Qatar broke promise with US, allowed Gitmo detainee to leave the country

Socialism is not the Answer

Somehow, saying I told you so, just doesn’t get it.

1 Dragon

 

Jihad Watch

Relying on allies that aren’t allies is yet another consequence of the Washington establishment’s determined refusal to face the realities of the jihad, and to formulate policy based on those realities.

“Qatar ‘broke promise to US over Guantanamo detainee,’” by David Blair, the Telegraph, December 12, 2014 (thanks to Lookmann):

Qatar broke an “explicit” promise by allowing a former Guantánamo detainee who had trained with al-Qaeda to leave the country and visit Britain, a new report has found.

Jarallah al-Marri, who attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan before the terrorist attacks on September 11, was freed from Guantánamo in 2008.

Mr Marri was allowed to go home to Qatar in return for a formal promise from the government of the Gulf state that he would not be allowed to leave the country. But a report from the Foundation for the Defence of Democracies in Washington said this pledge was broken.

Mr Marri was allowed to leave Qatar to visit Britain twice in 2009, where he spoke at events alongside Moazzem Begg, another former Guantánamo inmate. On his second visit, he was arrested by the British authorities and returned to Qatar.

A diplomatic cable from the US Embassy in Qatar states that Mr Marri was allowed back to the Gulf state “with the explicit understanding (made via exchange of diplomatic notes) that he would be subject to a travel ban”.

If Mr Marri tried to leave, the Qatari government promised to inform America.

Nonetheless, he was still allowed to visit Britain. The US cable concludes that the Qatari authorities “deliberately withheld information on Jarallah al-Marri’s travel outside of Qatar”….

Senate Passes 1.1 Trillion Spending Bill

Weasel Zippers

We won the election but have people representing us who either don’t care what we think and/or who don’t know what they are doing.

Via Washington Examiner:

The Senate late Saturday voted to pass a $1.1 trillion spending package, clearing the measure for the President Obama’s signature.

The final 56-40 vote marked the end of days of drama in both chambers surrounding passage of the spending bill, although there was never a real threat of a government shutdown because both parties readily passed measures to keep the government open until Dec. 17.

A group of conservatives and liberals united to vote against legislation, but were opposed to it for different reasons, stemming from the president’s recent executive action on immigration to a provision in the bill that makes it easier for banks to engage in risky trading programs.

The bill would fund the government through Sept. 2015, with the exception of the Homeland Security Department, which would be funded until Feb. 27. Obama said he plans to sign it.

Saturday’s vote took place after a day of political infighting on and off the Senate floor, most of it swirling around Sen. Ted Cruz.

Keep reading…

CROmnibus: a $1 Trillion Betrayal; Updated

By: James Simpson
DC Independent Examiner

Update: The votes are in and the massive spending bill known as “CROmnibus” has passed the House of Representatives. The Senate has been given two days to consider. Cannot imagine a successful GOP challenge there so it will be come law of the land. Democrats call this massive bill one of the best deals they’ve gotten with the GOP in decades. Congressman James Moran (D-VA) said:

 

In 20 years with appropriations bills, I haven’t seen a better compromise in terms of Democratic priorities. Implementing the affordable care act, there’s a lot more money for child development…We got virtually everything Democrats tried to get.

This was a massive, premeditated betrayal of the American people and the Leadership’s own party. Before the vote on Cromnibus, there was a vote on a procedural rule whether or not to allow the bill to be considered at all. A vote against the rule would have killed the bill. One congressman claimed leadership lied to him, telling him that Cromnibus was dead and if he voted for the rule it would be to clear the way for a vote on a simple short term continuing resolution funding government until the GOP took charge. So he voted for the rule. It won 214 to 212. CROmnibus then went on to pass with significant support from Democrats and way too many Republicans. Finally, GOP leadership chose the December 11 expiration date for a continuing resolution passed in September to temporarily fund government. They did this knowing full well that if the GOP won the Senate in November, it would offer Democrats one last chance to pass something in the lame duck session. Speaker Boehner, McConnell and other GOP leaders deliberately disenfranchised their fellow Republicans.

Despite promises, Social Security still trying to collect old debts from kin

Free Republic

The Social Security Administration, which announced in April that it would stop trying to collect debts from the children of people who were allegedly overpaid benefits decades ago, has continued to demand such payments and now defends that practice in court documents.

After The Washington Post reported in April that the Treasury Department had confiscated $75 million in tax refunds due to about 400,000 Americans whose ancestors owed money to Social Security, the agency’s acting commissioner, Carolyn Colvin, said efforts to collect on those old debts would cease immediately.

But although some people whose refunds were seized were reimbursed in recent months, some of those same taxpayers have since received new demands from Social Security, asserting that the debts remain and seeking repayment.

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com …