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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; executive</title>
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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>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 03 Dec 2014 05:54:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></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>Obama vs. Us</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/walter-williams/obama-vs-us/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-vs-us</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/walter-williams/obama-vs-us/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Nov 2014 05:35:14 +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=245393</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Have we reached the "post-Constitution" stage of our history? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2014-10-12-obama.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245394" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2014-10-12-obama-438x350.jpg" alt="2014-10-12-obama" width="332" height="265" /></a>Suppose you saw a person driving his car on the wrong side of a highway, against the traffic. Would you call him a stupid and/or incompetent driver? You say, &#8220;Williams, what kind of question is that? Of course he&#8217;s one or the other!&#8221; I&#8217;d say, &#8220;Hold your horses. What are his intentions?&#8221; If the driver&#8217;s intentions are to cause highway calamity, one can hardly call his actions stupid or incompetent. Given his intentions, he is wisely acting in a manner to achieve his objectives.</p>
<p>This observation lies at the heart of my colleague Dr. Thomas Sowell&#8217;s column last week, in which he says, &#8220;Pundits who depict Obama as a weak, lame duck president may be greatly misjudging him, as they have so often in the past.&#8221; After suffering an elective trouncing at the polls, President Barack Obama issued Congress an ultimatum, saying that if it doesn&#8217;t enact the kind of immigration law that he would like, he will unilaterally issue an executive order to change the nation&#8217;s immigration laws. This threat, along with other abuses of his office, is not a sign of presidential stupidity or incompetence.</p>
<p>Obama is doing precisely what he promised during his 2008 presidential campaign, to cheering and mesmerized crowds: &#8220;We are going to fundamentally change America&#8221; and &#8220;We will change America. We will change the world.&#8221; Obama is living up to those pledges by subverting our Constitution and adopting the political style of a banana republic dictator. He showed his willingness to ignore the Constitution when he eliminated the work requirement in welfare reform laws enacted during the Clinton administration. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, was enacted by Congress and hence is the law of the land. Obama has used executive orders to change the law on several occasions. Ask yourself whether our Constitution permits the president to unilaterally change a law enacted by Congress. For a president to do so is for him to behave like a banana republic dictator.</p>
<p>As Sowell says, &#8220;people who are increasingly questioning Barack Obama&#8217;s competence are continuing to ignore the alternative possibility that his fundamental values and imperatives are different from theirs.&#8221;</p>
<p>The recent elections, which gave Republicans control of both houses of Congress, clearly indicate a repudiation of much of Obama&#8217;s agenda. But the question is whether the Republican majority has the courage to act on that repudiation and stop the president from running roughshod over the Constitution. Because Article 1 of the Constitution grants Congress the power of the purse, there is not much a president can do without a budget appropriation. The question is whether Congress has the guts to exercise its power.</p>
<p>We can rightfully condemn the president for picking and choosing which laws of the land he will obey and which he won&#8217;t, in violation of the Constitution&#8217;s Article 2, but is his administration&#8217;s executive branch that much of an exception to the other branches of the federal government — the legislative and judicial branches?</p>
<p>The legislative branch is bound by Article 1 of the Constitution. Section 8 of Article 1 delineates the scope of congressional power to tax and spend. Nowhere within Article 1, Section 8 is Congress granted the authority to tax for at least two-thirds of the federal budget.</p>
<p>The courts are bound by the Constitution&#8217;s Article 3. Part of the courts&#8217; responsibility is to ensure that the executive and legislative branches of government uphold the Constitution. In that respect, the courts have been grossly derelict, particularly during and after the New Deal era.</p>
<p>Seeing as all branches of federal government ignore most of the provisions of the Constitution, I think we can safely say that we&#8217;ve reached the post-Constitution stage of our history. Washington politicians are not to blame. It&#8217;s the American people who&#8217;ve lost their love and respect for our Constitution. Washington&#8217;s politicians are simply the agents for that contempt.</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>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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		<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>A Legal Precedent for Executive Amnesty?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ian-smith/a-legal-precedent-for-executive-amnesty/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=a-legal-precedent-for-executive-amnesty</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Nov 2014 05:25:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ian Smith]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[executive]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Georgetown]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[A Georgetown Law confab makes the case for the president.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2329886714_0bfdbfbe73.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-244659" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/2329886714_0bfdbfbe73-450x337.jpg" alt="2329886714_0bfdbfbe73" width="315" height="236" /></a>C-SPAN recently aired footage of the 11th annual Immigration Law and Policy Conference held every year at the Georgetown University Law Center just off Capitol Hill. The confab’s always a &#8220;who’s who&#8221; of the open-borders, anti-sovereignty movement, from the immigration lawyers lobby to Hispanic chauvinist groups, and past keynote speakers have included such border insecurity-stalwarts as Chuck Schumer and John McCain.</p>
<p>This year’s big panel was on the “legal precedents” supporting President Obama’s forthcoming amnesty, led by Marc Rosenblum of the Migration Policy Institute, a pro-open borders, Carnegie-funded outfit. Rosenblum helped craft the 2007 McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill and he’s advised Obama on immigration policy in the past. In other forums, he’s also described America as a “nation of nations,” presumably because he thinks the country should no longer be an actual nation unified by language, culture and history.</p>
<p>Norm Ornstein, resident leftist at the American Enterprise Institute and Rosenblum’s fellow panelist, was more open about his views on transforming America. When speaking about the GOP’s voter base (“old white men”), Ornstein informed the audience that “older white men are a group you cannot trust.” Although this is normal discourse for the contemporary Left, it should still be a red alert for those who resist balkanizing the nation – watch the video from 01:06:30; send your complaints to Georgetown University, AEI, and the SPLC.</p>
<p>Rosenblum’s pro-amnesty presentation was essentially a lecture to attendees (majority law students) on why we should ignore the immigration laws on our books should. He proceeded to “justify” Obama’s forthcoming amnesty by pointing out five previous “executive actions on immigration” going back to the 1960s, which gave some degree of discretion to federal agencies in the management of deportations. To people who actually know immigration law, however, Rosenblum’s presentation was close to fraudulent.</p>
<p>Left out of his powerpoint was that of the five executive actions picked, four were illegitimate power-grabs by federal agencies which were later restricted or completely culled by Congress and the other wasn’t even an executive program at all, but one implemented by Congress. Each are addressed below. Rosenblum’s list actually turns out to be very useful for pro-borders advocates, as it shows a historical pattern of Congress pushing back against programs created out of thin air by the executive.</p>
<p>As Rosenblum first notes, the executive has in the past exercised so-called “parole authority” as a sort of mass refugee program for whole groups of illegals, like after Castro’s takeover of Cuba in 1960 when thousands of Cubans illegally residing in the US were granted permission to stay. But as was recalled in a recent court filing by the Immigration Reform Law Institute, the INS’s use of group parole had been in violation of the Immigration and Naturalization Act, which grants parole only in isolated, case-by-case situations. In the words of the court of appeals for the second circuit, Congress therefore clamped down on the practice in 1980 with the Refugee Act and again in 1996 with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) due to a “concern that parole &#8230; was being used by the executive to circumvent congressionally established immigration policy.”</p>
<p>Other programs justifying amnesty described by Rosenblum have followed a similar pattern. The still-current “Temporary Protected Status” (TPS) program, started in 1990, is basically a temporary refugee program that can apply to certain national groups when their country of origin becomes ravaged by war or suffers a natural disaster. But TPS was implemented by Congress, not the executive. In fact, Congress passed TPS in order to restrain the executive which had for years practiced a similar program on its own (through a program called “extended voluntary departure,” which Rosenblum also covered). Congress reacted by creating an “exclusive remedy” in the area of deportation-relief based on nationality, which was intended to tether by statute the executive’s potentially boundless application of deportation relief.</p>
<p>Another program Rosenblum uses, “deferred enforced departure,” merely sought to revive what the executive had been doing before TPS. The courts have described this program as essentially the same as TPS, although Obama extended deportation relief under the program to a group of Liberians living illegally in the US in 2011.</p>
<p>Finally, there’s “deferred action,” Rosenblum’s final justification for Obama’s unilateral amnesty. This program was an attempt by the executive to delegate to itself the authority to grant relief based on humanitarian reasons or reasons of convenience. Congress once again took back this authority with the 1996 passage of IIRIRA, and although DHS admitted in 2000 that the statute expunged deferred action, Obama cited it as an authority in 2012 when he unilaterally implemented the &#8220;Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals&#8221; program, which has twice been held unconstitutional in federal court and which was based on a bill (the DREAM Act) that was rejected 24 times in Congress.</p>
<p>Executive discretion for group-deportation relief has always been followed by Congress either rolling it back or regulating it under legislation according to Congress’s terms. That tension is now higher than it’s ever been.</p>
<p>Much of the motivation behind the executive actions Rosenblum lays out was probably explained as a natural power-grab from bureaucrats simply looking to expand their authority. But the motivation for amnesty today appears to be far more sinister. People like Obama, Rosenblum and Ornstein want to balkanize the nation, presumably out of distrust of “old white men.” And so serious is their drive toward this end, they’ll even ignore the letter and spirit of the law to get there.</p>
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		<title>Executive Tyranny: The Problem’s Bigger Than Obama</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/bruce-thornton/executive-tyranny-the-problems-bigger-than-obama/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=executive-tyranny-the-problems-bigger-than-obama</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 03 Feb 2014 05:40:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Thornton]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[executive]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[executive action]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=217782</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The roots of the president's imperial impulse. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2014-01-03T181130Z_1_CBREA021EJJ00_RTROPTP_3_USA-OBAMA-NEWSCONFERENCE.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-217821" alt="2014-01-03T181130Z_1_CBREA021EJJ00_RTROPTP_3_USA-OBAMA-NEWSCONFERENCE" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/2014-01-03T181130Z_1_CBREA021EJJ00_RTROPTP_3_USA-OBAMA-NEWSCONFERENCE.jpg" width="314" height="238" /></a>Barack Obama is threatening to bypass Congress and use executive orders to achieve the policy changes he can’t get through legislation. “We are not just going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we’re providing Americans the kind of help that they need,” he said during the State of the Union address. “I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone.” Here seemingly is one more item in the indictment of Barack Obama’s arrogant dismissal of the Constitutional order, and his contempt for mixed government.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But once again, the problem isn’t the ideology or personality flaws of Obama, as dangerous and extensive as those are. Obama is just a more extreme version of Progressive ideas permeating our politics for more than a century. The problem runs deep in our political order, and will require much more than just changing a few political personalities in order to restore the limited government and citizen self-government intended by the Founders.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The “imperial presidency” Obama that himself decried when George W. Bush was in power is a corollary of the expanded federal government that Progressives claimed was necessary to address the new economic and social circumstances brought about by an industrialized economy and social change. Only a big federal government could achieve the collectivist goals and utopian programs Progressives wanted to pursue, for as Progressive theorist Herbert Croly wrote in 1919,  “Only by faith in an efficient national organization, and by an exclusive and aggressive devotion to the national welfare, can the American democratic ideal be made good,” and “under existing conditions and simply as a matter of expediency, the national advance of the American democracy does demand an increasing amount of centralized action and responsibility.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Such a centralized enlarged government requires a chief executive much stronger than the President designed by the Constitution. He must be a “leader of men,” as Woodrow Wilson put it, and not just a political leader, but a transformer and creator of national opinion. Wilson’s further remarks suggest an attitude towards leadership closer to the Italian fascism of Benito Mussolini than to the Constitution, and looks ahead to the messianic aura and rhetoric that has characterized Democrats like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and worst of all, Barack Obama. “Whoever would effect a change in a modern constitutional government,” Wilson wrote in 1887, “must first educate his fellow-citizens to </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">want</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> some change. That done, he must persuade them to want the particular change he wants. He must first make public opinion willing to listen and then see to it that it listen to the right things. He must stir it up to search for an opinion, and then manage to put the right opinion in its way.” Rather than policy rising from the various interests of the people and communicated through their representatives, now it will be imposed from above by a wiser “leader of men” who better knows than the people do what “right things” are good for them.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This is a vision of Presidential leadership far different from the Constitution’s chief executive, who ceded the law-making power to Congress, and who acted as a check and balance on the excesses of that branch of government. Wilson believed such a limited executive was unsuitable for the new challenges the country was facing.  It now needed a president more powerful than the Constitution’s chief executive, who was limited to being “only the legal executive, the presiding and guiding authority in the application of law and the execution of policy . . . He was empowered [by the veto] to prevent bad laws, but he was not to be given an opportunity to make good ones.” Now the responsibility of the president to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” as the Constitution put it, must be revised and expanded to </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">making</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the laws, according not to the people but to the powerful executive’s notion of what defines good laws. Sounds pretty much like what Obama has been doing and threatens to keep on doing.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Equally foreign to the Constitution is Wilson’s notion that government “is a living, organic thing, and must, like every other government, work out the close synthesis of active parts, which exist only when leadership is lodged in some one man or group of men.” Further contradicting the Constitution’s structure based on mixed government and on balancing and checking clashing passions and interests, Wilson writes, “You cannot compound a successful government out of antagonisms.” Thus we must “look to the President as the unifying force in our complex system, the leader both of his party and of the nation.” The Constitution recognized the various conflicting interests of the people, and sought only to keep one faction from dominating over another and limiting individual freedom by seizing control over the coercive power of the federal government. The Progressives, in contrast, want to aggrandize more and more central power in order to unify the national interests as they define it, and smooth out those messy, inefficient factional rivalries in order to achieve the improvement that “some one man or group of men” have decided is best for the country.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">These un-Constitutional attitudes toward a powerful executive have been constant among Democrats and even occasionally some Republicans. What Obama has been doing during his presidency with his “pen and phone” is novel only in its brazen scope, nakedly political motivations, and blatant disregard for Congressional prerogative. But in spirit it is consistent with the Progressive movement’s impatience and disdain for the Constitution, its belief that a giant federal government armed with coercive regulatory power requires a stronger, if not messianic, President, and its assumption that technocrats of superior wisdom and virtue are better placed to determine the people’s best interests than are citizens and their representatives. Most Democrats today share the same assumptions, particularly Hillary “It takes a village” Clinton.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This history, moreover, reminds us just how far gone all of us are in accepting uncritically these assumptions. The </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Weekly Standard</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">’s Jay Cost, for example, recently offered advice for those seeking “an equality agenda.” He says all the right things about the dysfunctions of a federal government held hostage to special interests and bureaucratic corruption. His solution is to “focus on empowering individuals directly, rather than via bureaucrats or interest groups. Block grants to state and local governments (where the citizenry can exercise greater control), vouchers, and easily accessible tax credits are all ways to level the economic playing field as well as the political one, for they all can empower individuals to make their own life choices.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">All these ideas are infinitely better than anything Obama has proposed for solving income inequality. But why even concede that “income inequality” is a problem at all, or that an “equality agenda” is a legitimate concern of the federal government? After all, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, the federal government doesn’t “empower individuals,” people, families, and civil society do. The federal government just needs to get out of the way, and leave people the freedom to rise to whatever level their talents, hard work, virtue, and luck can take them. And it is naïve to think that the feds will give states and people a dime without attaching their own conditions and rules. Jay Cost is one of the smartest political commentators around, but he cedes too much to the anti-Constitutional agenda to “solve problems” by amassing power at the expense of individual freedom.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Obama is just the extreme version of a widespread belief among many in both parties that an enormous, intrusive federal regulatory and redistributionist regime is necessary for “solving problems” that in fact are best left to individuals and state and local government. The only argument between the parties these days is over the amount and pace of expansion––spending, for example, $800 billion on food stamps over the next decade rather than $808 billion. This belief in problem-solving big government is more insidious and thus in the long run more dangerous than Obama’s “pen and phone.”</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>
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		<title>The Democrats&#8217; Threat to &#8216;Go Nuclear&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/will-dems-go-nuclear/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=will-dems-go-nuclear</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Jul 2013 04:57:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Progressives plot to dramatically shift constitutional powers to Obama. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/100817_obama_reid_ap_605.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-196624" alt="100817_obama_reid_ap_605" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/100817_obama_reid_ap_605-450x312.jpg" width="270" height="187" /></a>Yesterday, in an angry speech given on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/07/reid-mcconnell-filibuster-nuclear-option.php">warned</a> he would go &#8220;nuclear&#8221; and change the Senate rules in order to end filibusters on President Obama&#8217;s executive branch nominations. “Senator [Mitch] McConnell broke his word,” Reid fumed. “The Republican leader has failed to live up to his commitments. He’s failed to do what he said he would do&#8211;move nominations by regular order except in extraordinary circumstances. I refuse to unilaterally surrender my right to respond to this breach of faith.” Reid can sanctimoniously frame this effort any way he wants, but his real agenda is to dramatically shift power to the executive office, a move that President Obama is anxious to exploit to impose his radical policies through bureaucratic means.</p>
<p>Invoking the nuclear option would be a <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/07/harry-reid-mitch-mcconnell-nominations-94013.html">two-step</a> process. First, Reid would push through the rule change itself with a simple majority, instead of the 67 votes it currently requires. After that, ending a filibuster would only take a 51-vote majority, rather than the current 60-vote threshold. During his speech, Reid <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/07/reid-mcconnell-filibuster-nuclear-option.php">cited</a> Republican efforts to delay the nominations of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and CIA Director John Brennan. Republicans have promise to filibuster Richard Cordray, along with other nominees for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), unless Democrats are willing to limit the power of that agency. “It is a disturbing trend when Republicans are willing to block executive branch nominees even if they have no objection about the qualification of the nominee,” Reid said. “They’re blocking qualified nominees because they refuse to accept the law of the land.”</p>
<p>The law of the land is a slippery term when it comes to Democrats in general and this administration in particular. In January 2012, President Obama <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/11/reid-prepares-senate-end-nomination-filibusters/">attempted</a> to implement an unprecedented use of recess appointment powers to install people at the CFPB and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), despite the reality that the Senate was not in recess at the time. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit <a href="http://www.policymic.com/articles/24233/obama-recess-appointments-court-says-they-re-unconstitutional">ruled</a> against the president, calling the move unconstitutional. On June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court <a href="http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/24/supreme-court-will-rule-on-constitutiona">announced</a> it would hear the case, <i>National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning,</i> which will determine the scope of executive recess appointment power. If the Court rules in favor of the president, it would essentially eviscerate the Senate&#8217;s role in vetting presidential nominees.</p>
<p>But Reid is threatening to eviscerate this power of the Senate himself by curtailing the ability of minority members to conduct filibusters. Yesterday he emerged from a closed-door meeting with the Democratic Caucus and reiterated his threat, warning the GOP to drop its objections to the president&#8217;s appointments for both the NLRB and the CFPB. “[W]e have the votes to move forward on this,” Reid told reporters.</p>
<p>Maybe not. As of now, Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Mark Pryor (D-AK) refuse to go along with the idea, while Sens. Patrick Leahy (I-VT)), Max Baucus (D-MT) and Jack Reed (D-RI) remain undecided. Since Democrats have 54 senators, such defections could scuttle Reid’s plans. In the event of a 50-50 tie, Vice President Joe Biden gets to cast the tie-breaking vote. Biden has indicated he would side with Reid.</p>
<p>The roster of pending nominations <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/07/nuclear-summer-filibuster-wars.php">include</a> three individuals for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, five for the NLRB, three for CFPB (including Cordray), Labor Secretary nominee Tom Perez and EPA nominee Gina McCarthy. “I’m going to start the process today,” Reid <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/07/reid-mcconnell-filibuster-nuclear-option.php">said</a> Thursday. “We’re going to file cloture on a bunch of nominations. And those votes will occur next week.”</p>
<p>Sen. McConnell, clearly upset by Reid&#8217;s speech and accusations, noted that it was Reid who breached an <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/01/reid-promises-no-rules-changes-without-gop-consent.php">agreement</a> made last January not to make any Senate rule changes without following the regular order. McConnell was equally upset by Reid&#8217;s threat. “I just hope the Majority Leader thinks about his legacy, the future of his party, and most importantly, the future of our country before he acts.” McConnell warned. “Senate Democrats are gearing up today to make one of the most consequential changes to the United States Senate in the history of our nation. And I guarantee you, it is a decision that, if they actually go through with it, they will live to regret.”</p>
<p>That assessment has a familiar ring. The hypocritical Harry Reid made almost identical pronouncements in 2005 when Republicans had control of the Senate and Democrats were engaged in the process of repeatedly blocking former President George W. Bush’s nominees for the federal courts. Republicans also considered implementing the nuclear option at the time, but backed away when the bipartisan “Gang of 14” emerged to facilitate the nomination process. As Reid bemoaned at the time,</p>
<blockquote><p>For the past several months, the Senate has operated under a nuclear cloud. As a result of the Senate’s decision to reject a small number of President Bush’s judicial nominees, the Republican majority has threatened to break the Senate rules, violate over 200 years of Senate tradition and impair the ability of Democrats and Republicans to work together on issues of real concern to the American people.</p></blockquote>
<p>Now that Reid is in control, he has changed his tune. But his sudden change of heart is disingenuous. McConnell, who characterized Reid&#8217;s accusations of Republican obstructionism as an “absolutely phony, manufactured crisis,” revealed that at least two of the nominees opposed by Republicans, McCarthy and Perez, can already garner more than the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster. What is really behind Reid&#8217;s about-face, McConnell <a href="http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/mcconnell-mccarthy-perez-have-votes-to-be-confirmed">illuminated</a>, is that the Democrats and their Big Labor backers &#8220;want &#8230; the Senate to ratify the President’s unconstitutional decision to illegally appoint nominees to the NLRB and the CFPB without the input of the Senate.&#8221;</p>
<p>The reasons for that is fairly obvious. Much of Obama&#8217;s agenda is DOA in Congress, and installing apparatchiks, who will implement his un-passable policies administratively, will allow the president to bypass Congress and impose his will by fiat. As for the far Left and Big Labor, which overwhelming represents government unions, their agenda has been seriously undermined by the aforementioned D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, along with a slew of other stunning successes for free market labor policies, including Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker&#8217;s victory limiting the power of government unions and the previously unimaginable right-to-work law recently enacted in Michigan. In short, the government union lobby senses its waning influence and is desperate to secure an avenue of power by whatever means necessary &#8212; and it knows that the window of opportunity may be closing.</p>
<p>The NLRB is one such powerful perch that radical labor activists hope to infest. Think back to the board&#8217;s 2011 attempt to <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/transportation-report/labor-employment/198399-labor-board-withdraws-boeing-complaint">dictate </a>where Boeing airlines could do business, which it did in order to placate Boeing’s labor unions in Washington State. If NLRB members are not confirmed by August, the board will <a href="http://legalnewsline.com/news/federal-government/242747-members-of-congress-tell-mcconnell-to-stop-blocking-nlrb-nominees">cease</a> to function, leaving labor decisions to regional NLRB offices.</p>
<p>As for some of the other nominees, CFPB nominee Richard Cordray would be a disastrous choice to head the consumer protection agency birthed by the Dodd-Frank comprehensive financial reform bill. As Bloomberg News reported in 2011, Cordray was an enthusiastic <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-18/obama-s-pick-for-consumer-agency-has-record-of-fighting-banks.html">supporter</a> of Empowering and Strengthening Ohio’s People (ESOP) during his stint as state treasurer. ESOP is a left-wing guerrilla activist group with a penchant for <a href="http://spectator.org/archives/2011/12/05/richard-cordrays-heroes-occupy">storming</a> banks and private residences.</p>
<p>EPA nominee Gina McCarthy was one of disgraced former EPA head Lisa Jackson&#8217;s top lieutenants and <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323478004578306313547424452.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop">author</a> of some of that agency&#8217;s most economy-crushing carbon rules. As the <i>Wall Street Journal</i> notes, McCarthy &#8220;has been a notably willful regulator, even for this Administration. Her promotion is another way of saying that Mr. Obama has given up getting Congress to agree to his anticarbon agenda, especially given the number of Senate Democrats from coal or oil states.&#8221;</p>
<p>Thomas Perez may be the most radical nominee of all. Prior to his nomination for Secretary of Labor, Perez was the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Justice Department, where he was a more-than-willing <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/03/21/Progressive-Radical-Record-of-Labor-Nominee-Tom-Perez">perpetrator</a> of that agency&#8217;s radical and racially polarizing agenda. His efforts included wars against photo ID for voting, attacking banks for not granting enough mortgages to “people of color,&#8221; (reprising the same tactics that led to the financial collapse of 2008), and suing state fire and police departments for not hiring black applicants who failed employment tests.</p>
<p>These are the nominees Obama needs to install by any means necessary if he is to have any hope of expanding his radical agenda while there is still time left. McConnell made the intentions of Reid and his fellow Democrats clear. “They want the power, and they want it now. They don’t care about the consequences,” he contended. He spoke to <i>Politico</i> regarding what may happen next. “We’ve requested a meeting of all Senators. We haven’t had one of those this year,” he said. “This is a matter of extreme importance to the institution and the country, and we think we ought all get together to discuss. We’re happy to do that as soon as possible.”</p>
<p>Reid said he’d consider such an idea: “I’m happy to have a joint meeting &#8230; I want this resolved, and I want it resolved one way or the other.&#8221;</p>
<p>When working towards that resolution, Harry Reid would be very wise to remember one of the oldest political adages ever: what goes around, comes around. Despite their current hubris, Democrats will not control the levers of power forever. They need to think long and hard about the <i>long-term </i>consequences that would arise from the recklessness of invoking the nuclear option &#8212; lest they become victims of their own making at some future point in time.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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