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WH Officials Were Warned About Looming Border Crisis, Dismissed as ‘Local Problem’ in 2013

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

By Leah Barkoukis.

The White House initially claimed to be surprised by the influx of illegal immigrants crossing the Southwest border, but a January 29 employment ad placed by DHS looking for contractors to escort roughly 65,000 unaccompanied alien children challenged that assertion. Now, there’s even more evidence to suggest the administration knew about the impending problem well in advance.

Fox News reports:

The Obama administration ignored a report to the Department of Homeland Security last year which predicted that a large number of unaccompanied children would arrive at America’s southern border in the coming months, according to a published report.

The Washington Post reported Saturday that a team of experts from the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) submitted the 41-page report in August of 2013 after discovering a makeshift transportation depot manned by Border Patrol agents at the Fort Brown station in Brownsville, Texas. The report detailed how thirty agents were assigned to perform such tasks as washing the children’s clothes, driving them to offsite showers, and making them sandwiches.

The report said that an average of 66 children were taken into custody each day and more than 24,000 cycled through patrol stations in Texas alone in 2013.

Former-Border Patrol station chief Victor Manjarrez Jr., who led the study, said the government dismissed the situation as a “local problem,” reports the Post. A crisis of this magnitude was “not on anyone’s radar,” he continued, although it was “pretty clear this number of kids was going to be the new baseline.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: US Army / Miguel A. Negron

Photo Credit: US Army / Miguel A. Negron

Perry plans to deport National Guard to portion of border

By Bob Price.

Texas media outlets are reporting Texas Governor Rick Perry is preparing to deploy the Texas National Guard to portions of the Texas/Mexico border.

State Senator Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa (D-McAllen) confirmed the pending announcement of Perry’s decision to deploy 1,000 soldiers from the Texas National Guard to the border. The goal of the guard deployment is to bolster the work of the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) State Troopers, according to Jennifer Saenz, a spokesperson for Sen. Hinojosa.

“The senator understands that Perry wants this troop build-up, but is not sure what kind of federal approval he needs for it. He just knows he wants to deploy 1,000 troops there,” Saenz said in an article posted on the Houston Chronicle.

On July 18, Breitbart Texas reported that a coalition of conservative, tea party, and grassroots activists met in Austin, Texas at the State Capitol to demand that Gov. Perry deploy the Texas National Guard and call the Texas Legislature into special session to handle the surge of illegal immigration in South Texas.

Read more from this story HERE.

White House To Congress: Take Your Subpoena And Shove It

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Photo Credit: IJ Review

Photo Credit: IJ Review

The Obama White House has defied a Congressional subpoena and won’t let a political aide testify.

The investigation by the House Oversight Committee is focused on whether or not the White House Office of Political Strategy and Outreach and its director, David Simas, has used the department to raise money for political candidates.
From The Blaze:

The White House is defying a congressional subpoena by keeping a top political aide to President Barack Obama from testifying at a hearing Wednesday.

The White House is arguing that Obama adviser David Simas (SEE’-muhs) is immune from subpoena by the House Oversight Committee in its investigation into the political office that he directs.

Read more from this story HERE.

WH: Administration’s Foreign Policy Has Improved ‘Tranquility of The Global Community’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP / Jacquelyn MartinWhite House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday the Obama administration’s foreign policies in a number of areas have enhanced the world’s “tranquility” – a word that raised eyebrows as reporters pointed to situations in Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Ukraine and the South China Sea.

More than one reporter during Monday’s press briefing referred to a front-page Wall Street Journal article highlighting some of those crises, and citing security strategists as saying “the breadth of global instability now unfolding hasn’t been seen since the late 1970s.”

“How does the White House react to the notion that the president is a bystander to all these crises?” asked Fox News’ Ed Henry, citing the widening gaps between the sides in the Iranian nuclear talks, the conflict in and around Gaza, and the Syrian civil war.

“I think that there have been a number of situations in which you’ve seen this administration intervene in a meaningful way, that has substantially furthered American interests and substantially improved the, uh, you know, the – the tranquility of the global community,” Earnest replied.

ABC News’ Jon Karl quoted Attorney General Eric Holder’s assessment in an interview aired Sunday that the terrorist potential arising from Westerners returning home after fighting in Syria was “more frightening than anything I think I’ve seen as attorney general.”

Read more from this story HERE.

White House Now Faults Republicans for Weak Border Security

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Photo Credit: AP / Jacquelyn MartinAfter previously saying America’s borders are more secure than ever, the White House on Tuesday seemingly blamed Republicans for apparent holes along the southern boundary, evidenced by the flood of unaccompanied children streaming into the U.S. from Mexico, Central America and elsewhere.

White House press secretary Josh Earnest challenged Republicans, if they are truly concerned about border security, to back the comprehensive immigration reform package that passed the Senate last year and is strongly supported by President Obama.

Read more from this story HERE.

No One Was Disciplined After The White House Leaked A CIA Official’s Name To The Press

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Photo Credit: Flickr / nedrichardsThe White House is adopting enhanced security procedures during foreign trips after the name of a CIA official was accidentally leaked to the press during President Barack Obama’s visit to Afghanistan late last month. However, no one was disciplined or fired as a result of the leak.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest announced the results of an investigation into the incident conducted by White House Counsel Neil Eggleston ahead of a fundraiser attended by the president in Massachusetts Wednesday evening. Earnest said Eggleston briefed White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough on the results of the investigation Tuesday. The president was also informed of the investigation’s findings Tuesday. Eggleston made three recommendations to prevent similar security breaches from occurring in the future.

The leak occurred when the name of the CIA’s station chief in Kabul was including on a list of officials who participated in a military briefing with Obama during his Afghanistan visit that was subsequently emailed to thousands of reporters on the White House press pool list. Business Insider has withheld the name of the station chief, which has not been widely reported in spite of the leak.

Read more from this story HERE.

White House Aides Define Obama Doctrine: ‘Don’t Do Stupid S**t’

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Photo Credit: Getty Images Still trying to figure out what President Barack Obama’s foreign policy doctrine is? Search no more. The White House has got you covered.

“For those pining for an Obama Doctrine victory for the president, here it is: ‘Don’t Do Stupid Shit,’” Politico’s Mike Allen wrote in his daily tip sheet, the Politico Playbook, Saturday. “Playbook rarely prints a four-letter word — our nephews are loyal readers. But we are, in this case, because that is the precise phrase President Obama and his aides are using in their off-the-record chats with journalists.”

Allen went on to point out all the places the phrase has popped up in recent days and weeks.

Read more from this story HERE.

White House Blows Top CIA Official’s Cover

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Photo Credit: WikimediaIn an embarrassing flub, the Obama administration accidentally revealed the name of the CIA’s top official in Afghanistan in an email to thousands of journalists during the president’s surprise Memorial Day weekend trip to Bagram Air Field.

The officer’s name — identified as “chief of station” in Kabul — was included by U.S. embassy staff on a list of 15 senior American officials who met with President Obama during the Saturday visit. The list was sent to a Washington Post reporter who was representing the news media, who then sent it out to the White House “press pool” list, which contains as many as 6,000 recipients.

The Associated Press is withholding the officer’s name at the request of the Obama administration, who said its publication could put his life and those of his family members in danger. A Google search appears to reveal the name of the officer’s wife and other personal details.

White House officials realized the error after the Post reporter notified them, and sent out a new list without the station chief’s name. Other major news organizations, including the Post, also agreed not to publish the officer’s name.

The reporter who distributes the pool report sends it to the White House to be checked for factual accuracy and then forwarded to the thousands of journalists on the email distribution list, so in this case the White House failed on at least two occasions to recognize that the CIA official’s name was being revealed and circulated so broadly.

Read more from this story HERE.

Scientists Rebut White House Global Warming Claims

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Photo Credit: NASA Goddard Photo & VideoA group of independent scientists, economists, and meteorologists has issued a pointed response to the scientific foundation of the Obama administration’s claims that humans are drastically changing the climate by burning fossil fuels.

With expertise in multiple disciplines, including climate research, weather modeling, physics, geology, statistical analysis, engineering, and economics, the 15 signers make the case that the foundation of the White House National Climate Assessment (NCA) is a “masterpiece of marketing” that crumbles like a “house of cards” under the weight of real-world evidence.

“They promote their ‘Climate Models’ as a reliable way to predict the future climate. But these models dramatically fail basic verification tests. Nowhere do they admit to these well-known failures. Instead, we are led to believe that their climate models are close to perfection,” assert the scientists.

The 829-page NCA report was released on May 6 and was characterized by administration officials as “the most comprehensive, authoritative, transparent scientific report on U.S. climate change impacts ever generated.”

The administration seized on the NCA findings as justification for its push to further regulate the fossil-fuel industry and to bolster alternative green-energy sources.

Read more from this story HERE.

Issa: White House Warned YouTube Over Anti-Islam Video During Benghazi Attack

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Photo Credit: APRepublican Rep. Darrell Issa claimed that an email he’s reviewed shows the White House decided to reach out to YouTube within hours of the Benghazi terror attack, to warn the website about the consequences of posting an anti-Islam video.

The email would suggest the White House was connecting the attack to the video almost from the outset — though their initial claim that the attack sprung out of protests over the film would later be proven false.

According to Issa, who discussed excerpts from the otherwise classified emails on Wednesday, the email was sent at 9:11 p.m. ET on Sept. 11 to the Diplomatic Security Command Center.

According to Issa, the email said: “White House is reaching out to UTube to advise ramifications of the posting of the Pastor Jon Video.”

Issa said this email is “troubling” because it “contradicts” White House claims that the faulty storyline on the video was drawn from the intelligence community’s talking points.

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: White House Aide Linked to Al-Qaida Funder

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

There is a troubling common thread that links Hillary Clinton’s former chief of staff to the current special assistant to the National Security Council chief of staff of the military’s Islamic chaplain program.

The thread is more radical than the Muslim Brotherhood. It is the Muslim World League, a group accused of financing al-Qaida fronts. The organization’s offshoots have been declared official terrorist organizations by both the State Department and the United Nations.

Yet despite the troubling facts, Muslim World League-linked individuals have been in key national security positions and are currently helping to run the military’s chaplain program.

The case of Mehdi K. Alhassani, special assistant to the Office of the Chief of Staff of the National Security Council, drew attention last week in the blogosphere after former PLO operative Walid Shoebat reported on Alhassani’s ties to Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups.

Alhassani’s name emerged in an administration email made public last week as part of a Judicial Watch lawsuit. The email was sent three days after the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack to Alhassani and other officials from Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communication.

Read more from this story HERE.