Gitmo Thugs Back On The Battlefield
High-level defense and intelligence officials have told Fox News that between 20 and 30 former Guantanamo Bay detainees are believed to be fighting with ISIS or Al Qaeda in Iraq and Syria.
This is relevant news because President Obama has vowed to shut down the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. To do that, he must either bring the terrorists here or release them, as he did with the Taliban Five.
We have known since the Bush years that a significant percentage of these thugs return to the battlefield once they are freed. And Congress has routinely passed legislation preventing the Defense Department from relocating them to the U.S.
Three weeks ago the Wall Street Journal reported that Obama was "unwavering in his commitment" to close Gitmo. So much so that he was even considering "overriding a congressional ban on bringing detainees to the U.S." But most Americans disagree. A June Gallup poll found that just 29% of Americans supported closing Gitmo.
Quarantine Quarrels
Barack Obama held a press conference at the White House yesterday, flanked by doctors in white lab coats. The last time he did that was to promote Obamacare. But yesterday his targets were critics of his Ebola policies.
"When I hear people talking about American leadership and then are promoting policies that would . . . have us running in the opposite direction and hiding under the covers, it makes me a little frustrated," Obama said.
He's frustrated? Where's the leadership in the fight against ISIS? Obama seems more determined to engage Ebola than he is to win the war against the radical Islamists. We can't put boots on the ground in Iraq, but we're sending thousands of troops to West Africa who will face quarantines when they return. As Donald Trump said, " You're going to see a whole new kind of 'hell to pay' if [our soldiers] catch it."
Like closing Gitmo, Obama's position on Ebola is at odds with the vast majority of the American people. A new CBS News poll finds that 80% of Americans support quarantining healthcare workers returning from West Africa. Only 17% support Obama's view.
A National Public Radio poll found that 77% of Americans support "suspending all travel to and from the affected areas of Africa, in order to prevent the spread of Ebola to the United States." It makes sense, which is why Australia is banning travel to and from Ebola ravaged nations.
According to USA Today, Nigeria succeeded in stopping Ebola from spreading because, "The government immediately imposed strict measures to quarantine those who were ill and to screen thousands of their contacts. . ." Nigeria also imposed flight restrictions on "Ebola-infected countries."
But Obama refuses to "hide under the covers."
This ideological intransigence could cost us dearly. We now have the State Department memo proving that the Obama Administration was at least considering plans to allow foreign Ebola victims to come to the United States for treatment. According to the memo, the expected cost to treat each case is between $200,000 and $300,000.
But an extensive survey of hospitals and healthcare experts by the Associated Press determined that "The U.S. health care apparatus is so unprepared and short on resources to deal with the deadly Ebola virus that even small clusters of cases could overwhelm parts of the system."
Did The CDC Lie?
The Centers for Disease Control has spent weeks trying to convince us that Ebola is very hard to get. We've been told over and over again, "You can't get Ebola on a bus." You can only get Ebola, we were told, from contact with bodily fluids, which to most people meant blood, vomit, etc. But it may spread more easily than that.
The New York Post reports that a CDC flyer warns that Ebola can be spread through coughs and sneezes. Here are some excerpts from the poster:
"Droplet spread happens when germs traveling inside droplets that are coughed or sneezed from a sick person enter the eyes, nose, or mouth of another person. Droplets travel short distances, less than 3 feet (1 meter) from one person to another. A person might also get infected by touching a surface or object that has germs on it and then touching their mouth or nose. Droplet spread diseases include: plague, Ebola."
It's one thing for passengers on a plane or a bus to avoid blood and vomit. It's something altogether different to avoid people who are coughing and sneezing in confined spaces.
Fight Voter Fraud -- VOTE
Liberals like to claim that voter ID laws are a solution in search of a problem. Maryland seems to have a few problems that might benefit from voter ID laws.
Last week one voter integrity group sued the state of Maryland claiming that thousands of people in one Maryland county were exempted from jury duty because they were not U.S. citizens. Yet somehow these same people managed to cast ballots in recent elections.
It is illegal to lie on jury duty forms and it is illegal for non-citizens to vote. If this is happening in one county, it is probably happening all over the state. It is probably happening in other states too.
Again, my friends, the solution is not to give up in despair. Your vote does matter. Cheating only works if the results are close.
So fight back by voting. Take a friend to the polls with you. And double check your ballot. Make sure your vote is counted correctly.