Conservative Blogger
Thursday, November 26, 2015
Turkeys flown from coops to troops stationed overseas for Thanksgiving
Our nation’s troops stationed overseas will feast on Thanksgiving dinners with all the trimmings this year, thanks to a federal service agency that provides everything from the actual birds to eggnog, marshmallows and stuffing.
Over 15,000 pounds of turkey and nearly 2,000 pies have been sent to troops in Afghanistan in time for a holiday meal, according to the Defense Logistics Agency, a federal service agency for the U.S. military.
"Being away from home and their families during the holidays is tough enough without considering the difficult and dangerous conditions our service men and women face,” Anthony Amendolia, with DLA Troop Support’s Subsistence supply chain, said in a statement to FoxNews.com. “Since they can't be home for the holidays, our employees are dedicated to bringing the holidays to them.”
DLA Troop Service is also sending another 37,000 pounds of turkey to service members in Iraq, Jordan and Kuwait.
Related Image
Volunteers
from various departments aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS
George Washington (CVN 73) serve food to Sailors during a Thanksgiving
lunch hosted by the ship. (U.S. Navy photo) (Public Domain)
- 25,970 pounds of beef
- 17,130 pounds of ham
- 706 gallons of eggnog
- 3,360 pounds of marshmallows
DLA employees began gathering holiday meal requirements from all four military branches last May to ensure they could order and deliver the food in time.
Related Image
Nov.
27, 2014: Soldiers with Task Force Lifeliner, Joint Forces Command and
United Assistance dive into one of the many pies and desserts offered in
the dining facility at brigade support area in Buchanan, Liberia. (U.S.
Army photo) (Public Domain)
The DLA’s subsistence division is tasked every year with making sure that the troops are well fed at Thanksgiving, but this year they had to work harder to ensure that the packages got to their various destinations on time. That was because the avian flu outbreak in the U.S. has caused many foreign countries to place restrictions on American poultry products.
“Countries set different parameters, causing us to take atypical approaches to meet all needs, such as buying from foreign approved sources and use of more pre-cooked poultry,” Amendolia said.
Back stateside, Fort Bragg in North Carolina will be holding its annual Thanksgiving dinner for the second day Thursday.
Related Image
Culinary
Specialist 1st Class John Mobley, from Philadelphia, prepares a turkey
for carving for a Thanksgiving meal aboard the guided-missile destroyer
USS Cole (DDG 67). (U.S. Navy photo) (Public Domain)
Fort Bragg's cooks have prepared 2,500 pounds of whole turkeys, 2,400 pounds of prime rib beef, 2,600 pounds of smoked ham, 1,400 pounds of shrimp and 3,000 pies.
Obama administration tells states they can't block resettlement of refugees
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The Office of Refugee Resettlement said in a letter to state resettlement officials that states may not deny benefits and services to refugees based on a refugee's country of origin or religious affiliation.
States that do not comply with the requirement would be breaking the law and could be subject to enforcement action, including suspension or termination of the federally funded program, according to the letter, signed by the director of the federal resettlement office, Robert Carey.
The letter came after more than two dozen governors, mostly Republicans, vowed to block efforts to resettle Syrian refugees in their states following the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris. The governors said they fear that militants planning a terror attack could enter the country under the guise of seeking refuge from war-torn Syria. In the House, lawmakers have voted overwhelmingly to erect higher hurdles for Syrian and Iraqi refugees.
The Obama administration counters that the vetting process is thorough and can take up to two years. President Barack Obama has said the U.S. will remain a welcoming place for refugees from around the world.
The letter from the federal resettlement office said would-be refugees "are subject to the highest level of security checks of any category of traveler to the United States." The screening process is "multi-layered and intensive" and involves multiple law enforcement, national security and intelligence agencies across the federal government, the letter said.
A spokesman for the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, which oversees refugee resettlement in the state, said the letter will not change the state's position of blocking Syrian refugees.
The commission will continue to follow the directive of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has called for Texas not to participate in the resettlement of Syrian refugees, said Bryan Black, a spokesman for the Texas commission. A spokesman for Abbott declined to comment.
The letter sent Wednesday, first reported by the Houston Chronicle, largely tracks with what legal experts have been saying since Abbott and other governors said they would not accept Syrian refugees due to security concerns fueled by terrorist attacks in Paris. Abbott has cited a specific part of the law that he says gives him authority to block Syrians, but experts largely have disagreed.
Roughly 2,200 Syrian refugees have been allowed in over the last four years. Obama has outlined a goal of bringing 10,000 more Syrian refugees to the U.S. during the current budget year.
The House bill would add a requirement for the Homeland Security secretary, along with the head of the FBI and the director of national intelligence, to certify that each refugee being admitted poses no security threat.
A spokeswoman in the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the resettlement office, said 49 states and the District of Columbia have refugee resettlement programs. Wyoming does not have a refugee resettlement program. Want to be safe from terror attacks move to Wyoming.
Paul campaign slams CNN, says emails show reporter 'colluding' with Clinton aide
Rand Paul’s presidential campaign slammed CNN on Wednesday after emails were released that the campaign claimed showed a reporter “colluding” with a Hillary Clinton aide to “attack” the Kentucky senator.
The tweet last week criticizing a House bill limiting Syrian refugees. But her communications with then-Clinton State Department official Philippe Reines turned up Tuesday in a batch of emails obtained and published by Gawker.
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| CNN global affairs correspondent, Elise Labott |
In those January 2013 emails, Reines appears to give Labott suggestions for tweets. Phil Kerpen, president of the conservative American Commitment, first flagged the exchange about Paul.
In it, Labott shares the following tweet, in reference to Clinton’s Benghazi committee testimony, with Reines. (TWEET)
Sen Paul most critical on committee of Clinton, but a little late to the #Benghazi game.Not sure he was at many of the 30 previous briefings
The Paul campaign on Wednesday said CNN’s correspondent was working with Reines to discredit Paul, and called on the network to “address” the “bias” exhibited – particularly ahead of a CNN-hosted debate next month.
"The liberal media has taken their Clinton sycophancy to a new low. CNN needs to address this bias and lack of journalistic integrity,” Doug Stafford, Paul’s chief strategist, said in a statement. “This email revelation should give Republicans pause as to their coverage and possibility of fair treatment towards Sen. Paul during the next debate. All eyes will be on CNN's response to their employee colluding with Hillary Clinton in order to attack a prominent U.S. senator on their dime."
The campaign specifically cited a Daily Caller report that said the reporter coordinated with Reines.
A representative with CNN has not responded to a request for comment.
Kerpen said on Twitter, as he posted screenshots of multiple email exchanges, that Labott “Tweets on request!”
Another exchange from Jan. 23 showed Reines telling Labott: “I suggested a good Tweet.”
Labott asks what he suggested, and Reines responds, “Pin.”
This may have been a reference to a BlackBerry messaging system. Labott tells Reines she put her BlackBerry “near the window” and “will get back to you.”
A few minutes later, she writes, “Done.”
The tweet sent in that time period was:(TWEET)
Clinton: I tried to be transparent. I could have joined the 18 ARBs, kept it classified and then said goodbye. That is not who I am.
Names of key Paris attackers were known to Belgian mayor in 2014
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| Molenbeek Mayor Francoise Schepmans (Idiot) |
The names of at least three of the ISIS terrorists who carried out this month's deadly attacks in Paris were known to the mayor of a Brussels suburb in early 2014, it was revealed this week.
Molenbeek Mayor Francoise Schepmans admitted to The New York Times that she had received a list containing more than 80 names and addresses of people suspected of links to Islamic militants. The paper reported that the list of names included Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind of the Nov. 13 attacks; as well as Brahim and Salah Abdeslam, one of whom blew himself up on that deadly night while the other fled to Belgium after apparently abandoning his suicide mission.
"What was I supposed to do about them? It is not my job to track possible terrorists," Schepmans told the paper, adding that tracking homegrown terrorists "is the responsibility of the federal police."
The Daily Telegraph reported that Brahim and Salah Abdeslam lived together in an apartment visible from the mayor's office approximately 100 yards from Molenbeek City Hall. A third Abdeslam brother, Mohamed, who has repeatedly called for Salah Abdeslam to turn himself in, works in the city administration.
The Times report did not clarify what Schepmans did with the information she was given. Elsewhere in the report, the mayor of Verviers, where police broke up a terror plot led by Abaaoud in January, told The Times she was informed by Belgium's security services that her town was home to 34 suspected jihadists.
The latest revelations are sure to add scrutiny to Belgium's intelligence failings, which have given rise to a community of Islamic extremists in the heart of Western Europe. The French newspaper Le Monde, referred to Molenbeek, just west of the center of Brussels, as a "clearing house for jihadism".
The sense of unease in Belgium was heightened earlier this week after 15 of 16 people detained in a series of anti-terror raids Sunday night were released without charge the following day. No explosives or firearms were seized.
Belgian Interior Minister Jan Jambon said the raids had been designed to foil an imminent attack in Brussels.
"There were indications that there would be attacks on Sunday evening and they did not materialize," Jambon said, adding that otherwise "you don't impose terror level 4," the highest possible.
France and Belgium continue to hunt Salah Abdeslam, as well as a second fugitive believed to have played a role in the attacks.
Mohamed Abrini, who Belgian authorities have described as "armed and dangerous," was seen with Salah Abdeslam two days before the attacks on a highway gas station en route to Paris.
Speaking on RTL radio, Mohamed Abdeslam said he shares the pain of victims' families and wishes he and his family could have done something to prevent the Nov. 13 bloodshed.
"Let him turn himself in for his parents, for justice, for the families of victims, so that we can find out what happened," Mohamed Abdeslam said.
He said his brothers had shown no signs of radicalization. Mohamed Abdeslam said he saw them a few days before they left their Brussels suburb for Paris, but had no idea what they were plotting, and hasn't heard from Salah since.
In the Belgian capital, schools reopened Wednesday despite the city remaining on the highest possible alert level. Authorities raised it on Saturday saying the threat of a further attack was serious and imminent.
Police armed with automatic weapons stood guard outside schools, while Brussels' subway system partially reopened, bringing a sense of relative normalcy back to the city.
The heightened alert level had shut down shops, schools and the subway system in Brussels since Saturday. The Belgian government also ordered health and emergency services to take precautionary measures to ensure their services aren't infiltrated by extremists.
"When ambulances arrive, we have to see from where they come, who is in it," Health Minister Maggie De Block told VRT network. "Really as a precaution."
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