Obama’s High Dudgeon

A carefully manufactured one, too.  The Wall Street Journal has an accurate read on President Barack Obama’s (D) constructed ire.

“For a while now the main contribution of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle have made in the fight against ISIL is to criticize this Administration and me for not using the phrase ‘radical Islam,'” Mr Obama said Tuesday, using his preferred acronym for Islamic State.  “That’s the key, they tell us.  We cannot beat ISIL unless we call them ‘radical Islamists.’ What exactly would using this label accomplish?  What exactly would it change?”

Since the President asked, allow us to answer.  …  If the US is under attack, Americans deserve to hear their President say exactly who is attacking us and why.  You cannot effectively wage war, much less gauge an enemy’s strengths, without a clear idea of who you are fighting.

Mr Obama’s refusal to speak of “radical Islam” also betrays his failure to understand the sources of Islamic State’s legitimacy and thus its allure to young Muslim men.  The threat is religious and ideological.

Obama also said this:

Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. … There’s no magic to the phrase of radical Islam.  It’s a political talking point.

And yet, here he is, making it a political talking point.  As well as repeating his lack of understanding of what our enemy is and so preventing himself from constructing a means of destroying it while also preventing Defense from constructing such a means and then acting on it.  As well as repeating his lack of understanding of why it’s important to accurately name our enemy.  The idea of accurately identifying our enemy is not to “make it go away.”  It’s to help in accurately understanding our enemy so we can destroy it.

The term “radical Islam” plainly is extremely important to Obama, too, despite his emotional denial of the importance of it; his seven and a half year refusal to use the term to identify the terrorists demonstrates that.  His steadfast refusal to identify these terrorists, to say who they are, also says far more about his failure to do his duty regarding our nation’s safety, and it says far more about his level of immorality in that failure than it says about any of his critics who decry his failure.

Talk about playing politics with terrorism.  Jeez.

Elections have consequences.

Never Let a Tragedy Go to Waste

Or a terrorist attack.

The debate over how to stop attacks like the terror massacre in Orlando erupted on the House floor late Monday as Democratic lawmakers loudly criticized House Speaker Paul Ryan (R, WI) and other GOP leaders for taking no action on the nation’s gun laws.

Instead of moving to enhance our nation’s and our citizens’ ability to protect ourselves collectively and individually against terrorist attacks, the Left has chosen to focus on their continued efforts to disarm us all.

More cynically, yet, the Left carefully elides the potential outcomes, the vastly reduced casualty count were at least some of the folks inside the bar armed, or were some of the passersby on the street outside the bar—and present well before the police could arrive—armed.  The one cop who happened to be on the scene could have been critically reinforced immediately, were there an armed populace present.

The disruption underscored the political divide in the wake of the attack, with many Democrats looking to tighten gun laws in response and Republicans looking to crack down on the strain of radical Islam that seemingly motivated the shooter.

Ryan also tried to hold a moment of silence out of respect for the Orlando terrorist victims, and many Democrats chose to walk out of the Chamber rather than honor those victims.  House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) justified the calculated insult to those victims:

…told reporters Democrats have “had enough” of moments of silence after mass shootings when Congress does not act to tighten gun laws.

This isn’t a misplaced set of priorities by the Left.  It’s their focus.  Terrorism, Muslim or otherwise, is not a concern of theirs, and the Orlando mass shooting wasn’t an act of terrorism.  Disarming us is the Left’s priority.  Armed American citizens is where the Left’s fevered fears lie.

Elections have consequences.

So Are They All

…the Left are all honorable people.  The Honorable Left says Muslims have nothing to do with terror.  Hillary Clinton tweeted a while ago that

Muslims have “nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.”

Of course, she’s changed her story now that the winds of politics are blowing in a different direction.

Here’s how deadly [sic] wrong she and her Left colleagues are about Muslims and terrorism:

A Muslim radical who was being investigated for terror ties stabbed a French police chief to death outside his home, then tortured the man’s wife in front of their toddler son—all while livestreaming his rampage on Facebook.

And

…[Larossi] Abballa, a French national with a prior terrorism conviction and ties to jihadists based in Pakistan, made a horrific appeal to his Facebook followers, writing, “I don’t know what I’m going to do with the boy.”

It’s true enough that the vast majority of Muslims aren’t terrorists.  But nothing to do with terrorism is a fantasy of the Left, borne of their dishonorable fear of calling a spade a spade.

Elections have consequences.

YGTBSM

In the wake of last week’s fatal Blue Angels jet crash in Tennessee, a San Francisco lawmaker wants to ban the famed F/A-18 fighter jets from being able to fly over his city—and, in his words, “strafe neighborhoods.”

City Supervisor John Avalos, who long has waged a public battle decrying the squadron’s aerial acrobatics over San Francisco—at one point calling them loud “killing machines”—has introduced a nonbinding resolution to require the jets to only fly over the bay.

Only in California.  Apparently neither jet noise, the sound of freedom, nor entertaining aerial shows is a safe space for these politicians.  Jeez.

Reassigned

But not terminated.  She’ll complete her 20 years and get her pension, just as if she’s done nothing wrong.

Irene Martin, who has been with the US Citizenship and Immigration Services for 16 years, was the CIS field supervisor in San Bernardino who delayed for an hour and a half DHS agents (assigned to Homeland Security Investigations, a DHS sister agency of the CIS) attempting to interview and arrest Enrique Marquez, one of the terrorists involved and who was in her custody; from getting access to related records held by her office, and then requiring they make only hand-written copies; and who disdained even meeting with the agents for a half hour.

DHS’ IG report had this about her performance:

We have also concluded that the Field Office Director was not candid with OIG investigators during her interview.

And

We concluded that the USCIS Field Office Director at the San Bernardino office improperly delayed HSI agents from conducting a lawful and routine law enforcement action….

She made conflicting statements to the IG personnel interviewing her:

According to the FPS [Federal Protective Service] contract guards, the Field Office Director did not answer her phone, so an FPS guard searched the building, subsequently found her, and advised her that HSI agents were looking to obtain information regarding a Russian female and Hispanic male who may have been connected to the shootings the previous day.  (When interviewed by OIG agents, the Field Office Director stated that she was notified via phone that HSI agents had arrived at USCIS San Bernardino and wanted to detain and interview someone.  She said in her interview that she was not told for whom they were looking, or why they were looking for the individual.)

And

When interviewed by OIG, the Field Office Director [Irene Martin] denied telling the agents they were not allowed to arrest, detain, or interview anyone in the building.  However, her account is contradicted by that of the other HSI agents present.  Moreover, the Field Office Director herself reiterated to OIG agents during her interview her belief that it was against USCIS “procedure” for law enforcement to detain or interview individuals on USCIS property.  She also gave inconsistent answers about when she discovered that the HSI agents were investigating the shootings from the day prior.  She told OIG in her interview that she discovered the connection between [Mariya, the other terrorist in the San Bernardino attack, and Marquez’ wife] Chernykh and the shootings while reviewing Chernykh’s file.  She also stated that she was only told by the agents that they were investigating the shootings after she gave them the photograph.  In her written statement, however, the Field Office Director stated that the agent told her that they were investigating the shootings when she initially met with him in the conference room.  Either version is contradicted by the building security officer, who said he told the Field Office Director of the purpose behind the agents’ arrival when he first notified her.

The IG report goes on in this vein.

It is not clear what disciplinary action Martin could face….

Under this administration?  Yes, it is.