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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Congress</title>
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		<title>Ben Shapiro: Republicans Secretly Want Obama&#8217;s Amnesty</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/truthrevolt-org/ben-shapiro-republicans-secretly-want-obamas-amnesty/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ben-shapiro-republicans-secretly-want-obamas-amnesty</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/truthrevolt-org/ben-shapiro-republicans-secretly-want-obamas-amnesty/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2014 05:50:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[TruthRevolt.org]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republicans]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247194</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A Truth Revolt video. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #000000;"><strong>Ben Shapiro explains why establishment Republicans aren&#8217;t using the power of the purse to stop Barack Obama&#8217;s executive amnesty: They don&#8217;t want to stop it. See the video and transcript below. </strong></p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/3DHJ-CbOGQA" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p style="color: #000000;">TRANSCRIPT:</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">There is the only one way to explain the new proposal by Speaker of the House John Boehner and other top Republicans for stopping President Obama’s executive amnesty: they don’t want to stop it at all.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Here’s the story.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Republicans have two options: the smart option and the stupid option.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">The smart option would be for Republicans to pass a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government through January. That would allow Republicans to come into office and take power in the Senate. Then Republicans could do what Congresses have done for centuries: avoid passing omnibus spending bills, which tie all spending together and lead to shutdowns, and instead fund the government through separate appropriations bills, one per department. That de-links funding for the Defense Department, for example, from funding for Obama’s executive amnesty. Obama would have a tough time vetoing a standalone Defense funding bill that has nothing to do with executive amnesty.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Then there’s the stupid option.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Republicans could push forward an omnibus spending bill that would completely fund the government through next September, but fund the Department of Homeland Security – and Obama’s amnesty –through next March. That would effectively allow 60 days of funding for Obama’s program to give work permits to illegal immigrants.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Now, Obama probably won’t accept the deal, and will shut down the government over the failure to fully fund his executive amnesty. Speaker Boehner will then cave, and fund the entire program. We know this because that’s exactly what he did regarding Obamacare two years ago, during the infamous government shutdown.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">But let’s say Obama signs the bill. There’s no guarantee Speaker Boehner will fight over DHS funding in March, either. In fact, certain Republican congresspeople have already indicated he won’t.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">Naturally, Boehner is pursuing the stupid option. Why? Not because he’s stupid, but because he likes Obama’s executive amnesty. President Obama’s executive amnesty allows him to sign off on the establishment Republican soft-on-immigration policy while simultaneously complaining about Dictator Obama. He can win points with the base by bashing President Obama, and at the same time, greenlight Obama’s immigration policy – which Republican establishment types from the Wall Street Journal to Jeb Bush to the Chamber of Commerce have been pushing relentlessly as “comprehensive immigration reform.” Obama has given them cover. All they have to do now is whine about Obama being a Big Bad Tyrant, then fund his tyranny. They can pop the cork in the back offices secretly while hypocritically blasting Obama for seizing their power in public.</p>
<p style="color: #000000;">They’re playing conservatives for suckers.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>43</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Trashing the Constitution</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/trashing-the-constitution-2/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=trashing-the-constitution-2</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/trashing-the-constitution-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 09 Dec 2014 05:23:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[constitution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[First Amendment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Free Speech]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rule of law]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247029</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[America's fiercest warriors for freedom reveal Obama's assault on our rights at Restoration Weekend. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong style="color: #232323;">Below are the video and transcript to the panel discussion “Trashing the Constitution,” which took place at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s 20th Anniversary Restoration Weekend. The event was held Nov. 13th-16th at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Florida. </strong></p>
<p><iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/113571263" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Paul Erickson: </strong>Cinderella, Superman and Pinocchio were walking through the woods one day when they came upon a sign advertising a beauty contest.  Cinderella smiled at her two companions and said, “I’ve got this.”  She comes back an hour later with a trophy.  They continue on their journey until they see another sign, this one advertising a competition for the world’s strongest man.  Superman puffs out his chest, says, “I’ll be right back,” and about an hour later he comes back with a trophy.  Finally, just before sunset, the trio spies a final sign calling for a contest to find the world’s greatest liar.  Pinocchio scratches his nose and says, “No problem,” but an hour later he returns in tears with no trophy.  He manages only to blurt out, “Who is Barack Obama?”  When Pinocchio finally composes himself, his unbelieving companions ask how he possibly lost.  Pinocchio said, “I was in first place and then Barack Obama said, ‘I’m a constitutional scholar.’”</p>
<p>And so we find ourselves in 2014, gathered to discuss the trashing of the American Constitution.  My name is Paul Erickson.  I’ve been a part of the vast right-wing conspiracy since 1980 when I cast my first vote for President and for Ronald Reagan, and then serving eventually in his first administration.  Today’s topic has been one of the three animating issues of my avocation in politics since the days of my senior year at Yale when the Algonquin Round Table of my Yale political union party of the right stalwarts first formed the Federalist Society and I was privileged to take Nino Scalia’s final seminar at the University of Virginia School of Law before his elevation to the federal bench and his eventual donning of the black robes of justice.  But with us today are some very special individuals whose expertise makes me happier than President Obama with an open border.  I’ll introduce each of the experts in turn as they speak with plenty of time for your questions and a timely lunch.</p>
<p>Sean Noble is the founder of DC London, a one-stop shop for expert political messaging and campaign services.  Most of us first met Sean during his tenure as Arizona Congressman John Shadegg’s chief of staff.  His smiling, vicious campaign expertise has earned him the sobriquet “el sol diablo” from Arizona Democrats, many of whom speak English.  Sean has five children and is a Los Angeles Dodgers fan, but unlike Clayton Kershaw, his children have never let him down in the World Series.  His last thought of the day on his blog before he was swept up in the 2014 mid-term election analysis was a timeless quote by Margaret Thatcher.  “You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”  I’m happy to have him charging the breach once again today.  Sean Noble.</p>
<p><strong>Sean Noble: </strong>Thank you, Paul.  Well, it’s an honor to be here today and to be at this conference.  This has been a wonderful experience.  I was completely motivated by Dennis Prager last night.  I thought he spoke real truth to power.  We are at a very interesting point in American history, and it’s something that’s kind of evolved over the last few years as Barack Obama’s been in the White House, and that is that we have seen the absolute destruction of not only the hope of what the American dream is, but the actual expectation that people have about what America is and what Americans should believe in, and it’s one of those things that is why the First Amendment is so important, because we have to have a vigorous debate about what it means to be an American, what it means to believe in policy, to fight against policy, those kind of things, and yet in Barack Obama we have someone who is actually wanting to erase the First Amendment, and that is to squelch speech of anyone who wants to be critical of him.  A few months ago my organization, American Encore, put together an ad that we ran nationally online, and whoever’s running the AV, if you could run that ad.</p>
<p><strong>Ad Audio:</strong>  Where would America be without free speech?  We haven’t always agreed with what’s said, but until now we’ve always agreed on each other’s right to say it.  The Obama administration recently proposed new rules at the IRS to control the speech of certain nonprofits, to legalize the IRS’s inappropriate targeting of conservative groups.  Now the right to free speech is dependent upon who is speaking, and it’s up to the IRS to make that call.  The Obama administration is proposing new tax rules, unfairly scrutinizing nonprofits, another line of attack against these groups.  The American Civil Liberties Union says the proposed rule threatens to discourage or sterilize an enormous amount of political discourse in America.  Tell President Obama don’t use the IRS to kill free speech.</p>
<p><strong>Sean Noble: </strong>So what the IRS proposed was pretty egregious, and Cleta is actually going to talk a little bit more about that.  I’m going to leave that to her, because she’s the actual expert on that front, but needless to say, the IRS is one of the most feared agencies of the federal government, obviously, and what’s particularly egregious about what they were doing is the fact that they were targeting not just organizations, which Cleta will talk about, but targeting individuals.  Obama had a hit list of folks in the White House in which they were actually breaking the law and getting the individual tax returns of individual Americans and businesses and then leaking that kind of thing to the press.  There were five nonprofit organizations that the IRS illegally provided confidential information to a supposed newspaper outfit.  It’s really a leftist organization.</p>
<p>One of those groups was Americans for Responsible Leadership, which is an organization that I put together and had been targeted for some activity in a ballot proposition in California, so we had a situation where the IRS was targeting individuals and organizations and then we had a state agency in California at the behest of Jerry Brown, who was the governor at the time and wanting to expose what was going on with a donation that came from Americans for Responsible Leadership to a ballot initiative fighting a tax increase that Jerry Brown wanted, and in California there’s an agency called the Fair Political Practices Commission.  Now it’s fair, they call it &#8220;Fair Political Practices,&#8221; as long as it’s liberal political practices.  If it’s not then it’s clearly not fair, and what they did is they specifically targeted the chairman of the commission.  It was a woman named Ann Ravel, and here you had a situation in which this organization decided they wanted to expose who was behind this contribution because they don’t believe in anonymous free speech, and they went to great lengths.  They couldn’t under the law actually find that information out because it’s not allowed, so what they did is they made up a law in the sense that they said we’re going to audit a report.</p>
<p>Now, it’s kind of complicated, but under the California Statute if you give a big political donation in a ballot initiative and you’re an organization, then you’re required to, the next January, file a report that says we did this.  Well, they wanted to audit a report that had not yet been filed, so that’s the authority they asserted, that they’re using their audit authority of a report that hadn’t been filed, and they took that all the way to the State Supreme Court, and on Sunday night before the election at 11:00 at night California time, the State Supreme Court voted unanimously 7 to 0 to allow the commission to force that disclosure from these organizations, which is just a complete overreach.  Now, the reason we know it’s an overreach is because the next year they went to the legislature and they actually passed a statute to give them the authority that they had asserted the previous year.</p>
<p>Now, Ann Ravel was then, this last year, has been put on the FEC, the Federal Elections Commission by President Obama.  That was the thank you to trying to expose these anonymous contributions and target those who would speak, and what was among the first things she did after she got to the FEC?  She’s proposing a rule, and she’s starting hearings in which she says that if you are a blogger and you talk about politics or you talk about campaigns then you need to be regulated by the Federal Elections Commission.  Think about the chilling effect that that would have on speech.  Not only is it so anyone who does opinion writing on a web site, who has a blog, frankly, the next step would be their Facebook pages.  Now we’re talking about individual Americans who would be targeted by a federal government agency and told what you can and cannot say, and when you can and cannot say it, and how much of it you can say.</p>
<p>That is the reason that we have to be stalwart in our defense of the First Amendment.  Because ultimately the biggest challenge we have is that the enemies of ours on the First Amendment are the press and liberal Democrats and left.  The press because their influence over the American people has been waning for years and years.  Newspapers are not nearly as influential as they used to be, and now an organization can be involved in the process and have just as much influence or more than the local newspaper.  They don’t like that.  Their power has been taken away, and secondly, the unions.  We hear all this stuff about “dark money.”  The left has been involved in this stuff since the 1940s with labor unions, and it wasn’t until labor unions’ influence started to wane, along with the newspapers and the media influence started to wane, that the left woke up and said wait, we’re losing control of the message, of the narrative.  We can’t have a level playing field because when conservatives have a level playing field with us, they’re going to win because our messages resonate with the American people, and so that’s why we’ve seen such an assault on the First Amendment, and in my mind it’s just so ironic that it’s the press that is leading the assault on the First Amendment, and they are protected, so you notice when Harry Reid put through the Senate a constitutional amendment to essentially regulate the First Amendment that &#8212; all the amendment language by Senator Udall from New Mexico is there &#8212; and at the very end of it, none of this amendment applies to the press, the way they define it.  They would not define bloggers as the press, which is the problem, so that’s why they have the FEC targeting these things.</p>
<p>So I would ask that you stay totally up on this.  Watch Ann Ravel at the FEC.  She’s a very scary person and doing the bidding of the left, and our hope is that we can expose them for what they’re trying to do and make sure we continue to have a robust debate in America under the First Amendment.  Thank you.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Erickson: </strong>Thank you. Charles Johnson is a writer and a thinker, not always the same thing.  You’ve recognized his words from coast to coast, from the Los Angeles Times to the Wall Street Journal.  His thinking has been recognized as the recipient of both the Robert Bartley Fellowship and Eric Breindel Award at the Wall Street Journal as well as being named to the Publius Fellowship at the Claremont Institute.  He earned his credentials in the vast right-wing conspiracy when he was named a junior prince of darkness at the Phillips Foundation.  We know that as the Robert Novak Award.  He’s most recently authored “Why Coolidge Matters,” and he’s here today to remind us why the Constitution still matters.  Charles Johnson.</p>
<p><strong>Charles Johnson: </strong>Hello.  So I’m actually probably the most optimistic on this panel, probably because I’ve seen that Barack Obama can be beaten and even humiliated, and so what I kind of want to think about, and forgive me, I’ve been very busy over the last few months electing a lot of Republicans, and what we’ve been doing is kind of thinking a lot about why it is that President Obama was elected in the first place, and I want to tell just a quick story.  In 2004 I went to the Democratic Convention in Boston, where I’m from.  My parents got tickets.  Our shop was closed down because it was right near where the convention was being held, and so I decided to go and have a look for myself, and what was remarkable there was how quickly people glommed onto this freshman senator who had no experience, and every time you’d ask them, “Why are you guys big fans of Barack Obama?” they would recite his story.  They would say he’s black.  They would make a big deal about this, and it occurred to me, when I worked with Andrew Breitbart and many others in the vast right-wing conspiracy, the not-so-vast right-wing conspiracy, that he really wasn’t vetted and what we did is we expected the press to really do the job for us, and it really didn’t happen, and so what I’ve kind of taken as my kind of life mission is hunting Democrats and RINOs for sport, and business is very, very good, especially after this last election, but I would caution you, just because we’ve elected a Republican Senate does not necessarily mean that we’ve elected a conservative Senate and that’s something very important to kind of keep in mind.</p>
<p>Now, as I mentioned earlier, I got my start with Andrew Breitbart, and he really had this idea about vetting the President, and really focusing on him, and so I’d find all sorts of things that were damaging to him and to the First Lady.  I found some stuff surrounding Barack Obama’s life in Indonesia as well as in Hawaii as well as in Chicago, and really it’s become clear to me that what we need to do on kind of the conservative right is start to vet these candidates very seriously, and that’s what we did this last election cycle.</p>
<p>One of the projects I worked on most recently was with Michelle Nunn in Georgia.  Now, Nunn is an extreme liberal Democrat, and she was kind of coasting on this moderate reputation.  Well, what we did is we took apart her entire life story and we went through every single chapter of it and found out that she had been in favor of bringing lots of immigrant children into the United States.  We took that piece of the puzzle and made sure that everyone saw it in sort of rural Georgia, and we also kind of looked into her past when she was hitting her opponent for outsourcing, and what we found is that her ancestors owned slaves.  Now, I know what you’re thinking.  Lots of people in Georgia owned slaves.  What’s the big deal?  But a lot of people in black talk radio really don’t like it that her family owned slaves, and so we made sure that they all saw that, so they weren’t enthusiastic to vote for her.  And these are the kind of things that we need to be thinking much more strategically about.</p>
<p>It’s my contention that we can defeat the liberal media.  We can actually replace it in many respects.  I was one of the first journalists to publish the name of Nina Pham, who’s this woman who had Ebola.  I had it 12 hours before NBC.  The liberal media was basically stopping that from getting out to the public because they realized that if there was a face behind this Ebola stuff it would be bad for them politically.  The media would sort of be forced to cover it, and I was talking to journalists in Texas and they were basically suppressing this information, and my attitude is what’s the worst that can happen?  And I published her name on my site, got a million page views in under a day, and what ended up happening next was really remarkable.  I had all these journalists criticizing me for providing information, and some of them even filed complaints about me violating HIPAA with Twitter, and so they kicked me off Twitter, and so I had to go to Twitter court to get reinstated.</p>
<p>But it’s my contention that right now we’re at a very, very good point.  I’ve been part of the team that’s been publishing these Gruber videos. [Applause.] Thank you.  If you had told me a week ago that Gruber would be trending on Twitter, this obscure policy analyst, I would have thought you were insane, and it’s kind of amazing that all this type of nerd research has paid off in quite amazing fashion, but there are people who are now publishing videos on Gruber that, when I started with Rich Weinstein in July, we had sort of a strategy of how to get this video out to the country, and I’ve been very excited to see kind of what’s happened there.</p>
<p>But I would say that the best thing we can do with Barack Obama is really realize that he is a lame duck, but he also has the executive orders, and so what we’ve got to do is we’ve got to shape events around him and run out the clock, and I think it can be done if only we start actually publishing material and really be aggressive towards every step of what he’s trying to achieve, and I think one of the kind of complaints that I had with a lot of conservatives is they spend a lot of time complaining about the liberal media, but I think that what we really need to start focusing on is replacing it and having it lose market share, and in particular, as we kind of start with Hillary Clinton, she has some of the highest negatives of anyone who’s ever run for President, and we should be exploiting this constantly and mercilessly, but we should also be strategic about it.  The Washington Free Beacon has published a lot of material surrounding Hillary Clinton.  I think it’s a mistake to release all of it right now, that we should basically have a strategy going, like with the Gruber tapes where we released the material in staggered stages, and I’m working on kind of the Hillary bomb right now that I think will be quite helpful.</p>
<p>But I want to say just very briefly, I think we can actually win the narrative, and one of the things I’ve learned from Andrew Breitbart is that if you frame news in the right context, in a pro-America, pro-citizen context, you can really change the debate.  We shifted the debate from talking about all these children who were sent here to dealing with the national health concerns of all these people coming with Ebola and really we’re winning the arguments among the American people, and I think there’s all this question about how can the Republican Party reach out to Hispanics, reach out to immigrants, but if you really think about last Tuesday’s election returns the Democrats have a serious problem with America.  They lost something like 22 percent of the white vote.  This is not a majority coalition thing, so I think, going back to thinking about the 2004 when Barack Obama came, really the dream, or the nightmare, that was Barack Obama is coming to an end, and in fact he is the exception to the rule, and I think it’s only a matter of time before we can kind of defeat him, and I think it’s much more important right now to defeat Obama-ism than to defeat Obama, because we need to stop them from kind of doing this kind of strategy in the future with other candidates and so we need to be proactive about neutralizing those kind of candidates now.  So with that, I’ll hear some of your questions.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Erickson: </strong>Andrew McCarthy graduated from New York Law School and taught at both his alma mater and at Fordham University Law School.  He’s a contributing editor at National Review.  He’s the author of both “Willful Blindness, a Memoir of Jihad” and “The Grand Jihad, How Islam and the Left Sabotaged America,” detailed accounts of the campaign the Middle East Quarterly describes as an attempt to insinuate Islamic Sharia law into the fabric of American society.  The books are almost prosecutorial in tone, which would be appropriate since Andrew was the chief assistant U.S. attorney in New York who led the successful prosecution against Omar Abdel-Rahman, the blind sheikh who’s behind bars because of Andrew.  What have you done in the war against terrorism today?  What many people do not know is that his investigations of President Obama led to discovery that Michelle Obama is a virgin.  Much like his war on terror, every night President Obama sits on the edge of Michelle’s bed and describes in vivid detail everything he’s about to do, and then nothing happens.  To tell us what we should be doing, Andrew McCarthy.</p>
<p><strong>Andrew McCarthy: </strong>And here I thought we spent all weekend talking about executive action.  Well, so you’ve heard from the most optimistic person on the panel, so I guess I’d be the most pessimistic person on the panel, but that probably comes with the territory of writing a book about executive lawlessness in the Obama administration.  The day my book, which is called “Faithless Execution:  Building a Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment,” the day that the book came out there was an announcement that Obama had released five Taliban commanders in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, who turns out to be a deserter, and what dawned on me at that point was the problem for a writer writing a book about executive lawlessness in the Obama administration is that at a certain point in time the writer has to stop writing so they can bind the book and get it to the stores and sell it.  The Obama administration goes merrily along, so I guess it was only natural that by the time the book came out I was four or five impeachable offenses behind, and that unfortunately is a pattern that has only picked up pace over time.</p>
<p>Now, what I get all the time about this is look, it’s politically impossible to impeach Obama, so why even talk about it?  And there’s a few answers to that, but I think the most important one is Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism really, famously said that the power of bad men is no indifferent thing, and Edmund Burke obviously didn’t know Barack Obama, but I think he had Barack Obama in mind, and I know the framers had Barack Obama in mind because one of the things that they spent the most time about in their deliberations was how to rein in the dangerous potentials of the presidency that they were creating, which was quite intentionally created as an awesome source of power because it’s in the presidency that we basically have most of the national security responsibility of the United States.  The problem of course is if you’re going to create an office that is that powerful, anything that powerful has the potential to be very destructive, so they wanted to make sure that they could rein in the power of the presidency if it ever fell into the hands of somebody who was not only corrupt but potentially incompetent or who at the very least had a different idea of what the government should look like than the constitutional framework that the framers gave us.</p>
<p>So here’s the thing.  They came up with dispositive powerful checks on the presidency, and there’s primarily two of them in the hands of Congress.  I mean, they hope that the best check on the presidency would be the ballot box.  Right?  They assumed that if somebody was, or had demonstrated himself during his candidacy to be corrupt, incompetent or power hungry that the public wouldn’t elect such a person, and certainly wouldn’t reelect such a person, so I guess maybe they had higher hopes for what the American people would end up to be than has proven to be the case, but they did come up with two checks for Congress.  One of them, and the one that they expected was going to be used the most, was the power of the purse.  To the extent that the President needs resources to carry out schemes that contravene the Constitution, that funds, those resources have to come from Congress, so the thought was that Congress would be able to check the President by basically pulling back the purse strings.  The problem with that is, and we’re seeing this with immigration, for example.  We’ve heard any number of times all weekend long people talk about the President’s lawless executive amnesty plan.  Well, it’s lawless all right, but there are vast components of it that the President can actually implement without violating the law.  For example, the President can pardon every crime committed against federal law in the United States.  He could pardon tomorrow every crime committed by an illegal alien in the United States, and even classes of people outside the United States who violated federal law, and talk about resources.  You know he talks about he has his pen and his phone?  He doesn’t even need his phone for that.  He just needs the stroke of a pen.</p>
<p>The point is, there’s certain things that a President can do because the office is so powerful that even the power of the purse is not a check for.  The only other check that the system provides is impeachment.  Now, we hear impeachment and we think, oh, well, it’s inconceivable, and certainly the Republican establishment has taken the position since the Clinton days that, oh, that impeachment thing was a debacle and we never want to talk about it again.  The &#8220;i-word&#8221; is not to be mentioned on Capitol Hill.  We had the crazy specter about a year go where they had a hearing in the House about executive lawlessness, and you had a bunch of liberal law professors explaining to members of Congress that one of the major checks on lawlessness in the Constitution is impeachment.  Professor John Turley, who is a self-described left-winger called Obama’s manner of governance the most profound constitutional crisis that had arisen in his lifetime, and he lived through Nixon.  Right?  So you had these law professors saying impeachment, impeachment, impeachment, and you had these congressmen kind of ducking under their desks at the very mention of the word, saying to these professors, look, that’s a word we don’t say up here.</p>
<p>It’s a word that the framers not only said in the Constitution but that Madison described as indispensable.  He thought that without impeachment it would be impossible to rein in what they called the maladministration of the executive branch, whether it was corruption, incompetence or what have you, and they put impeachment in very intentionally as the ultimate decisive check on that kind of behavior, and the reason it’s important to talk about it is because it’s the only check if you decide that you’re not going to impeach the President and you decide that we are going to take this off the table and never even discuss it, that’s fine.  That’s a political choice that you can make, but when you make it &#8212; and this is the reason I wrote the book.  I want people to have their eyes open about this.  If you make that choice, you must make it mindful of the fact that there are certain abuses of presidential power that only impeachment can check, and if you deprive yourself of your only arsenal for combatting those abuses of power, you are going to get those abuses of power.</p>
<p>Now, why is this so important?  And I’ll leave it with this.  There have been checks on President Obama’s abuses of power over the last six years because there have been elections to worry about, his own elections as well as congressional elections, and don’t think public pressure doesn’t work.  Don’t think political pressure doesn’t work.  Remember when Obama just came to the presidency and the Democrats controlled both the Senate and the House.  What was one of the first things they wanted to do?  They wanted to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan civilian court, the place where I used to work.  They weren’t able to do it, and the reason they weren’t able to do it is even in blue, blue New York the people rose up and protested against it, and that lit a fire under Congress, and Congress lit a fire under the White House, and the White House had to pull back and withdraw from the plan, so they are responsive to political pressure.  It’s not easy to do, and it’s certainly not easy to keep up the pressure, but they do respond to it.  But look, up until now, President Obama has had mid-terms to worry about twice and his own reelection to worry about once.  Now there’s nothing else, so you have somebody who has this vast power, who no longer has the political check of an election coming around the corner, and who has a lot of mischief that he can make over the last two years, and I think we’ve gotten every indication in just the last week that’s exactly the way things are going to go.</p>
<p>So yes, right now there’s no political will to remove President Obama from power, but I think we’re in for a very bad time unless we change that climate, and that doesn’t mean impeaching the President necessarily, but what you have to do, because of the way our system is designed, is go back to a time when impeachment was a credible threat that would bring the President to heel, or at least back him up before he would engage in corrupt or unlawful schemes.  If we don’t have that, I’m sorry to say I think we’re in for a very, very bad time the next two years.  And on that happy note …</p>
<p><strong>Paul Erickson: </strong>Anticipating Andrew’s cheery comments, Matt Drudge this morning on the Drudge report put up a banner headline that said “Impeachment Insurance” under the smiling face of Joe Biden.</p>
<p>Cleta Mitchell is one of the truly indispensable players in the American conservative movement.  Last night you heard a list of her many accomplishments.  Today I would add only two.  I’ve had the high honor of serving with Cleta on the Board of American Conservative Union and watched her expert chairmanship of the American Conservative Union Foundation during a crucial time in that organization’s history.  In presidential campaigns and critical causes I have had to evaluate and hire some of the finest election law attorneys in the land.  Cleta is simply the finest election law lawyer in America, period.  She has been my lawyer.  The consigliore of the vast right-wing conspiracy and Freedom Center Annie Taylor Award winner, Cleta Mitchell.</p>
<p><strong>Cleta Mitchell: </strong>Well, good morning.  Yes, on that cheery note … but I want to talk about three things, but I’ll probably meander and talk about more than that, but I want to focus on three.  I want to talk about the IRS, I want to talk about campaign finance and how it works together, and then I want to talk about some of the scariest things that are going on in America today.  Those two things, but I’ve been working, I think I said last night, five years ago is when I first started realizing something had changed in the IRS.  I want to talk a little bit about some of the things that I think we have not looked at and I really hope that Congress will do, because I think that one of the most frightening things to me is something that Congress has yet to investigate, but I have to believe, and I just know what I know what I know.  I used to tell my daughter when she was growing up, particularly when she was a teenager, “I may not know today, I may not know tomorrow, but I will find out,” and interestingly, when I would find out things, she would just go, “Mom, how did you find out?”  I say, “I may not know today, I may not know tomorrow, but I will find out,” and I think we will find out, because I absolutely believe that this IRS looks at publicly available campaign finance reports, looks at contributions that people make, and decides who it’s going to subject to IRS personal and business audits based on their political contributions.  I think that’s a pretty frightening thing, but I absolutely believe it has happened, and I think that we have to get to the bottom of that.</p>
<p>I absolutely believe the IRS looks at organizations like the David Horowitz Freedom Center, does not have to disclose its donors publicly but guess who it does disclose its donors of $5000.00 or more to?  You have to disclose those to the IRS.  The IRS uses that information, I believe, to target people for audits and further government inquiry, and I think that there are so many things.  Sean made reference to the IRS leaking confidential taxpayer information.  I know they’ve done it.  They’ve done it to my clients.  They’ve done it to other conservative groups.  Again, he made reference to the release of confidential tax information of Koch Industries.  That’s a criminal offense.  There have been no prosecutions, and in fact that’s a 6103 violation.  You should really do something with your life when you can start quoting sections of the tax code by number.  A 6103 violation is one in which the IRS is prohibited by law for any agency or IRS employee to release confidential taxpayer information, but guess what happens if you believe your confidential taxpayer information has been violated and you ask for information about that?  The IRS has turned that on its head and said we can’t tell you that information because whoever did it, whoever did that to you, the perpetrator, is protected by Section 6103 from having their information disclosed to you.  Now that is so unbelievably bizarre, but these are things Congress needs at look at and fix.  The IRS has failed to answer multiple subpoenas from the House committees.  They’ve just disregarded them.  They’ve said, subpoena from Congress?  So, your point is?  And I think that Congress has got to reassert its legislative prerogative.</p>
<p>Let’s not forget, contrary to what Joe Biden said in the vice presidential debate in 2008, Article 1 of the Constitution is the legislative branch.  That’s what the founders started with.  They started with the people’s representatives.  The executive branch is in Article 1, but we’ve let that get completely out of whack, and I think Congress needs to undertake what I call the great unwinding.  The great unwinding of a federal government, an administrative regulatory state that was built over a century by people who fundamentally disagree with us, and I think with our founding principles, and that’s what I think we as conservatives need to be talking about.  We don’t need new programs.  We need to get rid of what’s there, the great unwinding.  We have multiple situations where members of the Obama administration have gone before Congress and perjured themselves.  Let’s start with the IRS commissioner in March of 2012, who went before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and when asked is there targeting of conservative organizations going on today, and he said no.  Well, the last time I checked, lying to Congress is a federal crime.  Perjuring yourself before Congress under oath is a federal crime.  Just ask Roger Clemens.  And I want to know from the new attorney general nominee, and I’m going through and preparing and getting this to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the number of administration officials who have gone before the Congress in the last six years and lied under oath.  And they need to be prosecuted.  They are criminals.</p>
<p>Sean mentioned the FEC and its proposal to regulate Internet activity.  Everybody in this room write this down.  FEC.gov.  Comments are due by January 15.  There is no reason why everybody in this room should not write a paragraph, go online, submit comments.  Have ten of your neighbors do it.  The last time the FEC started talking about regulating Internet political speech they were inundated with so many thousands of comments they said uncle.  We have to do that again.  We have to get everybody we can think of, your organizations, your individuals, write FEC.gov.  Comments close January 15.  Tell them you want to come testify.  That’ll scare them to death.  If they think they’re gonna have thousands of people wanting to testify, they’ll collapse.  January 15.  No reason not to do it.  Do it.  We have to get those comments.  We did that with the proposed IRS regulations, the one that Sean talked about, the IRS C4 regulations.  More than 160,000 comments we were able to generate saying don’t do this.  I mean, there might have been ten that said they were for it.  Of course, they were all submitted by people who are close to the New York Times, but they finally withdrew those proposed regulations, but guess what?  They’re working on reissuing them next year, so be vigilant.</p>
<p>Campaign finance.  I want to talk about that for just a minute.  Understand when they say campaign finance reform, here’s what they mean.  They say campaign finance reform.  They mean shut up conservatives.  That’s what that means.  Never be misled by what they mean.  Here’s what that bill that Sean referred to, the Harry Reid thing.  Let me reiterate what he said to you.  It was a proposed constitutional amendment to amend the First Amendment.  Think about that.  This great thing that the left supposedly reveres, crucifixes in urine, protect all that, etc. etc.  But they wanted to amend the First Amendment to allow elected politicians to decide what you a can and can’t say.  How’s that been working out for conservatives so far?  And guess what?  Every Democrat in the Senate voted for it.  Every one of them, and would you like to know what the political headline said the day after it was defeated, because it didn’t get the necessary two thirds?  All the Republicans voted against it.  “GOP Kills Campaign Finance Reform”</p>
<p>So that brings me to my third point.  Everybody’s got to buy this book.  Everybody’s got to read this book.  You gotta give it to everybody for Christmas, and you gotta talk about it:  “Stonewalled.”  It’s just out by Sharyl Attkisson.  It’s everything we know, but documented.  The lies, the deception, the chilling activity to which she was subjected, to which others have been subjected about the extent to which this government is going to spend our money to lie to us and to keep us under surveillance.  I’m going to read you one paragraph because this is a panel about the Constitution.  I’m going to sit down.  The big chill is on.  Now, mind you, her computer was hacked, classified documents were planted on her computer, deep in her computer.  Her phones were tapped, etc., etc.</p>
<p>Many sources, she writes, including congressmen, become wary of communicating the ordinary way.  One evening I’m talking with a member of Congress on my regular mobile phone about a somewhat sensitive news matter.  He’s avoiding giving straight answers.  I keep pressing.  Finally, sounding exasperated, he blurts out, “Sharyl, your phone’s bugged.”  I can’t argue the point.  We decide to meet in person and work out alternative ways to communicate.  It’s the new reality in a society where journalists and politicians suspect their government is listening in.</p>
<p>Now, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, people, but I am telling you, this is a lawless administration.  There are not enough hours in today’s program to go through all the ways that this government, under this administration, is violating the statutes and the Constitution, and we have to do everything we can do to keep them from continuing and being successful, and that’s what we’re about to do.  Thank you.</p>
<p><strong>Q&amp;A</strong></p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>This is for Andrew.  You say that without any further election and without the power to impeach that we have basically disarmed and can’t do anything about President Obama’s lawlessness.  What about his doing further damage to the Democratic Party?  Does he care?  Do the Democrats care?  I mean, he’s already hollowed the party out.  Couldn’t he do even more damage in the next two years by his lawlessness, and would that be a deterrent?</p>
<p><strong>Andrew McCarthy: </strong>Look, in a vacuum, if that was the only consideration, sure it would be a deterrent, but let’s take a step back.  I was watching the news the day after the election results, or I guess the day after Obama spoke about the election results and indicated that he was actually doubling down on the executive amnesty, and the commentators presenting the news seemed baffled by it, and they just said this guy just doesn’t get it.  The electorate just spoke and he seems to have a tin ear.  He just doesn’t get it, and I sat there and I’m thinking about the commentators.  No, no, you don’t get it.  I mean, after six years you don’t get who this guy is.  He is trying to advance an ideological agenda, and his Alinsky-ite tactics are such that he has a long-range ambition but he has a very disciplined approach about going about it, which is you never go further than you think the political climate of the moment will allow you to go, but you always keep your eye on the ball, and you compute your activities in terms of what you think your political environment is, and that’s why it’s more dangerous now because he doesn’t have any elections to worry about, and will that hurt the Democrats in the short term, just like Obamacare did?  Sure, but they still got Obamacare, which was what they wanted.</p>
<p>If Obama’s successful in what he’s doing now, two things to bear in mind.  Cleta just listed them.  We could go through a thousand things, but the amnesty could result in as close to permanent as anything you get in politics, a permanent electoral majority for Democrats, no matter how unpopular some of their policies seem to be at the moment.  That’s why they’re pushing so hard to get it, and the second thing is, if you think you’re rid of Barack Obama in January of 2017, I got news for you.  By then he’s going to have put about 400 like-minded progressive activist lawyers on the federal bench who will be serving for 30 to 40 years and advancing the same agenda, so his work continues after he’s gone on the basis of the laying of the pavement that he’s doing now, so I don’t think he’s worried about the short-term interests of the Democratic Party.  I think he’s worried about, and moving toward, the long-term objectives of progressive ideology.</p>
<p><strong>Sean Noble: </strong>I’ll just add one thing.  It’s obvious he doesn’t care about the interests of the Democrat Party because a few weeks before the election he was, in prepared remarks &#8212; this is what’s astounding.  In prepared remarks, he said, “I’m not on the ballot this year, but you can be sure that my policies are, every single one of them.”  Now that was him trying to assert his role.  That was a gift for us.  We used that quote in commercials against members of Congress, against Senators, against a Secretary of State candidate in Arizona, a governor’s candidate, because we realized that while he was trying to assert himself in prepared remarks, it was a disaster for him to be saying that because we could use that against the Democrats that we were running against, so he doesn’t care about them because he’s such a narcissist.</p>
<p><strong>Georgette Gelbard: </strong>Georgette Gelbard from California.  This is mainly for Andy.  What would it take to limit executive orders for all Presidents going forward, and do you think that that’s a good idea for the future?</p>
<p><strong>Andrew McCarthy: </strong>I think it’s been unfortunate that the concept of the executive order has been kind of tainted in this whole escapade about not just immigration but other things as well.  There’s nothing in principle wrong with an executive order.  The executive branch is very extensive.  The President is the head of the executive branch, and as long as the President is just directing the proper activities of the executive branch, executive orders are a good thing.  They’re a little transparency for the executive branch.  The problem is when the President uses his executive directing power as camouflage for when he’s actually usurping the power of Congress and the courts either to write the law or to interpret the law, and this President has used executive orders for that purpose.  That’s the problem, and it’s not the number of executive orders, it’s what he does with them.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Hi, this question’s for Charles.  Which conservative candidate are you researching for 2016 and why?</p>
<p><strong>Charles Johnson: </strong>So I’ve researched almost all the conservative candidates, and the guy for me is clearly Cruz.  I know he’s controversial, but I’ve known Ted Cruz before he was an exclamation point on the right and an expletive to the Republican establishment and the Democrats.  What’s interesting, last year he told me his strategy for the shut-down.  He said look, people aren’t going to remember what the shut-down was about.  They’re going to remember that we stood up for them, and it’s interesting that in nearly every Senate race, except one, which was Scott Brown in New Hampshire which he lost, they were asking for Ted Cruz.  He was filling rooms in Alaska, and I’m a chess player.  It’s my hobby, and Ted Cruz is a chess player.  He’s advancing the ball, and I know there’s this silly notion right now that we need an executive or we need a governor, but the reason it’s silly is we need somebody with an executive temperament, and I’ve gone through a lot of the candidates on the right, and if you’re a governor you have a staff, and your staff can cause you a lot of trouble.  We’ve certainly seen that with Governor Christie and with some others, so I think for the moment I would go with him.  There’s a lot of stuff on Hillary.  I was talking with the FBI agent who investigated her for Whitewater, who’s actually a gay Democrat, believe it or not, one of the main ones, and there’s so much material there that the Republican Congress did not use because they were afraid of how hot it would be, and I think basically the problem right now is we’re going to have a GOP civil war, which is going to play out over the next two years, and it’s very intensive.  You talk to staffers, and there’s a serious fight for the soul of the right that’s about to take place, and right now we’re at the bleeding Kansas moment, but it’s going to get ugly.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Will there be any problems with Ted Cruz and the fact that he’s born in Canada?</p>
<p><strong>Charles Johnson: </strong>No.  This is a debate that a lot of people have.  The answer’s no.  John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone.  George Romney was born in Mexico.  The question of natural born is at birth are you a citizen, and his mother is from Delaware.  It’s still in the continental United States.  It’s still a state, I believe, even though Joe Biden’s from there.  No, a lot of people are trying to use this to disqualify him, which is kind of craven but no, he’s clearly eligible.</p>
<p><strong>Andrew McCarthy: </strong>I thought he was born in Kenya.</p>
<p><strong>Cleta Mitchell: </strong>Here’s one of the things I think is important and it goes to Charles and all.  This book makes pretty clear the extent to which the Obama administration has gone out of its way to attack journalists, to spin the stories, one after another, from fast and furious, Benghazi, the healthcare.gov, the IRS, all of it.  But guess what’s interesting about that?  No matter how much of our money they spend, no matter how hard they have tried and how well they have succeeded with what I call what is the state-owned media, NBC, CBS, ABC.  As I’ve said, we might as well be in Venezuela for all the independence they show for the government, but notwithstanding all of that, guess what, the people still know.  They have a low opinion of this president and contrary to Mr. Gruber, we’re not stupid, and we tell each other, and because we have these other outlets and ways to get information everywhere from Charles Johnson to Fox News and Andrew McCarthy, and all, we get the information.  We share it with each other, which is why, circle back to why is the FEC doing what it’s doing?  Why has the IRS been doing what it’s doing?  Because they’re trying to shut down those channels of communication, but we will not let them.  We’re not gonna let them, but you can buy the book, but you’ll have to look for it.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Johnson: </strong>The last question before lunch, the gentleman in blue.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>Yes, I think that despite what was on Drudge this morning about our very loving vice president, my understanding is Harry Reid and other Senate Democrats are not enthralled at the present time with Barack Obama.  Do you not think there’s an opportunity for them to think Joe Biden is a better hope for them in 2016 than Barack Obama?</p>
<p><strong>Paul Erickson: </strong>Sean?</p>
<p><strong>Sean Noble: </strong>Well, I think that everyone on the left, well, not everyone, the Democrat establishment is all in for Hillary, and that’s going to be Biden’s demise because they –</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>I’m not talking about the presidency.  I’m talking about &#8211;</p>
<p><strong>Sean Noble: </strong>Well, I think that it’s going to be very difficult for the Democrats to win a presidency if their previous president gets impeached, so they will do everything they can to prevent any type of impeachment proceedings.</p>
<p><strong>Paul Erickson: </strong>Please thank our panel.</p>
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		<title>Rep. Louie Gohmert: How Conservatives Defeated the Amnesty Bill</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/rep-louie-gohmert-how-conservatives-defeated-the-amnesty-bill/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rep-louie-gohmert-how-conservatives-defeated-the-amnesty-bill</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Dec 2014 05:36:01 +0000</pubDate>
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		<description><![CDATA[A tireless defender of America takes us inside the battle for immigration sanity at Restoration Weekend. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Below are the video and transcript to Congressman Louie Gohmert&#8217;s keynote address at the David Horowitz Freedom Center&#8217;s 20th Anniversary Restoration Weekend. <strong style="color: #232323;">The event took place Nov. 13th-16th at the Breakers Resort in Palm Beach, Florida. </strong></strong></p>
<p><iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/113182777" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Rep. Louie Gohmert:</strong> Wow, you all are amazing, but even more amazing, my wife just stood up too. Wow, Kathy. So thanks, Kathy. I don&#8217;t remember seeing you stand up and clap for me before, but thank you. Anyway, I have been looking so forward to being with you this weekend. You would think after a great victory like we had Tuesday, you know, we&#8217;d all be so fired up, but you know we did have a great victory Tuesday night, but we&#8217;re up against a president that doesn&#8217;t observe the sanctity of the Constitution, and he doesn&#8217;t believe in following the law if he doesn&#8217;t like it, and he has, at his disposal, the largest, most expensive criminal defense firm in the whole world. You know it as the Department of Justice. But wow, what a defense firm he has, and they protect him at all cost.</p>
<p>So I know there have been times that you, from talking to so many of you, you&#8217;ve been down like John and I have, like Jeff and I have, but we&#8217;re not giving up, but sometimes you just go what do we gotta do? How do we win? How do we stop this thing that just is so big and so mean, so dishonest, and I thought about that whole story, and none of y&#8217;all except Kathy knew my late mother. She was brilliant. She loved to tell stories, and because she was so smart and she was so funny and told such great stories, I asked her one time, what lineage do we have? Do you have any Jewish blood? What do we got? And she said &#8212; yeah &#8217;cause she&#8217;s so smart and tells such great stories &#8212; and she said, well son, on my side of the family we&#8217;re a Duke&#8217;s mixture. I said, oh, I like the sound of that. What does that mean? She said well it means if we were in the dog world, you&#8217;d be called a mutt. Oh, well not so good.</p>
<p>But anyway, so sometimes I remember old stories mom said. But I was thinking about, gosh, how do you beat this big, mean thing, and thought about the guy who had genetically alter-bred this incredible dog, big as a Great Dane, meaner than a Rottweiler and Pit Bull, all these lines in this dog, and he had a standing offer of $1,000.00 for anybody that could whip his dog, anybody had a dog that could whip his dog. Nobody&#8217;s dog could whip his dog. One day he gets a knock on the door, and he opens the door, and a little elderly lady said I&#8217;m so sorry but my dog has killed your dog, and he said yeah, right, that didn&#8217;t happen. She said, no I&#8217;m really serious. And he said, well, what kind of dog do you have? And she said, she&#8217;s a Pekinese. He said, yeah there&#8217;s no Pekinese that&#8217;s ever gonna kill my dog, and she said, well, no he&#8217;s, he&#8217;s dead, it just – so how would your little Pekinese have killed my dog? And she said, well, she got stuck in his throat. Anyway, sometimes you may lose one of your group but you can take these folks out, you know? So you just can&#8217;t give up hope. And I tell you even before the election this past week there was a neat victory.</p>
<p>Now, if you go back a year and a half, our Republican leadership had been saying they didn&#8217;t want to use the word &#8220;amnesty,&#8221; but basically that we were gonna pass a bill that legalized people that were here illegally. We had to do it. We could start with the so-called &#8220;DREAMers&#8221; and when they say DREAMers, they&#8217;re not talking about your children, my children, those who sit in school, study hard, have great dreams of doing great things. No, they&#8217;re talking about people whose parents bring them or send them illegally into the country, and they just forget about the children that are here that had dreams of their own, dreams besides being overwhelmed with indebtedness and massive bureaucracy that pries into every area of their private lives. Those aren&#8217;t the dreams these guys are talking about. But there was a small group of us that started meeting back spring of 2013 because our leaders were saying basically we needed to do some kind of what we knew would be amnesty, whether they called it that or not. And they wanted it done by May of 2013, and we were able to continue rallying troops around the country like you &#8212; contact your Congressmen, contact your Senator &#8212; and I&#8217;m telling you, it&#8217;s no better feeling than to know you got not just a great soldier, you have a soldier, a warrior and a leader in the Senate like Jeff Sessions and our friend Ted Cruz.</p>
<p>So hopefully this will be a little bit of encouragement to you. It was a total frustration to me until the very end of the week. But we have been able to put off having any kind of legalization bill, and our Speaker hired John McCain&#8217;s staffer. They&#8217;ve been working on amnesty for years and years, and so that caused some concern amongst some of us. And it was pretty sharp. The Speaker appointed seven people to a task force who were going to put all of our principles that we would want to see in an immigration bill on paper and come to a consensus, something that all the Republicans could agree on. And they actually did a pretty good job. They did better than pretty good. It was a very good job, and I could agree on all of them. A couple of them were pretty esoteric BS, but basically they were principles we could all agree on. You know, things like, if you come in illegally then you must be deported and forced to come back legally. I mean just basic stuff.</p>
<p>So everybody in our conference agreed on the principles. They were good principles. And yet people were being whipped, you know, in other words, asked how are you gonna vote on the bill, and we had a majority of our conference that said, based on our principles, I&#8217;m 100 percent, I&#8217;ll vote for a bill that&#8217;s based on our principles. Some of us had the gall to say, yeah, I agree on the principle, I really need to see the bill. Could I see the bill? We won the majority in 2010, and I would bet that every one of our Republicans that got elected in 2010 at one time or another said you put us in the majority, we&#8217;ll read the bills. But well, gee, if they&#8217;re based on our principles, we ought to be covered, right? But let us see the bill. But Tuesday of the last week of July before the August recess &#8212; and I hope y&#8217;all don&#8217;t end up being some of those, you guys ought to be working through August. Look, as I told my dear friend, I love him like a brother, Eric Bolling, &#8220;Eric, I heard you berating Congress because we&#8217;re not in session more days of the year. Are you nuts? You really want us in session more days of the year?&#8221; I mean the best days in Congress are the week we come back after a month of being in our district being fussed at. Those are good days. You know, &#8217;cause everybody&#8217;s fresh from being fussed at. That&#8217;s good. That&#8217;s a great way to run Congress. So it&#8217;s the last week, Tuesday. They&#8217;ve got a majority of our guys that I&#8217;m voting for the bill and you guys need to get on board, and it got kinda nasty for people that were saying I&#8217;d really like to see the bill, please.</p>
<p>Well, Tuesday evening we got a copy of the bill that we were gonna vote on Thursday. Now you might say, wait a minute, you got it on Tuesday, it was filed and you&#8217;re voting on Thursday. You guys promised that you would have 72, never vote on a bill that wasn&#8217;t filed for less than 72 hours. Well if you look carefully at what our leadership promised, they said three days. Some of us interpreted that to mean 72 hours, but they took the approach that Christians take on Jesus being crucified on Friday and on the third day, Sunday, resurrected. So I think that&#8217;s fine to count it that way from the Bible, but some of us really need more time than that to read a bill. A day and a half really doesn&#8217;t do it.</p>
<p>So anyway, I read the bill. I finished at 2:00 a.m., and I do highlighting on my computer, but I like a hard copy, and I&#8217;ve got my highlighter, I&#8217;ve got my black pen for notes in the margin and interlineations, and then I&#8217;ve got my blue pen for things I want to spot real quick when I pick it up, and so I&#8217;m making notes, I&#8217;ve got underlining, highlighting, all this stuff. I laid down for three hours, got back up at 5:00, re-read it; yep, it was as bad as I thought it was. And some of it I didn’t even catch on the first reading. But one of the principles we agreed on is, for example, the over 90 percent that don&#8217;t show up for an immigration hearing, they should be deported. Well there it was at the bottom of Page 18. It said if an immigrant fails to appear for his or her hearing, the immigration judge shall immediately issue an order of deportation. Well, as a former judge, you didn&#8217;t show up for a hearing, you were out on bond, I immediately issued a warrant for your arrest. People would get arrested and I found generally they&#8217;re quicker ready for trial when they&#8217;re in jail than when they&#8217;re out gallivanting. One of those things.</p>
<p>So anyway, I thought, okay that adheres to the principles, but then instead of being a little dot called a period, there was a space and the two-letter word &#8220;if.&#8221; If? If what? Well, you turn the page and over at the top of 19 it says the government is successful in proving that the immigrant&#8217;s failure to appear was the immigrant&#8217;s fault. What? Yeah. See you guys weren&#8217;t even judges and you picked that up. But you have to read that. Well what does that mean? That means it&#8217;s a de facto amnesty provision because it you&#8217;re an immigration lawyer advising a client who has come in illegally, you say look don&#8217;t ever appear for a hearing, and if you don&#8217;t, and in fact don&#8217;t leave a forwarding address, go somewhere different than where you first went because if you don&#8217;t ever show up, the worse they can do is issue another notice to appear that you&#8217;ll never get. They can never prove it was your fault &#8217;cause, gee, you didn&#8217;t know. So just keep failing to appear. I mean it&#8217;s a de facto amnesty in that one little provision.</p>
<p>Well, there were things like that throughout, and one that really got my attention &#8212; a first-degree felony in Texas you can sentence not only to 99 years or life but you can also add up to a $10,000.00 fine. Well, that&#8217;s not so much in this world, and then here was a provision that immigration judge in order to enforce any order the immigration judge feels appropriate, necessary, can assess and enforce any amount of fine that he felt appropriate. Yeah, okay so say you&#8217;re here in Palm Beach. Well, gee, this is a pretty wealthy area so maybe it needs to be a million dollars a day until we get them to rezone, whatever. And rezoning that&#8217;s in some of the HUD block grants. Now that&#8217;s a whole other issues. But there were these things throughout that were a little bit scary. And so the next morning, a few of us were meeting, and I&#8217;d made a few copies of my notes &#8217;cause Michele Bachmann said, hey, can we get copies of your notes? We don&#8217;t have time to go through this like you did. So I passed those out and said, fine, use them however. And by the time I thought of it, Rush was going on the air, &#8217;cause I thought we need to get this out to people that can tell the public. And I knew if I emailed it to Shawn he didn&#8217;t have time to read it before his show started.</p>
<p>So I thought about one of the smartest guys in the country, guy named Mark Levin, and so I emailed it to Mark with a PDF copy attached so he had all my notes and stuff, and said, Mark, here&#8217;s the bill they filed. We need people being educated across the country as to exact words to what it says. He emails right back, says, Louie, I don&#8217;t have time to read this bill before my show. And then about ten minutes later he goes, oh, I&#8217;m finding your notes. Oh this is great, I can do this. And that night, Mark didn&#8217;t mention my name, but by golly he went through that bill page by page and just ripped into all those different sections where there were just major problems. So across the country, millions of people were getting the idea, wow. They heard the actual language, and just like you, you figured out that&#8217;s not good. That&#8217;s not what we believe in. That&#8217;s wrong.</p>
<p>And so people started burning up the phone lines. Numbers USA, Tea Party Patriots, all these groups were calling their representatives, and on Wednesday, one of our leaders told me they had the votes to pass it on Thursday morning. John and I were already there, but we started having people from other states saying, hey, I just had to go tell the Speaker I know I said yes, but I thought it was in accordance with our principles, and my phone line&#8217;s burning up. I got a primary coming up in Tennessee or here, there, and then I also had a number of people from Alabama and Mississippi who said Senator Sessions has really made it uncomfortable. Our constituents are upset and they don&#8217;t want me to vote for this bill, and if I go against Senator Sessions I&#8217;m probably not going to win another. I mean, isn&#8217;t that awesome? I mean, isn&#8217;t it great to have that kind of warrior over there?</p>
<p>So they began debate on the bill, and shortly after they began debate on the bill, they had lost dozens of people. They never would tell us how many they lost; they couldn&#8217;t pass the bill. So the Speaker is ready to just say, well, obviously we&#8217;ll never be able to pick up all these lost votes so we might as well go home. But a bunch of our members said, wait a minute, let&#8217;s have a conference and talk about it. So 3:00 p.m. we had a conference, and the majority said, look, obviously there are people here that have read this bill and know what we need to do to fix it. Instead of being out for the month of August and going home with our tail between our legs, let&#8217;s let the people that know what&#8217;s wrong with this bill get in a room and fix it so we can vote on something decent before we go home.</p>
<p>One of the things I didn&#8217;t catch on the first reading, that we all agreed on as a principle: if a state calls up its own National Guard to help secure the border, then the federal government should reimburse them. There was a provision in there that said that. I didn&#8217;t catch it on first reading because it cited a federal law that allowed for the National Guard to be called up, but it was the provision that required the Secretary of Defense to approve the calling up before you could get reimbursed and any reimbursement had to be approved by the Secretary of Defense. I didn&#8217;t read that law the first time. I didn&#8217;t realize that it sounded good, sounded like it did what we wanted, but it didn&#8217;t. It was a de facto amnesty bill.</p>
<p>That night a bunch of us got in a room, about 12 to 15, for about 2 ½ hours. We knocked out 18 of the most offenses pages that would have made it de facto amnesty. We got in some good, tight language and at 10:00 p.m. the next night, Friday night before we recessed for the month of August, we passed a decent border bill. And it was because Americans were paying attention and let their Congress members know this isn&#8217;t what we want to do.</p>
<p>Now I know it took a long time to tell you that, but I wanted to tell you that so you understand you can still make a difference. We can still keep disastrous things from happening. Now we were told if we passed this, the Senate will never take it up &#8217;cause it&#8217;s so tough. If I were Harry Reid, I would&#8217;ve taken it up like that, if we&#8217;d passed it, &#8217;cause it would&#8217;ve hamstrung us and been a de facto amnesty. You know the question was asked, who wrote the original one? I asked that question, and I said if it was the staff member that got hired from John McCain&#8217;s staff then I&#8217;m very concerned because I know the Immigration Subcommittee did not write this. I know that&#8217;s a subcommittee under judiciary. I know judiciary did not write this. I wanna know who it is. And we never were given the answer.</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member:</strong> So we&#8217;re fighting the Democrats and our own Republicans?</p>
<p><strong>Rep. Louie Gohmert:</strong> Well now &#8212; she&#8217;s saying we&#8217;re fighting the Democrats and our own Republicans. Well, yes, I guess that&#8217;s true. But I wanted to give you a little encouragement and by the same token encourage myself. &#8216;Cause I need encouragement. So I&#8217;m telling you encouraging things so hopefully it&#8217;ll encourage me. &#8216;Cause this has been a bummer of a week. I&#8217;m running for Republican State Committee Chair and even one of my dearest friends yesterday said, you know, Louie, and he literally said that I think you may be the smartest guy in Congress, but you are such a firebrand. You stand up in conference, you tell &#8216;em how it is, you&#8217;re such an honest man. You stand up alone and you&#8217;re not afraid of doing that, and we really need to keep you there. So I&#8217;m not supporting you for RSC Chair. He said, but you&#8217;re like a Jeremiah, you just tell it like it is. I said, so basically you want me as a Jeremiah to continue yelling out in the wilderness by myself instead of helping us get where we need to go? Well, no I wouldn&#8217;t say it that way. Well, I would.</p>
<p>But anyway, so it&#8217;s been a frustrating week. I&#8217;ve looked forward to being here. Let me just add a couple things to encourage you. Tom may be here this morning but Judicial Watch and Breitbart hired Kellyanne Conway to do really accurate polling. They weren&#8217;t trying to skew people. They weren&#8217;t trying to get the answer they wanted. They wanted real answers. Where did the American people stand that have gone out and voted on Election Day and the accurate numbers. When asked whether illegal aliens should receive discounted in-state tuition rates, subsidized by taxpayers, 76 percent of the voters disagreed with that, 65 percent strongly. Among minorities, 58 percent of blacks, 59 percent of the Hispanics disagreed with that. How do you lose on that issue? You know by doing what we believe is right. A majority of voters, 58 percent, believe we should enforce current laws that require illegal immigrants to return to their home countries. How do you lose when that&#8217;s our position? That&#8217;s what we got elected to do. Some reason our leadership doesn&#8217;t get it, but thank you for getting it, and I&#8217;ve got excerpts from what the media&#8217;s calling the &#8220;new law&#8221; that our Monarch spoke into being yesterday, and the purpose is, from the State Department, I&#8217;m quoting, &#8220;provide a safe, legal and orderly alternative to the dangerous journey that some children are currently undertaking to the United States.&#8221; How about telling them don&#8217;t take the dangerous journey? Huh? Wouldn&#8217;t that be a better policy? But it doesn&#8217;t begin until December of 2014, and you can request a refugee – and I&#8217;m reading this, this is State Department words &#8212; &#8220;refugee resettlement interview for unmarried children under 21 in El Salvador, Guatemala or Honduras. The second parent may be added to the child&#8217;s petition and considered for refugee status and if denied, refugee status be considered for parole. Approved refugees will be eligible for the same support&#8221; &#8212; y&#8217;all know that means money, right? &#8212; &#8220;provided to all refugees resettled in the United States.&#8221;</p>
<p>So it is a disastrous policy and that is just the start. It&#8217;s important you&#8217;re here because this is the kind of place where we can get our thoughts together. We talk together, we&#8217;ll be around and we can strategize how we stop this disaster to the country. And just remember &#8212; and we got great people here that I need to shut up and let take over &#8212; but keep in mind it&#8217;s absolutely true, the old saying in Washington: no matter how cynical you get, it&#8217;s never enough to catch up. Thank you.</p>
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		<title>Amnesty Showdown</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/amnesty-showdown/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=amnesty-showdown</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/amnesty-showdown/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Dec 2014 05:54:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[executive]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246547</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How will the GOP respond to Obama's executive power grab? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/obama-immigration.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-246550" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/obama-immigration-401x350.jpg" alt="Barack Obama" width="343" height="299" /></a>On Tuesday, Republicans <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/12/01/Scalise-Boosts-Yoho-Bill"><span style="color: #1255cc;">met</span></a> behind closed doors to plot their response to President Obama’s unilateral decision to grant de facto amnesty and work permits to five million illegal aliens. That response centers around the House’s control of government spending, and according to sources that contacted Breitbart news, the GOP rank-and-file will be setting the agenda. “It&#8217;s not just for show,” said Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ). “[Party leaders] don&#8217;t want to get something to the floor and then have some big rebellion, they really want to get it right the first time. And they&#8217;ve learned the hard way that the way to do that is to build everything from the bottom up instead of shoving it from the top down.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">A number of different options are being considered, but all of them are seemingly aimed at avoiding a government shutdown. That’s because a government shutdown of any kind, regardless of who initiated it, is invariably blamed on the GOP, according to inside-the-beltway thinking.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Columnist Charles Krauthammer <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/01/krauthammer-to-gop-see-a-psychiatrist-for-rage-over-exec-amnesty-dont-vote-for-govt-shutdown-video/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">illuminated</span></a> that reasoning Monday on Fox’s “Special Report” with Bret Baier. &#8220;There’s reality, and there’s the way reality is reported in the media,” he explained.</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">We know that you’re right, if there were a government shutdown under these circumstances, it would be Obama being the one shutting it down with a veto. However, we also know that as night follows day, it will be reported everywhere as a Republican shutdown and they will suffer as they suffered last October, 2013, and it was a disaster. Republicans are finally ahead of Democrats in the poll about who do you favor, and this would be the worst time to blow it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="color: #232323;">However, one cannot discount the impact the previous government shut down had on the 2014 elections &#8212; which was seemingly not very much. The GOP <a href="http://www.electionprojection.com/2014-elections/races/2014-senate-races.php"><span style="color: #1255cc;">picked</span></a> up at least 8 Senate seats to capture a majority and 11 House seats to strengthen one.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">On the other hand, there is little doubt the media would indeed blame Republicans for any shutdown. Most Republicans apparently understand this and were said to be discussing a normal “omnibus” spending bill, a hybrid “cromnibus” bill that provides a temporary funding extension for immigration, and a number of options for each. The omnibus part of the package would fund most of the government at current spending levels for ten months through September 15, while the cromnibus portion provides the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the government agency that oversees service related to immigration, funding for only a few months. House Speaker Boehner (R-OH) envisions a <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/225690-boehner-backs-two-step-plan"><span style="color: #1255cc;">two-step</span></a> process for passage, holding a vote on the omnibus bill this week, and the cromnibus bill next week.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">One of the options being considered was introduced late last month by staunch conservative Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL). The sophomore lawmaker <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/11/20/Republicans-Leave-Town-Without-A-Plan-To-Fight-Obama"><span style="color: #1255cc;">proposed</span></a> a bill that would rescind the discretion by the executive branch to exempt entire categories of illegal aliens from prosecution and deportation. Though the gesture is chiefly symbolic, Boehner and other GOP leaders have reportedly embraced it as a way to simultaneously assuage conservative GOPers concerns with Obama’s unconstitutional overreach, and move them away from demanding a government shutdown.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In addition, Salmon wants to add language to the omnibus bill preventing the president from issuing work visas to illegals. It is an omnibus package House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) said would include 11 appropriation bills, with the separate funding for the DHS maintained on a continuing resolution (CR) that would last until “sometime in March.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Time is of the essence. The current emergency funding keeping the government open expires on Dec. 11, giving the GOP six more days to get their strategic ducks in a row. And despite their cleverness, they still must contend with the reality that outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will scuttle any effort that would accrue to the GOP’s benefit. While Reid <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/house-gop-unveils-omnibus-plan-to-keep-immigration-pressure-on-obama-20141202"><span style="color: #1255cc;">agreed</span></a> to consider a spending package that only funds DHS through March, he said he would only do so if the deal didn’t include any riders unacceptable to his party.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Reid stood in stark contrast to the position taken by Rep. Nita Lowey (D-NY), the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. She insisted it would be &#8220;dangerous and irresponsible to engage in stunts and gimmicks affecting funding for the agencies under the Department of Homeland Security.” She was echoed by DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, who testified at a House hearing Tuesday morning. He claimed temporary funding would make it harder to run his department in an efficient manner. As for Obama, White House Press Secretary John Earnest said the president would prefer a bill covering all spending for the entire year. But he <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/02/us-usa-congress-shutdown-boehner-idUSKCN0JG1MH20141202"><span style="color: #1255cc;">refused</span></a> to say whether the president would veto a bill with short-term funding for the DHS.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Both Houses of Congress are scheduled to go on recess December 12, but Reid <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/225597-reid-senate-might-work-the-week-before-christmas"><span style="color: #1255cc;">warned</span></a> the Senate that it might be necessary to extend their time in Washington through Dec. 19. “We have a lot to do and not a lot of time to accomplish it,” Reid said.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">One effort is aimed at passing a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/lawmakers-divided-over-renewing-tax-breaks-1417481046"><span style="color: #0433ff;">short-term extension</span></a> of approximately 50 tax breaks benefiting businesses, individuals and nonprofits. The vast majority of them expired at the end of 2013. The extension would last only until the end of the year, but that would allow those breaks to be claimed during next year’s tax-preparation period. The move was precipitated by a veto threat from Obama, <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/finance/225584-house-moves-toward-vote-on-expired-tax-breaks"><span style="color: #1255cc;">undermining</span></a> a two-year, $400 billion deal being worked out between Reid and House Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-MI). It would have extended some of those tax breaks for two years and others indefinitely. “We were making really good progress until the president issued a veto threat,” Camp said Monday. “That brought a halt to everything,”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Obama objected to the deal because he considered it too favorable to business, and because it failed to extend an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit set to expire in 2017. The GOP contends those tax breaks have been illegally exploited by taxpayers and illegal aliens fraudulently claiming those credits, further insisting Obama’s recent action on immigration exacerbated the problem. Hence the House&#8217;s $45 billion extension, which could be voted on as early as today.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Democrats have mixed feelings regarding the proposed legislation. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) remained non-committal, Committee member Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WVA) was adamantly against it, and Rep. Sandy Levin (D-MI), the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, was in favor.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In other words, like everything else being proposed here, the outcome remains in limbo.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Some GOP conservatives still remained wedded to addressing Obama’s lawlessness, regardless of the consequences. Rep. Steve King (R-IA) wants even a short-term extension for the DHS to cut off funding for the president’s immigration agenda, even if the government shuts down as a result. &#8220;It isn’t us bringing about a shutdown,” he insisted. &#8220;We fund everything else, and then the president has to argue that he’s going to shutdown the government in order for him to carry out his lawless, unconstitutional act.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) wasn’t buying it. &#8220;We need to quit, you know, kind of rattling the economy with things that are perceived by the voters as disturbing,&#8221; he told a Washington conference.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Voters themselves apparently agree. A Qunnipiac <a href="http://www.quinnipiac.edu/images/polling/us/us11252014_uh2ddgk.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">poll</span></a> released Nov. 25 shows they oppose shutting down “major activities of the federal government&#8221; as a means of blocking Obama’s agenda by a 68-25 percent margin. Even Republican voters oppose the idea by a 47-44 percent margin. “Americans seem divided on immigration, but they agree on one thing: They don’t want a government shutdown over President Obama’s action on immigration,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Those same voters, however, mostly oppose Obama’s immigration agenda. Democrats favor it by a 74-18 percent margin, but Republicans and independent voters oppose it by margins of 75-20 percent, and 51-40 percent, respectively. In short, ambivalence prevails.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">How long it prevails is hard to say. Much of it depends on how far next year&#8217;s GOP congressional majority is willing to go to illuminate the ideological differences between the two parties, and whether they are willing to frame an agenda, or continue reacting to the one proposed by Obama and a Democrat minority.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Immigration aside, it is worth noting that on Monday, America’s national debt <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-01/total-us-debt-rises-over-18-trillion"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reached</span></a> $18 trillion. That number represents a 70 percent increase in the debt amassed during Obamas’s tenure. On Tuesday it was revealed Social Security will become <a href="http://www.mrctv.org/blog/chart-social-security-s-end-date-fast-approaching-far-earlier-expected"><span style="color: #1255cc;">insolvent</span></a> by 2024. That’s 34 years earlier than originally projected. In other words, we remain on an unsustainable trajectory, one driven overwhelmingly by the exponential expansion of government championed by Democrats. Spending cuts aren’t popular, but genuine statesmen propose ideas that put the good of the nation above the good of the party. Embracing such statesmanship seems like a pretty good point of departure for next year’s GOP majority. If nothing else it would stand in stark contrast to the president’s me-first agenda and a Democratic party extremely comfortable with putting its own interests above those of the nation.</p>
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		<title>Washington Braces for Amnesty</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/washington-braces-for-amnesty/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=washington-braces-for-amnesty</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 17 Nov 2014 05:58:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245356</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Republicans weigh counter-strategy options. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/pic_giant_111014_SM_Barack-Obama-G.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245357" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/pic_giant_111014_SM_Barack-Obama-G-450x340.jpg" alt="pic_giant_111014_SM_Barack-Obama-G" width="377" height="285" /></a>Republicans in Congress are struggling to put together a strategy to combat President Obama&#8217;s expected unilateral immigration amnesty as the administration moves closer to pulling the amnesty trigger by year&#8217;s end.</p>
<p>Their deliberations came as Vice President Joe Biden <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/15/readout-vice-presidents-central-america-events-today"><span style="color: #0433ff;">met</span></a> Saturday with Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, and Salvadoran President Salvador Sanchez Ceren. One of the topics was how to facilitate even more immigration from those poor Third World countries to the United States.</p>
<p>Biden said next month the U.S. would create what the White House called &#8220;an in-country refugee/parole program in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, to allow certain parents who are lawfully present in the United States to request access to the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program for their children still in one of these three countries.&#8221;</p>
<p>Although fighting President Obama&#8217;s unprecedented threatened power grab by allowing a shutdown of the federal government is a possibility, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/16/us-usa-immigration-congress-idUSKCN0J00U320141116"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Republican lawmakers acknowledge</span></a> they haven&#8217;t warmed to the idea.</p>
<p>&#8220;It doesn&#8217;t solve the problem,&#8221; Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, said on &#8220;Fox News Sunday.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;But look, we&#8217;re having those discussions&#8230; We&#8217;re going to continue to meet about this. I know the House leaders are talking about, the Senate leaders are talking about it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Republicans are looking at different options about how best to respond to the president&#8217;s unilateral action, which many people believe is unconstitutional, unlawful action on this particular issue.&#8221;</p>
<p>On ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week&#8221; House Deputy Majority Whip Tom Cole (R-Okla.) was cool to the idea of a shutdown. &#8220;I think the president wants a fight. I think he’s actually trying to bait us into doing some of these extreme things that have been suggested. I don’t think we will.&#8221;</p>
<p>U.S. Rep. Bill Flores (R-Texas) is opposed to a shutdown. &#8220;There’s a wide diversity of thought as to how effective that would be,&#8221; he said. A shutdown &#8220;is not a good solution.&#8221;</p>
<p>One of the less appealing suggestions is to sue Obama. There is a huge problem with legal standing and is it by definition an abdication of the constitutionally-stipulated power of the purse held by Congress. Lawmakers don&#8217;t have to go to court to stop Obama.</p>
<p>Many House conservatives <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/14/us-usa-immigration-republicans-idUSKCN0IY2H320141114"><span style="color: #0433ff;">want Congress to ban</span></a> the funding needed to implement Obama&#8217;s executive amnesty. Others would attempt to keep the agencies implementing the amnesty on a short leash by appropriating funding for them on a short-term basis, theoretically allowing them to withhold immigration funds without shutting down the government.</p>
<p>&#8220;The power of the purse is what&#8217;s given to the House,&#8221; said Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.). &#8220;That’s the check that we have against the White House. To the extent that that&#8217;s the lever we have, that&#8217;s the lever we&#8217;ll use.&#8221;</p>
<p>Most elected Republicans still seem blissfully unaware that the the last shutdown in October 2013 was an unmitigated public relations success for Republicans even though it might not have felt that way at the time. Setting aside the relentless media propaganda that falsely painted the shutdown as a massive Democratic tactical victory, the episode sent the unmistakable message that GOPers were champions of freedom of choice in health care.</p>
<p>The shutdown boosted GOP public approval numbers all the way through the election this month, helped to revive the fight against Obamacare as millions of Americans were having their health insurance policies abruptly canceled, and helped to set the stage for the Republicans&#8217; historic trouncing of the Democrats in congressional elections. The shutdown was an extended, cost-free infomercial for the GOP that reminded Americans that Republicans were on their side on an issue that mattered to them. In other words, it derailed what had seemed like an unstoppable leftist narrative that the always-unpopular Obamacare was a done deal and that resistance to it was futile.</p>
<p>Those gun-shy Republicans who oppose a government shutdown at all costs are never quite able to explain why, if the shutdown was so bad for the GOP, Republicans are now on the march.</p>
<p>On Nov. 4 the GOP flipped control of the 100-seat U.S. Senate, winning at least 53 seats as of this writing. The House GOP increased its majority, winning at least 244 out of 435 seats. In the new year Republicans will control at least 31 state governors&#8217; mansions and at least 68 of the 99 state legislative chambers across the country (Nebraska&#8217;s legislature has only one chamber). In at least 23 states Republicans will control the governorship and both houses of the state legislature. Democrats can make the same claim about only 7 states.</p>
<p>Republican leaders have been talking out of both sides of their mouths on the amnesty issue for months.</p>
<p>Acting unilaterally on immigration would be &#8220;a big mistake&#8221; akin to &#8220;waving a red flag in front of a bull,&#8221; McConnell said. Such action &#8220;poisons the well for an opportunity to address a very important domestic issue.&#8221;</p>
<p>But McConnell also said he&#8217;s not willing to use Congress&#8217;s spending power to stop amnesty. Right after the election he seemed adamant that he would not abide a  government shutdown.</p>
<p>House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), whose speakership is likely to be challenged by conservative lawmakers in January, also said unilateral action would &#8220;poison the well.&#8221; Boehner warned Obama, &#8220;when you play with matches, then you take the risk of burning yourself, and he&#8217;s going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path.</p>
<p>On the weekend Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/224304-dhs-chief-obama-immigration-order-in-final-stages"><span style="color: #0433ff;">confirmed</span></a> that planning for Obama&#8217;s executive amnesty, along with other changes to the immigration system, is almost complete.</p>
<p>&#8220;We’re in the final stages of developing some executive actions,&#8221; Johnson said. &#8220;We have a broken immigration system. The more I delve into it, the more problems I see.&#8221;</p>
<p>Of course, it is a leftist lie to say that the immigration system is <i>broken</i>. When progressives say the system is broken, they mean it is functioning in a less than optimal manner, failing to capture every single prospective illegal alien welfare case available to wade across the Rio Grande or walk across the nation&#8217;s largely undefended border with Mexico. To them, immigration policy is a taxpayer-subsidized get-out-the-vote scheme for Democrats and the best reform they could imagine would be to abolish America&#8217;s borders altogether.</p>
<p>The system is doing what it was designed to do: Flood America with people who don’t share Americans’ traditional philosophical commitment to the rule of law, limited government, and markets, in order to force changes in society. The radicals’ goal today is to use immigration to subvert the American system, just as it was in the 1960s when the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) shepherded leftist reforms of that era’s immigration laws through Congress.</p>
<p>The current immigration system is congested, overwhelmed, and under attack by the sheer volume of illegal aliens that Democratic policies have been bringing to the U.S. The problem isn&#8217;t so much the legal regime governing immigration but the years of non-enforcement at the border, coupled with Obama&#8217;s brazen attempts to recruit illegals from Latin America, luring them with promises of government largesse such as food stamps.</p>
<p>Most analysts haven&#8217;t noted that if Obama acts unilaterally on immigration, he is likely to do long-term damage to the electoral prospects of the Democratic Party. The voters of Oregon, a longtime Democrat stronghold, <a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20141116/us-immigration-oregon-3fe495c4ab.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">delivered a stark warning</span></a> on illegal immigration to the president&#8217;s party in the election a fortnight ago.</p>
<p>Even as Oregonians easily approved Measure 91, a ballot proposition legalizing possession, cultivation, and recreational use of marijuana, and added to Democrat majorities at the state level, they overwhelmingly rejected Measure 88 which would have sustained a state law giving driver&#8217;s licenses to illegal aliens.</p>
<p>The vote to legalize pot was 55.6 percent in favor to 44.4 percent against but the vote to overturn the statute providing driver&#8217;s licenses was a lopsided 66.4 percent to repeal compared to just 33.6 percent to uphold the law. The statute was approved last year without much opposition by state lawmakers and signed into law by Gov. John Kitzhaber, a Democrat.</p>
<p>As of a month ago, the illegal alien lobby <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/10/20/Voters-61-in-Progressive-Libertarian-Oregon-Likely-to-Reject-Driver-s-Licenses-for-Illegals"><span style="color: #0433ff;">had outspent</span></a> the other side by a 10-to-1 margin.</p>
<p>&#8220;It was really the epitome of a grassroots effort,&#8221; Cynthia Kendoll, an activist for the successful &#8220;No&#8221; side told reporters. &#8220;There&#8217;s such a disconnect between what people really want and what&#8217;s happening.&#8221;</p>
<p>Mark Krikorian of the respected nonpartisan Center for Immigration Studies said the thumping voters gave Measure 88 was proof that the groups supporting endless accommodations for the illegal aliens invading this country are hopelessly out of touch. &#8220;It really highlights how this issue is not a Republican-liberal issue like, say, taxes and abortion, but an up-down issue, elites versus the public.&#8221;</p>
<p>As if on cue, left-wing elitist Marshall Fitz of the Center for American Progress (CAP), dropped by to smear those who voted against Measure 88 as racist, monobrowed, dimwits.</p>
<p>&#8220;Is there an instinct toward security, hunkering down and against welcoming the other?&#8221; Fitz said. &#8220;That&#8217;s part of human nature. But that doesn&#8217;t mean instincts can&#8217;t be overcome by reason.&#8221;</p>
<p>Decent, patriotic Americans are infuriated by the kind of smugness and condescension exuded by open-borders radicals like Fitz and Obama who glibly equate opposition to illegal immigration to xenophobia and racism. They are intensely angered when they are told by the leftists of the media day in and day out that if you support enforcement of immigration laws you&#8217;re a bad person. The accusation grates because Americans are among the most tolerant and generous in the world, and beyond any doubt the most accepting of immigrants.</p>
<p>People like Fitz and his former boss CAP founder John Podesta, who is now a senior advisor in the Obama White House, seem unable to fathom just how disgusted law-abiding Americans, including legal U.S. immigrants, are by illegal immigration and the coddling and granting of special privileges to illegals.</p>
<p>The issue of illegal immigration isn&#8217;t a powder keg ready to blow both major political parties to bits. It&#8217;s more like a stage coach in an old Western movie loaded with liquid nitroglycerin. One bad bump on the road and &#8212; <i>kaboom</i>! &#8212; those guiding it across the frontier are vaporized. Obama&#8217;s hugely unpopular executive amnesty threatens to render Democrats a spent force for decades. Whether Republicans will be smart enough to stay clear of the Obama-created debacle-in-waiting remains to be seen.</p>
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		<title>Obama&#8217;s Amnesty By Blackmail</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/obamas-amnesty-by-blackmail/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamas-amnesty-by-blackmail</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Nov 2014 05:34:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=244786</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The president embraces the "by any means necessary" strategy for his radical agenda. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Obamapng.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-244794" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Obamapng-450x337.png" alt="Obamapng" width="373" height="279" /></a>Ignoring voters&#8217; historic coast-to-coast repudiation of his disastrous policies this week, President Obama is now threatening to move forward unilaterally with a massive immigration amnesty by the end of the year.</p>
<p>At his first post-election press conference Wednesday, instead of embracing conciliation as a responsible adult might do, Obama, the petulant Chicagoland thug, pulled a switchblade. Obama tried to blackmail newly emboldened congressional Republicans, vowing to enact amnesty through executive fiat if Congress doesn&#8217;t play ball.</p>
<p>Republicans&#8217; newly won control of the Senate and enhanced majority in the House of Representatives means the Republicans who just gave Obama&#8217;s Democratic allies a savage electoral beat-down are now in a better position to give Obama the unprecedented immigration amnesty he wants. As the president said,</p>
<blockquote><p>So before the end of the year, we&#8217;re going to take whatever lawful actions that I can take that I believe will improve the functioning of our immigration system &#8230; at the same time, I’ll be reaching out to both [incoming Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell, [House Speaker] John Boehner, and other Republican as well as Democratic leaders to find out how it is that they want to proceed. And if they want to get a bill done &#8212; whether it’s during the [approaching] lame duck [session of Congress] or next year &#8212; I&#8217;m eager to see what they have to offer.</p></blockquote>
<p>Although McConnell and Boehner have been all over the map on immigration amnesty in recent months, since the election they have said they will not be pushed around by the president on the issue of amnesty.</p>
<p>Acting unilaterally on immigration would be &#8220;a big mistake&#8221; akin to &#8220;waving a red flag in front of a bull,&#8221; McConnell said. Such action &#8220;poisons the well for an opportunity to address a very important domestic issue.&#8221;</p>
<p>Boehner also said unilateral action would &#8220;poison the well.&#8221; The House Speaker warned Obama, &#8220;when you play with matches, then you take the risk of burning yourself, and he&#8217;s going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path.&#8221;</p>
<p>Contrary to what Obama said, there are virtually no lawful actions Obama can take on amnesty, but the president has always viewed laws as speed bumps on the road to social justice. The wily former part-time adjunct constitutional law lecturer promised to ignore the separation of powers prescribed by the U.S. Constitution and implement Third World-style government-by-decree. He said:</p>
<blockquote><p>But what I’m not going to do is just wait. I think it’s fair to say that I’ve shown a lot of patience and have tried to work on a bipartisan basis as much as possible, and I’m going to keep on doing so. But in the meantime, let’s figure out what we can do lawfully through executive actions to improve the functioning of the existing system.</p></blockquote>
<p>Obama, a master of rhetorical tricks, hasn&#8217;t actually been patient. He already illegally granted an amnesty benefiting certain categories of illegal aliens. A recently uncovered government procurement order suggests his administration may be planning to issue 34 million work visas and green cards without the required legal authorization from Americans&#8217; elected representatives in Congress.</p>
<p>As for reaching out to the GOP, Obama is lying as usual. He has no interest in working with congressional Republicans. He has only slightly more interest in working with congressional Democrats. He&#8217;s a megalomaniacal, authoritarian leader who is only comfortable when he&#8217;s calling the shots.</p>
<p>Reporter Jon Karl embarrassed Obama during the presser by pointing out that &#8220;Mitch McConnell has been the Republican Leader for six years, as long as you’ve been President.&#8221; Karl continued, &#8220;But his office tells me that he has only met with you one-on-one once or twice during that entire six-year period.&#8221;</p>
<p>Obama didn&#8217;t acknowledge that fact and awkwardly segued into a discussion of sharing some Kentucky bourbon with Sen. McConnell even though he admitted he didn&#8217;t know if McConnell drinks bourbon.</p>
<p>Parts of Obama&#8217;s strange prepared statement were laced with practiced platitudes as the nation&#8217;s Chief Executive dismissed the election results as irrelevant:</p>
<blockquote><p>Still, as president, I have a unique responsibility to try and make this town work. So, to everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you. To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you, too. All of us have to give more Americans a reason to feel like the ground is stable beneath their feet, that the future is secure, that there’s a path for young people to succeed, and that folks here in Washington are concerned about them. So I plan on spending every moment of the next two-plus years doing my job the best I can to keep this country safe and to make sure that more Americans share in its prosperity.</p></blockquote>
<p>Of course people who do not vote can&#8217;t actually be called &#8220;voters,&#8221; but thinking has never been the strong suit of this man who thinks &#8220;Austrian&#8221; is a language and who celebrates &#8220;Cinco de Quatro.&#8221; In Obama&#8217;s disordered mind he didn&#8217;t really lose, even though he proudly boasted mere weeks ago that the election would be seen as a referendum on his administration. “I’m not on the ballot this fall &#8230; but make no mistake, these policies [of mine] are on the ballot — every single one of them,” he said on the campaign trail.</p>
<p>Obama doesn&#8217;t seem to accept the new Republican majorities in both houses of Congress as politically legitimate, as J. Christian Adams <a href="http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/11/06/decoding-the-president-listening-to-two-thirds-who-didnt-vote/">argues</a>. This contempt for Americans who don&#8217;t toe the leftist line is part of the Left&#8217;s deep-seated hatred of the American system of governance. Adams explains:</p>
<blockquote><p>It is a favorite fable among far-left groups like the Advancement Project and Demos that more voters is always good and fewer voters is always bad. They firmly believe that the path to a progressive policy wonderland is to get everyone with a heartbeat to vote.  This is part of an even older fable that the &#8216;system&#8217; robs the underclass of power through laws, rules, racist constructs and oppressive societal structures – like having to make the effort to register to vote, for example.</p></blockquote>
<p>It&#8217;s all the usual blatherskite we&#8217;ve come to expect from Saul Alinsky-inspired community organizers. If they win, they shout to the heavens that they&#8217;ve secured a thunderous mandate from We The People; if they don&#8217;t win, they try to discredit the results.</p>
<p>And it&#8217;s quite a contrast from the way Obama acts when his side wins.</p>
<p>Days after Obama&#8217;s first inauguration he brazenly flaunted his new political legitimacy in a closed-door meeting with congressional leaders. Republicans would have to do his bidding because, as he baldly stated, &#8220;I won.&#8221;</p>
<p>Republicans still have to submit to the Dear Leader because he claims to have a mandate from the whole of the American people.</p>
<p>As his approval ratings continue to plummet Obama seems oblivious to the contempt that normal, patriotic Americans feel for him as they lose their jobs and their health care because of his socialist meddling. And he cannot seem to fathom the brutal, historic thrashing his party received in congressional elections on Tuesday.</p>
<p>On Tuesday the GOP flipped control of the Senate, winning at least 52 seats as of this writing. The House GOP increased its majority, winning at least 242 seats. Republicans captured governors&#8217; mansions in &#8211;of all places&#8211; Democrat-dominated Massachusetts, Illinois, and Maryland, and will control at least 66 of the 99 state legislative chambers across the country (Nebraska&#8217;s legislature has only one chamber).</p>
<p>Meanwhile, President Obama is scheduled to meet today at the White House with congressional leaders to discuss legislative matters, including amnesty.</p>
<p>But if Obama really believes he has the power to enact an amnesty by presidential decree, why bother having such a meeting? The president&#8217;s phone and pen ought to suffice to rewrite immigration laws.</p>
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		<title>Reforming the Department of Homeland Surrender</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/michael-cutler/the-dhs-must-finally-live-up-to-its-name/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-dhs-must-finally-live-up-to-its-name</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 25 Aug 2014 04:26:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Cutler]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[border]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Department of Homeland Security]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=239145</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Holding Congress accountable. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Department+Homeland+Security+Headquarters+TpSfGFx0T7-l.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-239255" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Department+Homeland+Security+Headquarters+TpSfGFx0T7-l-450x293.jpg" alt="Department+Homeland+Security+Headquarters+TpSfGFx0T7-l" width="306" height="199" /></a>The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created in the wake of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.  Federal agencies understood to play an integral role in protecting the American homeland from terrorist attacks were folded into this bureaucratic leviathan and included, among other federal agencies, the Secret Service, U.S. Customs Service and components of the former INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service).</p>
<p>The title of the agency, &#8220;Department of Homeland Security,&#8221; certainly created the appearance that the issue of national security was at the heart of the massive reorganization of federal agencies, but it became readily apparent that this was not the case.  In fact, the myriad failures of this agency have caused me to come to refer to the DHS as being the “Department of Homeland <i>Surrender.</i>”</p>
<p>As noted on the <a href="http://www.dhs.gov/dhs-budget"><span style="color: #011480;">official DHS website</span></a>, the budget for the DHS for Fiscal Year 2015 has been set at more than $60 billion.  ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) has been provided with more than 5.4 billion dollars, CBP (Customs and Border Protection) has been budgeted for nearly 12.8 billion dollars while USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) has been budgeted to receive more than 3 billion dollars and the TSA (Transportation Safety Administration) will receive more than 7.3 billion dollars.</p>
<p><span style="color: #011480;"><a href="http://www.dhs.gov/our-mission">The Official DHS Website</a></span> lists it mission as follows:</p>
<p><b>The Core Missions</b></p>
<p>There are five homeland security missions:</p>
<p style="color: #011480;">1. <a href="http://www.dhs.gov/prevent-terrorism-and-enhance-security">Prevent terrorism and enhancing security</a><span style="color: #000000;">;</span></p>
<p style="color: #011480;">2. <a href="http://www.dhs.gov/secure-and-manage-borders">Secure and manage our borders</a><span style="color: #000000;">;</span></p>
<p style="color: #011480;">3. <a href="http://www.dhs.gov/administer-immigration-laws">Enforce and administer our immigration laws</a><span style="color: #000000;">;</span></p>
<p style="color: #011480;">4. <a href="http://www.dhs.gov/safeguard-and-secure-cyberspace">Safeguard and secure cyberspace</a><span style="color: #000000;">;</span></p>
<p style="color: #011480;">5. <a href="http://www.dhs.gov/building-resilient-nation">Ensure resilience to disasters</a><span style="color: #000000;">;</span></p>
<p>While all sorts of arguments are being made about how secure or insecure our borders truly are, the irrefutable metric about border security has nothing to do with the arrest statistics offered by the administration (which are, at best, highly suspect), but can be found in the fact that our nation finds itself awash with heroin and cocaine.  In point of fact, police departments and other first responder agencies across the United States are providing their members with the antidote to heroin overdoses.  This is an unprecedented measure.</p>
<p>Neither heroin nor cocaine are produced in the United States.  Therefore, every single gram of these substances that are present in the United States provides graphic and incontrovertible evidence of a failure of border security.</p>
<p>How secure can our nation be when our borders are not secure and unknown millions of foreign nationals freely roam the towns and cities of our nation while their very presence in the United States represents a violation of the essential immigration laws that are America&#8217;s first line of defense and last line of defense against international terrorists and transnational criminals?</p>
<p>If a company made promises such as those articulated in the DHS mission statement, and did as an abysmal job as the DHS does, it would face all sorts of lawsuits and sanctions &#8212; ultimately putting it out of business.  These failures of the DHS are hardly “victimless.”  Every year thousands of people in the United States die because of crimes committed by criminal aliens.  Illegal drugs play a role in most violent crimes committed in the United States &#8212; creating still more carnage.</p>
<p>Terror attacks have killed and injured thousands of innocent victims and we have never been more vulnerable to this threat than we are today.</p>
<p>No one has been made accountable for these failures of the immigration system.  The only people who have lost their jobs were those who were slaughtered because of those attacks.</p>
<p>There is an expression that mocks those who fail to act until a tragedy strikes &#8212; doing too little, too late.  The expression is, “Closing the barn doors after the horses are stolen.”  This administration, aided an abetted by politicians from both sides of the aisle and those local and state politicians who gloat about creating “Sanctuaries” for illegal aliens are in fact, guilty of taking the barn doors off the hinges after the horses were stolen.</p>
<p>Of course, if, God forbid, there is another terror attack carried out on American soil, these supposed leaders may claim the “insanity defense.”  It has been said that insanity is “Doing the same thing the same way and expecting a different outcome.”</p>
<p>On March 9, 2005 I testified before the Subcommittee on Management, Integration and Oversight of the Committee on Homeland Security on the topic: <i><a href="http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-109hhrg20756/html/CHRG-109hhrg20756.htm">CBP and ICE: Does the Current Organizational Structure Best Serve U.S. Homeland Security Interests? </a></i></p>
<p>In my <a href="http://cis.org/node/544"><span style="color: #011480;">prepared testimony</span></a> I made it clear that in my judgement, the creation of the DHS caused many more problems than it solved.</p>
<p>This is an excerpt from my prepared testimony:</p>
<blockquote><p>The fact that the issue of re-organizing the agencies which bear the responsibility of securing our nation&#8217;s borders is the focus of this hearing encourages me that this subcommittee is intent on making the protection of our borders and the enforcement of the immigration laws the priorities as well they should be. But I would implore you and your colleagues who represent us in both houses of congress to act swiftly and resolutely to secure our nation&#8217;s borders which at present are anything but secure. The clock is ticking and time is on the side of our nation&#8217;s enemies. To quote the first two sentences of the preface of a report entitled, &#8220;9/11 and Terrorist Travel, A Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,&#8221;</p>
<p><i>&#8220;It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and </i><i>carry out attacks in the United States if they are unable to enter the </i><i>country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were efforts to enhance </i><i>border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border </i><i>security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal.&#8221;</i></p>
<p>The failure of our nation to impose even a modicum of control over who is able to enter our nation, even now, is a clear indication of the inability of the United States to protect its citizens from the potential of another terrorist attack. And it is not only terrorists who threaten our well-being. It has been estimated that 30% of the federal inmate population is comprised of aliens.</p></blockquote>
<p>I concluded my testimony at that hearing by stating:</p>
<blockquote><p>It is my opinion, and the opinion of many of my former colleagues at the former INS, that this management structure is unwieldy and ineffective. The enforcement of the immigration laws is critical and shares little with the other agencies which have been combined with the former INS. The mission of each of these agencies is critical, but also unique. The mission of the former U.S. Customs Service bears little in common with the work and priorities and orientation of the former INS. In fact, prior to the merger, Customs was a division of the Treasury Department and the INS was a division of the Department of Justice. Its primary responsibility was to prevent contraband from entering the United States and to collect tariffs and duties. Customs is responsible for the movement of goods and currency across our nation&#8217;s borders.</p>
<p>The INS was concerned with the movement of people across our nation&#8217;s borders and has been involved with issues that more closely paralleled what the employees of State Department, the Labor Department, and the FBI are involved with. To re-enforce this point, I would point out that while it was relatively rare for INS agents to work with their Customs counterparts it was relatively common for us to work with agents of the other agencies I have just mentioned. The primary similarity between Customs and the INS was the border. Once you remove the border from the equation the differences become obvious and profound.</p>
<p>Since the merger of INS into ICE the new special agents who are now being trained are no longer even receiving Spanish language training. It is estimated that some 80% of the illegal alien population is Spanish speaking. This language training was an integral part of the curriculum for all new enforcement officers at the old INS. You cannot investigate people you cannot communicate with. It is worth noting that most of the Special Agents-in-Charge of the ICE offices came from the U.S. Customs Service further eroding the immigration mission. I have come to think of the current situation as the &#8220;Customization of immigration law enforcement.&#8221; I have been told that few, if any employers of illegal aliens were fined under the auspices of the employer sanctions program in the United States last year. Additionally, the investigation of immigration benefit fraud has been relegated, from what I have been told, to being pursued by very few field agents and computer systems.</p>
<p>We are currently engaged in a war on terror where control of our nation&#8217;s borders is critical to the outcome of this battle where the stakes are so high. In order for the borders to be secured we need to have a coordinated enforcement program that creates a seamless effort from the borders to the interior. This can best be done, in my estimation, by putting the CBP and ICE under one roof. It is also essential that separate chains of command be established for the immigration enforcement program with specific training and funding and accountability. This is the era of the specialist. One size does not fit all. It is critical that our nation gains control of its borders and the entire immigration bureaucracy if we are to protect our nation from illegal immigration. Illegal immigration has a profound impact on more other aspects of this nation than does any other issue. It impacts on everything from education, the environment, health-care and the economy to criminal justice and national security. It is vital, in my view, that this mission be effectively dealt with. The current structure does not provide the framework or leadership to enable this to happen. Morale among the former INS personnel is at an all-time low.  Clearly this situation needs to be remedied. A reorganization such as I outlined would represent a major step in the right direction.</p></blockquote>
<p>On March 10, 2005 I testified before the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims on the topic: <a href="http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju99785.000/hju99785_0f.htm"><i>Interior Immigration Enforcement Resources.</i></a></p>
<p>Here is how my prepared testimony began:</p>
<blockquote><p>A country without secure borders can no more stand than can a house without walls. The task of securing America&#8217;s borders falls to the dedicated men and women of CBP and ICE. These law enforcement officers are often put in harm&#8217;s way as they try to prevent aliens from gaining unauthorized entry into our country. They are not succeeding in this vital mission as evidenced by the millions of illegal aliens who currently live within our nation&#8217;s borders. This is not because of failings for which the employees of ICE or CBP bear the responsibility, but rather because our government has consistently failed to provide them with the resources they need to make certain that this basic job gets done.</p>
<p>The 9/11 Commission ultimately came to recognize the critical nature of immigration law enforcement where the &#8221;War on Terror&#8221; is concerned. In fact, page 49 of the report entitled, <a href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/911_TerrTrav_Monograph.pdf"><span style="color: #386eff;"><b><i>&#8216;</i></b><i>&#8217;9/11 and Terrorist Travel, A Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States&#8221;</i></span></a><span style="color: #386eff;"><b><i> </i></b></span><span style="color: #386eff;"><b><i> </i></b></span>contains a sentence that reads, &#8221;Thus abuse of the immigration system and a lack of interior immigration enforcement were unwittingly working together to support terrorist activity.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>In point of fact, there are precious few members of Congress who are even willing to suggest that America&#8217;s borders be made truly secure or that our immigration laws be effectively enforced even though the 9/11 Commission and its staff of federal agents and attorneys identified failures of border security and the overall lack of integrity to the immigration system as playing a key role in enabling the terrorists to enter the United States and embed themselves in the United States as they went about their deadly preparations.</p>
<p>To this very day, it is all but impossible to find members of Congress willing to talk about the nexus between immigration and terrorism or other threat to national security or public safety.</p>
<p>On Sunday, August 10, 2014 South Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham went on Fox News to discuss his concerns about members of ISIS attacking the United States.  The Huffington Post ran a report about Graham&#8217;s televised interview.  The title of the article summed up Graham&#8217;s statements, succinctly: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/10/lindsey-graham-syria_n_5665831.html">Lindsey Graham: If Obama Doesn&#8217;t Go On Offense, Terrorists Are &#8216;Coming Here.&#8217;</a></p>
<p style="color: #011480;"><span style="color: #000000;">Fox News also reported on Graham&#8217;s interview:  <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/10/graham-islamic-state-will-attack-on-us-soil-obama-must-stop-terror-groups-rise/">&#8220;Graham: Islamic State will attack on US soil, Obama must stop terror group’s rise.&#8221;</a></span></p>
<p>Here is an excerpt from the Fox News article:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>However, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a fellow Democrat and the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is taking a more hawkish stance, similar to Graham’s.</i></p>
<p><i>“It takes an army to defeat an army, and I believe that we either confront [Islamic State] now or we will be forced to deal with an even stronger enemy in the future,” she said Friday after the airstrikes were announced. “Inaction is no longer an option.”</i></p>
<p><i>She and others have said for months that Islamic State is recruiting and training fighters from Europe and the United States who could come home and launch a terror attack.</i></p>
<p><i>Graham also argued that Islamic State’s nearly unchecked rise is the result of Obama failing last year to take action against the group in Syria, even after the FBI and other U.S. intelligence officials warned the White House and Congress of its growing, global threat.</i></p>
<p><i>“Your game plan cannot protect the United States,” Graham said Sunday, addressing Obama.</i></p>
<p><i>Such rhetoric tracks closely to that used in the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, lawmakers from both parties voted to give President George W. Bush the authority to take military action against Iraq in the hopes of combating terrorism.</i></p>
<p><i>At the time, many said the United States faced a choice of fighting terrorism on American soil or on foreign soil.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>What is being ignored by the politicians and most news organizations is that the “War on Terror” is not an “either/or” situation.  Terrorists can certainly launch attacks inside the United States whether or not we hammer them with our military forces in the Middle East.</p>
<p>While the emergence of ISIS has justifiably ratcheted up concerns about the Damoclean threat of global terrorism, these concerns have been raised for years and, incredibly, many of the very same politicians have turned the issue of border security into a bargaining chip for a program that would ultimately provide unknown millions of illegal aliens with lawful status and official identity documents even though they know full well that there would be no way to interview those aliens in person &#8212; let alone conduct actual field investigations to determine the truthfulness of the claims made in their applications.</p>
<p style="color: #386eff;"><span style="color: #000000;">On December 1, 2013 the Huffington Post ran a worrying report:  <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/01/dianne-feinstein-america-less-safe_n_4367906.html">&#8220;America Is &#8216;Less Safe&#8217; Than 2 Years Ago, Intelligence Committee Chairs Say.&#8221;</a></span></p>
<p>The report focused on statements made by Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate&#8217;s Intelligence Committee, when she was interviewed for CNN&#8217;s program, “State of the Union.”</p>
<p>Here is how the report began:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>Interviewed on CNN&#8217;s &#8220;State of the Union,&#8221; Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she believed that there are now more terrorists with the technological means to carry out a bombing in the U.S.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>Here is an additional important excerpt from the Huffington Post article:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>&#8220;I think terror is up worldwide,&#8221; said Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee. &#8220;There are new bombs, very big bombs, trucks being reinforced for those bombs. There are bombs that go through magnetometers. The bomb-maker is still alive. There are more groups than ever. And there is huge malevolence out there.&#8221;</i></p>
<p><i>Feinstein added that there was &#8220;a real displaced aggression in this very fundamentalist jihadist Islamic community, and that is that the West is responsible for everything that goes wrong and that the only thing that&#8217;s going to solve this is Islamic Sharia law.&#8221;</i></p></blockquote>
<p>On the same day, December 1, 2013 Newsmax posted the report that provided an even more dire warning: <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/feinstein-rogers-terror-threat/2013/12/01/id/539316?ns_mail_uid=4092516&amp;ns_mail_job=1548232_12012013&amp;promo_code=15C7C-1">&#8220;Sen. Feinstein, Rep. Rogers: Terror Threat Greater Than Before Sept 11&#8243;</a></p>
<p>This report began with this unambiguous assessment:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>The U.S. is in greater danger of a terrorist attack than it was prior to September 11 and has less ability to prevent such aggression by Islamist radicals, key congressional intelligence leaders said Sunday.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>This report ended with the following statement:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>Feinstein is pushing legislation to protect NSA practices but require more congressional reporting.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>The disconnect is nothing short of astonishing.  Feinstein is willing to accept a loss of privacy in the name of national security while she blithely ignores anything that relates to the 9/11 Commission, its findings or its recommendations.  Having mentioned the 9/11 Commission, the first paragraph of the preface of the &#8220;<span style="color: #386eff;"><a href="http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/911_TerrTrav_Monograph.pdf">The 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist Travel</a>&#8220;</span><span style="color: #011b44;"><b><i> </i></b></span>begins with the following paragraph:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the United </i><i>States if they are unable to enter the country. Yet prior to September 11, while there were </i><i>efforts to enhance border security, no agency of the U.S. government thought of border </i><i>security as a tool in the counterterrorism arsenal. Indeed, even after 19 hijackers </i><i>demonstrated the relative ease of obtaining a U.S. visa and gaining admission into the </i><i>United States, border security still is not considered a cornerstone of national security </i><i>policy. We believe, for reasons we discuss in the following pages, that it must be made </i><i>one.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>The 9/11 Commission Staff Report on Terrorist travel went on to detail numerous examples of instances where terrorists not only made use of visa and immigration benefit fraud to enter the United States but to also embed themselves in the United States. Page 47 of this report noted:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>Once terrorists had entered the United States, their next challenge was to find a way to remain here. Their primary method was immigration fraud. For example, Yousef and Ajaj concocted bogus political asylum stories when they arrived in the United States. Mahmoud Abouhalima, involved in both the World Trade Center and landmarks plots, received temporary residence under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAW) program, after falsely claiming that he picked beans in Florida.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>This paragraph is found on page 98 under the title “Immigration Benefits:”</p>
<blockquote><p>“<i>Terrorists in the 1990s, as well as the September 11 hijackers, needed to find a way to stay in or embed themselves in the United States if their operational plans were to come to fruition. As already discussed, this could be accomplished legally by marrying an American citizen, achieving temporary worker status, or applying for asylum after entering. In many cases, the act of filing for an immigration benefit sufficed to permit the alien to remain in the country until the petition was adjudicated. Terrorists were free to conduct surveillance, coordinate operations, obtain and receive funding, go to school and learn English, make contacts in the United States, acquire necessary materials, and execute an attack.</i>”</p></blockquote>
<p style="color: #386eff;"><span style="color: #000000;">On July 20, 2013 the Washington Times published a truly disturbing report:  <i><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/30/homeland-security-loses-track-of-1-million-foreign/print/">&#8220;Homeland Security loses track of 1 million foreigners; report could hurt immigration deal.&#8221;</a></i></span></p>
<p>Here is how this important report begins:</p>
<blockquote><p><i>The Homeland Security Department has lost track of more than 1 million people who it knows arrived in the U.S. but who it cannot prove left the country, according to an audit Tuesday that also found the department probably won&#8217;t meet its own goals for deploying an entry-exit system. </i><i>The findings were revealed as Congress debates an immigration bill, and the Government Accountability Office&#8217;s report could throw up another hurdle because lawmakers in the House and Senate have said that any final deal must include a workable system to track entries and exits and cut down on so-called visa overstays.</i></p>
<p><i>The government does track arrivals, but is years overdue in setting up a system to track departures — a goal set in a 1996 immigration law and reaffirmed in 2004, but which has eluded Republican and Democratic administrations.</i></p></blockquote>
<p>It is foolish &#8212; indeed extremely perilous &#8212; to think that terrorists would not want to strike at the heart of America today to demoralize our nation.</p>
<p>We have numerous examples of terror attacks that had been carried out, or were attempted to be carried out in the United States.</p>
<p>But then you need to remember that Graham was one of the “Gang of Eight” that concocted Comprehensive Immigration Reform.  On Feb. 18, 2013 Accuracy In Media (AIM) published my paper:  <span style="color: #386eff;"><a href="http://www.aim.org/special-report/the-gang-of-eight-and-immigration-reform-bordering-on-a-national-security-nightmare/">The “Gang of Eight” and Immigration Reform: “Bordering on a National Security Nightmare.”</a></span></p>
<p>From the day that the DHS was created concerns about the ability of this huge agency to truly enhance national security was questioned by the employees of the various component agencies.  Many of my former colleagues at the INS who suddenly found themselves to be part of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) became concerned that by splitting up the immigration mission among three agencies and positioning many managers from what became known as “legacy customs” in charge of the enforcement of the immigration laws would compromise the ability of this cobbled-together entity of ICE to properly enforce the immigration laws.</p>
<p>Additionally, while the former INS had its share of problems, putting the Border Patrol and inspectors assigned to ports of entry into the newly created agency known as CBP (Customs and Border Protection) would only exacerbate the challenges to mounting a coordinated effort to secure our nation&#8217;s borders and effectively enforcing our immigration laws.  There were additional concerns that moving the adjudications officers who were charged with adjudicating applications for immigration benefits, such as conferring refugee status and resident alien status as well as United States citizenship upon lawful immigrants, would add to the lack of coordination that is vital to making certain that there is meaningful integrity to the immigration mission</p>
<p>It is unlikely that DHS was created to truly cure the ills of the former INS, but if it was, then you could compare the creation of this Frankenstein agency with the statement, “The surgery was a success but the patient died.”</p>
<p>I have testified before more than a dozen congressional hearings and on several occasions I was called upon to provide insight about my concerns about how the creation of the DHS migh impact effective enforcement and administration of our immigration laws.</p>
<p>In the days, weeks and months after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 a veritable parade of political “leaders” seeking that all-important photo-op and print in the newspapers, stood before the forest of microphones and television cameras and thumped their chests and the podiums demanding to know, “Why no one had connected the dots?”</p>
<p>Of course, the vulnerabilities created by failures of the immigration system were well known to many politicians for years prior to the attacks of 9/11.</p>
<p>On May 20, 1997, more than four years before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I participated in my first Congressional hearing. That hearing was conducted by the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims and was entitled: <i>&#8220;</i><a href="http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/judiciary/hju44195.000/hju44195_0f.htm"><i>Visa Fraud and Immigration Benefits Application Fraud.&#8221;</i></a></p>
<p>This important hearing was predicated on two terrorist attacks that were carried out more than four years earlier, in 1993 by aliens from the Middle East who, as was determined, gamed the visa process and/or the immigration benefits program.</p>
<p>In January 1993 a Pakistani national by the name of Mir Kansi stood outside CIA Headquarters with an AK-47 and opened fire on the vehicles of CIA officials reporting for work on that cold January morning in Virginia. When the smoke dissipated, two CIA officer lay dead and three others were seriously wounded. Kansi fled the United States and was ultimately brought back to stand trial.  He was found guilty and executed for his crimes. He had also been granted political asylum and had been subsequently found to have lied on his application, thereby committing a felony: fraud. Had the fraud been detected and had he been deported from the United States, those who were killed and wounded would not have been harmed.</p>
<p>Just one month later, on February 26, 1993 a bomb-laden truck was parked in the garage under the World Trade Center complex and detonated. The blast nearly brought one of the 110 story towers down sideways. As a result of the explosion, 6 innocent people were killed, hundreds were injured and an estimated one half billion dollars in damages were inflicted on that iconic complex of buildings located just blocks from Wall Street. That attack was also carried out by alien terrorists who managed to not only game the visa process in order to enter the United States, but the immigration benefits program that enabled them to remain in the United States and embed themselves as they went about their preparations to carry out that attack.</p>
<p>Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 there have been numerous congressional hearings that focused on how the terrorists were able to enter the United States and carry out their attacks.  In fact, there have been other terror attacks and attempted attacks.  Many experts from many fields have consistently warned about the existential threats America and Americans face today.  Yet, for the most part, they are ignored by the news media and ignored by our “leaders.”</p>
<p>I am only one of many witnesses who have done everything possible to get the “Fools on the Hill,” as I refer to all too many of our supposed political representatives in Washington, to listen.</p>
<p>It has been said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”  Where terrorism is concerned, in point of fact, nn ounce of prevention is worth many tons of cure.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Ferguson and the Thirteenth Amendment</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ian-smith/ferguson-and-the-thirteenth-amendment/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ferguson-and-the-thirteenth-amendment</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 21 Aug 2014 04:30:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ian Smith]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[thirteenth amendment]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[How a constitutional loophole could enable a Democratic power-grab.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/2014-08-19t075621z1959034814gm1ea8j17ng01rtrmadp3usa-missouri-shooting.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-238993" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/2014-08-19t075621z1959034814gm1ea8j17ng01rtrmadp3usa-missouri-shooting.jpg" alt="2014-08-19t075621z1959034814gm1ea8j17ng01rtrmadp3usa-missouri-shooting" width="282" height="235" /></a>The events in Ferguson, Missouri this past week have <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/15/opinion/syed-ferguson-racial-profiling-issue/">triggered</a> calls for President Obama to push for an anti-race profiling-bill to prevent police from “disproportionately targeting ethnic minorities for investigation, interrogation and arrest” – Obama has helped pass such <a href="http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Barack-Obama-and-Racial-Profiling-215986531.html">legislation</a> when he was a state senator –Senator <a href="http://www.cardin.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/cardin-statement-on-michael-brown-and-ferguson-missouri">Ben Cardin</a> (D-Md.) has urged Congress to introduce legislation that would “once and for all prohibit racial profiling by law enforcement officials.”</p>
<p>In spite of “racial profiling” more naturally being a state matter (insofar that it’s regulatable), such a power grab by the federal government is entirely possible due to the gradual <a href="http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/crcl/vol39_1/carter.pdf?q=combating-test-panic">expansion</a> of the Thirteenth Amendment’s ban on slavery. Although relatively dormant during the first 100 years of its passage, the Thirteenth Amendment’s Section 2 enforcement power, which authorizes Congress to enact “appropriate legislation” to end the “badges and incidents of slavery,” has dramatically widened since the 1960s and could “justify” such a bill.</p>
<p>But Senator Cardin and his supporters, like <a href="http://conyers.house.gov/index.cfm/2013/7/conyers-joins-senator-cardin-and-civil-rights-groups-in-calling-for-passage-of-the-end-racial-profiling-act">Rep. John Conyers</a>, may have to act quickly. Next term, the Supreme Court will likely take up <em><a href="http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions%5cpub%5c12/12-20514-CR0.pdf">US v. Cannon</a></em>, a case which legal commentators say may result in the culling of this disconcertingly imprecise “badges and incidents”standard and pare back further legislative overreach by the federal government.</p>
<p>Ever since the Supreme Court began signaling to Congress that there may be some limits to what they can pass under the Commerce Clause, <a href="http://columbialawreview.org/thirteenth-amendment-optimism/">liberal legal scholars</a> have argued that Section 2 can be used to justify everything from hate speech regulations and minimum-wage laws to bans on payday lending and even the regulation of environmental problems in black communities. The source of this overreach comes from the fact that Congress during the Amendment’s enactment failed to flesh out what exactly they meant by “badges and incidents” of slavery. Still, <a href="http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/sleeping-giant-section-two-of-the-thirteenth-amendment-hate-crimes-legislation-and-academias-favorite-new-vehicle-for-the-expansion-of-federal-power">cases</a> from that era treated the clause as narrowly relating to Section 1’s general ban on slavery; over and over again courts decided that legislation passed under Section 2 had to relate to “incidents” that could specifically lead to the re-establishment of slavery.</p>
<p>This was the approach until the racially charged 1960s when the Supreme Court decided in <em><a href="http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/sleeping-giant-section-two-of-the-thirteenth-amendment-hate-crimes-legislation-and-academias-favorite-new-vehicle-for-the-expansion-of-federal-power">Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer &amp; Co</a>.</em>, a case involving housing discrimination, that the power to ban “badges and incidents” included the power to forbid anything that Congress determines might be “rationally related” to those badges and incidents; a standard that, according to critics, is deferential enough to give Congress the power to legislate on topics with little connection to slavery.</p>
<p>It was under this interpretation of the Thirteenth Amendment that Congress in 2009 passed the <em>Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act</em> (HCPA) which sought to criminalize acts that “cause bodily injury to any person … <em>because of</em> the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person.” In <em>Cannon</em>, three white homeless males were charged under the Act because they used racial slurs after drunkenly assaulting another homeless male who was black – Apart from the nightmarish abuse one envisions from such a vague and flexible standard, this area of criminalization generally falls under the policing powers of individual states. Federalizing this part of the law is not only unnecessary and in violation of states’ rights, say critics, but it also raises double jeopardy concerns in that it allows for the federal government to re-prosecute a defendant already acquitted in state court. As was seen in the Zimmerman trial, this danger is especially serious when hysterical subjects like white-on-black “hate crime” are involved.</p>
<p>Since the passage of the HCPA, courts have expressed concern about its constitutional validity. Judges in <em><a href="https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/12/12-2040.pdf">Hatch v. US</a></em>, a Tenth Circuit case involving white-on-Native American violence, acknowledged that, post-<em>Jones</em>, there were “few limits” on what conduct might be prohibited under the Act and that given slavery’s lasting effects, “nearly every hurtful thing one human could do to another and nearly every disadvantaged state of being might be analogized to slavery.” Last year’s landmark decision in <em>Shelby County</em>, a voting rights case involving a nearly identical enforcement power in the Fifteen Amendment, the Supreme Court noted that although Congress has the power to enforce the right to vote, it is not unlimited. Like the police power, the Court noted that states, not the federal government, have historically been given voting law powers and that “<a href="http://www2.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/Shelby_Cnty_v_Holder_No_1296_2013_BL_167707_US_June_25_2013_Court">exceptional conditions</a>” would have to exist to justify such an “extraordinary departure from the traditional course of relations between the States and the Federal Government.”</p>
<p>As civil rights expert Gail Heriot has <a href="http://thf_media.s3.amazonaws.com/2014/pdf/WestlawDoc090328.pdf">noted</a>, the approach the Supreme Court took in the late sixties “essentially interprets the Thirteenth Amendment as giving Congress a general police power over all conduct concerning race.” Given the cynical abuse of racial issues by the White House, the Democrats in Congress and groups like the ACLU and <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/king-fearmongers_714573.html">SPLC</a>, it’s critical that the power to define what constitutes “incidents of slavery” or “racial profiling” always be closely scrutinized and kept away from potential politicization as much as possible.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Congress Needs Its Own Hippocratic Oath</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/michael-cutler/congress-needs-its-own-hippocratic-oath/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=congress-needs-its-own-hippocratic-oath</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 07 Aug 2014 04:55:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Cutler]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[What the immigration reform debate has revealed about America's informed and uniformed citizens.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ImmigrationReform.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-238030" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ImmigrationReform-450x232.jpg" alt="ImmigrationReform" width="306" height="158" /></a>Congress is now in recess. We can now all exhale.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">While the media makes much of how members of both the Senate and House of Representatives have left Washington without accomplishing anything, I would offer a different perspective.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Let&#8217;s be fair: everyone who works is entitled to vacation &#8212; even members of Congress.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Here are some additional things to consider. When Congress is not in session they cannot do harm to America or Americans at the behest of their respective political party bosses or their deep-pocketed contributors or special interest groups and their lobbyist who promise to deliver blocks of votes.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">When members of Congress go home they will hopefully, take some time out to meet with their constituents. This is at least as important as having them convene hearings which, having testified before so many of those hearings, myself, I have often lamented that perhaps instead of hearings they should conduct “<em>listenings</em>.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">I often wonder how many people who are disdainful and contemptuous of Congress have ever actually met with, or attempted to set up a meeting with, his (her) elected representative. In all fairness, not unlike other people, members of Congress cannot read minds. Also, human nature being what it is, when politicians don&#8217;t hear from their constituents they may presume that their constituents are not particularly displeased with how they are being represented. In any event, the slogan “Out of sight-out of mind” certainly does apply.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Therefore a significant part of the blame for the mess America is in today can be traced back to lazy and uninformed citizens, who not only are likely to not vote, and do not make an effort to truly understand the issues. This is exacerbated by Americans who likely don&#8217;t even know the names of the politicians who are <i>supposed</i> to represent them on the city, state or federal levels, let alone contacted them to discuss their concerns and ideas.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">When we go to a restaurant we are generally very specific about the meal we want to eat and how we want it prepared. No one would walk into a restaurant and tell the waiter or waitress, “Just throw some crap on my plate you think I should eat, and I will gladly eat it!”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">If the meal that is served is not to our liking we will most probably send it back. If that doesn&#8217;t work, we are likely to “vote with our feet” and walk out the door of that restaurant and never return.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">We must be no less specific or demanding in articulating our concerns with our elected representatives as we are when placing an order with those waiters and waitresses.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Let&#8217;s now contemplate the accusation that the Congress has not accomplished much. I, for one, would actually take issue with this charge. Voting down bad legislation is not a failure to accomplish something, it is an example of using proper discretion to save us from some terrible legislation and the damage it would do to America and Americans.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The pressure is on for passage of Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Journalists on virtually every news program have been beating the drum for this legislative train wreck making all sorts of extravagant and wrong-headed claims about the wonders Comprehensive Immigration Reform and how much America needs it.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">To quote my late parents, “We need Comprehensive Immigration Reform like we need a hole in the head!”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">There are many who would profit from that legislation, but they are not the average American workers or their families. Indeed, American workers would be harmed by this legislation that would provide corporations with a virtually inexhaustible supply of cheap and compliant labor. While most people focus on how this program would provide unknown millions of heretofore illegal foreign workers with lawful status and official identity documents so that they could compete with tens of millions of unemployed or underemployed American and lawful immigrant workers &#8212; mostly for low paying jobs &#8212; Comprehensive Immigration Reform would also provide for many more H-1B visas which would apply downward pressure on wages and working conditions for highly educated and highly skilled American professionals such as computer programmers, engineers and technicians.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">I have addressed the issue about the profiteers of immigration in several articles I have written for a number of websites and publications including my previous article for FrontPage Magazine, <span style="color: #011480;"><a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/michael-cutler/immigration-reform-engineered-destruction-of-the-middle-class/">“Immigration ‘Reform’: Engineered Destruction of the Middle Class”</a> </span><span style="color: #011480;"><i>(</i></span><span style="color: #000000;"><i>The real reason high-tech titans are lining up behind the amnesty effort)</i> which was published on July 22, 2014.</span></p>
<p>Additionally, the winter 2014 edition of the quarterly journal, “The Social Contract” included my article: <a href="http://www.thesocialcontract.com/pdf/twentyfour-two/tsc_24_2_cutler.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">&#8220;American Dream Being Sold at Auction &#8211; America’s Middle Class to Be Put on Endangered Species List&#8221;</span></a></p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Congress acted wisely and did not accede to the demands of the “President who would be king.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">He has bullied and threatened to once again use his pen to write more executive orders and policy memoranda to circumvent the legislative process that is an integral part of how our democratic republic is to conduct business as per that document Obama taught his students when he was a college instructor, the Constitution of the United States.</p>
<p>On June 17, 2012 Fox News posted my Op-Ed, <a href="http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/06/17/obama-invokes-prosecutorial-discretion-to-circumvent-constitution-and-congress/"><span style="color: #386eff;">&#8220;Obama Invokes Prosecutorial Discretion to Circumvent Constitution and Congress.&#8221;</span></a> I wrote it in response to the speech the president made two days earlier in the White House Rose Garden when he addressed a press conference and claimed “prosecutorial discretion” to justify essentially enacting a temporary version of the DREAM Act without the benefit of legislation. In my article I stated that he had not used prosecutorial discretion but “prosecutorial <em>deception</em>.&#8221;</p>
<p>Perhaps he needs to be reminded that our government is a democratic republic and not a thugocracy.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In any event, a sufficient number of members in the House of Representatives refused to be bullied and resisted the extreme pressure applied by so many to pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform.</p>
<p>Most medical doctors take the “<a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic-oath-today.html"><span style="color: #386eff;">Hippocratic Oath</span></a>” when they graduate from medical school, to provide them with a moral compass to guide them in their practice of medicine, concerning how they will treat their patients.</p>
<p>“<b><i>I will keep them from harm and injustice.”</i></b></p>
<p>The classic version of that oath contains a sentence that should be added to the oaths of office for all of our elected officials, but rather than apply to patients, as it does for medical practitioners, it should apply to the constituents, the American citizens our politicians are elected to represent.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;"><span style="color: #000000;">Moreover, that elegant ph</span>rase also eloquently describes what must be the goals of all of our laws, especially our immigration laws where the citizens of this great nation are concerned.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Caroline Glick Briefs Capitol Hill on the Gaza War</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/caroline-glick-briefs-capitol-hill-on-the-gaza-war/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=caroline-glick-briefs-capitol-hill-on-the-gaza-war</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 31 Jul 2014 04:46:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Freedom Center's Israel Security Project Director explains the current conflict in terms of the failed two-state solution. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><em>Below is the video of Caroline Glick&#8217;s July 25th briefing on Capitol Hill on Israel&#8217;s Operation Protective Edge. The presentation is followed by a Q&amp;A session: </em></p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/m4Ki_C8JKzA" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Spending and Morality</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/walter-williams/spending-and-morality/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=spending-and-morality</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 08 Jul 2014 04:15:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[charity]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[morality]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spending]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=235828</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The curious practice of government theft for the "common good." ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Government-Money.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-235829" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Government-Money-426x350.jpg" alt="Government-Money" width="286" height="235" /></a>During last year&#8217;s budget negotiation meetings, President Barack Obama told House Speaker John Boehner, &#8220;We don&#8217;t have a spending problem.&#8221; When Boehner responded with &#8220;But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem,&#8221; Obama replied, &#8220;I&#8217;m getting tired of hearing you say that.&#8221; In one sense, the president is right. What&#8217;s being called a spending problem is really a symptom of an unappreciated deep-seated national moral rot. Let&#8217;s examine it with a few questions.</p>
<p>Is it moral for Congress to forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another? I believe that most Americans would pretend that to do so is offensive. Think about it this way. Suppose I saw a homeless, hungry elderly woman huddled on a heating grate in the dead of winter. To help the woman, I ask somebody for a $200 donation to help her out. If the person refuses, I then use intimidation, threats and coercion to take the person&#8217;s money. I then purchase food and shelter for the needy woman. My question to you: Have I committed a crime? I hope that most people would answer yes. It&#8217;s theft to take the property of one person to give to another.</p>
<p>Now comes the hard part. Would it be theft if I managed to get three people to agree that I should take the person&#8217;s money to help the woman? What if I got 100, 1 million or 300 million people to agree to take the person&#8217;s $200? Would it be theft then? What if instead of personally taking the person&#8217;s $200, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take the person&#8217;s $200? The bottom-line question is: Does an act that&#8217;s clearly immoral when done privately become moral when it is done collectively and under the color of law? Put another way, does legality establish morality?</p>
<p>For most of our history, Congress did a far better job of limiting its activities to what was both moral and constitutional. As a result, federal spending was only 3 to 5 percent of the gross domestic product from our founding until the 1920s, in contrast with today&#8217;s 25 percent.</p>
<p>Close to three-quarters of today&#8217;s federal spending can be described as Congress taking the earnings of one American to give to another through thousands of handout programs, such as farm subsidies, business bailouts and welfare.</p>
<p>During earlier times, such spending was deemed unconstitutional and immoral. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, said, &#8220;Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.&#8221; In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, Madison stood on the floor of the House of Representatives to object, saying, &#8220;I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.&#8221; Today&#8217;s Americans would crucify a politician expressing similar statements.</p>
<p>There may be nitwits out there who&#8217;d assert, &#8220;That James Madison guy forgot about the Constitution&#8217;s general welfare clause.&#8221; Madison had that covered, explaining in a letter, &#8220;If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one.&#8221; Thomas Jefferson agreed, writing: Members of Congress &#8220;are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare. &#8230; It would reduce the (Constitution) to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.&#8221;</p>
<p>The bottom line is that spending is not our basic problem. We&#8217;ve become an immoral people demanding that Congress forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another. Deficits and runaway national debt are merely symptoms of that larger problem.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Welcome to the Executive Dictatorship</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ben-shapiro/welcome-to-the-executive-dictatorship/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=welcome-to-the-executive-dictatorship</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 25 Jun 2014 04:40:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ben Shapiro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[constitution]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[regulation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tyranny]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=234825</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[America's elected tyranny. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/cons.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-234826" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/cons.jpg" alt="cons" width="255" height="203" /></a>The Constitution is dead.</p>
<p>Long live the executive dictatorship.</p>
<p>There is almost nothing the president of the United States cannot do. This week, we found out President Barack Obama&#8217;s IRS not only targeted conservative nonprofit applicants with impunity but then destroyed the emails that could have illuminated the process behind such targeting. Meanwhile, the attorney general — the executive officer charged with fighting government criminality — continues to stonewall an independent prosecutor, maintaining along with his boss that there is not a &#8220;smidgen of corruption&#8221; in the IRS.</p>
<p>On the southern border, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been converted from a policing agency to a humanitarian-aid agency, as the Obama administration encourages thousands of unaccompanied minors to flood Texas and Arizona. Those illegal immigrants are being shuttled around the southwest and released into the general population, and told by activists that they are just months away from amnesty.</p>
<p>Across the seas, Obama is unilaterally destroying America&#8217;s anti-terror infrastructure. Iraq has become the preserve of the al-Qaida offshoot ISIS and the Iranian-connected Shiite government — the specific outcome the United States originally wanted to avoid in the country. Afghanistan will soon devolve back into a Taliban-led cesspool for terror. And the Obama administration continues to fund a Palestinian government that includes terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and that has now kidnapped an American citizen, along with two other Israeli boys.</p>
<p>Nobody in the executive branch has been punished for Benghazi, Libya, Fast and Furious, serious national security leaks to major news outlets, violations of civil rights by the National Security Agency or any other major scandal.</p>
<p>The Obama administration has seized authority to regulate health care, carbon emissions and labor relations in unforeseen ways.</p>
<p>And no one will stop the executive branch. Impeachment will not solve the problem of a 3 million-strong regulatory branch in which accountability is a fantasy. The legislature has no interest in stopping the growth of the executive, given that legislators seek re-election by avoiding responsibility, and granting more power to the executive avoids such responsibility. And the judiciary seems unwilling to hem in the executive branch at all, given its decisions on the Environmental Protection Agency and Obamacare.</p>
<p>So what&#8217;s left? An elected tyranny in which the whims of the president and all of his men decide the fate of millions. The founders would have fought such a government with every fiber of their being — and, in fact, they did fight such a government. The question now is whether state governments, elected officials and the people themselves will be willing to take the measures necessary to do the same.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Why Obama Did the Prisoner Swap &#8212; on The Glazov Gang</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/why-obama-did-the-prisoner-swap-on-the-glazov-gang/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=why-obama-did-the-prisoner-swap-on-the-glazov-gang</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jun 2014 04:00:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=233538</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A glance into the heart of a leftist administration's darkness. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf"><img class="alignleft wp-image-233544 " src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/od-450x285.jpeg" alt="od" width="309" height="196" /><b>[Subscribe</b></a><strong> to <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong> it on </strong><a href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang"><b>Facebook.]</b></a></p>
<p>This week’s <em>Glazov Gang</em> was guest-hosted by Superstar <a id="js_158" href="https://www.facebook.com/josh.brewster.75" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=100000586693668">Josh Brewster</a> and joined by titans <a href="https://www.facebook.com/nonie.darwish.9" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=627756938">Nonie Darwish</a>, author of “The Devil We Don’t Know,” <a href="https://www.facebook.com/michael.hausam.1" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=1419257612">Michael Hausam,</a> a conservative writer and activist, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/karen.siegemund" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=100000631001262">Karen Siegemund,</a> founder of <a href="https://www.facebook.com/RageAgainstTheMedia">Rage Against the Media.</a></p>
<p>The Gang discussed: <em>Why Obama Did the Prisoner Swap, </em>analyzing the heart of a leftist administration’s darkness: <em><br />
</em></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/PY5W4m8rwgM" width="460" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>To watch previous <em>Glazov Gang</em> episodes, </strong><a href="http://jamieglazov.com/"><strong>Click Here</strong></a><strong>.</strong></p>
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		<title>The Return of Earmarks?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ian-smith/the-return-of-earmarks/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-return-of-earmarks</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 14 May 2014 04:20:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ian Smith]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[bills]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=225432</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ominous signals from Congress that groundbreaking reforms may soon be reversed. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/r620-921c71eafb5ae62d70f90f236fc7e7c3.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-225433" alt="r620-921c71eafb5ae62d70f90f236fc7e7c3" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/r620-921c71eafb5ae62d70f90f236fc7e7c3-450x329.jpg" width="360" height="263" /></a>Last week members of the Senate Republican Steering Committee met over lunch to discuss the potential revival of that long-gone facet of backroom politics: the congressional earmark. Given the Committee’s direct involvement in the Senate and House rule-making process and Harry Reid’s defense of earmarks on the Senate floor earlier that week, it’s perhaps time Americans were given a re-cap on the vileness that is earmarking.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">To remind, earmarking is the tailoring of certain pieces of legislation in order to reward targeted congressional members with federal spending in their districts and states. It is spending used solely to push narrow political interests, such as pet projects or awards to donors, rather than the interests of the broad American public. Because spending provisions that are earmarked are usually negotiated privately in congressional committees, where deals can be arranged to advance personal and political goals, the practice evades the usual procedures for public debate and expert review.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Because of an initiative started by President George W. Bush, which was later copied by President Obama, earmarking was banned in the House and Senate in 2010 and 2011, respectively. Since then, thanks to these moratoriums, this non-transparent and ethically questionable practice has pretty much ended and tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds have been saved.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The ban on earmarks was partly in response to the 2005 &#8220;Bridge to Nowhere&#8221; </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&amp;sid=aWA7joXO0bRk">debacle</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> which involved a fishing village on Alaska’s Gravina Island. Despite having a population of around 50 Tsimshian natives, inserted into that year’s transportation bill was a provision for the island to receive a 9,000-foot-long bridge, which, if then-Governor Sarah Palin hadn’t stepped in, would’ve cost taxpayers nearly a quarter of a </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">billion</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> dollars.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Your average politician’s voracious drive for re-election and desire to stay in office is what fuels these types of abusive projects. Describing his tenure as Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Don Young, the Representative for Alaska responsible for the &#8220;Bridge to Nowhere&#8221; earmark, said at the time of the controversy, “I’d be silly if I didn’t take advantage of my chairmanship… I think I did a good job.” Rep. Young is still in office and is no doubt supportive of an earmark revival.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It is key committee chairmen like Young who benefit most from earmarked spending, as they have the most power during bill mark-ups. Since chairman-roles are usually held by the most senior incumbents, the districts and states that get the big earmarked dollars generally depends on who has the most seniority and power in Congress. Young, in fact, is the fourth most senior representative in House. In a perverse feedback loop, the practice of earmarking leads to more support from constituents, which then leads to greater entrenchment of the incumbent, which leads to more and bigger earmarks. Breaking such a system is difficult and it explains why the practice persisted for many decades before Tea Party activism in the mid-2000s finally forced Congress to act. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">That earmarks help powerful, senior incumbents is worrisome, but most troubling is that earmarks lead to bad legislation. As House Speaker </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.examiner.com/article/speaker-boehner-bemoans-lack-of-earmarks-to-grease-highway-bill">Boehner</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> has noted, “You take the earmarks away and guess what? All of a sudden people are beginning to look at the real policy behind it.” By banning earmarks, our representatives have to consider whether the </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">entire</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> bill is good for their district and the country. This is of course what the Founders intended.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Notable is the connection the mainstream media routinely makes between congressional gridlock and &#8220;Tea Party intransigence.&#8221; The refrain from liberal pundits usually goes something like, &#8220;Obama’s forced to push through initiatives like amnesty because the Republicans in the House just can’t seem to control Tea Party extremists!” The more convincing explanation for this slowdown, however, is simply the current restraint on Committee members from earmarking for on-the-fence members. Without grease on the wheels the legislative machine does begin to slow down. But in a country that has on its books 4,000 federal criminal laws and counting, there is no urgency for new bills. It’s certainly better to have higher quality bills that are good for all the American people.  </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The caveat of course is that we have a lawless and tyrannical president who, because of a &#8220;gridlocked&#8221; Congress, feels the need to push through his own initiatives, just like he did with administrative amnesty. But as long as we force our representatives to stand up to the President, we can end such abuse, just like we ended earmarks.</span></p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
<p><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://horowitzfreedomcenter.us1.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=caa6f67f1482e6214d83be62d&amp;id=c761755bdf" target="_blank"><b>Subscribe</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> to Frontpage&#8217;s TV show, <i>The Glazov Gang</i>, and </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>LIKE</b></a><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"> it on </strong><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="https://www.facebook.com/glazovgang" target="_blank"><b>Facebook.</b></a></p>
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		<title>Rep. Tom Cotton: &#8216;We Will Not Leave These Four Men Behind’</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/rep-tom-cotton-we-will-not-leave-these-four-men-behind/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=rep-tom-cotton-we-will-not-leave-these-four-men-behind</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 12 May 2014 04:57:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=225336</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A congressman's harsh words for the Democratic Party's campaign to bury Benghazi. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Editor&#8217;s note: Below is the video of Rep. Tom Cotton&#8217;s (R-AR) response to his Democratic colleagues&#8217; reaction to the formation of the Benghazi Select Committee. Rep. Cotton&#8217;s stern remarks earned praise on <a href="http://twitchy.com/2014/05/08/we-will-not-leave-these-four-men-behind-rep-tom-cotton-schools-dems-on-benghazi-video/">social media</a>. </strong></p>
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		<title>Time for Truth &amp; Consequences on the Benghazi Cover Up</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/time-for-truth-and-consequences-on-the-benghazi-cover-up/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=time-for-truth-and-consequences-on-the-benghazi-cover-up</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 06 May 2014 04:58:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[cover-up]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=224846</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Will the American public finally get answers? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Hillary-Clinton-testifies-011.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-224849" alt="Hillary Clinton testifies" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Hillary-Clinton-testifies-011-450x270.jpg" width="315" height="189" /></a>As Hillary Clinton contemplates running for president in 2016, does she have dreams conjuring up the Benghazi tragedy and cover-up and repeating in her sleep, “What difference does it make?”  Even Lady Macbeth had her moment of guilt when, imagining a spot of the murdered Scottish king’s blood on her hand, she exclaimed: “Out, damned spot!”</span></p>
<p>Hillary just cannot get rid of the Benghazi stain on her record. Every time she thinks it is safe to go back into the water and leave Benghazi behind, another bit of the truth is revealed that calls into question the honesty of the Obama administration, including its former Secretary of State, about what happened before, during, and after the September 11, 2012 jihadist attack. And every time, we can count on spinmeisters in President Obama’s camp such as White House Press Secretary Jay Carney to say things like Benghazi is old news and that Republicans are engaging in unfounded conspiracy theories. Carney’s line sounds like a re-booting of Hillary’s old lament about vast right-wing conspiracies. We can also count on Democratic partisans like Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi complaining: “Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi! Why aren’t we talking about something else?” In another re-booting of a famous Hillary Clinton line, Pelosi is essentially asking &#8211; what difference does it make?  Isn’t it time that we just moved on?</p>
<p>The answer is that the truth matters. The American people have a right to know how their commander-in-chief and possible future commander-in-chief were handling the Benghazi crisis, which led to the first killing since 1979 of a U.S. ambassador in the line of duty. And certainly the families of the fallen Americans have a right to know the full truth in order to reach closure.</p>
<p>Speaker John Boehner announced last week that he will call for a vote to establish a new House select committee to investigate. Speaker Boehner has announced that his choice to lead the committee is former federal prosecutor Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.). What prompted this action was news last week that the administration had deliberately withheld from Congress a crucial e-mail written by a senior White House official just two days after the attack, which clearly shows it was the Obama White House that was playing partisan politics rather than telling the truth.</p>
<p>The State Department finally released the e-mail in response to a Freedom of Information request from Judicial Watch. The e-mail was authored by Benjamin J. Rhodes, the White House Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser at the time. Rhodes laid out the themes that then-U.S. ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, should emphasize during her five Sunday news talk program appearances on September 16, 2012. In the e-mail written two days before Rice’s appearance on the Sunday talk shows with the subject line, “RE: PREP CALL with Susan, Saturday at 4:00 pm ET,” Rhodes laid out one of the goals for Rice’s appearances: “To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.”</p>
<p>Among the top administration PR personnel who received the Rhodes memo were White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, then-White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, and then-White House Senior Advisor and political strategist David Plouffe.</p>
<p>Susan Rice dutifully followed the script, which we now know was not just the product of the much reworked CIA talking points. The White House had its fingerprints all over what Susan Rice was sent out to say to the American people. And let’s not forget that Susan Rice was part of Hillary Clinton’s State Department at the time. Clinton would have been the logical person to appear on at least some of the talk shows to explain what happened to a key ambassador under her command and to the other dead Americans in Benghazi, because she was directly in the loop as the crisis was unfolding. Rice – then serving as UN ambassador with no direct pipeline to Benghazi – was sent out instead. That made no sense unless the purpose was to deflect attention from what Hillary knew and when she knew it.</p>
<p>Indeed, it turns out that President Obama and his Secretary of State had a 10 PM phone call the night of the attack. Only two hours before that phone call, Clinton had been briefed by Gregory Hicks, the State Department’s No. 2 official in Libya at the time of the attack, who sensed that terrorists were carrying out a pre-meditated attack. A spontaneous riot in reaction to a video was not responsible for what was unfolding. Did Hillary accurately and completely convey what she had learned from Hicks to the president during her 10 PM call? Or did she use her long experience in evading the truth to help concoct a cover up that would blame the video?</p>
<p>Seasoned investigator and expert on terrorism <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/348677/10-pm-phone-call-andrew-c-mccarthy/page/0/1">Andrew C. McCarthy</a> reported last May about the 10 PM phone call and that “just a few minutes after Obama called Clinton, the Washington press began reporting that the State Department had issued a statement by Clinton” which referenced the video. As McCarthy explained:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Fraud flows from the top down… There is good reason to believe that while Americans were still fighting for their lives in Benghazi, while no military efforts were being made to rescue them, and while those desperately trying to rescue them were being told to stand down, the president was busy shaping the ‘blame the video’ narrative to which his administration clung in the aftermath.”</p></blockquote>
<p>Both President Obama and Hillary Clinton were invested in a narrative that deflected from the truth. Obama wanted to preserve the image during the election campaign, and for his legacy, that he had the terrorists on the run. Hillary wanted to make sure nothing would come out that called into question her preparedness for a terrorist attack with adequate security, which was not the case, and her crisis management capabilities. The last thing she wanted was anything that would undermine her own narrative of competence, as she had portrayed herself versus her Democratic primary opponent candidate Barack Obama in her 2008 3 AM White House Ringing Phone ad.</p>
<p>While Hillary surely does not want a new select committee to shine a light on her role in the Benghazi mess and cover up, Hillary has a bevy of loyal supporters who will protect her reputation at all cost. Democrats are already beginning to circle the wagons, charging that the plan for a new select committee is all about partisan politics. Jay Carney accused Republicans of engaging in a “highly partisan effort to politicize” the Benghazi attack and implied that the White House may not cooperate. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif, called for a boycott of the select committee. &#8220;I think it&#8217;s a colossal waste of time,&#8221; said Schiff, who is a member of the House intelligence committee. &#8220;I don&#8217;t think it makes sense, really, for Democrats to participate.&#8221;</p>
<p>If nothing else, such an attitude is an insult to the families of the fallen Americans. They did not get the truth at the memorial service attended by President Obama, Clinton and family members of the fallen heroes, which was was held at Andrews Air Force on September 14, 2012. And they have not gotten the truth since.</p>
<p>Consider the fact that on Sept. 12, 2012 – within 24 hours of the Benghazi attack -  Beth Jones, the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East, sent an e-mail to top State Department officials that reads in part: “[T]he group that conducted the attacks, Ansar al-Sharia, is affiliated with Islamic extremists.”</p>
<p>On September 13th, CNN reported that unnamed “State Department officials” said the incident in Benghazi was a “clearly planned military-type attack” unrelated to the anti-Muslim movie. &#8220;It was not an innocent mob,&#8221; one senior official was quoted by CNN as saying. &#8220;The video or 9/11 made a handy excuse and could be fortuitous from their perspective but this was a clearly planned military-type attack.&#8221;</p>
<p>Yet Hillary Clinton was continuing to propagate the falsehood that the video was the reason for the attack.  On September 14, 2012 – three days after the Benghazi attack – she was approached by the father of Navy Seal Woods at the memorial service. Clinton vowed to him that the Obama administration would “arrest and prosecute” the producer of the video. In her remarks at the service, she denounced the “awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with” as the cause of the violence. Either Hillary deliberately misled the grief-stricken father as to the real cause of the attack that took the life of his son, or she willfully turned a blind eye to what her senior officials had already said and what the State Department’s No. 2 official in Libya had told her on the night of the attack. As Navy Seal Woods’ father later said about his encounter with Hillary, “Even at that time, she was trying to place a spin on what happened.”</p>
<p>On September 27th – barely two weeks after Clinton’s vow to “arrest and prosecute” the video producer – Mark Basseley Youssef was arrested and held without bail on the trumped up grounds that he had violated his probation linked to a prior conviction for the non-violent crime of bank fraud. The day after Obama’s re-election victory lap, the scapegoat Youssef was sentenced by a federal district court judge to one year in prison for violating the terms of his probation. In August 2013, he was moved from prison to a halfway house to serve the remaining time of his sentence. The perpetrators who killed Ambassador Stevens and the three other Americans remain at large.</p>
<p>It wasn’t until Obama was safely inaugurated for his second term that Clinton showed up to testify before Congress. This is when she loudly proclaimed, in response to Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson’s request for her to explain how Americans were misled:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest, or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they&#8217;d go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make?&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Hopefully, the House select committee will finally get to the bottom of what happened. It will make a difference to the families of the four slain Americans who are still waiting for a true accounting of what really happened and why. It will also make a difference to expose the truth about the role played by a potential leading candidate for the presidency in 2016 – what Hillary knew and did before, during and after the Benghazi attack &#8211; so that she cannot remove from herself the “damned spot” of accountability in the court of public opinion.</p>
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		<title>The Constitution or Good Ideas?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/walter-williams/the-constitution-or-good-ideas/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-constitution-or-good-ideas</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 30 Apr 2014 04:10:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[welfare]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=224477</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Which should we be ruled by? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/constitution-2-SC.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-224491" alt="Stock Photo of the Consitution of the United States and Feather Quill" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/constitution-2-SC.jpg" width="341" height="226" /></a>Let me run through a few good ideas. I think it&#8217;s a good idea for children to eat healthful, wholesome foods. In the raising of our daughter, before-dinner treats were fresh vegetables, and after-dinner treats were mostly fruits.</p>
<p>I arrive at my gym sometime between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m., at least four times a week, to lift weights and use the treadmill. During the warmer months, the treadmill is substituted by a weekly total of 40 to 60 miles on my bike. My exercise regimen is a good idea. Another good idea is to wear a bike helmet while bike riding and wear a seat belt when driving my car. Among many other good ideas is the enjoyment of two, maybe three, glasses of wine with each evening meal.</p>
<p>You say, &#8220;So what, Williams? What&#8217;s your point?&#8221; There&#8217;s no question that all of those actions, with the possible exception of the last, are indeed good ideas. As evidence that my exercise regimen is a good idea, my doctors tell me that at 78 years of age, I&#8217;m in better health and conditioning than most of their male patients many years my junior. My question to you is whether these commonly agreed-upon good ideas should become the law of the land. To be more explicit, should Congress enact a law requiring every able-bodied American to lift weights four times a week and bike 40 to 60 miles each week? Just look at all the benefits of such a law. Americans would be healthier, and that would mean lower health care costs. People would have a longer working life. Men would have the strength to protect their women and children folk from thugs. In a word, there would be no downside to the fitter population that would come from a congressional law mandating physical fitness programs. We might title such a law the &#8220;Improving American Health Act.&#8221; The law would impose fines and penalties on any able-bodied person not found to be in compliance. What congressman would have the callousness to vote against such a beneficial measure?</p>
<p>Needless to say, there would be attacks against the Improving American Health Act, launched mostly by libertarians, conservatives and some Republicans.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">These people would argue that Congress has no constitutional authority to enact such a liberty-intrusive law. Their arguments would be on weak grounds. Our Constitution&#8217;s Article 1, Section 8 says, &#8220;The Congress shall have Power To &#8230; provide for the &#8230; general Welfare of the United States.&#8221; Our Constitution further empowers Congress to enact the Improving American Health Act by its Article 1, Section 3 — sometimes referred to as the commerce clause — which grants Congress the power &#8220;To regulate Commerce &#8230; among the several States.&#8221; After all, good health lends itself to more efficient interstate commerce and a larger gross domestic product. Sick Americans adversely affect interstate commerce and are a burden on economic activity.</span></p>
<p>I have no doubt that people who don&#8217;t want to see a healthier America — again, mostly libertarians, conservatives and Republicans — will bring suit before the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that Congress has no such authority under either the general welfare clause or the commerce clause. Would you prefer that Chief Justice John Roberts Jr., speaking for a majority, concur by saying, &#8220;This court is guided by the U.S. Constitution, and we find no constitutional authority for the Improving American Health Act, despite Congress&#8217; nonsense claims alleging authority under the general welfare and commerce clauses&#8221;?</p>
<p>Or would you prefer that Justice Roberts, speaking for the majority, engage in mental contortions in which he agrees that forcing people to exercise exceeds congressional authority under both the commerce clause and the general welfare clause but says the Improving American Health Act is indeed constitutional under Congress&#8217; taxing authority?</p>
<p>My bottom line question is: Should we be ruled by what are seen as good ideas or by what&#8217;s permissible by the U.S. Constitution?</p>
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		<title>Eric Holder&#8217;s Race-Baiting Attack on Congress</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/eric-holders-race-baiting-attack-on-congress/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=eric-holders-race-baiting-attack-on-congress</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Apr 2014 04:59:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=223190</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The attorney general's gambit of distraction. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Eric-Holder-AP.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-223191" alt="Eric Holder" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Eric-Holder-AP-450x315.jpg" width="315" height="221" /></a>U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder played the race card in front a friendly audience at the annual convention of Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, held in New York on April 9</span><sup style="line-height: 1.5em;">th</sup><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.  He complained that members of Congress seeking to hold him accountable for his gross dereliction of duty were engaging in “unprecedented, unwarranted, ugly and divisive” attacks on him and the Obama administration.  He delivered this poppycock a day after he sparred with Republican congressmen over his truth-challenged behavior.</span></p>
<p>“The last five years have been defined by significant strides and by lasting reforms even in the face, even in the face of unprecedented, unwarranted, ugly and divisive adversity,” Holder said. “If you don’t believe that, you look at the way — forget about me, forget about me. You look at the way the attorney general of the United States was treated yesterday by a House committee — has nothing to do with me, forget that. What attorney general has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment? What president has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment?”</p>
<p>Holder has only himself and the president whom he serves to blame. Their stonewalling makes Richard Nixon look like an amateur.</p>
<p>Holder wears a chip on his shoulder, using the excuse of race that he thinks entitles him and his boss to be insulated from any accountability. Indeed, Holder set his race-baiting tone very early in President Obama’s first term when he accused the American people of being &#8220;essentially a nation of cowards&#8221; in dealing with the race issue – just three months after the American people elected the nation’s first black president.</p>
<p>In 2011, during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on the voting rights case involving members of the New Black Panther Party who had intimidated voters at a polling location in Philadelphia, Holder justified the decision not to pursue their prosecution in racially charged terms:  “When you compare what people endured in the South in the ‘60s to try to get the right to vote for African-Americans, to compare what people subjected to that with what happened in Philadelphia … to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line for <i>my </i>people,” Holder said. (Emphasis added.)  Silly us for thinking that Holder was supposed to serve all of the American people as their Attorney General.</p>
<p>Holder has stonewalled any inquiries into what led to this decision, including refusing to address allegations that his Deputy Assistant Attorney General had instructed her subordinates to focus their civil rights investigations on black victims while ignoring white victims of racist acts.</p>
<p>Holder’s pattern of stonewalling has extended beyond just race-related cases. Operation Fast and Furious, the botched Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation which had put guns into the hands of members of drug cartels in Mexico, is a case in point. It was conducted in the hope that the ultimate destination of the guns could be traced. Instead, the guns were turned loose, resulting in the death of at least one U.S. federal agent, Brian Terry.</p>
<p>Holder first denied in 2011 that he or other senior staffers at the Justice Department had any prior knowledge of the operation. However, when evidence began to surface that he had in fact received memos about the operation as early as 2010, Holder began his evasive tactics that impeded a full-scale congressional investigation as to what exactly happened and at what levels of authority the operation had been sanctioned.</p>
<p>Holder was cited for contempt of Congress in 2012 for failing to turn over subpoenaed Justice Department internal emails relevant to a possible cover up of its knowledge of the Fast and Furious operation. Nearly two years later, he still nurses bitterness on how he was treated. During a testy exchange with Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) at a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on April 8<sup>th</sup>, after Gohmert alluded to Holder’s seeming dismissal of the significance of a contempt citation as his Justice Department continues to hinder congressional investigations, Holder angrily protested.</p>
<p>“You don’t want to go there, buddy,” Holder said with contempt of his own directed at a sitting congressman fulfilling Congress’s responsibility for legislative oversight of the Executive Branch. “You don’t want to go there, OK? You should not assume that that is not a big deal to me. I think it was inappropriate. I think it was unjust. But never think that was not a big deal to me. Don’t ever think that.”</p>
<p>Gohmert reminded Holder that his Justice Department “has still not been forthcoming in producing the documents that were the subject of the contempt.” Holder could not hold back his derision, sarcastically referring to a trivial gaffe that Gohmert had made at a hearing nearly a year ago rather than deal with the substance of his own continued failure to come clean about what he and his senior staff knew and when they knew it about the Fast and Furious operation and other matters.</p>
<p>“The American people have not been told the truth about what happened in Fast and Furious,” House Speaker John Boehner said on Thursday, denying that race had anything to do with Holder’s frosty reception at House hearings. He noted that the Obama administration has also not been “forthcoming” about other scandals. “We’ve been going through all of these hearings, having to hold people in contempt because they’ve made it impossible to get to the documents. They owe the American people the truth.”</p>
<p>To add insult to injury, Holder has been sitting on a supposed criminal investigation into the IRS scandal involving the alleged unfair targeting of conservative groups for special scrutiny of their applications for tax exempt status. Following the playbook of his decision not to appoint a special counsel to scrutinize what happened with regards to Benghazi, including the alleged “talking points” cover-up, Holder has refused to appoint an independent special counsel to investigate the IRS’s shenanigans. Holder continues to claim that the investigation of former IRS Exempt Organizations Division Director Lois Lerner and others, who may have been involved in the decision-making behind the targeting, is still on-going. He refuses to comment on any aspect of the investigation, including possible discussions between the Department of Justice and Lerner’s attorney regarding the grant of immunity for her testimony. Noting the criminal referral letter regarding Lerner that the House Ways and Means Committee decided to send Holder, Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC) advised Holder: “If you want to be taken seriously as a top law enforcement official in the country, you better handle this investigation in a way that generates public confidence.&#8221;</p>
<p>The problem with Representative Gowdy’s advice is that Holder’s boss, President Obama, had no such concern about an honest investigation of the IRS when he told Bill O’Reilly, during an interview held on Super Bowl Sunday, that there was “not even a smidgen of corruption.”  Had Obama already been briefed on the conclusions of the Department of Justice investigation or, alternatively, was he sending a message to his subordinate as to how he wanted the investigation to come out?  Either way, Holder’s refusal to appoint an independent special prosecutor is almost as scandalous as the IRS scandal itself.</p>
<p>Eric Holder has long gone past the date when he should have left office. This isn’t at all about race. It is about integrity and competence, applying the same high standard to all attorneys general, no matter what his or her race may happen to be. Holder has failed this test miserably and is a disgrace to the office of U.S. Attorney General.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>.</b></p>
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		<title>Governed by Rules, Not Men</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/walter-williams/governed-by-rules-not-men/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=governed-by-rules-not-men</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/walter-williams/governed-by-rules-not-men/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 14 Mar 2014 04:01:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[constitution]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[tyranny]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220997</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The only way to combat tyranny. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/law_hammar_xlarge.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-220998" alt="law_hammar_xlarge" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/law_hammar_xlarge.jpg" width="315" height="222" /></a>What kind of rules should govern our lives? I&#8217;d argue that the best rules are those that we&#8217;d be satisfied with if our very worst enemy were in charge of decision-making. The foundation for such rules was laid out by my mother. Let&#8217;s look at it.</p>
<p>My mother worked as a domestic servant. That meant that my younger sister and I often lunched at home by ourselves during our preteen years. Being bigger and stronger than my sister, I seldom divided the food evenly, especially the desserts. After a tiring day at work, Mom would be greeted by sob stories from my sister about my lunchtime injustices. Mom finally became fed up with the sibling hassles. She didn&#8217;t admonish me to be more caring, fair, sensitive and considerate. She just made a rule: Whoever cuts the cake (pie, bread, meat, etc.) allows the other the first selection. With that new rule in place, you can bet that when either my sister or I divided food, it was divided equally.</p>
<p>You say, &#8220;That&#8217;s a nice story, Williams, but what&#8217;s the point?&#8221; The point is that the principle underlying Mom&#8217;s rule is precisely the kind that is necessary for rules to promote fairness. In general, the rules that we should want are those that promote fairness, whether it&#8217;s our best friend or it&#8217;s our worst enemy who&#8217;s the decision-maker. In the case of Mom&#8217;s rule, it didn&#8217;t make any difference whether I hated my sister&#8217;s guts that day or she hated mine or whether my sister was doing the cutting or I was; there was a just division of the food.</p>
<p>Think for a moment about rules in sports, say basketball. One team loses, and the other wins, but they and their fans leave the stadium peacefully and most often as friends. Why? The game&#8217;s outcome is seen as fair because there are fixed, known, neutral rules evenly applied by the referees.</p>
<p>The referees&#8217; job is to apply the rules — not determine the game&#8217;s outcome. Imagine the chaos and animosity among players and fans if one team paid referees to help it win or the referees were trying to promote some kind of equality among teams.</p>
<p>Billions of dollars and billions of hours are spent campaigning for this or that candidate in our national elections. You can bet that people are not making those expenditures so that politicians will uphold and defend the Constitution; they&#8217;re looking for favors. The Constitution&#8217;s framers gave us reasonably fair and neutral rules of the game. If our government acted, as the framers intended, as a referee or night watchman, how much difference would it make to any of us who occupies the White House or Congress? It would make little difference, if any. It would be just like our basketball game example. Any government official who knew and enforced the rules would do. But increasingly, who&#8217;s in office is making a difference, because government has abandoned its referee and night watchman function and gotten into the business of determining winners and losers. Unfortunately, for our nation, that&#8217;s what most Americans want.</p>
<p>Thomas Paine said, &#8220;Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil.&#8221; Our Bill of Rights is an explicit recognition of the Founding Fathers&#8217; distrust of Congress. Just look at its language, with phrases such as &#8220;Congress shall not abridge,&#8221; &#8220;shall not infringe,&#8221; &#8220;shall not deny,&#8221; &#8220;disparage&#8221; and &#8220;violate.&#8221; If the framers did not believe that Congress would abuse our God-given, or natural, rights, they would not have used such language. If, after we die, we see anything like the Bill of Rights at our next destination, we&#8217;ll know that we&#8217;re in hell. To demand such protections in heaven would be the same as saying we can&#8217;t trust God.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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		<title>Black People Duped</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/walter-williams/black-people-duped/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=black-people-duped</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 04 Mar 2014 05:15:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Walter Williams]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=220221</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why political power hasn't solved black socioeconomic problems. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/obamaNAACP2.hero_.reuters.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-220226" alt="obamaNAACP2.hero.reuters" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/obamaNAACP2.hero_.reuters.jpg" width="270" height="221" /></a>People in the media and academia are mostly leftists hellbent on growing government and controlling our lives. Black people, their politicians and civil rights organizations have become unwitting accomplices. The leftist pretense of concern for the well-being of black people confers upon them an aura of moral superiority and, as such, gives more credibility to their calls for increasing government control over our lives.</p>
<p>Ordinary black people have been sold on the importance of electing blacks to high public office. After centuries of black people having been barred from high elected office, no decent American can have anything against their wider participation in our political system. For several decades, blacks have held significant political power, in the form of being mayors and dominant forces on city councils in major cities such as Philadelphia, Detroit, Washington, Memphis, Tenn., Atlanta, Baltimore, New Orleans, Oakland, Calif., Newark, N.J., and Cincinnati. In these cities, blacks have held administrative offices such as school superintendent, school principal and chief of police. Plus, there&#8217;s the precedent-setting fact of there being 44 black members of Congress and a black president.</p>
<p>What has this political power meant for the significant socio-economic problems faced by a large segment of the black community? Clearly, it has done little or nothing for academic achievement; the number of black students scoring proficient is far below the national average. It is a disgrace — and ought to be a source of shame — to know that the average white seventh- or eighth-grader can run circles around the average black 12th-grader in most academic subjects. The political and education establishment tells us that the solution lies in higher budgets, but the fact of business is that some of the worst public school districts have the highest spending per student. Washington, D.C., for example, spends more than $29,000 per student and scores at nearly the bottom in academic achievement.</p>
<p>Each year, roughly 7,000 — and as high as 9,000 — blacks are murdered.</p>
<p>Ninety-four percent of the time, the murderer is another black person. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. Contrast this with the fact that black fatalities during the Korean War (3,075), Vietnam War (7,243) and wars since 1980 (about 8,200) total about 18,500. Young black males have a greater chance of reaching maturity on the battlefields than on the streets of Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, Newark and other cities. Black political power and massive city budgets have done absolutely nothing to ameliorate this problem of black insecurity.</p>
<p>Most of the problems faced by the black community have their roots in a black culture that differs significantly from the black culture of yesteryear. Today only 35 percent of black children are raised in two-parent households, but as far back as 1880, in Philadelphia, 75 percent of black children were raised in two-parent households — and it was as high as 85 percent in other places. Even during slavery, in which marriage was forbidden, most black children were raised with two biological parents. The black family managed to survive several centuries of slavery and generations of the harshest racism and Jim Crow, to ultimately become destroyed by the welfare state. The black family has fallen victim to the vision fostered by some intellectuals that, in the words of a sociology professor in the 1960s, &#8220;it has yet to be shown that the absence of a father was directly responsible for any of the supposed deficiencies of broken homes.&#8221; The real issue to these intellectuals &#8220;is not the lack of male presence but the lack of male income.&#8221; That suggests that fathers can be replaced by a welfare check. The weakened black family gives rise to problems such has high crime, predation and other forms of anti-social behavior.</p>
<p>The cultural problems that affect many black people are challenging and not pleasant to talk about, but incorrectly attributing those problems to racism and racial discrimination, a need for more political power, and a need for greater public spending condemns millions of blacks to the degradation and despair of the welfare state.</p>
<p><b>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: </b><a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref%3dnb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n:133140011%2ck:david+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank" target="_blank"><b>Click here</b></a><b>. </b></p>
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