'Your papers, please' must never be heard in America
Independent voices from the TWT Communities
Terrorism analysts are rebutting President Obama's assertion that the "scale of the threat" from Islamic terrorists has reverted to pre-Sept. 11, 2001, levels.
"The Obama administration spent between $2.52 million and $2.77 million for hotel rooms and rental cars during the president's 2012 trip to Mexico for a G-20 summit," proclaims Britain's Daily Mail. "Government travel documents available online show that the State Department contracted with a travel agency to spend between $1,889,383 and $2,078,327 on hotel rooms alone, for the President, the Secret Service, and the rest of the State Department and White House staff and VIPs."
Long before the gruesome bombings at the Boston marathon, U.S. counterterrorism officials feared that the improvised explosive devices used so effectively by insurgents on the Iraq and Afghanistan battlefields might one day make their way to U.S. shores.
The State Department has acknowledged that five Americans killed in Afghanistan, including 25-year-old diplomat Anne Smedinghoff, were on foot when they were caught in the blast of a suicide bomber, and not in an armored vehicle as officials told bereaved relatives earlier this week.
The State Department has acknowledged that five Americans killed in Afghanistan, including 25-year-old diplomat Anne Smedinghoff, were on foot when they were caught in the blast of a suicide bomber, and not in an armored vehicle as officials told bereaved relatives earlier this week.
The Pentagon's intense public relations campaign is designed to sell Congress and the public on how the first year of "sequester" budget cuts is leaving the U.S. military unable to train or deploy overseas. Public warnings generally have garnered media sympathy, but there have been signs in recent weeks of a backlash from the Washington press corps.
The Pentagon has squandered billions of dollars over the past two decades on weapon systems it never produced and on rosy cost estimates that ballooned to sizes that ate up funds for other projects, according to government reports and defense analysts.
The Navy is estimating its maintenance and operations budget is on course for an $8.6 billion budget shortfall by the end of 2013, and officials are planning to close the gap by shutting down four air wings, canceling or delaying deployments of several ships, docking two destroyers and deferring a planned humanitarian mission by the service’s premier medical ship to Latin America, according to an internal memo obtained by the Washington Guardian.
President Obama is expected to call for "comprehensive" immigration reform in his State of the Union address. He will undoubtedly claim he wants to solve all the problems of immigration — border security, enforcement, and the like. But beware: His real agenda will be to find a way to force Congress to accept amnesty for as many illegal immigrants as possible.
President Obama's victory in the general election this week does not silence those who have been criticizing his administration's response to the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.
Despite holding numerous public events including a speech at the U.N. and two presidential debates, President Obama still hasn't publicly and plainly acknowledged to Americans that terrorists killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans in Libya on Sept. 11.
The arrival of Libyan fighters in Syria is raising questions about the motives of some seeking to overthrow the Assad regime.
In accepting his party's renomination a week ago, President Obama called himself a "tested and proven" leader in a dangerous world of threats from abroad, especially from the terrorist-spawning Middle East. But a week later, with Muslim protests flaring at U.S. diplomatic posts across the Middle East and with four Americans killed in Libya, the gentler foreign policy pillar upon which Mr. Obama supports his re-election bid is in danger of toppling.
Experts are questioning the level security for the Benghazi consulate and slain U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.
A Washington think tank founded by President Obama's first Pentagon policy chief has issued a report criticizing the administration's defense budget, which the think tank's founder played a role in developing.
James Carafano, a military analyst at Heritage, said the 1990s' numbers "were a fraction of that."
James Carafano, a senior defense analyst with The Heritage Foundation, said “IEDs are the weapon du jour of terrorists” and difficult to defend against.
Nightmare realized: Counterterrorism officials long feared IEDs would make way to U.S. shores →
