Despite a 300 percent surge in the shooting deaths of police this year, President Obama has said and done nothing to signal his regret or even reach out to families of the victims, leading law enforcement to charge that he is condoning the slayings.
“He has a microphone in his face almost every moment he’s awake and has unprecedented access to the media. He could certainly take a moment to acknowledge these events and give us the same support he provides those that attack and kill us,” Carroll County, Md., Sheriff James T. DeWees told the Washington Examiner.
Since DeWees wrote an open letter to Obama on Facebook urging attention, 13 more police officers have been killed, five by gunfire, and the president still hasn’t hasn’t addressed the issue, prompting the sheriff to add: “I also speak for thousands of police officers throughout the country that feel the White House has forgotten about them, a White House that remains silent about the uptick in deaths which ultimately gives them the perception that it’s condoned; and for them perception is reality.”
Dane County, Wis., Sheriff David J. Mahoney, told the Examiner, “Our nation has lost its soul and that is why we struggle.”
He suggested that politicians tone down the attacks on each other and instead move to “bring our communities and nation together in a united mission and to protect and honor those who would stand in defense of our American ideals of freedom, democracy and equality for all.”
Despite the White House silence over the 24 police deaths this year, the administration has reached out to police groups for help in responding. But in every case, the White House has ignored the recommendations.
For example, the White House was urged to follow the practice of past administrations to have the president sign a letter of condolence to the families of killed police. It hasn’t. It was suggested that the president extend a recent Florida fundraising trip to attend a police funeral in Louisiana. He didn’t.
Obama didn’t acknowledge the Feb. 27 slaying of Prince William County, Va., officer Ashley Marie Guindon, 28. She was killed on her first day on the street just 28 minutes from the White House.
For many police, it hasn’t gone unnoticed that the president is quick to speak out about those killed by police, often rallying anti-police groups.
“The president’s underlying political philosophy is to keep supporters and advocates working against something, and not for something, and that is what is so distressing to law enforcement,” said Jonathan F. Thompson, executive director of the National Sheriffs’ Association.
Peru counterfeiting moves from dollars to degrees
Peru, considered the biggest counterfeiter on the globe, is moving beyond printing dollars to other valuables, including college degrees, according to a House lawmaker.
“Peru, I think, is the counterfeiting capital of the world,” said Rep. Hal Rogers, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, fresh from a trip to the South American country. “I mean, you could get a Harvard diploma or $1,000 bill or whatever you wanted, it seems at will.”
In a hearing with the federal agency that fights counterfeiting, U.S. Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy agreed. “There is a significant amount of counterfeiting coming out of Peru, yes,” he said.
Clancy told Rogers that the agency was “making tremendous strides down there” and was involved in a seizure of $10 million in U.S. currency last year. He added that several printing presses were seized and that Peruvian police have been training with the Secret Service near Washington on how to find and destroy the operations.
But Rogers said he wants to see more action in Peru. “It’s an absolute factory for fake dollars and everything else,” he said, calling the nonstop printing a “sore on the American dollar.”
“I really think that we’re not doing nearly enough.”
Air Force raises new fears of EMP attack
Electromagnetic attacks on the energy grid, a topic that used to prompt eye-rolling in Washington, is now a top concern for the U.S. Air Force.
Officials have raised new worries that “determined adversaries” want to attack the grid, either with a physical hit or a potential EMP attack.
Experts have suggested that North Korea, for example, is testing missiles to launch a nuclear weapon from a ship off the U.S. coast into the atmosphere where an explosion could shut off electricity for months.
In an Air Force briefing provided to the Examiner, the service raised concerns about “aging infrastructure,” a “growing number of cyberattacks” on the grid, “coordinated physical attacks on key grid components” and “risks from state and non-state actors,” presumably such as the Islamic State.
It also raised the issue of natural disasters smacking the unprotected grid, including a “pattern of increasingly extreme and unpredictable storms,” and “catastrophic earthquakes.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
