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Obama Standing by Decision to Lift Moratorium on Releasing Guantanamo Bay Prisoners Back to Yemen

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In spite of the ongoing terror threat emanating from Yemen, the White House says it does not plan to rethink President Obama’s decision last May to lift a moratorium on releasing Guantanamo Bay prisoners back to that country.

“I am lifting the moratorium on detainee transfers to Yemen, so we can review them on a case by case basis,” Obama told an audience at the National Defense University during a major counterterrorism policy speech on May 23.

The president is standing by that announcement, even though Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Al Qaeda affiliate in Yemen that U.S. intelligence officials say is now the greatest Al Qaeda threat to the U.S. homeland, was formed in part by several former Guantanamo Bay detainees who were released in 2006.

“A handful of former GITMO detainees, primarily Saudi citizens, made their way across the border into Yemen and they joined AQ in Yemen,” according to AQAP expert Gregory Johnsen, author of “The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia.”

“It was that merger between people, former GITMO detainees from Saudi Arabia and the AQ escapees in Yemen, that really formed AQAP, the group that announced itself in January 2009, and that’s the group we know today as AQAP.”

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American Pastor Now Moved to Solitary in Iran may be Suffering Organ Failure

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Photo Credit: ACLJThe American pastor jailed in Iran for his faith has been placed in solitary confinement and may now be suffering organ failure, according to family members in Iran who are increasingly alarmed at his deteriorating health.

Saeed Abedini, the 32-year-old Christian and American citizen who is serving an eight-year prison term in Iran, was put in solitary confinement following a “peaceful, silent protest” in an outside courtyard at Iran’s notoriously brutal Evin prison, according to family members. Conditions at the prison prompted Abedini and other prisoners to sign a petition decrying the lack of medical care and the threats and harsh treatment facing family members who come to visit.

The protest angered prison officials who retaliated by placing Abedini and nine others in solitary confinement.

“Saeed had previously told his family that when he was in solitary confinement in the past, that was the hardest time in his life. That every hour was like one year and that he was losing his memory and his health was deteriorating quickly,” said his wife, Naghmeh Abedini, who is at the family’s home in Idaho with their two young children.

“We believe that he is being beaten in solitary confinement. We have no way of finding out about his health. There will be no more visitations allowed and we will have no way of knowing how Saeed is doing,” she said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Last Words: Texas Con Calls Lethal Injection 'Awesome'

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Photo Credit: Sarah G…[Convicted murderer Richard] Cobb, 29, spent a decade on death row for the murder of Kenneth Vandever, a man whom he abducted and later killed in a convenience store robbery 11 years ago. Cobb abducted Vandever, then 37, and two other women whom he shot with a shotgun and left for dead. The women survived to call police, but Vandever died…

As the first injection entered his bloodstream, Cobb lifted his head from the gurney on which he was tied down, and craned his neck to stare at the warden who stood behind him.

“Wow!” Cobb shouted. “That is great. That is awesome! Thank you, warden! Thank you (expletive) warden!” he said.

Soon after the outburst, “his head fell back on the pillow, and his neck twisted at an odd angle, with his mouth and eyes open,” the AP reported.

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Will Your Job Be ‘Reshored’ To A Federal Prisoner?

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Photo Credit: x1klima

Twelve million Americans are currently unemployed, according to the most recent Department of Labor statistics. Forty percent of the unemployed have been so for at least six months, and the average job seeker spends 36.9 weeks out of work.

The good news for the jobless? US industry is now in the throes of a “reshoring” trend: “Next year we’re going to bring some production to the US,” Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg Businessweek in December. “This doesn’t mean that Apple will do it ourselves, but we’ll be working with people and we’ll be investing our money.”

The bad news? The Bureau of Prisons is angling to have as many reshored jobs as possible filled by federal prisoners.

Between 2000 and 2011, wages in Asia have nearly doubled, according to the International Labour Organization. The Chinese government is planning to increase the minimum wage by 13% annually until 2015. Labor unrest, formerly unheard of in Asia, has become more frequent, with companies routinely raising workers’ pay after strikes. At the same time, wages paid to federal inmates working in prison factories across the United States have remained flat, ranging from $0.23 to $1.15 an hour.

Federal Prison Industries — also known by the trade name UNICOR — is a self-sustaining, self-funding company within the US Bureau of Prisons. It is owned wholly by the US government and was created by an act of Congress in 1934 to function as a rehabilitative tool to teach real-world work skills to federal inmates. These inmates were historically limited to producing goods for government use, such as furniture, uniforms, even, believe it or not, components for Patriot missiles.

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Lawmakers Urge Kerry To Push Iran For Jailed Pastor’s Freedom

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsMore than 80 lawmakers have signed a letter urging Secretary of State John Kerry to step up efforts to free American citizen and Christian Pastor Saeed Abedini from an Iranian prison.

Abedini, who was sentenced to seven years in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison last month, has been unable to see his wife or two children, who are at the family home near Boise, Idaho. While Kerry has already called for his release, the senators and members of Congress called on him to “use every diplomatic avenue” to free Abedini.

“While there are countless important issues that come before you, few are more sacred than defending the most fundamental human rights,” states the letter, signed by dozens of members of both parties. It is even more incumbent upon us to stand against persecution when it is levied against our own citizens.

“As an American citizen, Mr. Abedini deserves nothing less than the exercising of every diplomatic tool of the U.S. government to defend his basic human rights.”

Saeed, 32, traveled to his native land last summer to help build a secular orphanage. Once there, supporters say he was arrested on charges that stem from decade-old efforts to establish a home-based Christian ministry in the Islamic republic.

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Prisoners Sue for $500 Million Because They Don’t Have Dental Floss

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Some jail inmates are trying to put a $500 million bite on a suburban New York county in a lawsuit demanding access to dental floss.

Eleven inmates in the Westchester County jail in Valhalla say in a federal civil rights lawsuit that they are losing their teeth and suffering pain because they aren’t allowed dental floss.

Several say in the complaint that they brush three times a day, ‘tongue and gums included,’ but still get cavities and suffer bleeding gums, constant dental work for temporary fillings, and mental anguish.

The Journal News first reported on the lawsuit.

Deputy Correction Commissioner Justin Pruyne defended the ban, saying that dental floss ‘potentially can be used as a weapon.’

Read more from this story HERE.