Monday, November 27, 2017
Men cleared of terrorism ties in high-profile border case
PHOENIX – The arrests of six Middle Eastern men caught entering the United States illegally from Mexico two years ago set off alarm in border states and in some right-wing blogs and other media outlets.
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey called it a matter of national security and invoked the Islamic State group in a statement calling for stepped-up border security in response to the arrests. Conservative publications like the Washington Examiner reported on the men from "Middle East terror hotbeds," while Fox News questioned whether "Islamic State militants could be probing security."
Now, documents obtained by The Associated Press through a public records request reveal the men were fleeing violence and persecution in their homelands and were cleared of any terrorism ties. They also were physically and verbally abused by two Mexican smugglers with a history of crossing the border illegally and went days without food and water, the records show.
The case highlights the highly politicized nature of the U.S.-Mexico border as hysteria sometimes overtakes facts in an era where President Donald Trump, during his campaign, labeled Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. Some blogs incorrectly reported the men were released. Others tied them to the Islamic State.
In fact, the men cooperated with the government, and four have been deported. The remaining two are in removal proceedings, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe.
The five men from Pakistan and one from Afghanistan were arrested at a time when the Islamic State group was committing some of its bloodiest acts, just days after coordinated bombings and shootings in Paris heightened fears about attacks in the U.S.
The arrests also came around the same time as two Syrian families with children presented themselves at the border seeking asylum. The families were Christian and fleeing persecution. Still, the incident prompted a tweet from Trump that said, "Eight Syrians were just caught on the southern border trying to get into the U.S. ISIS maybe? I told you so. WE NEED A BIG & BEAUTIFUL WALL!"
But none of the cases had any ties to terrorism.
Government officials have long denied there have been any arrests of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border with ties to the Islamic State, and private security analysts agree.
Scott Stewart, vice president of tactical analysis for Texas-based intelligence firm Stratfor, said he knows of no instances of terrorists sneaking into the U.S. through the southern border.
He says it's much more likely a terrorist would use the Canadian border to sneak into the country, as Ahmed Ressam did in 1999. Ressam planned to bomb the Los Angeles airport and used false documents to enter the U.S. from Canada. Border authorities caught him with a car full of explosives.
Stewart added it's highly unlikely the Mexican cartels, which control smuggling corridors, would help a terrorist enter the United States.
"The last thing they want is to be labeled as narco-terrorists. That's just terrible for business," Stewart said. "I'm honestly much more concerned about meth, fentanyl and heroin than I am of Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State coming across."
Despite most border crossers being from Latin America, a small number come from far-away places like China, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Investigative files obtained by the AP show the Middle Eastern men completed a long and costly journey to America.
The Afghan man told Border Patrol agents he left his home seven months earlier and traveled through at least 10 countries before making it to the U.S. He was detained for weeks in Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama and Mexico and paid nearly $15,000 in smuggling fees along the way.
Once the men reached the U.S. border, the smugglers told them crossing illegally into Arizona would be a matter of a few easy hours.
But their trip took several days in treacherous conditions.
The men spent three or four days walking through the desert. They ran out of water on the first night and food on the second, and then trekked through mountains near the border in snow and rain. The men said they had no jackets.
They said the smugglers verbally accosted them and threw rocks at them if they walked too slowly. The Afghan man said one of the smugglers punched him in the chest. When one man injured his ankle, a smuggler said "Bye-bye" and kept walking. Another man who couldn't keep up said he paid the smugglers more to slow down.
The men were arrested in November 2015 after triggering a Border Patrol sensor about 15 miles (24 kilometers) north of the border.
The arrests were first reported by right-wing blogs, then other news organizations. Three days after the Middle Eastern men were taken into custody, Ducey issued a statement saying their arrests were troubling, "especially in light of new threats on the United States from ISIS in a video released in just the last 24 hours."
But the FBI had already cleared the men, finding they had no ties to terrorism, according to the documents.
When asked about the governor's tweet, Ducey's spokesman issued a statement that touted the Republican's border efforts but did not address the issue of invoking the Islamic State when the men had no terrorism ties.
"The governor continues to put public safety at the forefront," spokesman Daniel Scarpinato said.
The men were interviewed separately, and all told authorities about abuses at the hands of the two Mexican smugglers. They became witnesses in the case against Ernesto Dorame-Gonzalez and Martin Lopez-Alvarado, who had committed prior immigration offenses and pleaded guilty to smuggling charges.
"We find smugglers are more interested in treating people as a commodity instead of human beings," said Stephanie Dixon, a spokeswoman with the Border Patrol's Tucson sector. "Many people are being lied to by smugglers, which leads to deaths and illnesses, for the sole purpose of criminal profiting."
Record amount of background checks for guns on Black Friday
The FBI on Friday received 203,086 requests for
instant gun background checks, which would mark almost a 10 percent
increase from 2016 and sets a new record for the most ever in one day, USA Today reported.
Authorities did not speculate on why
so many Americans are seeking guns this holiday season, but the theory
is that there is a fear about tougher gun laws in the future.
The FBI received 185,713 requests on Black Friday last year.USA Today pointed out that background checks do not indicate the number of guns actually sold because a buyer could purchase more than one gun in a check.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, earlier this week, ordered a far-ranging review of the FBI database used to check the backgrounds of prospective gun buyers, after the Air Force failed to report the criminal history of the gunman who slaughtered more than two dozen people at a Texas church.
The failure enabled him to buy weapons, purchases his domestic violence conviction should have barred.
Sessions directed the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to determine if other government agencies are failing to report information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. He also wants a report detailing the number of times the agencies investigate and prosecute people for lying on their gun-purchase applications and a closer look at the format of the application itself.
The database “is critically important to protecting the American public from firearms-related violence,” Sessions wrote in his memo. “It is, however, only as reliable and robust as the information that federal, state, local and tribal government entities make available to it.”
The Pentagon’s inspector general launched a separate review of the Texas gunman, Devin P. Kelley, after the Air Force revealed it had failed to submit his domestic abuse case to the database. Kelley was able to buy four guns despite the conviction. He used a Ruger AR rifle with a 30-round magazine during the Nov. 6 shooting, going from aisle to aisle as he shot parishioners.
Sessions said the revelation was “alarming.” But the Pentagon has long known about failures to give military criminal history information to the FBI.
Franken will not resign, but 'embarrassed and ashamed' over misconduct allegations
Sen. Al Franken broke his silence Sunday on sexual
misconduct allegations, reportedly saying he’s “embarrassed and ashamed”
but will not resign from the Senate.
“I've let a lot of people down and
I'm hoping I can make it up to them and gradually regain their trust,"
Franken, a two-term Democratic Minnesota senator, told the Star Tribune of Minnesota.
Franken spoke to Minnesota news media eight days after the first allegations surfaced."I am just very sorry," Franken told WCCO in an interview Sunday, reiterating that he has "a long way to go to win back the trust of the people of Minnesota."
Four women have publicly said Franken groped them, including one who said he forcibly kissed her.
"I'm looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow," Franken, on Congress’ week-long Thanksgiving break, also said in the phone interview with the newspaper.
The first claim against Franken emerged nearly two weeks ago, when Leeann Tweeden, a Los Angeles radio host, said the senator forcibly kissed and groped her during a 2006 USO tour, before he was elected to the Senate.
She said Franken kissed her while rehearsing a sketch. And later on the tour, Franken was photographed with his hands over Tweeden’s breasts, grinning at the camera, as she slept.
Franken told Minnesota Public Radio on Sunday that he apologized to Tweeden, and called the photo "inexcusable."
"She ... didn't have any ability to consent. She had every right to feel violated by that photo," Franken said. "I have apologized to her, and I was very grateful that she accepted my apology."
A second allegation was reported Monday. Lindsay Menz told CNN that Franken grabbed her buttocks in 2010 when they posed together for a picture at a Minnesota state fair, while he was a senator.
Two other women have since anonymously reported such incidents to the Huffington Post. One woman said Franken groped her in 2007, during a photo at the Minnesota Women's Political Caucus. The other said he cupped her backside with his hand in 2008 and suggested that they go to the bathroom together at a Democratic fundraiser in Minneapolis.
Franken’s office said last weekend that the senator will not resign, amid calls for him to step down.
The senator has repeatedly apologized to Tweeden. He also said he feels badly that Menz felt “disrespected” but that he does not remember the photograph being taken.
Franken has said he has posed for "tens of thousands of photos" over the years but does not remember any in which he cupped a woman's backside, as several women have alleged.
The senator also told the newspaper on Sunday that he has spent the past week "thinking about how that could happen and I just recognize that I need to be more careful and a lot more sensitive in these situations."
He said he didn’t expect such allegations would follow the first one. “I certainly hope not,” he said about the possibility of similar allegations surfacing.
Congress faces pressure to come clean on sex harassment payouts
Both Democrat and Republican
politicians on Sunday called for increased transparency on how lawmakers
handled allegations of sexual misconduct in the past.
There is a bipartisan effort to pass legislation that would require all sexual harassment claims to be handled in the public, The New York Times reported. It is unclear if the legislation would expose payouts in the past.
Some politicians are in favor of exposing these older
cases, while others warn of potential issues with victims who've had no
interest of going public with their claims.“I think it should be more transparent,” Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, told NBC's “Meet the Press.” “I certainly think that if you accept taxpayer funds for settlement, that should be transparent.”
The call comes amid recent allegations against two high-profile politicians: Michigan Rep. John Conyers and Minnesota Sen. Al Franken.
Conyers is under investigation over allegations he sexually harassed female staff members. He said Sunday that he will step aside as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee while fiercely denying he acted inappropriately during his long tenure in Congress.
Denying the allegations, Conyers, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who was first elected to the House in 1964, urged lawmakers to allow him “due process.”
“I very much look forward to vindicating myself and my family,” Conyers said.
Franken broke his silence Sunday after being swept into a nationwide tide of sexual harassment allegations, saying he feels "embarrassed and ashamed," but looks forward to returning to work on Monday and gradually regaining voters' trust.
Three women allege that Franken grabbed their buttocks while taking photos with them during campaign events. Franken told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune that he doesn't remember the photographs but that such behavior is "not something I would intentionally do."
Asked whether he expected any other women to step forward with similar allegations, Franken said: "If you had asked me two weeks ago, 'Would any woman say I had treated her with disrespect?' I would have said no. So this has just caught me by surprise ... I certainly hope not."
The Times reported Sunday that the House is expected to adopt a resolution that all representatives and their staffs must take anti-harassment and anti-discrimination training.
Sunday, November 26, 2017
Alan Dershowitz: Ten congressional Democrats want lenient treatment for young terrorists who murder Israelis
Palestinian terrorist leaders often use teenagers
to commit acts of terror because they know the Israeli legal system
treats children more leniently than adults. Now 10 Democrats belonging
to the Congressional Progressive Caucus are trying to give terrorist leaders yet another reason for using young people to murder even more innocent civilians.
Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn.,
introduced legislation Nov. 14 – co-sponsored by nine other Democrats –
calling on the State Department to “prevent United States tax dollars
from supporting the Israeli military’s ongoing detention and
mistreatment of Palestinian children.”
In a news release
about the proposed legislation, McCollum said: “This legislation
highlights Israel’s system of military detention of Palestinian children
and ensures that no American assistance to Israel supports human rights
violations …. Peace can only be achieved by respecting human rights,
especially the rights of children. Congress must not turn a blind eye
the unjust and ongoing mistreatment of Palestinian children living under
Israeli occupation.”It is well established that recruiting and using young Palestinians to wage terror on Israeli civilians is part of the modus operandi of Palestinian terrorist leaders. For decades, members of the radical Palestinian political and religious leadership have been stirring up young people to wage war against the Jews and the Jewish State.
This was seen in the gruesome intifada that began in 2000, in which Palestinian teenagers committed dozens of attacks against Jewish Israelis on buses, in cafes and at nightclubs.
More recently – in what has become known as the “lone-wolf” intifada – children as young as 13 have stabbed Israelis with scissors, screwdrivers and knives.The new law allows for leniency. The courts can not only postpone the convicted minor’s transfer date from a closed holding facility to prison, but can also shorten or cancel the prison sentence altogether, if warranted by the circumstances.
Legislation proposed by the 10 Democrats is titled the Promoting Human Rights by Ending Israeli Military Detention of Palestinian Children Act. The bill does not explicitly define at what age a person moves from childhood to adulthood.
While noting that children between the ages of 12 and 17 are held and prosecuted by Israeli military courts, the bill fails to acknowledge that some of the most barbaric terrorist attacks against Jewish Israelis have been committed by Palestinian teens.
Consider the terrorist attack that took place over this past summer in Halamish, about an hour outside Jerusalem. A Palestinian in his late teens – from a nearby village controlled by the Palestinian Authority – chose a Jewish house at random and fatally stabbed three members of a family as they ate their Sabbath dinner.
The Palestinian “child” murderer also wounded several other family members, while one mother hid her young children in an upstairs room until the terrorist left.
The triple-murder is reminiscent of a similar attack that occurred only six years earlier when two Palestinian teens armed with knives broke into the Fogel family home in Itamar as they slept on Friday night. The “children” butchered the mother, father and three of their children – including a 3-month-old baby as she slept in her crib.
As a result of such deadly terrorist attacks by Palestinian teenagers, Israel has had to introduce legislation to deal with the problem. In August 2016, the Israeli parliament (Knesset) passed a bill allowing imprisonment of terrorists as young as 12.
The new law allows for leniency. The courts can not only postpone the convicted minor’s transfer date from a closed holding facility to prison, but can also shorten or cancel the prison sentence altogether, if warranted by the circumstances.
In introducing the bill, Knesset Member Anat Berko said: “This law was born of necessity. We have been experiencing a wave of terror for quite some time. A society is allowed to protect itself. To those who are murdered with a knife in the heart it does not matter if the child is 12 or 15. We’ve witnessed numerous cases where 11-year-old children were suicide bombers. Perhaps this law will also do something to protect these children from being used to slaughter people.”
In a desperate effort to justify her proposed legislation, Rep. McCollum argued that “peace can only be achieved by respecting human rights, especially the rights of children.”
McCollum’s hypocrisy in this context is palpable. She claims to be an advocate for “the rights of children.” Yet she refuses to acknowledge or condemn Palestinians who perpetrate acts of child abuse by recruiting children to commit terrorist attacks on Jews.
McCollum expressed no outrage when Palestinian leaders were caught posting material on social media inciting and encouraging young Palestinians to stab Israelis.
And the Minnesota member of Congress failed to protest when Hamas set up training camps – under the mantra “Vanguards of Liberation” – aimed at training children as young as 15 to use weapons against Israel. Nor did she speak up when children in Gaza were crushed to death when the terror tunnels they were recruited by the Hamas leadership to build collapsed on their bodies.
So I ask: What do these members of Congress think Israel should do? If children as young as 13 were roaming the streets of New York, Los Angeles or Boston stabbing elderly women as they shopped at the supermarket or waited at a bus stop, would the Democrats protest the apprehension and prosecution of the perpetrators? Of course not.
No country in the world would tolerate terror in its cities, regardless of the age of the terrorists.
Israel has a right – according to international law – to protect its citizens from constant terror attacks, including those committed by young Palestinians. It actually has an obligation to do so.
If Israel is punished for trying to protect its citizens from teen terrorists, this would incentivize terrorist leaders to keep using children in pursuit of their goal of wiping the Israel off the map.
But rather than condemning the abhorrent and unlawful use of children as terrorist pawns, the 10 congressional Democrats chose to single out Israel for punishment.
People of good faith on both sides of the aisle should call out this double standard for what it really is: an attack on Jewish victims of teenage terrorism and the Jewish State.
For Shame on this group of biased anti-Israel Democrats, which includes the following members of Congress: Mark Pocan of Wisconsin; Earl Blumenauer of Oregon: André Carson of Indiana: John Conyers of Michigan; Danny K. Davis of Illinois; Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon; Raul Grijalva and Luis V. Gutiérrez of Arizona; and Chellie Pingree of Maine. They give a bad name to the Democratic Party, to the Progressive Caucus and to Congress.
California hands out millions of dollars in tax credits to filmmakers. Can the rest of us get some too?
In this Oct. 8, 2016 file photo, director Quentin Tarantino poses for photographers at the opening ceremony of the 8th Lumiere Festival, in Lyon, central France. |
I think Quentin Tarantino is a fine filmmaker. From
“Reservoir Dogs” to “Jackie Brown” to “Inglourious Basterds,” he
delivers. ”Pulp Fiction” may just be the greatest movie of its era.
But, as a resident of California, I’ve got a problem. Not with him personally, but with the financing of his latest film.
He recently had to drop his longstanding business
relationship with Harvey Weinstein (for obvious reasons) and shop his
ninth feature, a story related to the Charles Manson murders, to the
major studios.Sony got the project. But, in addition, his film will receive an $18 million production tax credit from the California Film Commission, for which it will be shot in-state.
Tarantino’s project is only one of several films getting a big break. They’re all part of a tax credit program created by the California Legislature that, over the years, will offer hundreds of millions of dollars in tax credits.
The Film Commission justifies its actions by claiming California needs the program to compete for projects.
Really? Then how does the state justify hitting up its taxpayers for so much? We residents do even more business in the state than film companies, but we’re not getting any breaks.
Quite the opposite. California has the highest income tax rate in the nation. The state’s top rate is 13.3 percent. Some dismiss it, saying that’s just for millionaires, but if you make just $43,000 the rate is 8 percent, and if you make $54,000 it’s 9.3 percent.
California also has a huge gasoline tax and the highest state-level sales tax in the nation. Overall, Californians shoulder one of the largest tax burdens in our country. And while we’re at it, the state also ranks high in the burden it places on businesses.
So I have to ask: If Golden State leaders believe giving a tax break to filmmakers is good for the local economy, why don’t they want to give a break in general to all residents? Sauce for the goose and all that.
My guess is that Tarantino was going to film in-state anyway. The Manson murders took place here, and when he’s got a story set in California, he shoots here.
But even if he might have gone elsewhere for a better deal, guess what? It’s not that hard for an individual citizen to pack up and leave a state if another one offers a better deal. That goes double for businesses.
On top of which, high taxes can discourage people from moving here, and from locating their business here. (The numbers seem to bear this out. In recent years, the rate of population growth has been cut to less than half of what it was.)
So if the state wants to make it easier on Tarantino, can’t they also try to take it easier on me, and tens of millions of my fellow Californians?
In effect, my tax money is going to subsidize Tarantino’s film. I’ll be the first in line to buy a ticket when it opens, but don’t make me an unwilling investor. Not unless I get to own a piece of it.
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