Rep. Pete Hoekstra tells Newsmax that the Obama administration is withholding critical information about terrorists that could be useful in preventing future attacks.
The Michigan legislator — the top Republican on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence — also says that if a successful attack does occur, responsibility will be on “the heads of the administration.”
And he insists there should be “consequences” for North Korea’s sinking of a South Korean naval vessel.
Rep. Hoekstra was first elected in 1992. He is not running for re-election in November and instead seeks the GOP nomination for governor in Michigan.
In an exclusive interview with Newsmax.TV, Hoekstra says: “All of us are very frustrated, Democrats and Republicans, with the lack of information sharing coming from this White House.
Read More: By: Jim Meyers, Newsmax
Tags: Obama, Pete Hoekstra, TerrorismSaturday night’s attempted car bombing in Times Square shows that New York continues to be in the cross-hairs of the terrorists. New York City has always been the terrorist’s prime target and every possible effort has to go into fighting them so that these attacks are not successful. This includes putting appropriate funding into terror-fighting efforts so that law enforcement has the tools and the manpower it needs to protect the city. Instead, the Obama administration has been cutting funding for anti-terror programs.
Obama is too busy terrorizing NY to protect it from terrorists
As the risk of a successful terrorist attack in New York City has increased, federal funding from the Obama administration designed to thwart such attacks has declined. This is an amazing fact, given the out-of-control spending in Washington these days. While funding has gone down there have been numerous attempted terrorist acts as well as additional attacks that discovered while they were still in the planning stages. For example, there is the Zazi case, in which the Bull’s-eye was directly on New York City, just as it was in Saturday night’s attempted car bombing in Times Square. President Obama needs to recognize that there are terrorists out there who are at war with us, and he has to fund the necessary programs to protect against their attacks.
Subways, trains and buses have been hit by terrorists in attacks around the world. We know that Zazi, who recently pled guilty, was targeting the New York City subway system. Nonetheless, funding for NYC’s Transit Security Grant program was reduced by over 25%, or almost $45 million dollars. The overall funding went from $153.3 million down to $110.6 million.
The ports are also a key area to protect in order to keep the city safe, yet the funding for the Port Security Grant Program was reduced by about 25%, or over $11 million dollars. The funding went from $45 million down to $33.8 million. In addition, a program to install radiation detectors in New York ports has also been stalled.
Read More: By Annemarie McAvoy, FOXNews
Tags: Barack Obama, NYC, protection, TerrorismThere is almost nothing the Obama administration does regarding terrorism that makes me feel safer. Whether it is guaranteeing captured terrorists that they will not be waterboarded, reciting terrorists their rights, or the legally meandering and confusing rule that some terrorists will be tried in military tribunals and some in civilian courts, what is missing is a firm recognition that what comes first is not the message sent to America’s critics but the message sent to Americans themselves. When, oh when, will this administration wake up?
Obama is not concerned about terrorism
Bit by bit, circumstances are forcing President Obama and his aides to come to grips with reality. The original plan to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the so-called Sept. 11 mastermind, in New York City has apparently been aborted. It finally occurred to the Justice Department that cordoning off much of Lower Manhattan and placing a security perimeter around the financial district not only would cost something like $200 million a year but also would destroy the economy of the area. A trial there would give KSM, as he is called, a second shot at devastating downtown New York.
It is amazing that no one thought this through. Published reports say that the Justice Department informed Mayor Michael Bloomberg of its plan just about the time it was announced. This alacrity was clearly the product of some excitement down at Justice — yet another chance to show the world that George W. Bush was gone and with him the odious attempts to treat terrorists as if they were, well, terrorists. A civilian trial! Right in the heart of Manhattan! Obama ought to ask his friend Attorney General Eric Holder what in the world he was thinking — just as we might ask Obama why he has such faith in Holder’s judgment.
Read More: By Richard Cohen, Washignton Post
Tags: Barack Obama, Terrorism, Tone deafA Senate hearing last week confirmed the public’s worst concern about Barack Obama: that when it comes to national security, Obama hasn’t just been asleep at the switch — he hasn’t even bothered to find the switch.
Obama is too busy ramming socialism down our throats to pay attention to terrorists
"I do not think he [Obama] has a firm grasp yet on the intelligence community," 9/11 Commission Vice-Chairman and former Democrat congressman Lee Hamilton told the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
This, even though Obama has been in office for over a year now.
"We were not paying close attention in this area," commission Chairman Thomas Kean testified at the hearing into intelligence lapses prior to the Christmas Day attempted airliner bombing. Kean noted that Obama has instead been focused on such issues as health care and cap-and-trade.
The two men have historically been circumspect about making politically charged statements, but they painted a portrait of an intelligence community, America’s first line of defense against its jihadi enemies, that is devolving into disarray under Obama’s leadership — or lack thereof.
Read More: By William Tate, American Thinker
Tags: Barack Obama, Intelligence, National Defense, Terrorism
UMAR FAROUK Abdulmutallab was nabbed in Detroit on board Northwest Flight 253 after trying unsuccessfully to ignite explosives sewn into his underwear.
The Washington Post Excoriates Obama for his mismanagement of the eunuch bomber
The Obama administration had three options: It could charge him in federal court. It could detain him as an enemy belligerent. Or it could hold him for prolonged questioning and later indict him, ensuring that nothing Mr. Abdulmutallab said during questioning was used against him in court.
It is now clear that the administration did not give serious thought to anything but Door No. 1. This was myopic, irresponsible and potentially dangerous.
Whether to charge terrorism suspects or hold and interrogate them is a judgment call. We originally supported the administration’s decision in the Abdulmutallab case, assuming that it had been made after due consideration. But the decision to try Mr. Abdulmutallab turns out to have resulted not from a deliberative process but as a knee-jerk default to a crime-and-punishment model.
In testimony Wednesday before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, and Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, all said they were not asked to weigh in on how best to deal with Mr. Abdulmutallab.
Read More: Washington Post
Tags: Abdulmutallab, Barack Obama, Mismanagement, Terrorism, Umar FaroukErroll Southers, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), said the war on terror should be given “some parity” with other national priorities such as global warming, education, and the economy.
This guy is as dangerous as global warming according to the TSA nominee
The TSA, an element of the Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for the security of U.S. transportation systems, including commercial aviation. Southers made his remarks in a 2008 video interview with the Videojug.com Web site.
In the online interview, Southers was asked, “How high should the ‘war on terror’ be on our list of national priorities?”
Southers answered: “It should be high on our list of priorities because of, speaking globally, the threat that exists. Due to connectivity that we have with countries such as Israel, France, countries that are seen by groups, by Al Qaeda as being infidels or anti-Islamic, by the true nature of our alliance with them means that we are subject to being attacked as well.
Read More: By Matt Cover, CNS News
Tags: Barack Obama, Global Warming, Nominee, Terrorism, TSAThe Obama administration is considering a criminal trial in Washington for the Guantanamo Bay detainee suspected of masterminding the bombing of a Bali nightclub that killed 202 people, a plan that would bring one of the world’s most notorious terrorism suspects just steps from the U.S. Capitol, The Associated Press has learned.
This guy bombed two hundred people, how does that make him a criminal?
Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, was allegedly Osama bin Laden’s point man in Indonesia and, until his capture in August 2003, was believed to be the main link between al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiyah, the terror group blamed for the 2002 bombing on the island of Bali.
Other terrorism trials also may occur in Washington and New York City under a proposal being discussed within the Obama administration, according to U.S. officials briefed on the plan, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss private planning meetings.
Authorities already have begun discussing the intense security measures needed to bring Hambali and others before a Washington federal judge, the officials said.
Read More: AP
Tags: Bali Bomber, TerrorismWhat a week we have all just endured! While the Democrats were re-writing the federal takeover of healthcare behind closed doors, the public face of the federal government was fixated on denying and then explaining all the gaps in its intelligence gathering.
The TSA is a sham
The Obama administration has been finger-pointing over who in the government let a murderous thug on a plane in Amsterdam that he tried to explode over Detroit. First, the government said that the system worked. Then the President said it didn’t. Then he announced that the intelligence communities and security people would start to talk to each other so the bad guys could be kept out. Weren’t they supposed to be doing this all along?
At Newark Liberty Airport last Sunday, a TSA agent left his post, and a young man walked past it to kiss his girlfriend good-bye. Then the young man turned and left the secured area and left the airport. So far no harm, no foul. But because the government’s surveillance cameras in the airport didn’t work, the feds panicked and ordered over 10,000 passengers to leave the terminal, go out into the 15-degree Newark, NJ cold at night, and then re-enter the airport. Flights were delayed and missed, kids did not get to school on Monday morning, and soldiers were listed as AWOL. All because the government overreacted to a kiss. This humiliated the feds: New Jersey’s 86-year-old senior Senator Frank Lautenberg demanded that the guy who kissed his gal be hunted down and prosecuted because of the chaos he caused. He caused? Let’s see; the government has cameras that watch us every time we scratch our noses, and when those cameras don’t work, the government blames the person whose picture it was supposed to be taking? Come on.
All this, of course, brings out the false argument of liberty versus security. And we hear it from the Progressives that the government must take our freedoms in order to keep us safe. That’s hogwash. Freedom is our birthright. It doesn’t come from the government; it is part of our humanity. America is the only country in the history of the world dedicated to the truism that we are endowed by our Creator, as Jefferson wrote, with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The government has forgotten basic civics: "Endowed by our Creator" means that our rights come from God and not from the feds. "Inalienable" means that we and our freedoms cannot be separated, unless and until we are convicted by a jury of violating someone else’s rights. What is the value of being safe if we are not free? Did our forefathers flee the kings and despots of Europe and come here to be safe? Did Patrick Henry say "Give me safety or give me death?" Here is the mistake that the Big Government crowd wants to thrust upon us: They want to balance liberty and safety. There is no such thing as balance when it comes to freedom. We will not trade freedom for anything, or balance it against anything, and we certainly won’t give it up to the TSA.
Read More: By Andrew Napolitano, Lew Rockwell
Tags: Governments cant protect us, Terrorism, TSAIn a revealing admission, President Barack Obama said today he was directing U.S. intelligence agencies to begin to do something many had assumed they were already doing: "[A]ssigning specific responsibility for investigating all leads on high priority threats so that these leads are pursued and acted upon aggressively."
you mean we weren’t already investigating terrorist leads?!
"That is a shock because we had such a follow-up system when I was there," said Richard Clarke, the White House counter-terrorism director in the Clinton and Bush administrations. Clarke, who worked on the Obama transition team, is now an ABC News consultant.
The President said he would hold his staff accountable but said no one person was responsible or would be fired. "Ultimately the buck stops with me," the President said.
In announcing his review of the failures that allowed a "known terrorist" to board a flight to Detroit with a bomb on Christmas Day, the President said there was "a failure to connect the dots of intelligence that existed across our intelligence community."
The review found that "no single component of the counter-terrorism community assumed responsibility for the threat reporting and followed it through."
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was apprehended on Christmas after allegedly attempting to detonate explosives sewn into his underwear on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit. After the incident, Abdulmutallab’s father revealed that he had contacted U.S. officials in Nigeria and warned them that his 23-year-old son had extreme views and might pose a threat to the U.S.
Read More: By BRIAN ROSS, ABC
Tags: Barack Obama, incompetence, start inestigating leads, Terrorism
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