Sen. John McCain exaggerated when he claimed that about 25 percent of prisoners released from Guantanamo have returned to terrorist activities in "leadership positions."
Sixteen percent of all the prisoners ever released from Guantanamo have been confirmed as "returning to terrorist activities" of any sort, according to the most recent report by the Director of National Intelligence.
To get to his "about a quarter" figure, McCain added another 12 percent of released prisoners whom U.S. intelligence officials list as "suspected" of returning to terrorist activities, based on "plausible but unverified" reporting or "plausible" reports from a lone source. It would have been accurate if McCain said a quarter of those released from Guantanamo have gone back into the fight or were suspected to have gone back into the fight.
Furthermore, not all of those who are confirmed or suspected are in "leadership positions" as McCain claimed. To make the list, a former prisoner could be a participant in an attack or bombing and not necessarily involved in the planning.
The vast majority of the recidivists to whom McCain referred were released when George W. Bush was president. Seven percent of the 71 prisoners released since Obama took office are either confirmed (three) or suspected (two) of returning to terrorist activities. Thirty-one percent of the 532 prisoners released under Bush later were confirmed (94) or suspected (70) of returning to the fight.
Lawmakers on both sides of the immigration debate have falsely claimed that "some" or "all" of the Sept. 11 hijackers were in the U.S. on student visas.
Sen. Lindsey Graham: "So the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were all students here on visas. Their visa expired and the system did not catch that, is that correct?"
Napolitano: "That's correct. There are a number of ways that those hijackers would be revealed under ... under the bill. Only one of the 19 hijackers came to the U.S. on a student visa. Of the other 18 9/11 hijackers, 14 came to the United States on six-month tourist visas and four came on business visas.
The entry/exit tracking system proposed in the Senate immigration bill seeks to better monitor the status of those who come to the U.S. on a visa, no matter what type of visa it is. Student visas accounted for 6 percent of all visas in 2012.
For the first time in human history, the concentration of climate-warming carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has passed 400 parts per million (ppm).
The last time so much greenhouse gas was in the air was several million years ago, when the Arctic was ice-free, savannah spread across the Sahara desert and sea level was up to 40 meters higher than today. The extreme speed at which CO2 in now rising has never been seen in geological records.
The world's governments have agreed to keep the rise in global average temperature, which have already risen by over 1C, to 2C, the level beyond which catastrophic warming is thought to become unstoppable.
The International Energy Agency warned in 2012 that on current emissions trends the world will see 6C warming, a level scientists warn would lead to chaos.
"We are creating a prehistoric climate in which human societies will face huge and potentially catastrophic risks," said Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics. "Only by urgently reducing global emissions will we be able to avoid the full consequences of turning back the climate clock by 3 million years."
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