respect you,” a student told NBC News in Miami.
Councilman Alix Desulme, who identifies himself as a Haitian-American, was among those who condemned the former principal – and said he was “appalled.”
“For him to make such a comment is insensitive to the community,” he told the Miami Herald.
Are the councilman and the superintendent suggesting the principal had an obligation to condemn the Texas police officer? Would the principal still have a job had he done so?
Was Mr. Iber removed from his job because he defended a police officer or was he removed because he defended a white police officer?
The school district told me the superintendent would have no further comments on the matter. And his silence is damning.
Superintendent Carvahlo sent a very chilling message to his employees – any opinion that is contrary to liberal ideology must be silenced. And those who dare to voice such an opinion in the public marketplace must be severely punished.
While we may never know for sure if race was the motivating factor – it appears a good and decent educator was felled simply because he defended a white man.
As we say around the Fox News Corner of the World – I’ll just let you decide.

Mother of Washington state NAACP leader says daughter falsely claimed to be black


Controversy erupted around a local NAACP leader in Washington state Thursday after family members told a local newspaper that she had misrepresented herself as black. 
Rachel Dolezal is the head of the NAACP's chapter in Spokane and is also a part-time professor in the Africana Studies Program at Eastern Washington University. The Spokane Spokesman-Review says that Dolezal described her ethnicity as white, black, and American Indian in an application to be the volunteer chairwoman of the city's Police Ombudsman Commission, a position to which she was duly appointed.
But Dolezal's mother, Ruthanne, told the paper that the family's actual ancestry is Czech, Swedish, and German, along with some "faint traces" of Native American heritage.
"It's very sad that Rachel has not just been herself," Ruthanne Dolezal said. "Her effectiveness in the causes of the African-American community would have been so much more viable, and she would have been more effective if she had just been honest with everybody."
Ruthanne Dolezal said that her daughter began to "disguise herself" in the mid-2000s, after the family had adopted four African-American children.
Rachel Dolezal did not immediately respond to her mother's claim when contacted by the Spokesman-Review, first saying "I feel like I owe [the NAACP] executive committee conversation" about what she called a "multi-layered issue."
After being contacted again, Dolezal said, "That question is not as easy as it seems. There's a lot of complexities ... and I don’t know that everyone would understand that." Later, she said, "We're all from the African continent," an apparent reference to scientific studies tracing the origin of human life to east Africa.
According to the Spokesman-Review, members of other organizations that Dolezal has belonged to have raised questions about her ethnicity as well as hate crimes that she has reported.
A former board member of the Kootenai County (Idaho) Task Force on Human Relations, which employed Dolezal for three years as the education director for its Human Rights Education Institute in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, told the paper that he was concerned that she had been hired without proper vetting of her background.
Kurt Neumaier also told the paper that he was suspicious of several racially motivated incidents reported by Dolezal while she was in Coeur d'Alene. One specific incident he cited was the discovery of a swastika on the Human Rights Education Institute's door on a day when the organization's security cameras had been "mysteriously turned off".
"None of them passed the smell test," Neumaier said.
The Spokesman-Review also reported that Spokane police records for February and March of this year showed that a hate mail package Dolezal reported receiving at the NAACP's post office box did not bear a date stamp or barcode. Postal workers interviewed by police said it was highly unlikely that they had processed it and said it could only have been put there by someone with key.
Dolezal has denied putting the package in the post office box, and the paper reported that it has received several pieces of mail written in the same style that have been date-stamped and postmarked from Oakland, Calif.

Prison worker reportedly admits smuggling power tools to escaped killers


A prison worker has admitted to investigators that she provided vital assistance to two convicted killers who escaped a maximum-security prison in upstate New York last weekend, according to a published report.
The Albany Times-Union reported late Thursday that 51-year-old Joyce Mitchell told New York State Police that she gave Richard Matt and David Sweat access to a cell phone and smuggled power tools into Clinton Correctional Facility, where she worked as a supervisor in the prison's tailoring shop. The Associated Press, citing a person close to the case, reported that Mitchell had agreed to be the getaway driver for the two men, but failed to show up.
Mitchell's confession was reported on the same day that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo vowed that state law would come down hard on any prison system employee who crosses the line with inmates.
"If you do it, you will be convicted, and then you'll be on the other side of the prison that you've been policing, and that is not a pleasant place to be," Cuomo said. The governor also said investigators are "talking to several people who may have facilitated the escape."
Mitchell has not been charged in connection with the escape, but the Times-Union, citing a law enforcement official briefed on the case, reported that authorities expected to charge her with multiple crimes.
The paper also reported that Mitchell had been investigated in recent months by the state corrections department's inspector general after a fellow prison worker complained that she had gotten too close to Sweat and Matt. That investigation did not result in any discipline. Prison employees and correction officers are prohibited from having relationships with inmates or performing favors for them.
There was no sign of Sweat and Mitchell early Friday, but law enforcement sources told the Times-Union that they believed the men were contained in an area near the prison, between the towns of Dannemora and Plattsburgh. The Associated Press source said the fact that Mitchell failed to pick the men up as promised was the main reason the investigation had been focused on an area so close to the prison.
The Times-Union also reported that the search for the men had been beset by internal strife between federal marshals and State Police officials. The cause of the quarrelling was not disclosed in the report.
Earlier Thursday, bloodhounds had picked up the men's scent heading east from Dannemora after forest rangers who stopped at a convenience store late Wednesday discovered a trail leading to an area of the woods where the grass had been matted down. Authorities, including the FBI and U.S. Marshals Service, descended on the town of Cadyville.
Law enforcement officers walking an arm's length apart were conducting a grid search through a cordoned-off area consisting of mud, woods, thick underbrush and several houses, Sheriff David Favro said. He said there had been no reports of stolen or abandoned vehicles, break-ins or abductions.
Matt was serving 25 years to life for the 1997 kidnap, torture and hacksaw dismemberment of Matt's 76-year-old former boss, whose body was found in pieces in a river.
Matt and an accomplice stuffed William Rickerson in a car trunk in his pajamas and drove around with him for 27 hours because he wouldn't tell them the location of large sums of money he was believed to have.
According to testimony, Matt bent back the elderly man's fingers until they broke and later snapped Rickerson's neck with his bare hands.
After the killing, Matt fled to Mexico, where he killed a man outside a bar.
Sweat was doing life without parole for his part in the 2002 killing of sheriff's Deputy Kevin Tarsia, who was shot 15 times and run over after discovering Sweat and two accomplices transferring stolen guns between vehicles.

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