Alan Gross in an undated family photo, left, and in 2012 while imprisoned in Cuba for crimes against the state.
American Alan Gross has been released from Cuba after five years in prison and is on his way back to the United States, People’ Pundit Daily confirms. A senior Obama administration official told PPD that Gross departed from Cuba on a U.S. government plane Wednesday morning.
“Mr. Gross was released on humanitarian grounds by the Cuban government,” the official said. “And the release was at the request of the United States.”
U.S. officials say the Obama administration plans to start talks with Cuba on normalizing full diplomatic relations and opening an embassy, a controversial decision that will no doubt received blowback from Republicans in both houses of Congress who back and have the backing of Cuban-Americans.
President Obama is expected to speak about the long-awaited release of Mr. Gross around 12:00 P.M. on Wednesday. The release follows years of desperate appeals by Gross, his family, and what many considered to be a lack of attention from the White House. Those closest to the family say that the administration only became responsive to the situation in recent months.
His wife, Judy Gross, said earlier this year that she feared for his life, saying he might do “something drastic.”
Gross was arrested in 2009 while working to set up Internet networks for the island’s Jewish community on a contract with the U.S. government’s Agency for International Development. Washington argues that his activities were humanitarian, and he says he posed no threat to Cuba.
However, some aspects of his work allegedly violated Cuban law, and Gross’ documents show he tried to avoid detection. Havana considers such USAID programs an affront to its sovereignty, and Gross was convicted under a statute governing crimes against the state.
Gross staged a hunger strike in April to protest his confinement and pressure Washington and Havana to resolve his case. He ended it after nine days at the request of his mother, Evelyn Gross, who died June 18 in Texas at age 92.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that U.S. consumer prices saw their biggest drop in nearly six years in the month of November fueled by falling gasoline prices. The Consumer Price Index fell 0.3 percent last month, which is the largest decline since December 2008, after a flat reading in October.
However, the report will do nothing to change views at the Federal Reserve, which will start raising interest rates in mid-2015. Inflation hawks, who were mocked for much of the period following the recession, have obviously won the argument against the dangers of runaway inflation.
In the 12 months through November, the CPI increased by only 1.3 percent, or the smallest measure since February, after increasing by 1.7 percent in October. Economist polled by Reuters had forecast the CPI falling by only 0.1 percent from October and actually increasing by 1.4 percent year-over-year.
Excluding food and energy prices, the so-called core CPI edged up just 0.1 percent after increasing 0.2 percent in October. So, despite falling gas prices, in the 12 months through November, the so-called core CPI still increased 1.7 percent after increasing 1.8 percent in October.
The Federal Reserve has set a target of 2 percent for inflation, but it tracks an index that is currently measuring even lower than the CPI. Falling crude oil prices that have hit a fresh 5-1/2 year low as of this week, have largely faced downward price pressure due to an increase in U.S. shale production and decreasing global demand.
Still, it is possible that low inflation rates could convince the Fed to keep its short-term interest rate near zero, where it has been since December 2008.
Gasoline prices decreased by 6.6 percent, according to the CPI, which is the biggest drop since December 2008, after declining 3.0 percent in October. Gasoline has now declined for five straight months.
Food prices rose 0.2 percent after nudging up 0.1 percent the prior month. Within the core CPI, shelter costs increased 0.3 percent last month after rising 0.2 percent in October.
There were also increases in airline fares, medical care and alcohol prices. New motor vehicle prices, however, fell as did the cost of household furnishings, apparel and used cars and trucks.
A review by USA Today, published Wednesday, shows that, in fact, Obama has issued more memoranda than any U.S. president in history.
Apparently, President Obama really does use his “pen and phone” more than any other president, or at least the pen, anyway. A new report found Obama skirts the number of executive action by using what is known as a “presidential memorandum” at a historic pace. The backdoor tactic allows him and Democrats to technically claim he has issued less executive orders than other presidents, while still using runaround-Congress tactics to push major policy.
A review by USA Today, which was published Wednesday, shows that, in fact, Obama has issued more presidential memoranda than any U.S. president in history. He’s issued 198 – more than the 195 executive orders from his White House.
The executive action is extremely similar to an executive order and the differences are next to nil. For instance, executive orders have to cite the law they’re either addressing or are based on, but memoranda do not.
According to USA Today, when the memos and executive orders are combined, Obama is on pace to issue more “high-level executive actions” than any president since Harry Truman. Of course, critics have long-argued that the number isn’t even significant, but rather the scope of the order and whether the president has the power assumed in those orders.
“That argument — that the president has issued less executive orders than other presidents — has always been irrelevant to the intellectual discussion of president power,” said liberal law professor Jonathan Turley. “The number of orders is almost irrelevant. What is relevant is what those order are decreeing.”
Professor Turley is lead council representing congressional Republicans in a lawsuit filed against the Obama administration in late November, which challenges the president’s unilateral executive action on ObamaCare. For political expediency, as it was during the period leading up to the 2014 midterm elections, the president repeatedly changed and delayed the health care law in order to prevent voters from having their policies cancelled, particularly involving the employer mandate.
In fact, what is perhaps Obama’s most controversial executive action – the overhaul of the U.S. immigration system, or granting of amnesty to at least $5 million illegal immigrants – was actually done through memoranda. On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Arthur Schwab in Pennsylvania ruled Obama’s actions were, in fact, unconstitutional.
However, it is unclear what impact, if any, the opinion might have other than adding momentum to critics’ legal argument, because it did not come in response to a challenge to Obama’s immigration policy announcement. In a separate lawsuit, half of the country is united against the order that would grant roughly 5 million illegals legal status, a development that came just a week after the Republican-controlled House voted to strip the order.
Meanwhile, the states suing Obama over his unilateral amnesty order now include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen last week was assigned to hear the legal challenge. Judge Hanen, who was appointed to the bench in 2002 by President Bush, said the Obama administration was involved in the “criminal conspiracy” involving defendant Mirtha Veronica Nava-Martinez, a mother who paid $6,000 to smuggle her child from El Salvador to Virginia.
A federal judge ruled large parts of President Obama’s executive immigration order unconstitutional, in the first court opinion to tackle Obama’s controversial policy changes.
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that large parts of President Obama’s executive immigration order are unconstitutional, in the first court opinion to address Obama’s controversial actions.
U.S. District Court Judge Arthur Schwab in Pennsylvania said Obama’s immigration order was effectively “legislation” handed down from the Executive Branch, thus invalid and unconstitutional.
“President Obama’s unilateral legislative action violates the separation of powers provided for in the United States Constitution as well as the Take Care Clause, and therefore, is unconstitutional,” Judge Schwab wrote.
However, it is unclear what impact, if any, the opinion might have other than adding momentum to critics’ legal argument, because it did not come in response to a challenge to Obama’s immigration policy announcement. In a separate lawsuit, half of the country is united against the order that would grant roughly 5 million illegals legal status, a development that came just a week after the Republican-controlled House voted to strip the order.
Schwab handed down his opinion in UNITED STATES vs. ELIONARDO JUAREZ-ESCOBAR, which was a response to a criminal case against the Honduran illegal immigrant (Elionardo Juarez-Escobar), who was previously deported in 2005 and caught again in the U.S. earlier this year.
Juarez-Escobar had pleaded guilty to “re-entry of a removed alien,” but the court also examined the impact of Obama’s past and present immigration actions on the case. While Judge Schwab said it is possible the actions might apply to Juarez-Escobar’s situation, it doesn’t matter, because he determined the executive actions, themselves, are unconstitutional.
The president’s immigration action went beyond oft-cited “prosecutorial discretion,” as “discretion” is only granted to the administration after illegal immigrants are prosecuted and the actions taken are specifically prohibited by laws already passed by the U.S. Congress.
Judge Schwab, a George W. Bush appointee, also said “discretion” is only allowed on a “case-by-case” basis, but Obama’s order is a “systematic and rigid process” that applies to a “broad range” of decisions immigrants. Also, the judge ruled that the action gives illegal immigrants “quasi-United States citizens,” and goes far beyond deferring deportation by letting beneficiaries apply for work authorization.
“Congressional inaction does not endow legislative power with the Executive,” the judge wrote, which was a citation of Obama’s argument. Obama argued that he was proceeding with executive action after Congress failed to act on comprehensive immigration legislation, but that’s just not how the Constitution was written.
The Obama administration via the Justice Department tried to shrug off the opinion.
“The decision is unfounded and the court had no basis to issue such an order,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement. “No party in the case challenged the constitutionality of the immigration-related executive actions and the department’s filing made it clear that the executive actions did not apply to the criminal matter before the court. Moreover, the court’s analysis of the legality of the executive actions is flatly wrong. We will respond to the court’s decision at the appropriate time.”
Critics, however, say this is just the first in a slew of open-and-shut decisions on what is clearly an unconstitutional act by the president.
“The President’s unilateral executive action suspending the nation’s immigration laws for roughly five million illegal aliens has received its first judicial test, and it has failed,” John Eastman, law professor at Chapman University, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the states suing Obama over his unilateral amnesty order now include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, South Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen last week was assigned to hear the legal challenge. Judge Hanen, who was appointed to the bench in 2002 by President Bush, said the Obama administration was involved in the “criminal conspiracy” involving defendant Mirtha Veronica Nava-Martinez, a mother who paid $6,000 to smuggle her child from El Salvador to Virginia.
The Obama administration is also urging dismissal of a lawsuit brought by an Arizona sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who contends that President Barack Obama’s program serves as a magnet for more illegal entries into the U.S. Arpaio says the new arrivals will commit crimes and thus burden his law enforcement resources.
In a court filing late Monday, the Justice Department told U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell that the sheriff’s theory is speculative, “meritless” and unsubstantiated. They said that Arpaio has failed to show he will suffer any injury at all from the federal government’s program, thus leaving him without standing.
The premiere of Seth Rogen and James Franco’s comedy “The Interview” in New York has been canceled after the Sony hackers threatened a 9/11-style attack on theaters showing the film.
In a message emailed to media, which included the latest leaks of employee emails, the North Korean-backed hackers who call themselves “Guardians of Peace” threatened an “11th of September”-style attack on movie theaters showing an upcoming film “The Interview” starring Seth Rogen and James Franco, which is a comedy that pokes fun at North Korea’s communist dictatorship.
“Warning…We will clearly show it to you at the very time and places “The Interview” be shown, including the premiere, how bitter fate those who seek fun in terror should be doomed to,” reads the message. “Soon all the world will see what an awful movie Sony Pictures Entertainment has made. The world will be full of fear.”
As a result, the Georgia-based Carmike Cinemas, which operates 278 theaters across the country, canceled showings of the movie in its theaters as well. The company is the fourth largest cinema chain in the nation behind Regal, AMC, and Cinemark, none of whom commented on their plans for “The Interview” showings.
“Remember the 11th of September 2001. We recommend you to keep yourself distant from the places at that time,” the message added. “(If your house is nearby, you’d better leave.) Whatever comes in the coming days is called by the greed of Sony Pictures Entertainment. All the world will denounce the SONY.”
Sony Pictures Entertainment (NYSE:SNE) told theater owners on Tuesday that it would be supportive of their individual decisions on whether or not to show the film, which is still set for a Christmas release.
The Department of Homeland Security has said that there is no credible intelligence to indicate a threat, but is still investigating the message.
The movie portrays Rogen and Franco as spies set to kill North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who ends up dying in a gruesome assassination, which was also toned down due to the threats.
U.S. housing starts and permits unexpectedly fell in the month of November, according to a housing market report from the Commerce Department released Tuesday. Groundbreaking fell 1.6 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual 1.028 million-unit pace, and November’s starts were revised up to a 1.045 million-unit rate.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast starts rising to a 1.04 million-unit rate from October’s previously reported 1.01 million-unit pace.
The housing market continues to suffer as a result of tepid-to-zero wage growth in the U.S. economy, which has been far outpaced by home price increases. Even though higher mortgage rates are also a factor, they have since declined from a previous high reached in September 2013 – thanks to the Federal Reserve.
Wages are not expected to increase until mid-2015 and hopefully attract first-time buyers, particularly younger Americans, into the housing market to pick up slack for baby boomers.
Last month’s loss in groundbreaking was largely in the single-family homes segment, which unfortunately, is the largest part of the market. They fell 5.4 percent to a 677,000-unit rate, while starts for the more volatile multi-family homes segment ticked up 6.7 percent to a 351,000-unit pace, which reversed only some of October’s 9.9 percent drop.
Multi-family starts continue to be driven by demand for rental units, as Americans give up on prospects for home ownership.
Last month, permits dropped 5.2 percent to a 1.035 million-unit pace after two straight months of gains, which was the biggest drop since January. New housing permits, which typically lead housing starts by three to four months, have been above a 1 million a month pace since July.
Permits for single-family homes fell 1.2 percent to a 639,000-unit pace. Permits for multi-family housing tumbled 11.0 percent to a 396,000-unit pace. That followed two strong months of big increases.
A Pakistani man comforts a student standing at the bedside of a boy who was injured in a Taliban attack on a school, at a local hospital in Peshawar, Pakistan, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2014. Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Tuesday, killing and wounding scores, officials said, in the worst attack to hit the country in over a year.(AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — In the worst terror attack to hit Pakistani in recent years, Taliban Islamic extremists attacked an army school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar Tuesday, killing 126 people. Of those dead, the overwhelming majority were between the ages of 12- to 16-years-old, or students grade 1 – 10.
“My son was in uniform in the morning. He is in a casket now,” one parent, Tahir Ali, told The Associated Press as he came to the hospital to collect the body of his 14-year-old son Abdullah. “My son was my dream. My dream has been killed.”
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the assault in the northwestern city of Peshawar and rushed to the area to show his support for the victims.
The attack was carried out by roughly a dozen members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban group, which is a Pakistani Islamic militant group seeking to overthrow the government. In addition to those dead, dozens of wounded are flooding into local hospitals, while parents fearing the worst search for their children.
Police Officer Javed Khan said the attack began in the early morning and that Army commandos responded quickly arrived to the scene, exchanging fire with the radical Islamic militants. The exchange is ongoing, and it is unclear how many children or staff may still be in the facility.
The Pakistani military spokesman, Asim Bajwal, said on Twitter that five militants had been killed and that security forces had rescued two children and two staff members.
#Psr Update:5th terrorist killed in the last under clearance block of school,meanwhile SSG troops rescued 2 more children & 2 staff members.
Bajwal gave another update roughly an hour later, claiming they had rescued 2 more children, 2 teachers, and killed a sixth terrorist in the final building to be cleared.
#Psr Update:2 more children,2 teachers rescued.6th terrorist killed in last block.IEDs planted by terrorists hamper speed of clearance
Pervez Khattak, the chief minister of information for Peshawar, which has been the frequent target of Islamic militant attacks in the past, confirmed the death toll and said at least one of the fatalities was a teacher and one security official. Taliban spokesman Mohammed Khurasani claimed responsibility for the attack in a phone call to media, claiming that six suicide bombers had carried out the attack in revenge for the killings of Taliban members at the hands of Pakistani authorities. However, the chief minister said there were eight attackers, dressed in military uniforms.
In response to the past violence, the Pakistani military launched a major military operation in the North Waziristan tribal region back in June, seeking out all Islamic militant groups operating in the area. Officials feared a backlash by militants, but until Tuesday there had been no response.
The prime minister vowed that the country would not be cowed by the violence and that the military would continue with the aggressive operation.
“The fight will continue. No one should have any doubt about it,” Sharif said.
Megyn Kelly Interviewed Dr. James Mitchell, the EIT architect who interrogated Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, reacted to the Senate Democrats’ CIA report on enhanced interrogation. Dr. Mitchell said the release of the report and subsequent controversy shows the enemy that we don’t have the resolve to fight them.
“We saved lives, I don’t care what the Senate said,” Mitchell fired back. “I feel horrible for the nation. I feel horrible in part because this puts everyone at risk. And worse yet, it shows al Qaeda and the al Qaeda 2.0 folks – ISIL – that we’re divided and that we are easy targets; that we don’t have the will to defeat them.
Dr. Mitchell went on to tell Kelly about an exchange he had with KSM, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, during which KSM told him what he felt were obvious weaknesses and predictable behaviors of the American Left.
“In fact, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told me personally ‘you’re country will turn on you, the liberal media will turn on you, the people will grow tired of this, they will turn on you. And when they do, you are going to be abandoned.’,” Mitchell told Kelly.
It would appear KSM and al Qaeda were right — at least, in the sense they could count on the Left to have weakened resolve over the years — just as the Taliban believe “Americans have the watches, but we have the time.”
“Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has an opportunity to defend himself and I don’t,” Mitchell said. “They put my life in danger, they put the lives of other CIA personnel and our families in danger for some sort of moral high ground?”
A Democrat-led Senate panel headed up by Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) released the report last week despite dire warnings from lawmakers and intel officials. These warnings, which were even echoed by some within the Obama administration, who contended the findings would “endanger the lives of Americans” all over the world.
In fact, Dr. Mitchell says the release of the report has directly threatened his life and the lives of others in the program, and that he was told over the weekend that he had to abruptly leave his home.
“I don’t mind giving my life for my country,” Mitchell said of the danger the release of the report has put him and others in. “But I do mind giving my life for a food fight for political reasons.”
CIA Director John Brennan opened a first-of-its-kind news conference last week by recounting the horrors of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and echoed Mitchell’s characterization of the post-attack period. Officials knew that a second and third wave was imminent, which Mitchell inferred likely involved a dirty bomb. Brennan also laid into the Senate report.
The GOP minority released a rebuttal report refuting the claims made in the Democrats’ majority report, which criticized the CIA enhanced interrogation program as ineffective and misleading.
Former CIA officials have been pushing back hard on the claims made in the report, including that the interrogation didn’t produce intelligence and that the CIA lied to the Bush administration regarding the tactics. Tuesday, Jose Rodriguez, the ex-CIA chief in charge of the enhanced interrogation program, said Senate Democrats released a bogus partisan report aimed to throw the CIA “under the bus” in order to cover for themselves.
Rodriguez further said this week that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was personally briefed on the program, as were Senate Democrat leaders, despite the current false outrage.
“I remember very clearly briefing Nancy Pelosi in September of 2002,” he said on Fox News Sunday. “The Congress had been on break. As soon as they got back from break in September, the first thing I did is I went to brief her and Porter Goss, who was the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence at the time.”
“We briefed her, and I was not the only one who game from the agency. I had my lawyers with her. We briefed her specifically on the use of the enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah,” Rodriguez added. “So, she knew back in September of 2002 every one of our enhanced interrogations.”
Former CIA Directors George J. Tenet, Porter J. Goss and Michael V. Hayden, and former CIA Deputy Directors John E. McLaughlin, Albert M. Calland and Stephen R. Kappes, penned an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal claiming, in fact, the program did work and provided plenty detailed accounts of actionable intelligence gathering to prove it.
“Our view on this is shared by the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Republican minority, both of which are releasing rebuttals to the majority’s report,” the three former CIA heads wrote. “Both critiques are clear-eyed, fact-based assessments that challenge the majority’s contentions in a nonpartisan way.”
A group of former CIA officials launched a website called CIASavedLives.com in response to the committee’s majority report, defending the agency’s tactics.
According to recent polls, including a PPD Poll, Americans support the use of enhanced interrogation over Feinstein’s moral high ground.
Several thousand protesters marched in New York City on Saturday. The protesters were part of Al Sharpton’s “Million Marchers” protest against police violence. The protesters chanted “What do we want?… Dead cops!” as they marched in New York City.
The self-styled sheikh is a suspect in a murder case and well-known for his twisted campaign of writing hateful letters to the families of fallen soldiers. (Photo: AP)
A series of explosions were heard and several shots fired as police stormed the Sydney cafe in Australia, where an Iranian radical Islamist had been holding at least 9 hostages for approximately 16 hours. Ambulance crews have entered the building. Reports suggest one hostage and the gunman have been killed, but no police injured.
The explosions, believed flash grenades, came just before 2:30 A.M. local time from inside of fled Lindt Chocolat Cafe, where a man identified as Man Haron Monis, an Iranian also known for sending hate mail to the families of fallen soldiers, was holed up with an unknown number of captives. Police did not initially identify Monis, though they knew he was the suspect inside.
The standoff began Monday morning in Sydney’s central business district in Martin Place, a plaza in the heart of the city’s financial and shopping district that is packed with holiday shoppers this time of year. Journalist Chris Reason had tweeted the scene the moment the police stormed the cafe, and later followed up.
Seven News has been told that the two dead are the gunman and a hostage. The hostage killed by the gunman
Four of the hostages were seen being taken from the cafe on stretchers, while one received CPR at the scene. Initially, it was believed that five people had managed to escape the cafe and people have been ordered by police to stay out of the area, but Reason had tweeted another account, though it has not been verified.
By our calculations, there were 21 hostages. Five escaped this afternoon, then 7 more at 2am. So approx 9 were inside when police went in
For hours, police and news crews surrounding the shop watched the frightened hostages at the Lindt Chocolat Cafe pressed against the glass in the front windows with their arms in the air. Television footage shows two people holding up a black flag associated with Islamic fanaticism, and Australian broadcaster Network Ten reported that Monis was seen wielding a shotgun and a machete, has forced hostages to call him “The Brother.”
Reason described the gunman as unshaven, wearing a white shirt and a black cap, and holding what appeared to be a pump-action shotgun. Monis could be seen pacing back and forth past the cafe’s four windows before the lights in the cafe went off, Reason reported.
Monis emigrated to Australia in 1996 and is widely known in Australia for his public campaign of writing letters to the families of fallen soldiers. The letters called them “murderers” and urged the families to lobby the government to withdraw from the coalition in Afghanistan. He was also charged in 2009 with “using the postal service to harass” in a case he fought all the way to Australia’s highest court, which ultimately dismissed his appeal.
Last year, he was charged in connection with the murder of his ex-wife in a case that is still pending and, in fact, he was free on bail at the time of the hostage standoff. He was charged earlier this year with sexual assault of a woman who went to his office in New South Wales for “spiritual healing.”
“This is a one-off random individual. It’s not a concerted terrorism event or act. It’s a damaged goods individual who’s done something outrageous,” his former lawyer, Manny Conditsis, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. “His ideology is just so strong and so powerful that it clouds his vision for common sense and objectiveness.”
As PPD previously reported, the Australian government raised terror warning level in September as a result of a credible domestic threat from “lone wolf” supporters of the Islamic State terror group. Counterterror law enforcement teams later conducted dozens of raids and made several arrests in Australia’s three largest cities — Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. One man arrested during a series of raids in Sydney was charged with conspiring with an Islamic State leader in Syria to behead a random person in downtown Sydney.
The Islamic State group, which now holds a third of Syria and Iraq, has threatened Australia in the past. In September, Islamic State group spokesman Abu Mohammed al-Adnani issued an audio message urging so-called “lone wolf” attacks abroad, specifically mentioning Australia. Al-Adnani told Muslims to kill all “disbelievers,” whether they be civilians or soldiers.
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