Glenn Beck strongly supports Senate hopeful Matt Bevin (KY) who is challenging Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky’s Republican primary.
Glenn Beck on Matt Bevin: "I Believe That Man Was Called Of God"
Showing posts with label Called. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Called. Show all posts
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Glenn Beck on Matt Bevin: "I Believe That Man Was Called Of God"
Glenn Beck on Matt Bevin: "I Believe That Man Was Called Of God"
Monday, March 17, 2014
Air Force Academy Called Out for Violating Constitutional Rights
WASHINGTON, March 14, 2014 /Christian Newswire/ — The Restore Military Religious Freedom Coalition comprised of 24 groups led by the Family Research Council and including legal groups such as Alliance Defending Freedom, Liberty Counsel, The Liberty Institute, and Thomas More Law Center, has announced that they stand ready to offer assistance to any Air Force Academy cadet who faces repercussions for writing a Bible verse on a hallway whiteboard that has been designated by the Academy for both official and personal use.
Earlier this week, a Bible verse (Galatians 2:20) was removed at the Air Force Academy after a complaint by an anti-Christian group. Yesterday, reports surfaced that cadets are protesting the censorship by writing Bible verses on other campus whiteboards. Last year, the Restore Military Religious Freedom Coalition launched a website, www.militaryfreedom.org, to support the religious liberties of America’s men and women in uniform.
Several members of the Restore Military Religious Freedom Coalition released the following statements in support of the cadets and religious liberty:
Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jerry Boykin, Family Research Council’s Executive Vice President:
“This reflects that the cadets understand the Constitution and have a greater faith in the Constitution than their leaders. They are freely exercising their constitutional rights that they will be defending upon graduation,” concluded Boykin.
Michael Berry, Liberty Institute’s Senior Counsel and Director of Military Affairs:
“This is a blatant violation of Department of Defense Instruction (DODI) 1300.17 and the Constitution, “Berry observed. “But the Air Force seems to think that AFI 1-1′s neutrality towards religion requirement means forbidding religious freedom. If that’s true, then I suggest the Air Force officials read DODI 1300.17, which supersedes AFI 1-1 and guarantees religious freedom for all service members,” concluded Berry.
Gary McCaleb, Chief Solicitor and Executive Vice President for Strategy Implementation at Alliance Defending Freedom:
“Suppressing religion is wrong whether it is done behind an Iron Curtain or in a dorm hallway. Certainly such raw anti-religious discrimination has no place in America’s Air Force.”
Mathew Staver, Chairman, Liberty Counsel:
“This latest incident at the United States Air Force Academy reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of religious freedom. Not only is the notion that cadets have to abandon or hide their faith as a requisite of military service not supported by law, it is actually discriminatory to brave men and women of faith that desire to serve their country,” concluded Staver.
Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel,Thomas More Law Center:
“From the Revolutionary War to the present day, military leaders have understood that in times of danger and death, no physical courage can sustain the soldier other than Divine help. This understanding prompted Article 6 of the military Code of Conduct, which emphasizes a soldier’s personal responsibilities for his actions and trust in God. Thus, the actions of the Air Force to restrict this cadet’s free speech and the free exercise of religion because it offends some, is not only unconstitutional, but conflicts with the military’s own understanding of the importance of religion to our military men and women placed in harm’s way,” concluded Thompson.
To read “A Clear and Present Danger,” Family Research Council’s comprehensive report on religious suppression in the military, click here: www.frc.org/clearpresentdanger
Click here for a list of the 24 groups that comprise the Restore Military Religious Freedom Coalition.
Air Force Academy Called Out for Violating Constitutional Rights
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Chaos as thousands are called to Stockholm job office by mistake
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Chaos as thousands are called to Stockholm job office by mistake
Sunday, February 16, 2014
Canadian immigration changes called unfair
Canada said its termination of two investor immigrant programs does not target China, but Chinese agencies said the policy change is unfair.
Analysts said the Canadian policy may herald a new era that wealthy applicants must improve their social integration in and increase financial contributions to destination countries.
“All of Canada’s immigration programs are open to anyone who meets the criteria, and do not target specific countries,” the Canadian embassy in China told China Daily.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada said in a written interview that China “has been among the top sources for more than a decade”, and immigration is a key part of Canada’s plan to “grow our economy, spur job creation, and ensure long-term prosperity for all Canadians”.
Controversy arose after the Canadian government announced plans last week to terminate the federal Immigrant Investor Program and Federal Entrepreneur Program.
The IIP requires investors to have a minimum net worth of 1.6 million Canadian dollars ($ 1.5 million) and to invest 800,000 Canadian dollars in the form of a multiyear, interest-free loan to the government.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada said: “Research shows that immigrant investors pay less in taxes than other economic immigrants, are less likely to stay in Canada over the medium- to long-term and often lack the skills, including official language proficiency, to integrate as well as other immigrants from the same countries.”
Liu Qinglong, a professor at Tsinghua University’s School of Public Policy and Management, said the policy change illustrates Canada’s possible underestimation of decades of growing wealth in China and the consequent demand for migration.
“A low threshold brought unexpected investor immigrants, and consequently a range of issues,” Liu said.
Fiona Li, 30, a Chinese national working at an engineering business in Vancouver and a potential applicant for technology migration, said there is widespread discontent among residents about investor immigrants because of the latter’s inadequate contribution to communities.
“Many of them supported the policy change because they simply believe it is ‘totally unfair’ if the number of wealthy immigrants are not controlled. Some others insist that ‘money is not almighty, and a permanent residence should not be traded’,” Li said.
Frank Meng, who leads a consulting agency introducing investor immigrants to Canada, said it was not the first time Canada has raised immigration thresholds, and the programs’ termination, if passed by Canada’s Parliament, will disappoint the majority of the applicants
All 65,000 pending applications will reportedly be returned and paid fees refunded, and about 70 percent of the backlog came from Chinese applicants, the South China Morning Post reported.
“As far as I know, most of the applicants who submitted paperwork have waited for years — some even more than five years,” said Meng, president of Beijing Jiazhong Global Investment Consultation.
People may harbor doubts about the credibility of the government, he said.
China is the largest source of migrants in the world, and analysts said Chinese may alter their destinations given Canada’s policy changes.
Sun Zhe, director of the Center for US-China Relations at Tsinghua University, said: “Canada’s policy updates will hardly deter Chinese investor immigrants as a whole.”
North America and Europe will continue to have greater appeal to Chinese, and some may look to destinations including New Zealand and Singapore for lower tax rates, Sun said.
Wang Huiyao, director of the Center for China and Globalization, said some European countries may take the chance to offer lower thresholds to “attract wealthy Chinese who have impending needs for children’s education abroad or business expansion.”
It is also possible that some other destination countries may follow Canada to raise thresholds if its new immigrant programs prove a success,” Wang said.
Contact the writers at zhangyunbi@chinadaily.com.cn and mojingxi@chinadaily.com.cn
Canadian immigration changes called unfair
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
Black TV Star Tamera Mowry Called ‘White Man’s Whore’ over Marriage to Fox News Reporter
Of course, it’s also hypocritical white, liberal writers like Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher who steadily contribute to this kind of double-standards for so-called “racial tolerance”:
Sister Sister star Tamera Mowry tearfully told Oprah Winfrey’s network that her marriage to Fox News correspondent Adam Housely had earned her scores of racially-tinged abuse on Twitter and elsewhere.“See, this is where I get emotional, because it’s hurtful,” Mowry said on Oprah: Where Are They Now.
“Because when my husband and I are so openly—we’re fine with showing love. Love. But people choose to look past love and spew hate. That’s what hurts me, because I’ve never experienced so much hate ever in my life, ever.”
“I get called ‘white man’s whore,’” she said. “The new one was ‘back in the day you cost $ 300, but now you’re giving it to him for free.’”
Tamera starred with her identical sister in Sister, Sister, a 1990s sitcom, and recently in a reality show on the Style Network about the twins’ homelives, in which Housely appeared. She married Housely, an LA-based correspondent, in 2011. Her sister married actor Cory Hardrict, and Tamera said one of the most hurtful comments she’d received contrasted their husbands’ race.
“They say, ‘Oh, Tia’s a true black woman because she married a black man,’” Tamera said. “Oh—I’m less of a black person because I married white?”
RELATED: Bigots slam Tamera Mowry for marrying white
Politik Ditto
Black TV Star Tamera Mowry Called ‘White Man’s Whore’ over Marriage to Fox News Reporter
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
November 11 Should Still be Called Armistice Day
Today Veterans Day is an excuse to salute living veterans of various wars, and to thank them all. But never mind what the calendar says, we should keep calling it Armistice Day. Because that’s what happened on November 11 — World War One endd.
It’s not as if when the U.S. called it Armistice Day, it was a peacenik’s holiday. No holiday officially mandated by President Woodrow Wilson could ever be that. But all the same, the switch — signed by President Dwight Eisenhower, after a WWII veteran rallied for it — to a day for all veterans suggests a diminishing amount of critical thought about the meaning of the holiday. Or, at least an end to more peaceful platitudes and a drift towards more dangerous ones.
World War I was a terrible thing. Its existence assured the world of a second, much worse conflict. The Treaty of Versailles’s draconian terms hit Germany with blame for everything. Hyperinflation, depression, and resentment paved a road to Hitler. But on November 11, 1918, the war stopped. A war ending — one particular war that included particular, real men is something worth celebrating and considering. Because what is being celebrated on Veterans Day is an abstraction. Nobody is thanking of the individuals who may have been well-intentioned, and then changed their minds. Not the ones who were aching to play warrior, or the ones who had limited economic opportunities. Definitely not the ones who came back with PTSD-addled brains, or antiwar ideas.
Today is not the day to remember how the armed forces aren’t dealing with what they’ve made. Individuals in society may want soldiers to have medical care, and they definitely want to salute them in parades. They will happily change their Facebook statuses to “thank you” today. But nobody really wants to deal with what happens after wars — with skyrocketing suicide rates or traumatic brain injuries in Americans. The other side of our wars won’t even get a mention today, and the numbers of dead are a hell of a lot higher there.
One exception to the fever of banal kindness is Justin Doolittle’s Salon essay headlined “Stop thanking the troops for me.” At one point in the piece, he notes that sporting events often involve explicitly pro-military raw-raw rabble-rousing. Even sports advertising is closely tied with heart-warming military ads. One example is the Bank of America ad that played incessantly during baseball season.
“Bank of America and the Hughes family” tells us about Caroline Hughes, William Hughes, John Hughes Jr, John Anderson Hughes, and Robert Hughes who have served in Haiti, Vietnam, World War II (specifically Normandy), World War I (cavalry), and the Spanish-American war. A long line of folks all in the U.S. military, with the artifacts and the photographs to prove it.
This is a very tidy version of a popular idea, mainly among the more conservative, that all soldiers should be praised. But it doesn’t even gel with professed conservative ideals.
Conservatives hate false “equality.” Capitalism rewards ingenuity and drive. The clunky hand of the state just hands out cash. Liberals want everyone to have a participation trophy, and nobody to get unfair benefits. Conservatives want hard work, winners and losers, and pulling yourself up by your boot straps. So why so they constantly reaffirm this notion that to serve your country is noble, regardless of the conflict or its effects on the rest of the world? Why is war — the biggest state endevour there is — the time to turn your politics into a bumper sticker and a ribbon?
“Supporting the military, though, and expressing gratitude for what the military is actually doing around the world, are nothing if not explicitly political sentiments,”writes Doolitttle. It’s true. What are you thanking each soldier for if not for what they do, and what they are a part of? Are we supposed to ignore blowback, and the disastrous state of Iraq, and the continued occupation of Afghanistan when we thank soldiers? Are we supposed to forget the insanity of Vietnam, and the civilian bombings during WWII?
Even World War I shouldn’t be seen as 1000 years ago, with all of its idiotic, wasteful carnage now just restful poems about poppies. World War I was a disaster, too. Maybe more than most wars. Why are we trying to forget that it ended today? Why has thanking replaced remembering?
This is a sincere question for conservatives and Republicans and anyone who would frame wars the way the silly Bank of America ad does — if every war is equally noble, which one is the good war? If beating Hitler is losing in Vietnam, is 600,000 dead at the Somme is remembering the Maine, why should we ever believe anyone swearing that this time it’s really Munich in 1938, and we can’t afford to stand down from [Insert International Threat Here]? The warmongerers cry wolf every time. A good way to prove that is to pretend that every war and every soldier is the same, so every war must be the one we just have to fight.
War is life and death. Even one — or two — days a year, we cannot afford to treat it like an apolitical platitude. Don’t blame individual soldiers, but don’t thank them either.
Instead, think about November 11 and think about the end of a war.
November 11 Should Still be Called Armistice Day
Friday, October 18, 2013
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. It’s called campaign cash
This piece originally appeared on BillMoyers.com.
If you want to see how grossly money can distort democracy, just go to the state of Virginia, where there are no limits on how big a check can be written for statewide office. Groups and individuals from outside the Old Dominion are taking full advantage, pouring millions into a governor’s race they see as a dry run for the tactics they’ll use in the 2014 midterms and the 2016 presidential race – sort of the way the Spanish civil war turned out to be a testing ground for many of the deadly weapons of World War II.
Billionaires like environmentalist Tom Steyer on the left and the Koch Brothers on the right are placing their bets, but as they say at the track, the horses they’re backing are just a couple of hay burners. Once the home of Washington and Jefferson, James Madison and Patrick Henry, Virginia now has a choice between two mediocrities slavishly devoted to their wealthy contributors.
The Democrat, Terry McAuliffe, has been in training for years as courtier to the rich. He has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the Democratic National Committee, which he chaired for four years, and the campaigns of his Best Friends Forever — Bill and Hillary Clinton — who now are shaking down donors for him. Along the way, according to The Washington Post, this gregarious bagman used government programs, his huge Rolodex of political connections, and wealthy investors from both parties to enrich himself. He organized a company to build electric cars and promoted it to investors with a prospectus featuring photographs and ample references to his Clinton ties. He even got the former President to show up at the opening of the plant in Mississippi, along with that state’s former Republican governor, Haley Barbour, who made his fortune as a lobbyist in Washington for the tobacco industry.
Strange bedfellows, these crony capitalists – you may remember that Hillary Clinton’s brother, Tony Rodham was involved, too, searching out foreign investors for the electric cars. When the spotlight of scrutiny crossed their path, McAuliffe resigned from the company, which is now under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. It’s called campaign cash
Friday, September 6, 2013
Report: Ohio kidnapper called mother of victim
FILE – In this Aug. 1, 2013 file photo, Ariel Castro bows his head in the courtroom during his sentencing sentencing in Cleveland. Castro, 53, now serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and rape, was found hanging in his cell at the around 9:20 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2013, at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, FILE)
FILE – In this Aug. 1, 2013 file photo, Ariel Castro bows his head in the courtroom during his sentencing sentencing in Cleveland. Castro, 53, now serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and rape, was found hanging in his cell at the around 9:20 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2013, at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, FILE)
FILE – In this July 26, 2013 Ariel Castro sits in a Cleveland courtroom where he pleaded guilty to 937 counts of rape and kidnapping for holding three women captive in his home for a decade. Castro, 53, serving a life sentence for the kidnapping and rape, was found hanging in his cell at the around 9:20 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2013, at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, File)
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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Cleveland kidnapper Ariel Castro says he called the mother of one of his victims while she was in captivity and told her she was OK, according to a videotaped FBI interrogation.
Castro also told investigators that authorities missed opportunities for capturing him while he held the women he kidnapped.
Castro says in the video obtained by NBC’s “Today” show and first reported Friday that he called the mother of Amanda Berry and told her that Berry was OK and that she was his wife now.
He said he hung up and they didn’t have a conversation with her. Berry’s mother died before Berry was freed in May.
Castro told investigators that video surveillance near the school of victim Gina DeJesus should have tipped police to him. And he said a girlfriend noticed a TV on in a room occupied by victim Michelle Knight and got him worrying he might be caught.
A message was left with representatives of the victims Friday morning.
Castro, 53, was a month into his life sentence for holding three women captive in his home for a decade when he committed suicide Tuesday night.
Two state reviews are underway, Ohio prisons spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said, one looking into the suicide itself, and the other is examining whether Castro received proper medical and mental health care leading up the suicide.
A representative of Castro’s family was expected to claim his body Thursday, the Franklin County coroner said.
Castro was sentenced Aug. 1 to life in prison plus 1,000 years after pleading guilty to 937 counts, including kidnapping and rape, in a deal to avoid the death penalty. “I’m not a monster. I’m sick,” he told the judge at sentencing.
Castro’s captives — Berry, DeJesus and Michelle Knight — disappeared separately between 2002 and 2004, when they were 14, 16 and 20. They were rescued from Castro’s run-down house May 6 when Berry broke through a screen door.
Investigators said the women were bound, repeatedly raped and deprived of food and bathroom facilities.
___
Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus.
Report: Ohio kidnapper called mother of victim
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
NY Times: Bradley Manning Now Called Chelsea, and He"s a She
Starting Tuesday, convicted Army Private Bradley Manning will be a “she” in the columns of The New York Times, honoring the dishonorably discharged soldier’s request to be addressed as a woman.
Manning was convicted last month of violating the U.S. Espionage Act, among other offenses, after dumping hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrets website WikiLeaks, which published many of them. Other media also published the secrets leaked by Manning.
The Associated Press also will start using “she” and call her Chelsea when referring to Manning, who declared last Thursday he would live as a woman, Politico reported Monday.
“Our deputy editor in charge of copy desks has sent out a message to let folks here know we will make the change tomorrow,” Greg Brock, the Times’ senior editor for standards, told Politico.
A New York Times representative confirmed the change.
The AP alerted its member editors in an email Monday night, Politico reported.
“The Associated Press will henceforth use Pvt. Chelsea E. Manning and female pronouns for the soldier formerly known as Bradley Manning, in accordance with her wishes to live as a woman,” the email stated.
Manning dropped his transgender bombshell on Aug. 22, a day after being sentenced to 35 years in Fort Leavenworth military prison and a dishonorable discharge from the Army.
“I am Chelsea Manning. I am a female,” declared the 25-year-old Manning, asking supporters to use “my new name and use the feminine pronoun” in gender references.
Manning said in the statement:
“As I transition into this next phase of my life, I want everyone to know the real me,” she wrote.
“… Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition.”
The AP explained:
“The use of the first name Chelsea and feminine pronouns in Manning’s case is in conformity with the transgender guidance in the AP Stylebook.
“The guidance calls for using the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.”
© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
NY Times: Bradley Manning Now Called Chelsea, and He"s a She
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Star Witness And Trayvon Martin"s Friend Blasts Juror Who Called Her "Not Credible"
CNN
Less than 48 hours after a not-guilty verdict was handed down in the George Zimmerman case, the controversial witness who was on the phone with Trayvon Martin minutes before his death said she was “disappointed, upset, angry, questioning, and mad” at the verdict.
In an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan, Jeantel also blasted an anonymous juror who had told CNN’s Anderson Cooper minutes before that she was not a “credible witness.” Jeantel said she was “angry” at the description.
And Jeantel refuted the anonymous juror known as B37 who said that the case and the verdict wasn’t about race.
“It was racial. Let’s be honest. It was racial,” she told Morgan.
Jeantel said that the jury’s verdict was based on “just B.S.” She painted a light-hearted picture of her friend Martin, saying he was not the “thug” the defense tried to make him out to be. She was open about his frequent use of marijuana — but she said it made him “hungry,” not violent.
“Weed didn’t make him go crazy. It made him go hungry,” Jeantel said.
She added: “He was a calm, chill, loving person, loved his family, definitely his mother. And a good friend.”
Here’s a clip of her appearance:
Star Witness And Trayvon Martin"s Friend Blasts Juror Who Called Her "Not Credible"
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Colombia extradites drug lord called "The Madman" to US
NBC News
Daniel Barrera arrives in New York City after being extradited from Colombia.
By Pete Williams and Richard Esposito
NBC News
The most notorious Colombian drug lord since Pablo Escobar is now headed to the U.S. in handcuffs, after plastic surgery failed to conceal his identity from police.
Daniel Barrera, AKA El Loco or The Madman, ran a 400-ton-per-year drug empire with the help of violent leftist guerrillas, and controlled the major cocaine smuggling routes from Colombia to the U.S. He burned off his fingerprints with acid and had cosmetic surgery on his face, but an international law enforcement task force was still able to track him to a phone booth in Venezuela in September.
Colombian authorities have now extradited the 51-year-old to New York, where he faces drug trafficking and money laundering charges in two federal courts. He was set to arrive in New York in Tuesday, and will be arraigned in Manhattan on Wednesday morning and in Brooklyn on Thursday morning. After he is prosecuted in New York, he will be arraigned in the Southern District of Florida.
“Thanks to the cooperative efforts of Colombian and U.S. [law enforcement], Barrera’s criminal career is over,” said DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart. “He now faces charges that may bring him a life behind bars.”
Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said that Barrera had “operated at the center of a truly evil web.”
“This was truly cocaine with blood in its background,” said Bharara.
Barrera’s career as a drug smuggler dates back to the 1980s, and he is believed to have shipped thousands of tons of cocaine north, often in cooperation with the leftist guerrillas of Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia, or FARC. FARC has been the world’s largest supplier of cocaine and has engaged in bombings, massacres and kidnappings inside Colombia. FARC guerrillas allegedly provided Barrera with raw materials and charged him a monthly tax for establishing drug labs in their territory.
AFP – Getty Images
Colombian drug trafficker Daniel Barrera, AKA “El Loco” or ‘The Madman,” is due to appear in federal court in New York on Wednesday.
Barrera was convicted on drug charges in Colombia in 1990 but escaped. After his escape, he used public telephones instead of cell phones to avoid surveillance by law enforcement.
By the time he was caught by Venezuelan law enforcement last fall, authorities said he accumulated multiple dwellings, a yacht and 48 automobiles. The Venezuelans handed him over to the Colombians after his arrest.
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos announced his capture on live television, saying, “We have caught the last of the great lords,” and thanked British and American authorities for their help.
“In the fight against drug trafficking, this is a very important and final step,” Santos said.
More from NBC News Investigations:
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- Small towns take their lumps after betting big on coal energy plant
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Colombia extradites drug lord called "The Madman" to US
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Shocker: Only 1% of So Called Terrorists Nabbed by the FBI Were Real
In the dozen years since the 9/11 attacks, we"ve watched as a classified new legal regime for government surveillance has been hashed out, local police forces have become heavily armed military-type units and a whole new layer of bureaucracy has hatched to provide us with an abundance of “homeland security.”
Proponents of this build-up argue that it"s made us safer. They point to hundreds of foiled plots to make their case. But Trevor Aaronson, author ofThe Terror Factory: Inside the FBI"s Manufactured War on Terrorism, dug into these supposedly dastardly plots and found that they are much less than meets the eye.
Aaronson recently appeared on the AlterNet Radio Hour. Below is a lightly edited transcript of the discussion.
Joshua Holland: Trevor, the raw statistical data say that Americans have a significantly better chance of being struck dead by lightning than of being killed in a terrorist attack here at home. It’s obviously different for people in some other countries.
I got that from the official terrorism statistics put out by the FBI and other related agencies. And they also track foiled attacks. These law enforcement agencies say that these foiled attacks prove that they are saving American lives. How would you respond to that?
Trevor Aaronson: I’d say that the majority of the foiled attacks that they cite are really only foiled attacks because the FBI made the attack possible, and most of the people who are caught in these so-called foiled attacks are caught through sting operations that use either an undercover FBI agent or informant posing as some sort of Al-Qaeda operative.
In all of these cases, the defendants, or the would-be terrorists, are people who at best have a vague idea that they want to commit some sort of violent act or some sort of act of terrorism but have no means on their own. They don’t have weapons. They don’t have connections with any international terrorist groups.
In many cases they’re mentally ill or they’re economically desperate. An undercover informant or agent posing as an Al-Qaeda operative gives them everything they need… gives them the transportation, gives them the money if they need it, and then gives them the bomb and even the idea for the terrorist attack. And then when that person pushes a button to detonate the bomb that they believe will explode—a bomb that was provided to them in whole by the FBI—agents rush in, arrest them and charge them with conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and then parade that person out to the public saying, “Look at us. We caught a terrorist. This is us keeping you safe.”
If you look at the record of prosecutions in the decade after 911, there has yet to be a case of some Al-Qaeda operative providing the means for a wannabe terrorist to do an act of terrorism. It’s only the FBI that’s providing the means through these sting operations. What this has done is really inflate the threat of terrorism within the United States—particularly from Muslim terrorists—because in almost all of these cases sting operations target men on the fringes of Muslim communities who might be mentally ill, economically desperate or otherwise very easily manipulated by an informant who can make a lot of money in these sting operations.
JH: The thing that I find eye-opening about this is—I’ve certainly known that many of these supposed plots were basically inventions of the FBI, but I didn’t know it was that consistent. You’re saying that this is the case with all of the suspects we’ve heard of in the post-911 era?
TA: For the purposes of my book, I used the 10 years after 9/11 as the area that I was going to analyze data in, and what we know is that in the 10 years after 9/11, there were a little more than 500 defendants who were charged with federal crimes involving international terrorism. About 250 involved people who were charged with things like immigration violations or lying to the FBI and who are somehow linked to terrorism.
Their charges did not involve any sort of terrorist plot. Of the 500, you have about 150 who were caught in sting operations; these operations that were solely the creation of the FBI through an FBI informant or undercover agent providing the means and the opportunity, the bomb, the idea and so on.
Then if you’re really being generous, you can find only about five people of the 500 charged with international terrorism who were involved in some sort of plot that either had weapons of their creation or their acquisition or were connected to international terrorists in some way. These include Najibullah Zazi who came close to bombing the New York City subway system, Faisal Shahzad, who delivered a bomb to Times Square that fortunately didn’t go off, and then you have Jose Padilla—the dirty bomber—the underwear bomber and the shoe bomber, for example.
Being generous, those are the five that you can point to in the decade after 9/11 who seemed to pose a significant threat. Fortunately, none of them were successful. That’s a handful compared to the more than 150 who were caught in these sting operations, and in these sting operations the men never had access to weapons; it was only the FBI that provided it as part of the sting operation that they were controlling from beginning to end.
JH: I’m no attorney, but this sounds like it gets close to entrapment. Have defense attorneys raised that?
TA: Yeah, and this is an interesting area of this story. Obviously, a layman like you or me looking at this thinks this is definitely entrapment. Unfortunately, the legal definition of entrapment is very different, and what we know is that 11 defendants have formally argued entrapment in these cases and none have been successful.
A large reason for that is the government is able to argue against entrapment in two ways; one is to say the person was predisposed to commit the crime. That he had done something that suggested he was interested in committing a crime before the introduction of the government agent.
Traditionally speaking, if this was a bank robbery plot, the government would have to prove that the defendant was researching bank robberies or casing banks prior to the FBI informant getting involved. The FBI and the Department of Justice are able to do this very easily in these terrorism cases in part because they are able to introduce evidence that is really sketchy to prove that there was predisposition.
For example, often the government will cite the fact that someone watched a jihad video and they’ll put on the stand a government expert who will testify that, “Hey, you know, because he watched the jihad video and this is one of Al-Qaeda’s classics,” that meant he was becoming a terrorist and the government line essentially, rather an absurd one, is that if you watch a Jihad video then, trance-like, you become a terrorist. It’s absurd on its face because I’ve watched those videos. You’ve watched those videos and I don’t think either of us are going to become terrorists.
At the same time, how the government is able to argue against entrapment is to really weight the jury in its favor and it does that by – in these sting operations, the government controls every aspect of the plot so they could have a guy who wants to commit violence and they say to him, “Okay, here’s a nine millimeter handgun. Go to the mall and shoot a couple people in the knee.”
That would be awful but it wouldn’t be something that would necessarily shatter the security of the United States of America. Instead, in these sting operations, they give the defendants these bombs that are so enormous and so big that even a sophisticated criminal organization would have trouble obtaining them. Then they have them unleash those bombs at subway stations or downtown skyscrapers and it makes the jury think, You know what? I ride that subway system. I have a son who works at that skyscraper. What that does is effectively erode any empathy that the jury might have for the defendant and that empathy is necessary for a jury to say, You know what? That person was entrapped.
What we’ve seen is a very effective role by the government in battling against this entrapment defense and now that we have 11 cases where entrapment has been formally argued, none being successful. I’m among those who say if you’re a Muslim charged with terrorism in the United States there really is no such thing as entrapment today.
JH: I’m a fan of that show Breaking Bad, and yet I have not started cooking meth in my backyard.
TA: If you ever got involved in a sting operation with meth, the fact that you’re a “Breaking Bad” fan might be used against you.
JH: Now, you said that a lot of people caught up in this dragnet, if you will, are poor, have mental health problems, are disenfranchised and sound like they are marginal people. Can you give us a few examples, specific case studies in the book to illustrate this point?
TA: Yes. One example which is really an absurd one is a man named Derek Shareef. Derek was this recent convert to Islam and he worked at a video game store in Rockford, Illinois. As it happens, his family has ostracized him as a result of his conversion and he was living in his car, which also happened to have just broken down.
Derek, who is earning close to minimum wage at this video game store, was really down on his luck. We don’t know exactly why the FBI targeted him but they sent an informant into the video game store.
This informant was a convicted drug dealer who then started working with the FBI and it happened to be the day before Ramadan and the informant strikes up a conversation with Derek and Derek explains the hard circumstances he’s found himself in.
The informant says, “You know what? I’ve got an extra bedroom at my place. I don’t use my car very often; you’re welcome to use it. Why don’t you stay with me while you get back on your feet?” Derek, being newly religious and devout, thinks this is the work of God since it’s the day before Ramadan and he goes and lives with this man, and over the course of weeks, this man’s slowly stoking Derek’s anger about his circumstances and about American foreign policy. Derek at some point says, “I want to do something about this. I want to kill a judge.” The informant says, “Okay, which judge?”
Of course, Derek couldn’t name the name of any judges and so the informant then gets Derek involved in a more manageable plot. He suggests that they go attack a shopping mall on Christmas Eve. For whatever reason, as in a lot of these plots, Derek agrees that he wants to do that, but the problem for the FBI informant and the FBI agent in this case was that Derek didn’t have any money.
He didn’t have any money to buy guns. He didn’t have any money to buy any weapons that he would need for the plot, so the FBI agents and the undercover informant cook-up this idea where the FBI informant will introduce Derek to an arms dealer who can provide grenades and Derek, in turn, has these two ratty, old stereo speakers, which are the only thing he has of earthly value and the informant tells Derek, “I think if you bring your stereo speakers to an arms dealer, he’ll just say, OK, fair trade and here’s four grenades.""
I don’t know many arms dealers in this world, but I’m pretty sure that none of them is going to accept old stereo speakers for grenades, but of course, Derek didn’t know that. Derek shows up at the shopping mall dutifully carrying his stereo speakers, gives them to the undercover agent who’s posing as the arms dealer, and the arms dealer hands over the grenades. Agents rush in, arrest Derek and charge him with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, and he’s ultimately serving 17 years in prison.
Clearly that’s an example of a man on the fringes of our society, unlikely to ever commit significant violence on his own and yet through this sting operation he is empowered to get involved in a plot that, were it real, would have been really horrifying. And when it’s portrayed in the public and through the media, it does seem horrifying. Here is this man plotting with an Al-Qaeda operative, an undercover FBI informant, to blow up people in a shopping mall on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
Of course, the truth is that that was nothing more than a fantasy by the FBI, controlled at every step by the FBI and no one was really in danger and there’s no evidence to suggest that Derek ever would have met a real Al-Qaeda operative who could have made him the terrorist that he apparently wanted to be.
JH: Trevor, let’s talk a little about the incentives here. It seems to me—and this isn’t an original thought—that there’s a bureaucratic imperative to justify agency budgets. After 9/11, kind of in a panic, we basically doubled the size of our intelligence agencies, created a new Department of Homeland Security, and the FBI refocused its mission.
How much of this tendency to entrap these people comes from that imperative to justify bloated counter-terrorism budgets in your view?
TA: Actually a lot. I’m not of the opinion that there are high-ranking people at the FBI who are saying, You know what? We want to stick it to Muslims in the United States. Although there’s evidence of xenophobia and a certain amount of Islamophobia within the FBI, I don’t think that’s the real reason behind this.
Instead, I think the reason we’re seeing these really aggressive sting operations is the result of something of a bureaucratic evil. That is every year Congress allocates the FBI’s budget, and they set the counter-terrorism budget at $ 3 billion, which is the largest part of the FBI’s budget, more than it receives for organized crime and financial fraud.
The FBI can’t exactly spend $ 3 billion and say, Hey; you know what? We spent your money and we didn’t find any terrorists. Even though the truth is that there’s a lot of money for counter-terrorism and just not a lot of terrorists going around today. What happens is that these sting operations are a very convenient mechanism for the FBI to say, Hey look at us. We’re keeping you safe.
From the highest levels of the FBI, there’s pressure to build counter-terrorism cases because they just received $ 3 billion from Congress and that pressure then flows down to the field offices, which then, in turn, put pressure on individual agents to build counter-terrorism cases and those individual agents then incentivize informants who can make hundreds of thousands of dollars per case.
They’re sent out in the communities looking for people interested in committing acts of terrorism. What they’re not finding are people who are actively building bombs or getting involved in significant terrorist plots.
Instead, they’re finding these outliers, these people on the fringes of communities who for the most part are loudmouths who might aspire to violence but have no means of their own. And then they’ll bring them into the plot knowing that if they get someone on the hook, they can make lots of money, and then when they get a prosecutable case, that case floats up and you have a situation where FBI director Robert Muller consistently testifies before Congress about counterterrorism and cites these cases involving sting operations and what he describes as, Oh, this would have been a terrible, terrible thing had it been allowed to occur … it was a bombing of synagogues in the Bronx, or whatever it might be and never fully describes how that plot to bomb synagogues in the Bronx was really only made possible through an FBI informant who provided everything that the guy needed.
My criticism of this is not only that this bureaucratic evil exists and this is what is happening, but on a greater level the question people should be asking is, Why, despite all of this money and 15,000 informants employed by the FBI today are they finding it so easy to catch these people who are mentally ill and economically desperate while they’re missing the really dangerous people?
Faisal Shahzad delivered his bomb to Times Square and no one knew about him until that day. If you take the case in Boston with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, this was someone that the FBI even looked at and decided he’s not a threat.
The FBI has proven itself very good at catching these people in sting operations who can be easily manipulated, but they’ve also proven themselves almost incompetent in finding the truly dangerous terrorists who do have these connections overseas.
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