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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; house</title>
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		<title>An Ominous Omnibus</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/an-ominous-omnibus/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=an-ominous-omnibus</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/an-ominous-omnibus/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Dec 2014 05:49:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cromnibus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Government]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obamacare]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[omnibus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247245</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The mammoth spending bill would fund amnesty and Obamacare --- and could be voted on today.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/boehner-mcconnell.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247246" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/boehner-mcconnell-407x350.png" alt="boehner-mcconnell" width="329" height="283" /></a>A mammoth spending bill aimed at preventing a repeat of the last government shutdown is coming under heavy fire from conservative groups for green-lighting President Obama&#8217;s executive immigration amnesty and continuing to fund Obamacare.</p>
<p>Republicans in Congress are inexplicably rushing through a catch-all $1 trillion-plus spending bill to prevent the government from running out of money at midnight tonight. The measure, which would keep the government funded through the end of the federal fiscal year (Sept. 30, 2015), is being called a <i>cromnibus</i>, which is a portmanteau of <i>CR</i>, as in continuing resolution, and <i>omnibus</i>, as in omnibus legislation.</p>
<p>The measure contains hundreds of policy provisions including a new prohibition on the legalization of marijuana in the District of Columbia and new funding to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the Ebola virus in West Africa. It would continue funding two wildly unpopular Obama initiatives, Obamacare and President Obama&#8217;s extra-legal immigration amnesty. The Department of Homeland Security would be funded only for a few months, allowing lawmakers to delay a fight over amnesty until springtime.</p>
<p>&#8220;Importantly, the bill does nothing to block President Obama&#8217;s unilateral, unlawful actions which include granting quasi-legal status, work permits and Social Security numbers to those who are in the country illegally,&#8221; said Heritage Action for America spokesman Dan Holler.</p>
<p>&#8220;I suppose we shouldn&#8217;t be surprised that it&#8217;s taken the Republicans all of 35 days to drop that ball in spectacularly disappointing fashion,&#8221; Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots said in a statement. &#8220;Make no mistake, this bill DOES fund Obama&#8217;s executive amnesty, and so much more.&#8221;</p>
<p>The measure makes sure that illegal aliens benefiting from Obama&#8217;s amnesty receive Social Security benefits and spends almost $1 billion to help illegals integrate into communities across the country. It also blows apart the budgetary ceilings agreed upon by House Budget Committee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and Senate Budget Committee chairman Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.).</p>
<p>There is, of course, no reason for Republicans to pass in a frenzied rush an all-encompassing bill funding almost all of the federal government. They could easily draft a stopgap spending bill to carry them over to January when Republicans will control both chambers of Congress and have greater bargaining power in negotiations with President Obama.</p>
<p>But conservative critics say House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have ulterior motives. Using the boogeyman of an impending government shutdown to keep lawmakers in line, the GOP leadership has been generating a false sense of urgency in order to get the omnibus legislation through. Boehner and McConnell, they say, have no intention of repealing Obamacare, so they are kicking the can into 2015.</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’ 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. On Nov. 4 the GOP flipped control of the 100-seat U.S. Senate, winning 54 seats. The House GOP increased its majority, winning at least 246 out of 435 seats.</p>
<p>Opposition to the spending measure has grown steadily since the bill was unveiled Tuesday night but Republican leadership in the House says it is confident it can get the bill passed.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, 10 grassroots conservative groups have <a href="http://mobile.wnd.com/2014/12/grassroots-revolt-10-conservative-groups-call-for-boehner-mcconnell-to-resign/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">signed a letter</span></a> demanding that Boehner and McConnell be removed from their posts for collaborating with the president on amnestying 5 million illegal aliens.</p>
<p>William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, said the pending bill betrays the values held by more than 70 percent of the people who cast ballots in the congressional elections last month.</p>
<p>“They’re mocking the public, and it’s a huge deception. We can’t allow that deception to prevail. What we need right now is, we need the phones ringing off the hook,” said Gheen. “Word in D.C. is Boehner is hell-bent on getting his plan through to help Obama with the budget, and American citizens out there now have less than 48 hours to respond and take action to change that.”</p>
<p>&#8220;Christmas has come early for the big spenders in Congress who have been experiencing long-term withdrawal from the earmark ban,&#8221; said Andy Roth, vice president of government affairs at the Club for Growth (a group that did not sign the letter). &#8220;This 1,603-page bill provides a &#8216;fix&#8217; for these jonesing politicians who carry water for their special interest buddies.&#8221;</p>
<p>A final vote on the spending legislation could come today.</p>
<p>Members of organized labor have come out against the bill. Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa Jr. <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/12/10/BLOOD-IN-THE-WATER-TEAMSTERS-JIMMY-HOFFA-JR-TO-CONGRESS-KILL-THE-OMNIBUS-BILL"><span style="color: #0433ff;">railed</span></a> against the measure because it &#8220;will slash the pensions of thousands of retirees who worked years for a pension that they thought would provide them financial security in their retirement years. That promise is now busted.”</p>
<p>“To add insult to injury, this Omnibus bill compromises highway safety by rolling back Hours-of-Service regulations, allowing truck drivers to work more than 80 hours per week – twice the normal 40-hour work week,” Hoffa added.</p>
<p>Yesterday House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi expressed reservations about the measure. “Once more, Republicans are working to stack the deck for the special interests against everyone else,” Pelosi said. She continued:</p>
<blockquote><p>Buried in the more than 1,600 pages of the omnibus package Republicans posted in the dead of night are provisions to put hard-working taxpayers back on the hook for Wall Street’s riskiest behavior. This provision, allowing big banks to gamble with money insured by the FDIC, opens the door to another taxpayer-funded bailout of big banks – forcing middle class families to bear the burden of Wall Street’s mistakes.</p></blockquote>
<p>Even Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), normally a hyper-partisan member of the Democratic leadership, now opposes the bill. He is opposed to the proposed increases in caps for individual donors in elections that was slipped into the omnibus legislation.</p>
<p>Some of the more extreme left-wing members of Congress such as Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/warren-leads-liberal-democrats-rebellion-over-provisions-in-1-trillion-spending-bill/2014/12/10/c5c915e4-80b5-11e4-9f38-95a187e4c1f7_story.html"><span style="color: #0433ff;">are opposed</span></a> to the omnibus for their own ideological reasons.</p>
<p>Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), currently the fringe-left favorite for the 2016 presidential nod, called the bill &#8220;the worst of government for the rich and powerful.&#8221;</p>
<p>The measure would ease some restrictions on derivatives trading which Warren says would help Wall Street and big banks. On the Senate floor she offered a self-serving version of history, saying the bill “would let derivatives traders on Wall Street gamble with taxpayer money and get bailed out by the government when their risky bets threaten to blow up our financial system.”</p>
<p>“These are the same banks that nearly broke the economy in 2008 and destroyed millions of jobs,” she said, ignoring the role that meddlesome regulations and left-wing public policies played in inflating the mortgage bubble that deflated around that time.</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>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>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/rep-louie-gohmert-how-conservatives-defeated-the-amnesty-bill/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 08 Dec 2014 05:36:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Frontpagemag.com]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bill]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[louie gohmert]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=246956</guid>
		<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>Midterm Election: What Just Happened?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/frontpagemag-com/midterm-election-what-just-happened/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=midterm-election-what-just-happened</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Nov 2014 05:53:03 +0000</pubDate>
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		<description><![CDATA[An all-star panel discusses what to expect in 2016 and beyond at Restoration Weekend. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong style="color: #232323;">Below are the video and transcript to the panel discussion &#8220;Midterm Election: What Just Happened?&#8221; 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/112390545" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>Richard Baehr:</strong> Let me start in response a little bit to what Ben said last night where he broke down the urgent versus the necessary. Obviously, election matter because the last six years I think have done real damage, and we lost very badly in 2006, both the House and the Senate. 2008 it got even worse. Also lost the presidency and terribly wide margins for the Democrats in both the House and the Senate. Made a comeback in 2010, moved back 2012, made some progress again this year, and now we have control of the Congress, but in the two years we have left with Obama in the White House, in a sense we have a blocking action. We&#8217;ll have some discussion later about what we can achieve positively and how clever we can be, but losing elections really does matter and yes, changing the culture matters too, and that&#8217;s a longer-term proposition, but we really can&#8217;t afford to lose the next presidential election and then have essentially the judiciary locked up for the next 25, 30 years under the control of the Democrats as well as the political election cycle.</p>
<p>Start with the big issue of whether the Republicans, based on what happened this year, can win a presidential election, and this comes down to what I call the demographic argument, and I want to throw out a comparison of two presidential elections, 1988 and 2012. 1988 was the last presidential election a Republican won when most of the media and the Democrats thought the Republicans had a lock on the Electoral College. George Herbert Walker Bush beat Michael Dukakis 40 states to 10, 426 electoral votes to 112, won by 8 percent in the popular vote, 54 to 46, but the interesting thing is, if you look at the breakdown between the votes of white voters and nonwhite voters in that election, Bush won by 20 percent among white voters and lost by 66 percent among non-white voters. In 2012 you have exactly, exactly the same breakdown in terms of white voters and non-white voters. Romney won by 20 percent among white voters and lost by 66 percent among non-white voters. The difference is in 1988 whites were 86 percent of those who voted in the presidential election and in 2012 they were 72 percent. When you change 14 percent and you take away a 20 percent margin among those 14 percent, a positive margin for your side, and replace it with a 66 percent margin for the other side, those 14 percent produced a 12 percent shift in margin. Instead of an 8 percent victory for Bush over Dukakis, Obama beat Romney by 4 percent. All right? Every 1, 2 percent shift has that impact at this point, assuming the numbers stay the same.</p>
<p>Now, the good news is the Republicans are improving their performance slightly among white voters. They won by 22 percent in 2014, and they did substantially better among minority voters. Instead of losing by 45 percent among Hispanics, they lost by roughly 26, 27 percent. They almost broke even among Asian voters after losing that group by 45 percent in 2012. The exit polls showed they won among Native Americans. That doesn&#8217;t make a whole lot of sense to me, but I think that may be some of the massaging that Pat Caddell talked about. The African Americans who voted 96 to 3 in 2008 for Obama and 93 to 6 in 2012 this time in the congressional elections was 89 to 10. It may not seem like a big deal, but it is a big deal. When George Bush was elected in 2004, the black vote was 88 to 11. That&#8217;s a huge difference from 96 to 3 or 93 to 6. All right? In fact, in 2004 to 2008 Bush won by 3 million votes, Obama won in 2008 by 9½ million votes. That&#8217;s a 12½ million shift in margin. Half of it, half of it was in increased turnout, substantially increased turnout among African Americans and the huge victory margin they gave of 93 percent margin as opposed to 77. Okay?</p>
<p>The Obama team knew what they were doing. They knew who would vote for them, and they got them registered, and they brought them to the polls. That&#8217;s a good thing they did for their candidate. All right? They knew who their voters were, and they got them to register, and they got them to vote, and they had the mechanics to monitor who was voting on election day and who hadn&#8217;t, and getting to the votes with early voting and so on. Okay? Republicans did better in the ground game this time, but still probably not up to where we need to be to win a presidential election.</p>
<p>So what were the demographics? I mean, if you think about it for a second, last year in the United States, actually for the last two years, 50 percent of the live births went to whites, 50 percent to non-whites. Let&#8217;s assume you look 30, 40 years out and you assume we have a country where the white vote goes for 22 percent. Remember, these are all citizens; they&#8217;re all born here. 22 percent for the Republican and the non-white vote, which is 50 percent, goes by 50, 55 percent to the Democrats. You balance those out, you average them out, what do you have? California. The nation has become California in terms of its electoral mix. What if you get the 2014 numbers, which are better. Republicans did better among whites. They won by 22 percent. They lose among minorities by say 45 to 50 percent. Then you get Oregon. Or maybe Minnesota. Okay? You got a shot in a good year, but doesn&#8217;t look very good.</p>
<p>The good news is the shift in the birth rate is not reflected in the shift in the mix of those who are voting to the same extent. Hispanics were 8 percent in 2006, they were 8 percent in 2010, they were 8 percent of the vote in 2014. Given that they are by far the fastest-growing group in America, that suggests that even with the Hispanic vote being obviously a pro-Democratic vote, if that vote grows much more slowly than is anticipated and grows to 10 percent, 12 percent, 13, and Republicans can keep their losses to 20 percent, you do not have the demographic nightmare which was forecast for the Republican Party in a book in 2002 by John Judis and Reed Teixeira, who called it the emerging demographic majority for the Democrats because of A) growing minority vote and B) growing percentage of white voters who are college educated who are more open and receptive to Democrats than non-college-educated white voters are who are the Republicans&#8217; strongest base.</p>
<p>Turns out that white college-educated voters move from election to election and can get disgusted if they think their taxes are going up and their services are going down or if they see things that they&#8217;re unhappy about, so it&#8217;s not a lost cause, but it would be silly not to recognize some of the trends that are underway in American society. This country is changing faster demographically than any country in Europe, and we&#8217;ve had books by Mark Steyn and others talking about how Europe is gone and it&#8217;s going to be 50 percent Muslim and those countries are going to disappear. The United States&#8217; demographics is changing much faster than any of those countries, and that&#8217;s with a replacement birthrate here at almost 2.1. We&#8217;re just a little bit below that. In Europe they&#8217;re much below that. They&#8217;re bringing in people. Their actual native population is declining.</p>
<p>So this is a shift and it&#8217;d be silly &#8212; Republicans have to do better with all groups. That&#8217;s the message I&#8217;d have, and do better with all groups means less pandering and more having a national American message, which is exactly I think what Pat Caddell was talking about today. I could not agree with him more. If the Republican Party simply is part of the governing majority and it&#8217;s a little bit less liberal than the other party, you sort of have the political parties in Great Britain. They are all locked in, essentially, to the same situation.</p>
<p>Now, let me talk again: Some good news this year in the elections. Republicans, the charge was, well, it&#8217;s a favorable nap in the Senate. You had all these Senate seats in red states that Romney had won big. There were 36 governors&#8217; races, and 22 of them were in states that Obama had carried. Republicans did not win red state governorships. They won in Maryland, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Maine. I have a summer home in Maine. One of the biggest wins of the night for me, because there&#8217;s probably no more detested character on the left than the governor of Maine, who is an abused child, one of 18 children. You talk about a rags to riches story. Look up Paul LePage on Wikipedia and read his life story, and it will match what you heard before in the previous talks about someone making something of their life and dealing with a tough situation and overcoming it. Maine Public Radio had a suicide watch out for all of their listeners on election night. They called for grief counselors, but unfortunately the grief counselors were all their listeners. They had to bring them in from Northern New Hampshire. There were seven Republican grief counselors in Northern New Hampshire.</p>
<p>Anyway, in the House of Representatives, I disagree a little bit with Pat, but for the most part he&#8217;s correct. Republicans probably left six, seven, eight seats on the table this year, but their maximum, given essentially the current mix of the populations and how people vote, is probably not a lot higher than 260, and they will probably get to 248, 249, 250 after those last few recounts are done in Arizona and New York, California, and you have the two runoffs in Louisiana. By the way, Louisiana Senate, first poll on the runoff, Cassidy is 16 points ahead of Mary Landrieu, so say goodbye to Mary.</p>
<p>There is something to having a national message, if you&#8217;re a national political party, and the Republicans again, why I say there&#8217;s sort of a limit, 260, 265, you&#8217;re not going to do much better. The Republicans did a great job redistricting, which is why winning the governorships in 2018, winning state legislative seats in 2020 is so crucial to maintaining that for the next ten years. I mean, in Ohio, Republicans have 12 of the 16 House seats. They have 13 of the 18 House seats in Pennsylvania, 9 or 14 in Michigan, 9 of 13 in North Carolina. Those are not deep red states. I mean, essentially what&#8217;s happened is the Democrats want their minority voters concentrated, and the Republicans cooperate, so they give them seats where Democrats had enormous numbers of wasted votes. They win by 80 to 20 in their seats. Republicans win a lot of other seats by 55/45, 60/40. All right?</p>
<p>So, and I want to say this very clearly. For the purposes of what you&#8217;re going to hear over the next few days, I&#8217;m not saying the Republicans are the good guys, but they&#8217;re our side at this point, and it&#8217;s our side versus the other side, and I would prefer our side wins. Okay? And getting the right people on our side obviously matters, and getting better candidates for our side matters, but we did well this year as a party and conservatives are in better shape for the Republicans having won control of both Houses than if they had remained in a minority on the other side.</p>
<p>One last thing. You hear a lot of talk about this blue wall. Republicans can&#8217;t win the White House. They can&#8217;t win the White House because the Democrats have won enough states in the last six presidential elections to get 242 electoral votes. All right? So Republicans gotta win pretty much every toss-up to be able to get elected President. Well, Republicans were 206 this time. Add Florida, Virginia, and Ohio you get to 266. Those are three states Republicans have to win to win the presidency. If they can&#8217;t win those three states they&#8217;re not going to win the presidency. All right? But then you have a bunch of other states. There are seven or eight states from Iowa, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, which was only a 5 percent state, New Hampshire, Colorado. Republicans can put together a win nationally at the White House and for once they&#8217;ll be running against a candidate who may be older than the Republican, and the Republicans may not be nominating someone who ran before and lost, which has been six of their last seven nominees. All right? That seems to be how you get nominated for Republican. Run once and lose. So put together a younger candidate, someone with a fresh face, someone with ideas and I don&#8217;t think 2016 is a dead issue. Thank you.</p>
<p><strong>Ron Radosh: </strong>This election, the midterm election, was not a vote for conservatism or the Republican Party. It was a vote against President Barack Obama, that the whole populace and the America people were really fed up with, and look at the minuses that Obama had: the handling of the Ebola crisis, the handling of Obamacare, the lies about Obamacare, his entire foreign policy collapse where his whole approach to the Middle East has gone up in flames. Everyone can see that Obama, in virtually domestic and foreign policy, I would say he&#8217;s actually the worst president that we&#8217;ve had certainly in the 20th century on. I think history will show, if the liberals on the left stop writing history and get some conservatives in there, at least, that Obama will be in the middle or on the bottom and nowhere near the top, as the greatest president, as a good president. He&#8217;s not in the ranks of an FDR or a Lincoln or a Reagan. He will be at the bottom.</p>
<p>So this midterm election really should come as no surprise. The presidency is something very, very different, and here&#8217;s what I think the problem is. The Republicans have to have a few different things if they are going to win. First, they have to understand that they must get votes from and appeal to the white working class, young people, Hispanics, African Americans. They have to broaden their approach and realize that they have to make inroads in groups that traditionally have not voted Republican in a long, long time. They can make these inroads, but to do that the Republicans have to have the message that they are a Big 10 party. They are not going to impose an ideological uniformity where if you don&#8217;t have either the most conservative position or if you disagree on tactics with some conservatives, that you are therefore not a conservative and not a Republican. They have to realize that everyone is not going to agree on every issue within the Republican Party, and the party has to begin trying to change its message to appeal to some of the groups whose votes they need.</p>
<p>Now, here is where Rand Paul sees part of the picture. Now I&#8217;m an opponent of Rand Paul. I think he would be a disaster. I think he&#8217;s trying to hide it by calling himself a realist, but he has an isolationist or a non-interventionist position very close to that of his father. That would be a disaster for America as well as the Republican Party. But the one thing Rand Paul has understood has to be done is a broad outreach to African Americans showing that the Republican Party has something to offer the African American community. In fact, has a great deal more to offer them than the Democratic Party, whose Great Society programs have collapsed and have proved to be an utter failure. So Rand Paul understands that. Secondly, Rand Paul has been making a great outreach to young people, and young people are attracted to a lot of his libertarian message. I don&#8217;t agree, again, with all of the libertarian message or proposals of the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, but Paul is reaching them and getting the big turnouts on campus because he understands the need for a new kind of message and reconsideration of old views.</p>
<p>Now, let me raise as an example here, the attitude towards gay marriage. Social conservatives have, for reasons that I respect, drawn a strong case against gay marriage as being good for society. My friend Robbie George, the Princeton professor of politics and perhaps the nation&#8217;s leading social conservative, has made a compelling case against gay marriage. But as I said to them, the tipping point is over. It&#8217;s a done deal. None of your arguments, as good as you and people who agree with you make them out to be, it&#8217;s over. The fight has been lost. You can&#8217;t change the fights that have been lost. There have been polls taken of young Republicans. I think a poll I read said that about 80 percent of young Republicans who consider themselves conservatives support gay marriage. The tide has changed. If the Republican Party can&#8217;t come out for gay marriage because they have to hold the party together, at least they can unite and work in areas in which both factions of the party agree to end discrimination against gay people. That has to be an opening in that position and a shift, or the Republican Party is going to lose young Republicans and young conservatives as well. I think that&#8217;s a hard truth, and it has to be accepted.</p>
<p>Secondly, let me give you another example, and here I&#8217;m going to quote from Michael Gerson&#8217;s recent column in the Washington Post about John Kasich. Now John Kasich has done tremendous things. Here&#8217;s what Gerson writes, and I&#8217;ll ready the quote. Kasich, he writes, deserves the award for the best performance in a battleground state. Yet Kasich won a majority of union voters, three-fifths of female voters, a majority of voters under the age of 30, two-thirds of Independents, and one quarter of African American voters. That is an incredible statistic for a real conservative. Now let&#8217;s say hypothetically John Kasich or someone who has his kind of positions got to be the Republican nominee. Are conservatives going to stand against such a person merely because he moved in one direction other Republican conservative governors did not move? That is, accepting the expansion of Medicaid and accepting the government funds to do that while other conservatives who were governors voted against it and stood firm against that? Kasich believes, right or wrong, that a program exists to help the poor who deserve help for health insurance, that that was a necessary step. In other words, he dissented from traditional conservative positions on one issue. To a lot of conservatives, that makes Kasich beyond the pale. I think you can&#8217;t do that. For a party that wants to broaden its appeal, it has to agree that not everyone is going to agree with what most people think are conservative principles. On one or another specific issue a conservative can feel a different approach has to be taken, even if it goes against the sentiment or the viewpoint of other conservatives. We have to accept that kind of diversity and try to understand why someone like a John Kasich, who is a conservative, disagrees and does something else in his own state. So there&#8217;s that to consider.</p>
<p>Secondly, let me finish with this thought. I think that one also has to stop demanding all or nothing. I think some of the arguments coming from the Ted Cruz faction or from Cruz himself of the Republican Party, and you heard Ted here last year. He&#8217;s a very intelligent man, brilliant intelligence. Both Robbie George and Alan Dershowitz said he was the best student they ever had, but I think Ted Cruz is wrong in a lot of his tactics, making extreme tactics the equivalent or the mark for being a conservative. Cruz has been making some noise recently about maybe we should close down the government again and not accept certain things that Republican leadership seems to be accepting. I think that&#8217;s wrong and dangerous.</p>
<p>Now, let me quote one conservative who said this. If you read Commentary Magazine you saw it in the cover story by Peter Wehner, and I forget who coauthored it. I think it might be Yuval Levin. But they have this quote from a conservative leader, who said, &#8220;True believers on the Republican right prefer to go off the cliff with flags flying rather than take half a loaf and later come back for more.&#8221; Now you know who said that? Anybody? Yes, it was Ronald Reagan, and Reagan understood that one has to make compromises. For example, in 1964 Reagan campaigned very strongly against Medicare. In 1980 he said we have to accept the fact Medicaid is popular. It passed with votes from both Republicans and Democrats. We can&#8217;t undo Medicare or spend any time attacking it. It&#8217;s here to stay. Reagan adopted to reality. There are some things we can&#8217;t change. We have to pick our fights closely, fight where we can win, and fight not only getting conservatives to vote for us, but getting centrist and disaffected Democrats. We have to create, as Reagan managed to do, a new generation of Reagan Democrats. They&#8217;re there waiting to be taken back into the fold. The midterm elections showed that. We have to remember that as we go forward to 2016. Thank you.</p>
<p><strong>Matt Kibbe: </strong>Saving Pat Roberts, $12 million. Rescuing Mitch McConnell in very Republican Kentucky, $50 million. The look on Harry Reid&#8217;s face sitting next to Barack Obama two days later, priceless. If you haven&#8217;t seen that picture, please print it and frame it and put it over your desk. You know, I think Pat Caddell and Richard delivered some of the buzzkill facts about what happened in the last election, but I think we should do a victory lap first, and we all know about the Senate. In some ways I think that was the least important victory, and let me just point out a couple things that happened. We&#8217;ve talked about new Republican governors. There were at least 350 new Republican seats picked up in state legislatures. Tim Scott, one of my favorite senators, is the first black American to win in the south since Reconstruction. Some of you will remember that Tim Scott was in fact the Tea Party candidate in a very crowded House Republican primary who ran on issues, who ran on something called the Contract from America against Strom Thurmond&#8217;s grandson. Someone should tell Mother Jones the story about how it is that the Tea Party is expanding what it is the Republican Party looks like in 2014, which brings up, of course, Mia Love.</p>
<p>The story in the House, I think, is more compelling. Let&#8217;s give a shout out to Mia Love. I first met Mia Love when she was still a mayor in the State of Utah, and if you&#8217;re talking about expanding the demographics of the GOP, consider this. Black, woman, conservative, Tea Partier, Mormon. That&#8217;s pretty cool, huh? Someone send a memo to Mother Jones on that one too. But you know the House got more conservative. It got more liberty minded, and yes, the House majority grew but we also picked up seats like Mia Love&#8217;s which is a Democratic pickup. Bruce Poliquin in Maine, who is another liberty-minded fiscal conservative, and also Rod Blum in Iowa. This is a seat that Republicans should not have picked up. These are candidates that ran on something other than &#8220;I&#8217;m not Barack Obama.&#8221; There may be a lesson in there.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s at least touch on the down side here. The turnout in 2014 compared to 2010 was down 8 million voters. Now imagine what we might have done with a couple million votes at the margin in some of these battleground states. In 2010 we had much higher turnout among self-identified Independents, self-identified Tea Partiers, and self-identified conservatives. All of those voters showed up less in 2014 than they did in 2010. Interestingly, registered Republicans, or at least self-identified Republicans, went up a little bit, 1 percent according to a Wall Street Journal poll. I think that sort of punches a hole in this mythology that somehow Tea Partiers and conservatives are the Republican base. I think it&#8217;s better described that there are people that vote based on issues, not party affiliation. Someone should send that memo to Reince Priebus. You&#8217;re allowed to clap. It&#8217;s cool. So that&#8217;s the good news.</p>
<p>That was good stuff, and we need to be careful about the lessons for 2016 because I think, if you go to Nebraska, one of my favorite senators that will be coming in 2015, of course, is Ben Sasse in Nebraska. Now, if you compare Ben&#8217;s performance in Nebraska to what happened in Kansas, these states are fairly comparable in terms of size, in terms of massive Republican advantage. Pat Roberts struggled until the last minute to win in a state that we shouldn&#8217;t have spent a dime in. Ben Sasse spent far less money, and he won by 34 points. Now how did that happen? Anyone who was paying attention to this race should remember that Ben Sasse not only ran against Obamacare, he actually put together a very specific plan on what he would do to dismantle and replace Obamacare with a patient-driven system. You didn&#8217;t see that much amongst Republican candidates. Ed Gillespie actually did something similar at the last minute in Virginia, and you might argue that that was where he got his last-minute surge. I don&#8217;t have data to prove that point, and I won&#8217;t necessarily be able to defend it, but it&#8217;s something to check out, but Ben Sasse comes to the U.S. Senate as a one-man think tank that actually has ideas that were proven on the campaign trail on how we are going to manage Obamacare now that it is law, now that it has destroyed the individual market, now that it has radically expanded Medicaid rolls. We need more than &#8220;I&#8217;m not Barack Obama&#8221; to solve this problem, and this goes back to the 2010 analogy.</p>
<p>In 2010 there was a crowd-source document some of you will remember. It was called the Contract from America, and it was modeled after Newt Gingrich&#8217;s 1994 contract with one important difference. It wasn&#8217;t designed in Washington, D.C. It was crowd-sourced from millions of Americans who were asked, and Freedom Works was intimately part of this process. We actually had the audacity to ask Americans what they thought Washington should do, and so you came up with a ten-policy plank platform that not only Tim Scott ran on in South Carolina, but a vast majority of the Republicans that won in 2010 on a positive, specific, bold agenda. That&#8217;s where that came from.</p>
<p>Maybe that&#8217;s a lesson for 2016. The good news, and we&#8217;ve heard all the bad news, and I agree with all of the analysis on demographics and how an off-year election is fundamentally different than a presidential election. The good news is that we can actually fix this if we look at where the ideas are coming from in the House and the Senate Republican caucuses. It&#8217;s not coming from the top. It&#8217;s not coming from leadership. It&#8217;s coming from the bottom up, and perhaps that&#8217;s appropriate given who we are and what we believe. We think the genius of America comes from our communities, not from Washington, D.C., not from the top down. We are not Democratic apparatchiks that wait for someone to tell us what to do, right? This is why herding individualists is a lot like herding cats. But in the age of the Internet there&#8217;s a lot more of us than there are of them. If you go to the very long tail of the Internet where the decentralization of information – do you guys remember when Walter Cronkite used to tell you &#8220;that&#8217;s the way it is&#8221;? You couldn&#8217;t go on Google and fact check him, could you? You couldn&#8217;t set up an RSS feed and get multiple sources of information that told you that what the three networks were spoon feeding you was just not true. That doesn&#8217;t exist anymore, and even the New York Times is scrambling for eyeballs online in a very decentralized world where good information gets to people at lower marginal costs all the time. This is the new normal. This is the opportunity for Republicans that have enough faith in their ideas that they&#8217;re actually going to talk about big bold ideas going into 2016.</p>
<p>When Pat Robertson was in trouble in Kansas, did he call John McCain to come rescue him? Who did he call? Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. Where are the ideas coming from in the Republican Party? Mike Lee just became the chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, which Jim DeMint turned into the Republican Senate Think Tank a few years earlier. Mike Lee is another one-man think tank. He&#8217;s the guy that&#8217;s actually not only sober in his analysis but bold in his willingness to put good ideas on the table. We should learn a thing or two from Mike, and by the way, the GOP establishment is preparing to primary him in Utah in 2016. We should not let that happen.</p>
<p>I think Republicans mostly succeeded in 2014 by not being Barack Obama. This is not a very good long-term strategy, but if we would embrace the idea that good ideas can actually engage people that are interested in ideas, not party affiliation, and connect with Independents, connect with young people who are more liberty minded, there&#8217;s nothing but potential here, but the GOP needs to get comfortable with the fact that they&#8217;re not in charge anymore. You think about the vaunted Obama Get Out the Vote machine, for all of its decentralization it was fundamentally dependent on a cult of personality from someone at the very top of the pyramid dictating this is what we&#8217;re going to do, people waiting for their marching orders. You cannot do that with Republicans, and if you try they will take your head off. You can&#8217;t do that with libertarians. You can&#8217;t do that with Tea Partiers. They rightly believe that they&#8217;re in charge, and the moms that have Facebook pages all over American, Tea Party moms that are bigger than county GOPs, they&#8217;re in charge now.</p>
<p>So the question is what is the party going to do to tap into this massive decentralized network of people that should be constituents of Republican candidates? Don&#8217;t take them for granted. Don&#8217;t tell them what to do. Engage them on a set of values and ideas that are compelling. Now this is not necessarily completely like what you would argue Ted Cruz is doing. I think there are a lot of big bold ideas, positive ideas, Reaganesque ideas that cut across party lines. One is yes, we do need to repeal Obamacare, but we need to replace it with something, right? And if Republicans were good they would put that on the president&#8217;s desk. If they can&#8217;t do that, they should repeal the individual mandate. It is completely unjust. It is completely screwing our young people, and it has bipartisan support. There was a House vote where 30 Democrats crossed across the aisle. Another interesting subject is criminal justice reform, including asset seizure, sentencing reform. These are things that Rand Paul has worked on that again creates bipartisan majorities. They would put the president in quite a bind if he chose to veto things like that, and most importantly, embrace the chaos of a beautiful decentralized community that will show up if you stand for something and will stay home if you don&#8217;t. Thank you very much.</p>
<p><strong>Richard Baehr: </strong>I just want to make one quick note. To follow up with what Matt said. At this point in time, the Republican Party, which is of course the old people&#8217;s white people&#8217;s party, there are more statewide elected officials which means senators or governors, minorities in the Republican Party than there are in the Democratic Party. There are five versus four. The Republicans will put up a candidate and it doesn&#8217;t matter whether they&#8217;re Hispanic or Black to run statewide or Asian, and they&#8217;ll win if the voters, and particularly in those states where a lot of Republican voters like their ideas. Tim Scott proves that. Democrats will only put up their candidates, minority candidates, in safe minority districts. They will not risk essentially what&#8217;s going on statewide, and that&#8217;s why they have so few. If they are the overwhelming choice, they should be putting up more state nominees and they don&#8217;t.</p>
<p><strong>Matt Kibbe: </strong>Just one more comment on what Rand Paul is doing. I was on a panel recently with Richard Viguerie and he described libertarians as the fourth leg of what has now become a Republican table. Not, no longer the traditional stool where you had social conservatives, defense conservatives and fiscal conservatives. I do think that&#8217;s true particularly with young people, and we should be careful not to disenfranchise all of these crazy liberty kids that can be unruly. They can be loud. Remind me a lot of exactly what I was like when I was their age. This is an opportunity, and I think that the party made a huge mistake at the convention in 2012 by disenfranchising Ron Paul delegations. It wasn&#8217;t like Ron Paul was going to win the nomination. They would have been smarter to embrace a very broad community that includes the liberty agenda as part of that.</p>
<p><strong>Tom Lifson: </strong>I&#8217;ll use the moderator&#8217;s prerogative to agree with Matt. I live in Berkeley, California believe or not, and when Rand Paul came to campus it was electric. Nobody has been screwed worse by Obama than the young demographic. Nobody has been screwed worse by the education establishment than the young demographic, who are graduating college with debt that can&#8217;t be discharged in bankruptcy. So there is an opportunity there for the Republicans, if we&#8217;re willing to take it. Okay. Throwing it open to questions. Over there.</p>
<p>Next Speaker</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member:</strong> I&#8217;d like to challenge some of the things that I heard from Ron Radosh, I&#8217;ve heard these from others as well, that the Republican Party somehow has to become more like the Democrat Party. We have to be for amnesty. We have to be for gay marriage. We have to be for all of this left-wing social agenda and it&#8217;s because of these palecon social conservatives that we are losing elections. I can say as a Republican candidate in a blue state, Maryland, first for Congress I was the Republican nominee in 2012 against Chris Van Hollen and again this year as a lieutenant governor candidate in a primary in Maryland where we ultimately won the governor&#8217;s race in a blue state, nobody saw that coming, that social conservative issues are big winners. And we have to be true to our social roots and our conservative roots. I campaigned an awful lot in Hispanic churches. I can tell you this is a demographic we are told by the political consultants that is not supposed to vote Republican. They were overwhelming going to vote Republican, and why were they going to vote Republican? Because we were against gay marriage, we affirm that marriage was between one man and one woman, and that is the way it always has been. That is a natural fact. You cannot legislate marriage and destroy biology. It does not happen.</p>
<p>Young people understand. And even in the Hispanic community they understood the argument which I put forward boldly and frankly and openly looking people in their eyes that we exist in a nation of laws. And the reason that many Hispanics came to this country was to escape countries where there was not a rule of law, and do you want to go back to dictatorship, which is what you fled from &#8212; or do you want to live here in a country with rule of law?</p>
<p>So I think, I would challenge you that we should not be abandoning our social agenda. We can perhaps express it differently. I&#8217;ll give you that. Yes, we could express it differently. We can put a more positive spin on it, not a restricted spin on it. But a lot of social conservatives stayed home. Many of them in minority communities, and these are votes that could be big winners for us, if we stay true to our values. Thanks.</p>
<p><strong>Ron Radosh: </strong>I&#8217;m not saying you and other social conservatives should not stay true to their values. I did not say the Republican Party should endorse gay marriage. I don&#8217;t think it should. I think it should allow in its ranks those who believe that gay marriage is right, and those who believe it is wrong. To take a position on this kind of issue is going to lose a lot of young people. And they are overwhelmingly in favor of gay marriage. Now you can try and educate them for your point of view, argue with them, present solid arguments as to why marriage should just be between a man and woman. That&#8217;s fine. But for the party to come out on one or another side of this would be disastrous. It&#8217;s going to put into oblivion. I think there are common issues. One other comment I wanted to make that I forgot to say, about ideas. And I agree with a lot of what Matt said. There is that group what they call the Young, the YG project, Young Guards?</p>
<p><strong>Matt Kibbe: </strong>Young Guns.</p>
<p><strong>Ron Radosh: </strong>Young Guns.</p>
<p><strong>Matt Kibbe: </strong>Yeah.</p>
<p><strong>Ron Radosh: </strong>And they put out a book filled with ideas. There are great theorists. Like my two favorite ones are conservative intellectuals Yuval Levin and James Capretta. You&#8217;ve seen Capretta a lot on Fox News. They have drawn up serious arguments for how to not just say replace, get rid of Obamacare, but how to replace it with a solid program that gives real healthcare on market-based principals. They have thought about this. I think all political leaders have to look at the various arguments in their book, that is free online, and take these, a lot of their ideas into consideration, and if you&#8217;re in office as Republican in the state or national level, see if you can work with some of these people to fashion legislation to present based on some of the concrete ideas they lay out. I think that&#8217;s extremely important.</p>
<p><strong>Matt Kibbe: </strong>A quick comment on the question from a libertarian perspective, I can speak to my community which is very libertarian, but also significantly socially conservative, and I don&#8217;t think that you had to abandon your personal values and the things that you learn in church on Sunday or the definition of marriage in order to understand that outsourcing really important social institutions to 535 men and women that can&#8217;t balance a budget is a really bad idea. And I think we learn that during, you can clap. That&#8217;s cool. During the Bush administration, I think there was a lesson learned when we got involved in things like face-based initiatives that really outsourced really precious community actions, voluntary community-based activities to Washington, DC, and they started fighting over who got the most earmarks. I think that&#8217;s a huge mistake. I think that social institutions that hold this country together are way too important to let Washington, DC get its hand on them.</p>
<p><strong>Tom Lifson: </strong>Thank you. One more question. The gentleman on the aisle, yes?</p>
<p><strong>Audience Member: </strong>What you guys think about first a new radical right that gets in the media&#8217;s face and pushes the agenda to them instead of accepting the agenda that they get shut out of day after day, and secondly, creating a real marketing machine for the things that we hold most dear and pushing it out to the American people who will follow the first shiny object that comes in front of them?</p>
<p><strong>Richard Baehr: </strong>I&#8217;m going to take a quick response and really take a different attack which is I think Republicans win when they have better candidates, and the machinery makes the big difference and the spending does, but we had better candidates this year. Wendy Davis was a terrible candidate. She was their Todd Akin. Bruce Braley was a terrible candidate in Iowa state. Democratic never should have lost. We came up in the process this year, produced much better, more effective, positive messengers for our side. It wasn&#8217;t just all a negative anti-Obama message on the state level in these individual races. The people we put up were better candidates. They were more &#8212; there&#8217;s no way a Republican should ever win an open seat race in Iowa by 9 percent, and that had a lot to do, not with the amount of spending, each side had it, not with the particular messaging that the parties put in behind it, but the fact that one candidate communicated better and connected with the voters better than the other side did.</p>
<p><strong>Matt Kibbe: </strong>You know I think politics is a little bit like entrepreneurship because sometimes the customer is always right and sometimes you go to market with something they didn&#8217;t know they wanted. Say an iPhone, something like that. And all of sudden everybody decides that that&#8217;s what they want. So it is good candidates. But I think the machinery matters as well, and you guys are in the right place if you want to understand a little bit about how Democratic apparatchiks function because I assume you&#8217;ve all been assigned your readings from Saul Alinsky, and we need to understand that. Pat Caddell mentioned something that can&#8217;t be overstated. The consultant industrial complex is so fixated on paid media because that&#8217;s where they can make their margins. You can&#8217;t make a lot of money going door to door, engaging grassroots communities. This is why the left beats on us the ground. I&#8217;ll go back to something I mentioned earlier: embrace decentralization, social media. Instead of running thousand point TV buys, why don&#8217;t you target young people on Facebook? We&#8217;ve tested this. It works.</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>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/obamas-amnesty-by-blackmail/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 07 Nov 2014 05:34:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blackmail]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Election]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[John Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mitch mcconell]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>

		<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>What States Are Doing on the Border Crisis</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ian-smith/what-states-are-doing-on-the-border-crisis/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=what-states-are-doing-on-the-border-crisis</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 05 Aug 2014 04:34:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ian Smith]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Taking matters into their own hands. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/illegal-aliens-3.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-237842" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/illegal-aliens-3-450x339.jpg" alt="APTOPIX Mexico Migrants" width="285" height="215" /></a>Before Friday night&#8217;s DACA-gutting immigration bill was passed in the House, rookie Majority Whip, Steve Scalise (R-La.) had been getting <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/steve-scalise-day-one-109612.html"><span style="color: #0463c1;">pounced</span></a> on by the liberal media for his “inability” to push wavering House Republicans into getting something out the door before the recess-break. Ever since the Gang of Eight’s amnesty bill was introduced last year, the media has <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/19/the-gop-dilemma-on-immigration/"><span style="color: #0463c1;">claimed</span></a> that it&#8217;s Republican intransigence that is obstructing immigration and border security “reform.”</p>
<p>Whether true or not, it’s important to point out that this has never been the case for our conservative representatives at the state and local-level. In 2007 alone they <a href="http://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/hazleton-and-beyond-why-communities-try-restrict-immigration"><span style="color: #0463c1;">introduced</span></a> over <i>1,500</i> immigration bills in state assemblies across the nation with 240 being enacted into law. They’ve been just as busy since, probably because they’ve had to. The problems from decades of open-borders faced by state and local governments are getting ever closer to crisis-proportions. Given that Friday’s much improved bill will surely not survive the Senate’s or Obama’s chopping block, it may be time to reassess what our representatives at the state-level can and have been doing to deliver true patriotic immigration reform.</p>
<p>In a newly published book of academic essays about state-level immigration regulation, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Strange-Neighbors-Immigration-Citizenship-Migration/dp/0814737803/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1407008550&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=strange+neighbors+immigration"><span style="color: #0463c1;"><i>Strange Neighbors</i></span></a>, immigration law guru Kris Kobach declares that “every state is a border state now.” Indeed, immigration-induced problems are the “new normal” for most state governments which will be compounded by a perennially underperforming national economy and budget-busting pension and welfare obligations. Drawing on Milton Friedman’s statement that “you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state,” Kobach reminds us that “[a] massive influx of individuals who either pay very little in income taxes or evade income taxes entirely, but consume public services at a relatively high rate, is costly for any receiving state.” This is clearly seen in the predominately Democrat-run “<span style="color: #0463c1;"><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/sanctuary_cities_and_states_will_bear_the_lions_share_of_amnesty_cost.html">sanctuary cities</a>,</span>” which have some of the most unstable governments in the nation.</p>
<p>Despite the flurry of state and local bills over the past few years, states have been restrained from regulating immigration where it really hurts: education costs. It’s now <a href="http://www.thesocialcontract.com/articles/plyler-v-doe.html"><span style="color: #0463c1;">estimated</span></a> that around 50 percent of the increase in the national school-age population going forward will come from illegal aliens. But in the landmark 1982 decision of <i>Plyer v. Doe</i>, statutes denying free education for illegal alien children were deemed unconstitutional by a bare majority of the Supreme Court. In a display of ignorance startling even for liberals, then-Chief Justice William Brennan wrote for the court that “few if any illegal immigrants come to this country… in order to avail themselves of a free education.” On the contrary, says John Eastman, constitutional lawyer and fellow contributor to <i>Strange Neighbors</i>, a free top-notch education is “one of the three great magnets” for illegal aliens to come across our border – the others being employment and birthright citizenship.</p>
<p>According to Brennan in the <i>Plyer </i>decision, the statute in question (which originated from Texas) was struck down because “the record in no way supports the claim that exclusion of undocumented children is likely to improve the overall quality of education in the State.” Although there may not have been a lot of data available to counsel for Texas then, that was over 30 years ago and we now have a ton of statistics on education costs from illegal immigration. According to a 2010 report from the <a href="http://www.fairus.org/site/DocServer/USCostStudy_2010.pdf?docID=4921"><span style="color: #0463c1;">Federation for American Immigration Reform</span></a>, the <i>largest</i> cost of illegal immigration to states today is, in fact, education. Just in Arizona that year alone, it cost taxpayers close to $1.5 billion. It now looks likely that what was missing for Brennan can now be met.</p>
<p>In 2011, Alabama attempted to build such a challenge to <i>Plyer</i>. It enacted a <a href="http://www.fairus.org/publications/hb56-helping-to-move-alabama-s-economy-forward"><span style="color: #0463c1;">law</span></a> that sought to gather information on education costs of illegal aliens and how it affected state-wide education in general. Although it sought to merely gather data, the statute was immediately challenged by treasonous lawfare groups, like the SPLC and ACLU, and implementation of the law has been delayed. But for states hoping to turn off the education magnet, Alabama’s efforts are instructive.</p>
<p>Since <i>Plyer</i>, Eastman reminds us, the Supreme Court has made some positive shifts towards states’ rights, as seen in such cases as <i>US v. Lopez</i>, <i>US v. Morrison</i> and <i>Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting</i>. It is hoped patriotic state legislators and attorneys general across the nation will follow Alabama and take up similar legislative initiatives. Considering our congress is compromised and our president wants the borders erased, it may be our only hope.</p>
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		<title>Conservatives Triumph in Border Bill Victory</title>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 04 Aug 2014 04:52:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=237782</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Citizens blunt Obama's threat to force amnesty on the country. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/article-new_ehow_images_a06_7l_or_information-illegal-immigration-800x800.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-237788" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/article-new_ehow_images_a06_7l_or_information-illegal-immigration-800x800.jpg" alt="article-new_ehow_images_a06_7l_or_information-illegal-immigration-800x800" width="265" height="199" /></a>Conservatives in Congress scored a major triumph last week as the House approved emergency legislation that strengthens border security and attempts to rein in a lawless president.</p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), a conservative champion, took a well-deserved victory lap in an </span><a style="color: blue;" title="" href="http://mobile.wnd.com/2014/08/conservative-plan-could-save-border-bill/" target="_blank"><span class="zw-portion link">interview</span></a><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">with the WND news website.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">The &#8220;legislative miracle&#8221; approved by the House represents </span><span class="zw-portion">a </span><span class="zw-portion">“</span><span class="zw-portion">stunning turnaround</span><span class="zw-portion">” </span><span class="zw-portion">and </span><span class="zw-portion">“</span><span class="zw-portion">a huge victory for the conservatives in Congress.</span><span class="zw-portion">”</span><span class="zw-portion"> Its approval is also a big win for the American people </span><span class="zw-portion">who</span><span class="zw-portion">, Bachmann said,</span><span class="zw-portion"> “</span><span class="zw-portion">saved Congress from itself</span><span class="zw-portion">” </span><span class="zw-portion">by </span><span class="zw-portion">jamming the congressional switchboard to state their opposition to President Obama&#8217;s planned immigration amnesty.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Bachmann noted the legislation pays states to place National Guard troops on the border, doubling funding for that program. It also responds to the president&#8217;s threat that </span><span class="zw-portion">“</span><span class="zw-portion">he would act alone, lawlessly, to grant work permits to 5-</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">to</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">6 million illegal foreign nationals.</span><span class="zw-portion">”</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">“</span><span class="zw-portion">We have taken the strongest possible action, legislatively, to stop him</span><span class="zw-portion">,&#8221; Bachmann said.</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">&#8220;</span><span class="zw-portion">We</span><span class="zw-portion">’</span><span class="zw-portion">ve put the president on notice by saying, </span><span class="zw-portion">‘</span><span class="zw-portion">You better not issue these work permits because we</span><span class="zw-portion">’</span><span class="zw-portion">ve said no. You better not try it, Mr. President.</span><span class="zw-portion">’”</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">The bill also provides funding to immigration agencies to house illegal alien children and also amends a 2008 law that was created to block the sex trafficking of young people but which has been used to provide asylum to illegals coming from Central American countries.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Bachmann also marveled at the fact that the bill was even tougher in her view than what anti-amnesty stalwarts Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) had thought was politically possible to achieve.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">She also rejected </span><span class="zw-portion">President Obama</span><span class="zw-portion">&#8216;s mischievous comment Friday afternoon in which he attacked conservatives for supposedly preventing the House from approving a border-fix measure.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">That </span><span class="zw-portion">comment</span><span class="zw-portion"> was</span><span class="zw-portion"> “</span><span class="zw-portion">infantile,</span><span class="zw-portion">”</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion spell-error">Bachmann</span><span class="zw-portion"> said, noting that the Democrat-controlled Senate is the chamber that has yet to approve a border bill. Republicans hope Senate Democrats take a public relations drubbing in coming weeks for failing to act.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Victory came a day after a</span><span class="zw-portion"> conservative-led uprising among House Republicans</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><a style="color: blue;" title="" href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/matthew-vadum/conservatives-kill-amnesty-bill/" target="_blank"><span class="zw-portion link">scuttled</span></a><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">Speaker John Boehner</span><span class="zw-portion">’</span><span class="zw-portion">s worse-than-useless border crisis and immigration legislation</span><span class="zw-portion">. </span><span class="zw-portion">“</span><span class="zw-portion">The bill as it was had more loopholes than a knitted afghan,</span><span class="zw-portion">” </span><span class="zw-portion">Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) </span><span class="zw-portion">told </span><span class="zw-portion">FrontPage </span><span class="zw-portion">on Thursday.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">The showdown between rank-and-file Republicans and their leaders in the House came as Americans grow increasingly angry over the border crisis that has been </span><a style="color: blue;" title="" href="http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/062514-706233-texas-border-immigration-wave-orchestrated-by-administration.htm" target="_blank"><span class="zw-portion link">staged and carefully choreographed</span></a><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">by the far-left levelers of the Obama administration.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Conservatives worried that the GOP establishment bill did not even try to block Obama&#8217;s upcoming mass amnesty and did not do enough to crack down on the recent surge of illegals streaming across the country&#8217;s southern border.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">But on Friday conservative and moderate Republicans united during a House GOP conference meeting and approved stronger legislation to replace the GOP establishment&#8217;s weak border bill that Boehner put on the back burner the day before. A </span><span class="zw-portion">$694 million </span><span class="zw-portion">emergency measured aimed at fixing the border crisis was approved by the House later that day on </span><span class="zw-portion">a vote of 223</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">to</span><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">189</span><span class="zw-portion">, freeing House members to begin their delayed three-week summer recess that was supposed to begin Thursday.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">The legislation attempts to defang President Obama&#8217;s wildly unpopular </span><span class="zw-portion">Deferred Action for Children Arrivals, or DACA, policy </span><span class="zw-portion">that he used to provide asylum to more than 500,000 illegals who came to the U.S. as minors. Separately, the House approved a bill to reverse DACA, which encourages youngsters to make the dangerous trek north from Central America to sneak across the border, on a vote of 216 to 192. Four Democratic lawmakers voted for the measure.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Meanwhile, the Obama administration is pressing ahead with plans to illegally grant amnesty to millions of immigration law-breaking foreign nationals present in the country.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">It is </span><span class="zw-portion">just one in a long series of Reichstag fires calculated to enhance the power of the neo-Marxist despot who now occupies the Oval Office.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">O</span><span class="zw-portion">n ABC&#8217;s &#8220;This Week&#8221; yesterday </span><span class="zw-portion">Obama palace heel-clicker Dan Pfeiffer </span><a style="color: blue;" title="" href="http://dailycaller.com/2014/08/03/wh-adviser-dan-pfeiffer-the-president-has-no-choice-but-to-act-on-immigration/?advD=1248,53299" target="_blank"><span class="zw-portion link">reaffirmed</span></a><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">that a huge amnesty is coming. Obama &#8220;has no choice but to act&#8221; to grant amnesty to as many as five million illegal aliens &#8220;at the end of summer,&#8221; he said.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">After pointing out that Obama said last year that he did not believe he had authority to act unilaterally, an incredulous George Stephanopoulos asked Pfeiffer, &#8220;Doesn&#8217;t a reversal like that fuel the arguments of those who say that the president is overstepping his authority?&#8221;</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Pfeiffer said that &#8220;whatever [Obama] does in this space will not be a substitute for comprehensive immigration reform. Congress will still need to act.&#8221;</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">&#8220;But because of Congress&#8217;s failure to fix the immigration system and to pass the supplemental appropriations bill needed to deal with the specific crisis on the border, the president has no choice but to act &#8230; at the end of the summer.&#8221;</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Even the cripplingly affective leftist dead-ender Ed Schultz </span><a style="color: blue;" title="" href="http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/30/msnbc-host-obamas-amnesty-could-doom-democrats/?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F" target="_blank"><span class="zw-portion link">thinks</span></a><span class="zw-portion"> </span><span class="zw-portion">amnesty-bound Obama is politically suicidal.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">&#8220;Hold the phone &#8212; this would be a mistake if the president were to do this,&#8221; Schultz told the phone booth that consists of his MSNBC audience last week.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">&#8220;Politically, there is no way Democrats can go home and campaign on across-the-board amnesty for millions of undocumented workers &#8230; it could be an electoral death knell for the Democrats,&#8221; he said.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Recent surveys show Obama&#8217;s pro-illegal immigrant policies have the strong support of just 18 percent of the public, compared to the nearly 60 percent who strongly oppose those policies.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">&#8220;I don&#8217;t like government by executive order,&#8221; said Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.). &#8220;I just don&#8217;t, generally, so I&#8217;d have to look and see specifically what [Obama is] proposing and what he&#8217;s talking about,&#8221; said the left-winger.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Polls now suggest Pryor stands a very good chance of losing to Republican challenger Tom Cotton in November.</span></p>
<p class="zw-paragraph" style="color: #000000;"><span class="zw-portion">Perhaps the senator should have spoken out against the president&#8217;s reckless policies earlier.</span></p>
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		<title>Conservatives Kill Amnesty Bill &#8212;- For Now</title>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 01 Aug 2014 04:49:23 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[A resurrection on the horizon? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Border_crossing_sign_Connell.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-237637" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Border_crossing_sign_Connell-450x337.jpg" alt="Border_crossing_sign_Connell" width="302" height="226" /></a>A conservative-led uprising among House Republicans scuttled Speaker John Boehner&#8217;s worse-than-useless border crisis and immigration legislation yesterday but party leaders vowed to try again today to pass the emergency funding bill.</p>
<p>&#8220;The bill as it was had more loopholes than a knitted afghan,&#8221; Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) said in a statement released exclusively to FrontPage late yesterday.</p>
<blockquote><p>Tonight, many members were able to come together and hammer out many of those problems so that we could live with the result. Whether the final product gets the needed 218 votes will depend on how the final product looks once it is typed and printed.</p></blockquote>
<p>Conservatives are apparently doing the people&#8217;s will. A new poll <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/07/31/Exclusive-Polling-Data-Shows-GOP-Voters-Think-Republicans-Standing-Tough-On-Immigration-Most-Important-Issue"><span style="color: #0433ff;">suggests</span></a> Republican voters side with conservative lawmakers over House GOP leadership. Breitbart News reports:</p>
<blockquote><p>Polling data compiled by Tea Party Patriots and provided exclusively to Breitbart News shows that a majority of Republican voters think Republicans standing strong on immigration is more important than repealing Obamacare, getting to the bottom of the Benghazi or IRS scandals—or anything else for that matter.</p>
<p>When asked by TPP’s pollster which issue they think is the [most] important for Republicans in Congress to deal with, 34.6 percent of GOP voters said stopping the flow of illegal immigrants across our southern border. Stopping Obama’s &#8216;illegal overreach&#8217; with executive power came in a distant second with 24 percent of GOP voters saying that’s the most important, while 23 percent saying repealing Obamacare is the most important and just 7.2 percent say the IRS scandal is the most important issue and 2.8 percent say the Benghazi scandal is most important. A total of 8.4 percent of GOP voters said they don’t know or refused to answer.</p>
<p>The poll was conduc[t]ed with 1,000 likely GOP voters on Thursday, July 24 via a combination of cell phones and landlines nationwide, with a margin of error of 3.2 percent.</p></blockquote>
<p>The showdown between rank-and-file Republicans and their leaders in the House comes as Americans grow increasingly angry over the border crisis that has been <a href="http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/062514-706233-texas-border-immigration-wave-orchestrated-by-administration.htm"><span style="color: #0433ff;">staged and carefully choreographed</span></a> by the far-left levelers of the Obama administration.</p>
<p>President Obama threatens to plunge the nation into a grave constitutional crisis after Labor Day by using executive orders to grant a huge amnesty to millions of illegal aliens now in the United States. Of course, in the American system of government, Congress, not the president, is supposed to make laws. Congress has repeatedly refused to grant the amnesties that Obama seeks, but the president refuses to take no for an answer, pressing on regardless of how much damage he does to the country.</p>
<p>Lawmakers in the nation&#8217;s capital had been racing to wrap up legislative business and leave Washington for a five-week summer recess yesterday but Boehner put their vacation plans on hold after a revolt forced him to temporarily shelve his border bill that conservatives say is really amnesty legislation.</p>
<p>Some House members were already at the airport preparing to fly back to their congressional districts but &#8220;a sudden and fierce backlash forced Boehner to rescind the decision&#8221; to put the bill on the back burner, Breitbart News <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/07/31/Leaders-Try-To-Resusciatate-Dying-Border-Bill/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">reports</span></a>.</p>
<p>Lawmakers held a two-hour emergency meeting in mid-afternoon and agreed to stay in town and try to get some kind of legislation aimed at the border crisis to a vote.</p>
<p>Tea Party-backed Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), a prominent anti-GOP establishment figure, said he was optimistic that a legislative package would pass.</p>
<p>“We are a good working team in there, it didn’t start with acrimony and didn’t end with acrimony, and now we’ve got a little work to do and I think we’ve got a shot to get’r done,” he said.</p>
<p>House Republicans are scheduled to meet at 9 o&#8217;clock this morning for a strategy session.</p>
<p>Conservatives scratch their heads, <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/31/conservatives-battle-gop-leaders-on-immigration/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">complaining</span></a> that excessively risk-averse GOP leaders refuse to take aim at the Democrats&#8217; unpopular immigration policies &#8212; even when the American people overwhelmingly side with Republicans.</p>
<p>The Boehner measure is so Obama-friendly that it constitutes the political equivalent of “catching your opponent’s Hail Mary pass and running it into your own end zone for them,” said Daniel Horowitz, policy director for the Madison Project.</p>
<p>Conservatives don&#8217;t like the bill because it would boost and speed up the migration of low-skilled workers from Latin American, give Democrats and lobbyists a chance to resurrect the Senate-approved amnesty measure from last year, but do zilch to prevent President Obama from unilaterally, unconstitutionally handing out millions of work authorizations to illegal aliens.</p>
<p>Instead of pounding away at Obama, whose poll ratings are deteriorating dramatically because of his irresponsible immigration polices, GOP leadership is content to let Obama walk all over them, conservatives say.</p>
<p>Republicans cannot exploit Obama&#8217;s political weaknesses because the party&#8217;s leaders “suck at politics,” Horowitz said, a viewed also held by Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has been trying to convince House members to reject any bill that fails to curb Obama&#8217;s amnesty-granting powers.</p>
<p>The immigration measured backed by leadership “is a plan for expedited asylum, not expedited removal” of the more than 100,000 illegal aliens from Central America, Sessions said.</p>
<p>Reps. Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) and John Fleming (R-La.) say few lawmakers, even those with Rs after their names, are serious conservatives.</p>
<p>“In my judgment, a majority of the senators and the House members of both parties are more than happy to betray America and the principles who made us who we are, first and foremost of which is the rule of law,” Brooks said. “Those of us who are fight for hard-working families, unfortunately, we’re in a minority.”</p>
<p>Fleming said that the “GOP leadership has two audiences, two bases.”</p>
<p>“One is the established Chamber of Commerce group that is looking for less expensive labor and they’re the ones who contribute a lot of money and so the [leaders] want to keep them happy,” the Louisiana lawmaker said.</p>
<p>“On the other hand, the Republican voting public out there wants the problems fixed, they want illegals treated humanely and they want border security and they want the newest wave sent back,” he said.</p>
<p>But if President Obama gets his way, no one will be deported.</p>
<p>The huddled masses yearning to get free stuff who insert themselves into the U.S. through the Rio Grande Valley are <a href="http://www.krgv.com/news/immigrants-to-be-housed-in-suites-near-san-antonio/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">going to be held</span></a> in relative luxury in a newly renovated 532-bed immigration detention complex for women and children near San Antonio, Texas.</p>
<p>Word of American taxpayers&#8217; decadent generosity will no doubt spread at lightning speed to prospective uninvited immigrants in Matamoros, San Salvador, Tegucigalpa, and points beyond.</p>
<p>&#8220;I will refer to everyone in this facility as a resident,&#8221; said Enrique Lucero, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) San Antonio field office director. &#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;ICE generally refers to people in custody as detainees,&#8221; he added sanctimoniously.</p>
<p>While the nation&#8217;s veterans suffer and die after being stuck on the falsified waiting lists produced by Obama administration bureaucrats, federal officials plan to roll out the red carpet for the alien invaders whose housing and amenities will cost the government an average of $140 per day per detainee.</p>
<p>Newly arrived lawbreakers will be housed in what federal officials call &#8220;suites,&#8221; that will feature bunk beds, flat-screen TVs, and landline telephones. The facility also has a soccer field, ping pong tables, a weight room, and basketball courts. A playground will be added soon. Children will attend a nearby charter school and receive medical screenings, dental care, and new clothes.</p>
<p>It is unclear if youthful aliens will be taken to Disneyworld or to branches of the more modestly priced Chuck E. Cheese restaurant chain for birthday celebrations.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, CNSNews <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/1000-children-fleeing-violent-honduras-heading-violent-chicago"><span style="color: #0433ff;">reports</span></a> that &#8220;a thousand children said to be fleeing the violence in Central America will be welcomed to Chicago, where local children are routinely in the cross-fire of gang-related grudges.&#8221;</p>
<p>“The influx of unaccompanied child migrants is a growing humanitarian crisis that we can no longer ignore,” said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, an Alinskyite charlatan who no doubt helped to engineer the ongoing invasion when he served as President Obama&#8217;s White House chief of staff.</p>
<p>“While we have our own challenges at home, we cannot turn our backs on children who are fleeing dangerous conditions,&#8221; Emanuel said of young people who are probably just fleeing the ordinary perils and inconveniences of everyday life in Latin American banana republics. &#8220;We will do our part to ensure that these children are given access to services and treated fairly and humanely.”</p>
<p>Socialist kook Luis Gutierrez, a Democratic congressman from Illinois who wants to import even more illegals into the U.S. in order to help President Obama destabilize the country, said the fact that Chicago is &#8220;welcoming migrant children and working with them as their cases are resolved&#8221; made him proud of the Windy City.</p>
<p>Those young people aren&#8217;t exactly healthy, reports <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2014/07/31/dhs-report-tuberculosis-and-scabies-spreading-in-migrant-holding-facilities/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">suggest</span></a>. A Department of Homeland Security study indicates that the “unaccompanied alien children,” or UACs, from Central America are spreading tuberculosis (TB), chicken pox, and scabies, a contagious skin disease spread by mites. Several DHS workers at the various facilities where these aliens are being warehoused have been infected.</p>
<p>Many of the facilities are filthy because the new arrivals don&#8217;t know how to use bathroom facilities and have been relieving themselves at will, exposing DHS employees to human waste.</p>
<p>And over on the Left Coast, California&#8217;s far-out governor, Democrat Jerry Brown, offered the startlingly idiotic suggestion that climate change will somehow exacerbate the invasion of the U.S. by Central Americans, the <i>Wall Street Journal</i> reports.</p>
<p>&#8220;We can see how some are fearful of children walking across the border,&#8221; said the man who is presiding over California&#8217;s ongoing fiscal collapse. &#8220;What will they think when millions of people are driven north from the parched landscapes of a world degraded by intensifying climate change?&#8221;</p>
<p>Perhaps Gov. Brown needs to lay off the medical marijuana.</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>House Border Crisis Plan: DOA</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/house-border-crisis-plan-doa/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=house-border-crisis-plan-doa</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Jul 2014 04:56:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[crisis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Illegal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=236972</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For the Left, maintaining the chaos is preferable to the solution. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/pic_giant_061014_SM_Border-Crisis-in-Texas1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-236973" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/pic_giant_061014_SM_Border-Crisis-in-Texas1.jpg" alt="pic_giant_061014_SM_Border-Crisis-in-Texas" width="250" height="217" /></a>House Republicans <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/23/house-calls-immigration-enforcement-central-americ/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">offered</span></a> a dozen recommendations Wednesday to address the illegal immigration crisis. “Our focus has been to ensure the safety of the children and it has remained a top priority throughout this process,” said task force leader Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX). “In our personal meetings with the Presidents of Honduras and Guatemala they both stated that they wanted their children back, and we believe that is in the best interest of all the countries involved in this crisis. We look forward to working with these countries as they prepare to receive their children back.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The recommendations offer a mixture of strategies that include more forceful border control and the elimination of intra-governmental turf fights interfering with Customs and Border Protection (CBP) operations on federal land. Border enforcement in Mexico and Central America, along with repatriation centers for minors set up in those countries are also part of the mix, as is an aggressive messaging campaign clarifying the downside of illegal immigration. Other recommendations include an acceleration of immigration hearings by adding additional judges to hear asylum requests, including a mandate to process “family units” within 5-7 days, tougher penalties on human traffickers, aka coyotes, and initiating law enforcement operations in both Mexico and Central America to stop the tide of illegals before they reach the U.S. border.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The primary recommendation for altering the current equation is a <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/house-republicans-immigration-border-plan-109279.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">revision</span></a> of the  <a href="http://www.state.gov/j/tip/laws/113178.htm"><span style="color: #1255cc;">William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008</span></a> that would allow children from Central America to be processed and deported as quickly as those from Canada and Mexico. A revision of the anti-trafficking law is a critical necessity. Despite admirable intentions when it was enacted six years ago, the latest onslaught of 57,000 unaccompanied alien children (UACs) over the last nine months—more than seven times average number that came across the border each year prior to the law’s enactment—has rendered it obsolete.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The numbers tell the story: of those 57,000 UACs only 2,000 have been repatriated and immigration courts are overwhelmed with a backlog of more than 350,000 cases. As a result it will be years before many of these children will be called to show up for their day in court.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">If they show up at all. Juan Osuna, who heads the Justice Department’s immigration courts, revealed the predictable truth at a recent congressional hearing, telling lawmakers that <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/few-children-are-deported-1405036369?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories"><span style="color: #1255cc;">46 percent</span></a> of UACs failed to appear at their hearings between the start of the FY2014 last Oct. 1 and the end of June. And even when they do appear and get a deportation order or are allowed to return home voluntarily, there is no guarantee that they will abide by the law. In FY 2013 two-thirds of the 6,437 cases adjudicated reached that outcome, but data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shows that only 1,600 children actually returned home.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">House Republican address this reality as well. UACs who do not wish to be voluntarily returned to their home country must remain in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) while awaiting an immigration court hearing that must occur no more than 7 days after they are screened by HHS.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">That last item is as critical as changing the anti-trafficking law. Right now the Obama administration is dispersing thousands of UACs and other illegals throughout the nation in an effort that <i>facilitates</i> the human trafficking they claim to oppose. That reality was <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/07/09/HHS-Official-Obama-Admin-Bans-Asking-Immigration-Status-of-Adults-Who-Pick-Up-Illegals-from-Detention-Centers"><span style="color: #1255cc;">affirmed</span></a> by Mark Greenberg, Health and Human Services Acting Assistant Secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, at a Senate hearing earlier this month. Under questioning he admitted that it was <i>policy</i> not to verify the immigration status of those to whom the children were being released.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Furthermore, the government doesn’t even <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jul/16/overwhelmed-feds-putting-illegal-immigrant-childre/?page=all"><span style="color: #1255cc;">run</span></a> fingerprint checks on every potential sponsor who arrives to claim a child. According to HHS spokesman Kenneth Wolfe, such checks are limited to those sponsors who aren’t parents or legal guardians, if the child is under the age of 12 or if they “detect” other safety concerns. The only all encompassing criterion is a public records check of each sponsor. After that they hand the sponsor a handbook dealing with the child’s right to enroll in school and offering warnings regarding trafficking and traumatic stress. With such minimal oversight it is no surprise that a nonprofit warned that as many as one-in-ten children end up in unacceptable or dangerous conditions.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">There is little doubt that amending the 2008 law, coupled with keeping UACs and other aliens in custody until their immigration hearings, would be enormous disincentives with regard to the current status quo that <i>encourages</i> thousands to risk life and limb to get here. Thus it is totally unsurprising that Democrats are against the GOP plan in general, and amending the law in particular. “Almost every Democrat I talk to says we should hold the line on the laws passed to protect children from sex trafficking and smugglers,” said Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) who also accused Republicans of trying to “exploit” the border crisis. “The Republicans seem to be divided between the ones who don’t think the money is necessary, the ones who want to weaken laws protecting children and the ones who want to deport all of the DREAMers and other undocumented immigrants before we do anything else,” he added.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The price tag for the GOP’s plan is $1.5 billion in emergency funding they would offset with spending cuts. It stands in sharp contrast to the president’s $3.7 billion request that is best summed up by Center for Immigration Studies fellow Dan Cadman who <a href="http://cis.org/supplemental-budget-request-analysis"><span style="color: #1255cc;">analyzed</span></a> the package. He called it a &#8220;closed circle of illogic” in which the government &#8220;takes a hands-off approach to the UACs being smuggled, and after a few days of detention and make-work processing, passes them over to the ones who initiated the venture.” Moreover, it scrupulously avoids addressing any changes to the 2008 law, as once again Democrats, lead by the president of the United States, insist their orchestrated humanitarian crisis be addressed <i>before</i> the border breakdown that feeds and <i>worsens</i> it.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">And make no mistake: it is an orchestrated crisis because it is occurring even as <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2014/0723/Why-didn-t-some-Central-America-experts-see-the-child-migrant-crisis-coming"><span style="color: #1255cc;">crime rates</span></a> in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador—that Democrats like to cite as the primary impetus for the surge—have been <i>declining</i> for the last two years, even as the number of UACs coming to America has skyrocketed in the same time frame. The real impetus behind the surge is what it has always been: President Obama’s unilateral legalization of Dreamers in 2012, coupled with just released <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-deport-children-20140706-story.html#page=1"><span style="color: #1255cc;">data</span></a> showing a marked decrease in the number of children turned away at the border. In 2008, the last year of the George W. Bush administration, there were 8,143 turn-a-ways. Last year there were only 1,669. There has also been a decrease from the 600 minors ordered to be deported each year from non-border states 10 years ago, to the paltry 95 deported in 2013.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Add the administration’s determination to conspicuously ignore an <a href="http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/articulos-prensa/pone-en-marcha-el-presidente-enrique-pena-nieto-el-programa-frontera-sur/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">agreement</span></a> between Mexico and Guatemala facilitating the passage of UACs through Mexico on their way to the United States—which Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/mexico-guatemala-fast-track-delivery-of-illegals-to-u-s/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">insists</span></a> will be expanded to include Honduras and El Salvador &#8220;to make Central American migration more organized and safer”—and the message remains clear: if you get here, chances are excellent you can stay here.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In addition, Senate Democrats are formulating a $2.7 billion plan of their own that <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/07/23/house-republicans-unveil-plan-to-deal-with-border-crisis/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">omits</span></a> any effort to amend the trafficking bill. That means even under the best of circumstances, some sort of reconciliation process between the two chambers will have to take place before anything meaningful can happen. That reality pokes a giant hole in incoming House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) hopes that any bill will be voted on before Congress recesses in August.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It’s not going to happen.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Thus the massive influx of 57,000 UACs&#8211;along with the additional 240,000 illegals that have arrived here from April through June, yet somehow remain largely under the media radar&#8211;will continue. There is little doubt <i>that</i> under-reported reality would take much of the air out of the “humanitarian” balloon, as would multiplying the three-month influx by four to reach an annual total of nearly <i>1.2 million</i> illegals who could come across our Southwest border, if the current rate remains constant.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">And why shouldn’t it remain constant? We have a president who won’t even <i>visit</i> the border, much less act on a crisis of national proportions. We have a Democratic Party <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/immigration/2013/12/10/3037441/house-dems-pressure-obama-stop-deportations/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">pushing</span></a> that president to expand his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) plan to include their parents, as well as halt further deportations. We have an Obama administration <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/20/pentagon-looks-enlist-illegal-immigrants-seeking-c/?page=all"><span style="color: #1255cc;">looking</span></a> to put illegals in the military, even as it aims to cut the military to pre-WWII levels.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In short, the entire nation is being held hostage to a despicable leftist agenda, aided and abetted by an equally compromised GOP Establishment: either Americans embrace comprehensive immigration reform, or the Cloward-Piven-inspired, “crash the system&#8221; chaos at the border will continue. The dispersal of illegals, not just to questionable individuals, but to locations in towns and cities <a href="https://www.numbersusa.com/news/not-my-backyard-feds-efforts-relocate-illegal-aliens-border"><span style="color: #1255cc;">throughout the nation</span></a>, will continue. The aiding and abetting of human trafficking by our own government will continue. The utter contempt for the rule of law and our national sovereignty will continue.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">A letter signed by the governors of Alabama, Kansas, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Utah and Wisconsin was <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/border-crisis-creates-discomfort-for-state-local-politicians-over-housing-children/2014/07/23/2835843c-1249-11e4-98ee-daea85133bc9_story.html?hpid=z2"><span style="color: #1255cc;">sent</span></a> to President Obama this week. “The failure to return the unaccompanied children will send a message that will encourage a much larger movement towards our southern border,” it stated. <i>Exactly.</i></p>
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		<title>Hillary Stacks the Benghazi Select Committee</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/hillary-stacks-the-benghazi-select-committee/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hillary-stacks-the-benghazi-select-committee</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 23 May 2014 04:34:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Benghazi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hillary Clinton]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Nancy Pelosi]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Democratic establishment isn't out to find the truth. It's out to protect Hillary. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/130122091535-hillary-clinton-presser-horizontal-gallery.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-226130 alignleft" alt="130122091535-hillary-clinton-presser-horizontal-gallery" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/130122091535-hillary-clinton-presser-horizontal-gallery-450x311.jpg" width="315" height="218" /></a>On Wednesday, Democrats deigned to join Republicans on the House Select Committee investigating Benghazi, primarily to protect Hillary Clinton’s reputation in particular, and the Obama administration&#8217;s in general. Toward that end they will likely do what they always do whenever their party is threatened: denigrate the investigation as it unfolds and obstruct it as much as possible.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Thus, it was completely unsurprising that even as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/democrats-join-benghazi-investigation-to-defend-the-truth/">appointed</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> five colleagues to the panel she dismissed the need for it. &#8220;The Republican obsession with Benghazi has not been about the victims, the families or the country,” she insisted, adding that it is &#8220;not necessary&#8221; to participate in a &#8220;partisan exercise once again.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So why participate at all? A </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Politico</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/benghazi-democrats-hillary-clinton-106978.html">story</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> reveals the reason for the Democrats&#8217; sudden change of heart. According to &#8220;sources familiar with the conversations,” Hillary Clinton informed several House Democrats and aides that she preferred that they participate rather than leave her open to unanswered “enemy fire” from House Republicans. “Republicans are making it clear they plan to use the power of the Benghazi Select Committee to continue to politicize the tragedy that occurred in Benghazi, which is exactly why Democratic participation in the committee is vital,” a Democrat close to Clinton contended. “Inevitably, witnesses ranging from Secretary Clinton to Secretary Kerry will be subpoenaed to testify, and the Democrats appointed to the committee will help restore a level of sanity to the hearings, which would otherwise exist solely as a political witch hunt.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Leading Democrats endeavored to stay “on message.” “The creation of this committee is solely for propaganda, for politics,” said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA). “It’s rather cheap, in my opinion, because after all the other committees held hearings and looked at the issue, and there was nothing there. But Republicans are trying to make a scandal where there is none.” Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) noted that “even a kangaroo court would be better off with a defense attorney,” and panel member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) believes &#8220;Republicans will attack Hillary Clinton by any means necessary.”</span></span></p>
<p>Cummings is the top Democrat on the Committee that also <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/democrats-join-benghazi-investigation-to-defend-the-truth/">includes</a> Reps. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee; Intelligence Committee member Adam Schiff (D-CA); Ways and Means Committee member Linda Sanchez (D-CA); and Armed Services Committee member Tammy Duckworth (D-IL). Cummings insisted he decided to participate because we&#8217;ve &#8220;seen firsthand how abusive the Republicans have been during this investigation” and because Congress owes it to the families of the victims &#8220;to bring some minimal level of balance to this process and check false claims wherever they may arise.”</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Perhaps they could start with Nancy Pelosi. Even as John Boehner (R-OH) announced the formation of a select committee, Pelosi </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/09/nancy-pelosi-benghazi-families_n_5296172.html">claimed</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that family members of the slain Americans asked her not to launch another investigation. &#8220;Two of their families have called us and said, &#8216;Please don&#8217;t take us down this path again,&#8217;&#8221; Pelosi said during a weekly press conference. &#8220;It&#8217;s really hard for them. It&#8217;s very sad.” Rep. Louise Slaughter&#8217;s (D-NY) office also insisted that a family member from the maternal side of Tyrone Woods’ family ostensibly agreed with Pelosi. Tellingly, none of the family members were named.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">On the other side of the equation, Pat Smith, and Charles Woods, parents of slain diplomat Sean Smith and Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods, respectively, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/05/11/pelosi-claims-two-families-benghazi-victims-asked-not-launch-new-investigation">expressed</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> a clear and unambiguous desire to move forward and get to the truth behind the slaughter of their children.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who will be chairing the Committee, appears to be a man determined to ferret out that truth. Ten days ago in a devastatingly effective </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.tpnn.com/2014/05/13/trey-gowdy-destroys-the-mainstream-media-in-just-three-minutes-on-benghazi/">putdown</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> of the mainstream media, the man who spent </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/05/gowdy-brings-prosecutor-zeal-to-benghazi-investigation/8724369/">six years</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> as a federal prosecutor handling cases that included drug trafficking rings, bank robberies, and child pornography cases, indicated he will bring that experience to the investigation. After quoting Obama’s promise to bring the perpetrators of the Benghazi murders to justice (though no one has even been arrested to this point), he laid out a series of unanswered questions that should embarrass any members of the media who consider themselves investigative journalists. They included the following:</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8211;Do you know why requests for additional security were denied? Do you know why an ambassador asking for more security, days and weeks before he was murdered and those requests went unheeded? Do you know the answer to why those requests went unheeded? </span></p>
<p>&#8211;Do you know why no assets were deployed during the siege? And I’ve heard the explanation, which defies logic, frankly, that we could not have gotten there in time. But you know they didn’t know when it was going to end, so how can you possibly cite that as an excuse?</p>
<p>&#8211;Do you know whether the president called any of our allies and said, can you help, we have men under attack? Can you answer that?</p>
<p>&#8211;Do any of you know why Susan Rice was picked [to go on five Sunday talk shows after the attacks]? The Secretary of State [Hillary Clinton] did not go. She says she doesn’t like Sunday talk shows. That’s the only media venue she does not like, if that’s true.</p>
<p>&#8211;Do you know the origin of this mythology, that it was spawned as a spontaneous reaction to a video? Do you know where that started?</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">These and other equally probing questions severely undercut the contention by Pelosi and her fellow Democrats that everything about what happened in Benghazi is already known. This was the position still taken on Tuesday by Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA). “The pertinent questions have been asked and answered again,” he </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/05/hillary-clinton-driving-democrats-benghazi-committee-strategy/">insisted.</a></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Joining Gowdy on the Republican side of the Committee are Reps. Martha Roby (R-AL), House Armed Services Committee member; House Intelligence Committee member Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA); House Oversight and Government Reform Committee member Jim Jordan (R-OH); Mike Pompeo (R-KS); Boehner confidante Peter Roskam (R-IL); and Susan Brooks (R-IN).</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In contrast to Democratic hysteria, Gowdy maintained that the Committee members selected by Pelosi were &#8220;great picks.” “The ones that I know well are very thoughtful and very smart, and I have a great working relationship with them,” Gowdy added. He declined to offer any specifics on the nature of the hearings, noting that closed depositions tend to elicit more information from witnesses, while open hearings allow the public to decide who is more truthful. When asked which method (or both) would apply to Hillary Clinton, Gowdy refused to answer. “I’m not foreclosing any avenue of information,” he said.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Hillary Clinton’s reputation remains in the forefront. Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) further illuminated that sentiment, insisting his fellow Democrats must prevent the hearings from being “made about one person.” “I think the American public feels that Hillary Clinton did an outstanding job as secretary of state and if Republicans are using Benghazi to blemish her record, I don’t think it will stick,” he contended.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">If the public feels that way about Clinton, it stands in stark contrast State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. During an interview, Psaki </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://capitolcityproject.com/state-department-cant-name-one-accomplishment-clinton-run-initiative/">couldn’t </a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> cite a single specific accomplishment attributable to that outstanding job. Nor could Clinton herself when she spoke at the Women of the World Summit in New York City on April 3. “I think we really restored American leadership in the best sense,” she </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://capitolcityproject.com/hillary-struggles-list-accomplishments-secretary-state-tenure/">generalized</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Perhaps Gowdy and his fellow Republicans will focus on the details of that leadership—or lack thereof—but Democrats are counting on Cummings to blunt any such efforts. In an interview with the </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Huffington Post</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, Cummings </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/21/elijah-cummings-benghazi-_n_5368445.html">outlines</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> a three-fold strategy aimed at minimizing damage for Clinton and other members of the Obama administration. The first aspect will be to &#8220;figure out exactly what (Republicans) are looking for &#8230; to focus on not who I am up against, but what I am searching for.” The second aspect is to &#8220;constantly raise the issues,” followed by an effort to &#8220;not allow any untruth to go unchallenged.” Yet even the </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Huff Post</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> admits that Cummings’ real value to Democrats is his “combativeness.” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Cummings proved that during the IRS hearings when he attempted to turn a hearing where Lois Lerner asserted her right not to testify for the second time into a sideshow after hearing Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/03/rep-elijah-cummings-gets-cut-off-at-house-irs-hearing/">adjourned</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the meeting and cut off Cummings’ mic. Issa did so when it became apparent Lerner would have nothing to say and Cummings refused to voice the question he claimed he wanted to ask. Cummings subsequently </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.humanevents.com/2014/04/18/cummings-mccarthyism-charge-in-lerner-hearing-is-bogus/">accused</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> Issa for “efforts to re-create the Oversight Committee in Joe McCarthy’s image.” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Yet just as </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/jw-obtains-irs-documents-showing-lerner-contact-doj-potential-prosecution-tax-exempt-groups/">damning emails</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> revealed greater Obama administration involvement in the IRS’s efforts to target conservative tax-exempt groups, so too did </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-benghazi-documents-point-white-house-misleading-talking-points/">damning emails</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> reveal the extent to which the administration was willing to go to “tailor&#8221; the facts on Benghazi. It was those emails that forced Boehner’s hand on forming a select committee, especially since it took a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch to obtain them. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Nonetheless, Cummings remained reliably obstructionist. “I do not believe a select committee is called for after eight reports, dozens of witness interviews and a review of more than 25,000 pages of documents,” he declared. Whether those documents include the series of 41 documents obtained by Judicial Watch as a result of forcing the administration’s hand in court remains unclear.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Thus the so-called battle lines are drawn. Democrats and their media allies have made sure that their participation will be characterized as an effort to blunt Republican hyper-partisanship, even as they willfully ignore the reality that while the Obama administration’s disinformation campaign has been thoroughly shredded, not a single individual has been held accountable. Their other tactic consists of focusing, not on what happened in Benghazi, but how to prevent a reprise of that atrocity. “We hope that we can shine a light on where our focus should be, preventing tragedy like Benghazi from ever happening again.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Sorry, no sale. The focus should be on what happened, and why it was necessary to cover it up. And if this is the so-called witch hunt Democrats say it is, no doubt they will be more than willing to hear from the 20-30 Benghazi survivors. It’s been almost a year since CNN </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/08/01/exclusive-dozens-of-cia-operatives-on-the-ground-during-benghazi-attack/">reported</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that frequent, even monthly polygraph examinations were being employed to keep them from from talking to the public or Congress. Moreover, it’s utterly absurd that anyone could insist all Benghazi questions have been asked and answered when the Commander-in-Chief has yet to account for his whereabouts that night. Former Secretary of State Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/panetta-and-joint-chiefs-chair-obama-talked-them-only-once-night-benghazi-attack">testified</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that they spoke to Obama only once during the attack, and Clinton </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/348677/10-pm-phone-call-andrew-c-mccarthy">testified</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> she spoke with him at 10 p.m. EST. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Shortly after that phone call the State Department issued the following statement: </span></p>
<blockquote><p>Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation.</p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It is the commitment to the truth, toxic as it likely is for both Clinton and the Obama administration, that should drive the House Select Committee on Benghazi.</span></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>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ian-smith/the-return-of-earmarks/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 May 2014 04:20:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ian Smith]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[bills]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Congress]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[earmark]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pork]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></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>
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		<title>Bracing for Amnesty</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/bracing-for-amnesty/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bracing-for-amnesty</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/bracing-for-amnesty/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 31 Jan 2014 05:38:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[GOP]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Illegal]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=217664</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A jab at the Tea Party? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/John-Boehner-And-Paul-Ryan-500x298.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-217667" alt="John-Boehner-And-Paul-Ryan-500x298" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/John-Boehner-And-Paul-Ryan-500x298.jpg" width="297" height="200" /></a>Unbelievable as it may be to their core constituency, House Republicans are now </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/Boehner-immigration-GOP-retreat/2014/01/30/id/549922">embracing</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> comprehensive immigration reform. Late yesterday, the Hill </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/197023-house-republican-leaders-back-legal-status-for-illegal-immigrants">obtained</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> a one-page document outlining the GOP&#8217;s &#8220;statement of principals,&#8221; that endorses a path to legal status, once “specific enforcement triggers” have been achieved. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In an apparent sop to their base, House leadership stopped short of offering a path to citizenship, citing unfairness to those who have emigrated here legally, and the &#8220;harm&#8221; it would do to the rule of law. “Rather, these persons could live legally and without fear in the U.S., but only if they were willing to admit their culpability, pass rigorous background checks, pay significant fines and back taxes, develop proficiency in English and American civics, and be able to support themselves and their families (without access to public benefits),” the paper states.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Earlier in the day, GOP Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/01/30/Republicans-Embrace-Year-of-Action">confirmed</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the GOP&#8217;s determination to move forward on the issue. “We heard the president say this should be a year of action and that is our goal,&#8221; she told reporters. &#8220;We join the president in this effort to make this a year of action.” </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A year of political suicide may be more accurate. One that includes a stunning level of collective shortsightedness. Republicans intend to grant some sort of probationary legal status predicated on the federal government meeting certain, unspecified &#8220;enforcement triggers.&#8221; Undoubtedly, one of them is &#8220;border security,&#8221; the key item that is supposed to make the rest of the amnesty agenda palatable. That would be the same border security that has been routinely ignored ever since it was promised to be an integral part of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. Equally ignored was the </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/10/20061026-1.html">Secure Fence Act of 2006</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, that called for &#8220;at least two layers of reinforced fencing.&#8221; </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A 2007 amendment to the bill gutted </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/may/16/barack-obama/obama-says-border-fence-now-basically-complete/">that</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> provision, giving the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) &#8220;discretion&#8221; to determine what type of fencing would be used. Thus, vehicle barriers or single layer pedestrian fencing was deployed, despite its ineffectiveness. Adding insult to injury, last June, the Senate </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.examiner.com/article/why-our-southern-border-will-never-be-secure">rejected</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> by a vote of 54-39 an amendment offered by Sen. John Thune (R-SD). It called for nothing more than the funding and completion of the 700 miles of double-tiered fencing along our southern border. Five Republicans voted against the measure, including the insufferable Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who ran a 2010 campaign ad with the phrase, “let’s build the dang fence!” in it.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In other words, what Republicans are willfully ignoring is the reality of a Democrat party and an Obama administration with a demonstrable record of selective law enforcement, whenever that selectivity suits their agenda. The notion that </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">this</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> time it will be different, is utterly laughable.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">And that&#8217;s only the issue of border security. Even though Republicans stop short of granting citizenship to illegals, and opt instead for some sort of &#8220;legal status,&#8221; how long do they think it will be before Democrats and their media allies begin an all-out campaign against the unconscionable &#8220;two-tier&#8221; immigration system created by a &#8220;nativist&#8221; GOP?  The one that denies hard-working, tax-paying people the genuine justice that only a pathway to citizenship can provide?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">On Wednesday, Paul Ryan </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2014/01/29/rep-ryan-gop-looking-at-legal-status-chance-for-citizenship/">admitted</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> he envisions that &#8220;probationary&#8221; status, allowing illegals to work while government tightened border security and internal enforcement metrics, will be buttressed by a law the Obama administration &#8220;can&#8217;t avoid.&#8221; </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In reality, border metrics and/or other &#8220;specific enforcement triggers&#8221; may </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">already</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> be largely irrelevant. This week, the labor union that represents the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers and adjudicators, which is tasked with the application approval process, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/30/immigration-officials-warn-amnesty-overload/">explained</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> why. In a letter to Congress, they essentially made a mockery of the &#8220;rigorous background checks&#8221; promoted by the GOP, warning that they would be unable to handle the workload associated with investigating millions of applicants. “USCIS is not equipped to handle this workload, and due to political interference in its mission, is not empowered to deny admission to all those who should be denied due to ineligibility,&#8221; said National Citizenship And Immigration Services Council president Kenneth Palinkas. &#8220;We have become a visa clearinghouse for the world, rather than the first line of defense for a secure immigration system.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Obama administration officials countered that assessment, saying they would be ready if Congress provides them the opportunity. Yet the </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Washington Times</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> notes that key questions remain unanswered. It remains unknown what documents would be necessary to meet the criteria for &#8220;legal status,&#8221; and whether USCIS adjudicators would interview every applicant, &#8220;which would take longer but would be more likely to weed out criminals or fraudulent applications.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Those questions may remain officially unanswered, but who&#8217;s kidding whom? This is the same Obama administration that unilaterally suspended critical aspects of the healthcare law when the website they had three years to build &#8212; to </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">process applications </i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8211; turned into an unmitigated disaster. On top of that, they forced both insurance companies and American citizens to rely on an &#8220;honor system&#8221; to verify subsidies and coverage based on income. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Do Republicans seriously believe the same administration would be above &#8220;streamlining&#8221; the process for verifying the eligibility of a constituency they rightly envision becoming future Democrats? How many thousands of illegal aliens might be granted probationary status based on a similar honor system, such as a promise to verify their eligibility at a later date?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">That political reality is apparently a secondary consideration for Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman Reince Priebus.“I think politically speaking it&#8217;s a mixed bag, but the question is whether or not it’s something we have to do as a country, and I think that’s what’s trumping the political answer,” he </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/29/rncs-reince-priebus-general-consensus-something-bi/">insists</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. “You see in our party, whether it’s Rand Paul, who’s called for massive immigration reform, or Marco Rubio, I think you have general consensus that something big has to happen.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Columnist Ann Coulter, who was privy to a report produced by conservative stalwart Phyllis Schlafly, </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2014-01-29.html">reveals</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> just how &#8220;big&#8221; immigration </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">per se</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> has been for the GOP. &#8220;Schlafly&#8217;s report overwhelmingly demonstrates that merely continuing our current immigration policies spells doom for the Republican Party,&#8221; Coulter writes, later adding that &#8220;there&#8217;s never been a period when a majority of immigrants weren&#8217;t Democrats.&#8221;</span></p>
<p>The statistics are daunting. For example, while 81 percent of native-born Americans believe schools should teach students to be proud of America, only half of naturalized U.S. citizens do. Sixty-seven percent of native-born Americans believe the Constitution supersedes international law, compared to only 37 percent of naturalized citizens. Immigrants also express substantial support for ObamaCare, bigger government, gun control, and affirmative action. Every one of those positions is (or ought to be) antithetical to the interests of the GOP. Coulter then gets to the central argument that apparently eludes them. &#8220;Republicans have no obligation to assist the Democrats as they change the country in a way that favors them electorally, particularly when it does great harm to the people already here.&#8221;</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The harm that would befall American workers is inarguable. The CBO </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44346-Immigration.pdf">reveals</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> that wages for Americans would be adversely affected for more than a decade, and that the unemployment rate would-be &#8220;slightly&#8221; higher until 2020. Black and Hispanic Americans, many of whom would be competing directly with the newly legalized immigrants for jobs, already endure unemployment rates higher than the national average. That the Democrats consider them temporarily expendable in their quest for electoral hegemony is understandable. That the GOP would blow a golden opportunity to make serious inroads with them while Democrats are pursuing that hegemony, is truly remarkable.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Unfortunately the Republicans&#8217; ability to deceive themselves appears limitless. Again, is there any doubt that Democrats would insist on some sort of &#8220;readjustment&#8221; regarding fines and/or back taxes for a population that has long endured the economic deprivation engendered by &#8220;living in the shadows?&#8221;</span></p>
<p>How long before the same party that advocates for forgiveness of student loans, advocates forgiveness &#8212; along with welfare &#8212; for people who are struggling against the same “income inequality” that afflicts so many Americans?</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Yet perhaps the most disconcerting aspect of the GOP&#8217;s capitulation on the issue is political. In an </span><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/01/30/Exclusive-Ted-Cruz-House-GOP-leadership-s-amnesty-plan-would-destroy-chances-at-retaking-Senate-this-year?utm_source=twitterfeed&amp;utm_medium=twitter">interview</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> with Breitbart, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) echoed what many Americans are undoubtedly thinking. &#8220;Republicans are poised for an historic election this fall &#8212; a conservative tidal wave much like 2010,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The biggest thing we could do to mess that up would be if the House passed an amnesty bill &#8212; or any bill perceived as an amnesty bill&#8211;that demoralized voters going into November. Rather than responding to the big-money lobbying on K Street, we need to make sure working-class Americans show up by the millions to reject Obamacare and vote out the Democrats. Amnesty will ensure they stay home.&#8221;</span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">A Republican Party that seems determined to alienate their core constituency should expect nothing less. Yet that determination raises an uncomfortable question. Why? Cruz may have inadvertently provided an answer. The &#8220;conservative tidal wave&#8221; that represents Tea Party sentiment, if not the Tea Party itself, irritates the establishment GOP. It may be possible that such irritation is severe enough for establishment Republicans to operate in tandem with Democrats on this issue, to mitigate the power of that tidal wave within their ranks. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">There are more than a few conservatives who believe the establishment GOP is content to be a minority party, as long as it is a minority enjoying the privileges that accrue to Washington insiders. That may not be the only explanation for their determination to embrace a position on immigration utterly inimical to their base. But it is certainly a plausible one given the irrational path House leadership is embarking on.</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>Will 2014 Be the Year of Amnesty?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/will-2014-be-the-year-of-amnesty/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=will-2014-be-the-year-of-amnesty</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/will-2014-be-the-year-of-amnesty/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Jan 2014 05:09:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Boehner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Illegal Immigration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[New York Times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=214506</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Ominous signals that capitulation is on the horizon. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/illegal-immigration.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-214508" alt="illegal-immigration" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/illegal-immigration-450x295.jpg" width="315" height="207" /></a>House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) seems determined to undo the political advantage the GOP has gained from the disastrous implementation of ObamaCare. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/02/us/politics/boehner-is-said-to-back-change-on-immigration.html?nl=todaysheadlines&amp;emc=edit_th_20140102&amp;_r=1&amp;">According</a> to the <i>New York Times</i>, Boehner &#8220;has signaled he may embrace a series of limited changes to the nation’s immigration laws in the coming months,&#8221; bringing up a series of bills to advance that agenda. Apparently Boehner is holding firm to the belief that the need for some kind of &#8220;reform&#8221; outweighs the risks of alienating his core constituency.</p>
<p>According to the Boehner&#8217;s aides, the Speaker is considering a &#8220;step by step&#8221; process, though they did not identify these steps in specificity. The <i>Times</i>, no doubt in an effort to be &#8220;helpful,&#8221; suggested that such an agenda might include fast-tracking legalization for agricultural workers, increasing the number of visas for high-tech workers, or embracing citizenship for young illegals whose parents brought them across the border.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, gaining control of the border failed to make the list.</p>
<p>Immigration activists were ostensibly buoyed by two recent indications that Boehner is becoming more attuned to their concerns. First, in an effort to push what he called a &#8220;common sense&#8221; overhaul of the system, Boehner <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/free/20140101boehner-reform-hinges.html">hired</a> Rebecca Tallent. Tallent is a former staffer for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/james_kolbe/400226">former</a> House member James Kolbe, a Republican who represented Arizona&#8217;s 8th congressional district. Tallent is a <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/3/boehner-legalization-advocate-advise-immigration/">pro-amnesty advocate</a> who has been involved in the creation of broad legalization bills for McCain and Kolbe over the last decade. &#8220;Tallent&#8217;s hiring suggests [Boehner] really does still want to push an amnesty through the House, which to me suggests that the immigration hawks still have their work cut out for them,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “She is a professional amnesty advocate.”</p>
<p>Boehner&#8217;s aides claim she was brought in to represent his views and not her own. Reform advocates paint a far more realistic picture of the hire, contending that there was no reason to hire Tallent unless Boehner was prepared to address the issue.</p>
<p>Boehner&#8217;s aides noted that he remains opposed to the so-called &#8220;Gang of Eight&#8221;-sponsored Senate bill that sailed through that chamber on a bipartisan vote of 68-32 last June. “The American people are skeptical of big, comprehensive bills, and frankly, they should be,” Mr. Boehner told reporters last month. “The only way to make sure immigration reform works this time is to address these complicated issues one step at a time. I think doing so will give the American people confidence that we’re dealing with these issues in a thoughtful way and a deliberative way.”</p>
<p>However, the coordinated pressure of immigration activists and their allies casts doubt on the possibility of addressing immigration issues in a thoughtful or deliberative way. Activists who <a href="http://americasvoice.org/blog/more-escalation-for-immigration-reform-activists-engage-in-acts-of-civil-disobedience-today-in-new-york-florida/">participated</a> in acts of civil disobedience late last year to further their agenda are planning new demonstrations for Washington, D.C. and other cities in 2014. Business groups, including tech companies from Silicon Valley and the <a href="http://immigration.uschamber.com/">Chamber of Commerce</a> will be initiating new lobbying campaigns. Faith, immigrant rights, and labor organizations who launched the Fast For Familes campaign late last year have <a href="http://blog.bread.org/2013/12/immigration-reform-looking-ahead-to-2014.html">promised</a> to ramp up the pressure as well.</p>
<p>The strategy behind the push is to get the legislative ball rolling in the House sometime in May or June, after Republicans running in 2014 have finished their primary campaigns. After that, the hope is that some sort of bill will reach President Obama&#8217;s desk before the 2014 election campaign gets in full gear. “That’s our first window,” said Jim Wallis, the president of Sojourners, a Christian social justice organization in favor of Amnesty. “We are organizing, mobilizing, getting ready here. I do really think that we have a real chance at this in the first half of the year.”</p>
<p>If that strategy fails, activists envision another effort during the lame-duck session of Congress following the election. That would represent their last chance for using parts of the Senate bill as the basis for any compromise, because it expires at the end of this year. Thus, much like 2013, they are emphasizing the urgency of getting something done, sooner rather than later.</p>
<p>In the <i>Times</i>&#8216; telling of things, some sort of immigration reform is necessary to make the Republican Party palatable for Hispanics, who are &#8220;crucial to the party’s fortunes in the 2016 presidential election.&#8221; Leaving aside for the moment the absurd notion that anyone on the left, much less the <i>New York Times</i>, has any interest in helping the GOP enhance its fortunes, reality also reveals otherwise. In every presidential election going back to 1980, Hispanics have overwhelmingly <a href="http://www.cis.org/mortensen/hispanics-were-democrats-long-illegal-immigration-became-issue">favored</a> the Democratic Party by an average margin of 64-31 percent.</p>
<p>That includes the 1988 election when George G.W. Bush beat Democrat contender Michael Dukakis in a 41 state vs. 9 state blow out. Duakais garnered 69 percent of the Hispanic vote to Bush&#8217;s 30 percent in the first presidential election following the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act that granted <i>outright amnesty</i> to 2.7 million illegal aliens. Because the two other critical provisions of that bill, namely a crackdown on businesses that hire illegals and enhancing border security, were virtually ignored, America now faces the prospect of more than four times that number of illegals &#8212; assuming the much-touted, but unverifiable number of 11 million is accurate &#8211; <i>demanding</i> amnesty.</p>
<p>The idea that Hispanics will eventually embrace conservative values is equally absurd. A 2012 <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/04/v-politics-values-and-religion/">survey</a> conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center reveals that while only a 41 percent minority of Americans in general favor bigger government and more social services, a full 75 percent of Hispanics embrace that fundamental pillar of the American left. And while that percentage decreases among Hispanics who have been here longer, it still remains at 58 percent for those who have been here for three generations or more. Assuming current trends continue, Republicans might squeak out a bare majority of the Hispanic vote in time for the presidential election of 2036.</p>
<p>Immigration reform advocates, who endured their last defeat on the issue in 2006, insist the public embraces a different attitude on the subject eight years later. Again, a Pew poll <a href="http://www.policymic.com/articles/25257/immigration-reform-2013-poll-shows-surprising-consenus">reveals</a> that Americans remain largely wedded to the ideas contained in the 1986 bill, with 85 percent believing employers should have to verify the legality of all new hires, and 68 percent favoring increased security measures and enforcement at U.S. borders. And while 72 percent of Americans support allowing illegals to remain in the country, they do so only after certain requirements, such as paying back taxes, learning English, and passing background checks, are met <i>first</i>. Furthermore, despite that approval, <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2013/0329/More-Americans-willing-to-let-illegal-immigrants-stay-poll-finds">more than half</a> of those polled remain opposed granting citizenship to illegals.</p>
<p>A Gallup poll taken after the 2012 election <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/nov/15/picket-gallup-shows-less-fifty-percent-support-pre/">confirms</a> that opposition. Only 37 percent of Americans favor a pathway to citizenship, and 62 percent want illegal immigration halted completely. Yet the party breakdown of the numbers is far more significant. Forty-nine percent of Democrats favor a pathway to citizenship, compared to only 25 percent of Republicans. Eight-two percent of Republicans want to prioritize stopping the flow of illegals, versus only 48 percent of Democrats.</p>
<p>In other words, unless the first thing out of the legislative box has something to do with stopping the flow of illegals and eschewing anything regarding a pathway to citizenship, Republicans are virtually certain to alienate a substantial portion of their core constituency if they go along with the Left on immigration.</p>
<p>An unnamed top Republican aide contends that won&#8217;t happen. “They won’t try to push through something that conservatives can’t live with,” the aide told the <i>Times. </i>Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH), a member of the Judiciary Committee, <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/free/20140101boehner-reform-hinges.html">reflected</a> the essence of conservative opposition. He characterized a pathway to citizenship as &#8220;unfair to the millions of people who are trying to come to this country and follow the rules as they are,” further insisting that Republicans shouldn&#8217;t get “stampeded into something that’s not good for the country.” Chabot supports Hispanic outreach. “But I don’t think the immigration bill itself is something that’s going to accomplish that,” he contends.</p>
<p>Roy Beck, CEO and founder of NumbersUSA was blunt regarding the GOP&#8217;s motivation for reform, insisting Boehner is beholden to large campaign donors. “He wants it, Number 1, to give the tech contributors what they want on tech visas and, Number 2, to give the ag lobbyists what they want on farmworker visas,” Beck said. “He also is heavily influenced by the Republican National Committee consultants who just want to get the issue off the table.”</p>
<p>Yet the issue is only <i>on</i> the table if Boehner puts it there. Republicans have a party retreat scheduled later this month and immigration reform will undoubtedly come up. They might want to consider two realities as part of the discussion. First, it takes a remarkable level of political tone-deafness to begin dealing with an issue that is not only inimical to the interests of their base, but one that is contentious enough to take the focus off the debacle of ObamaCare <i>wholly owned</i> by Democrats. A party with visions of holding the House and taking the Senate might be wise to remember that one of the primary reasons Mitt Romney lost the 2012 presidential election was because a huge portion of the electorate <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/333135/voters-who-stayed-home-andrew-c-mccarthy">stayed home</a>, due in large part to their belief that there isn&#8217;t a dime&#8217;s worth of difference between the two political parties. Republicans embracing anything other than a hard stance on reform would exacerbate that reality. If they do, it isn&#8217;t hard to envision a low-turnout election that maintains the current status quo.</p>
<p>Second, as long as an Obama administration with a track record of selective and capricious law enforcement capabilities remains in power, who&#8217;s to say what part of any new law won&#8217;t receive the same treatment? As Breitbart News <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/02/Exclusive-Border-Patrol-Management-Orders-Agents-to-Stand-Down-While-Tracking-Smugglers">revealed</a> last October, Shawn Moran, Vice President of the National Border Patrol Council, insisted that Border Patrol agents were being ordered to stand down and allow illegal aliens, human traffickers and drug cartel members, to cross the border. Budget cuts were the ostensible reason for the order, but Moran noted the Border Patrol &#8220;has a larger budget than ever,&#8221; but it has &#8220;not trickled down to the men and women with their boots on the ground.&#8221; Obama also unilaterally <a href="http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/issues/DREAM-Act">authorized</a> his own version of the DREAM Act a year earlier.</p>
<p>If that&#8217;s still not enough for the GOP, they should consider one more reality. A Gallup <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/162347/americans-give-guns-immigration-reform-low-priority.aspx">poll</a> released last May asked Americans what the most pressing priorities of the nation are. Of the twelve separate categories, reforming immigration finished dead last. Creating jobs and growing the economy finished one and two. In light of a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) report <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/18/CBO-Immigration-bill-would-drive-down-American-workers-wages">released</a> last June, predicting the Senate immigration bill would drive down wages and make it harder for Americans to find jobs &#8212; not to mention a Heritage Foundation <a href="http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/05/the-fiscal-cost-of-unlawful-immigrants-and-amnesty%20to-the-us-taxpayer">report</a> asserting reform would cost taxpayers $6.3 trillion in new spending on entitlements and social programs over a 50 year period &#8211;Republicans might want to reorder their own priorities. A viable opposition party is a terrible thing to waste.</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>Sebelius&#8217;s Big Day of Big Lies</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/sebeliuss-big-day-of-big-lies/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=sebeliuss-big-day-of-big-lies</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 31 Oct 2013 04:50:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[President Obama was never dishonest with the American people? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/kathleen-sebelius-to-congress-whatever.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-209154" alt="kathleen-sebelius-to-congress-whatever" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/kathleen-sebelius-to-congress-whatever-450x337.jpg" width="270" height="202" /></a>Those Americans who watched Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius&#8217;s testimony yesterday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee might be forgiven for thinking they were in an alternate universe. Despite her assertion that Americans <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/10/30/sebelius-health-care-house-hearing/3308771/">should</a> &#8220;hold me accountable&#8221; for the ongoing debacle, Sebelius later claimed she was never warned by anyone that the scheduled roll out of the <a href="http://Healthcare.gov/">Healthcare.gov</a> website would be the disaster it turned out to be. Furthermore, she stood by the assertion that the president has been &#8220;keeping his promise&#8221; with regard to the idea that Americans who liked their insurance policies could keep them. Fittingly, <a href="http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2013/10/30/sebelius-on-whether-obama-is-responsible-for-obamacare-whatever-n1733368">during</a> the entire three and a half hours the Secretary testified, the <a href="http://Healthcare.gov/">Healthcare.gov</a> website was down.</p>
<p>Sebelius&#8217;s contention that she was not warned of the problems with the website is a lie. CNN <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/29/politics/obamacare-warning/index.html">reveals</a> they obtained a confidential report showing that while website creator CGI executives were publicly testifying about achieving milestones, they warned the administration a month before the launch that there were &#8220;a number of open risks and issues&#8221; associated with the website.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly, Americans are far more interested in the far bigger lie perpetrated by this administration, highlighted by the <a href="http://www.examiner.com/article/sebelius-denies-obama-broke-promise-that-americans-can-keep-current-insurance">exchange</a> between Sebelius and Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN). “Before, during and after the law was passed the president kept saying if you like your health care plan, you can keep it, so is he keeping his promise?” asked Blackburn. “Yes, he is,” Sebelius replied. When Blackburn noted the reality that 300,000 people in Florida and 28,000 in Tennessee had their policies terminated, Sebelius contended that &#8220;they can get health insurance.&#8221;</p>
<p>The president didn’t promise people they could <i>get</i> health insurance. &#8220;No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you&#8217;ll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what,&#8221; Obama <a href="http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/2013/10/30/gop_says_obama_broke_health_care.htm">said</a> in remarks made to the American Medical Association in 2009.</p>
<p>In 2010, after the law&#8217;s enactment, Obama <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/10/30/obamas-pledge-that-no-one-will-take-away-your-health-plan/?hpid=z1">made</a> the same promise. “And if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you. It hasn’t happened yet. It won’t happen in the future.” he said.</p>
<p>Nothing <a href="http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/28/21213547-obama-admin-knew-millions-could-not-keep-their-health-insurance?lite">changed</a> in 2012. “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance,” reiterated Obama.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, it was Press Secretary Jay Carney&#8217;s turn when he <a href="http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/29/21237370-white-house-president-didnt-mislead-on-insurance-promise">claimed</a> the president &#8220;was clear about a basic fact. If you had insurance that you liked on the individual market, and you wanted to keep that insurance…you could,” he contended. The <a href="http://Whitehouse.gov/">Whitehouse.gov</a> website made the <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform/healthcare-overview">same</a> assertion as recently as <i>yesterday.</i> &#8220;If you like your plan you can keep it and you don’t have to change a thing due to the health care law.&#8221;</p>
<p>As NBC News <a href="http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/28/21213547-obama-admin-knew-millions-could-not-keep-their-health-insurance?lite">reports,</a> the Obama administration knew as early as 2010 that assertion was a lie. Despite promising that some insurance policies in non-compliance with the current law would be &#8220;grandfathered&#8221; into the bill, the Department of Health and Human Services tightened the provisions for that grandfathering three months <i>after</i> the bill&#8217;s passage. If any part of a policy was significantly changed, such as a deductible or copay, it no longer qualified for grandfather status.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/10/30/obamas-pledge-that-no-one-will-take-away-your-health-plan/?hpid=z1">According</a> to the <i>Washington Post</i>, &#8220;significant&#8221; meant as little as a $5.00 change in one&#8217;s copay, &#8220;plus the medical cost of inflation&#8221; (which would have been $5.20 based on last year&#8217;s inflation rate of 4 percent), or <i>any</i> increase in the coinsurance rate above what it was when the law went into effect on March 23, 2010. Moreover, in the bill itself, there was a statement noting that the normal turnover in the insurance market would cause “40 to 67 percent” of customers to lose their policies.</p>
<p>Despite this reality, Sebelius essentially <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/30/politics/obamacare-sebelius/">testified</a> the American public was not only aware of these technical changes, but that they represented a &#8220;wide corridor&#8221; allowing Americans to keep their existing policies. Thus, contended Sebelius, the president was being truthful.</p>
<p>The <i>Post</i> inadvertently reveals the utter absurdity of that contention, noting that those technical changes Sebelius cites are contained in Vol. 75 of the <a href="https://webapps.dol.gov/federalregister/PdfDisplay.aspx?DocId=23967">Federal Register</a>, dated June 17, 2010, three months after the bill was passed, and the regulations themselves are listed on pages <i>34,560 through 34,562.</i></p>
<p>At a later point in her testimony, Sebelius contradicted herself, conceding that Americans remain largely uninformed about the healthcare bill, heartily <a href="http://cnsnews.com/news/article/melanie-hunter/congressman-obamacare-can-save-me-money-subsidizing-my-33-yr-old-son">agreeing</a> with Rep. Mike Doyle (D-PA) that a &#8220;real marketing campaign&#8221; was necessary to make sure Americans, especially the young who must sign up to keep the system viable, get better informed about the healthcare website.</p>
<p>Doyle was at least affable. Most of his Democratic colleagues were far more interested in praising and protecting Sebelius, as well as castigating Republicans, than getting answers about the problems plaguing the roll out of the program. Republicans were alternately accused of &#8220;sabotaging the bill,&#8221; &#8220;rooting for failure,&#8221; and being on &#8220;the wrong side of history.&#8221; Democrats further extolled the virtues of ObamaCare, and the great benefits it was providing to millions of Americans, even as Sebelius steadfastly refused to release any figures regarding the number of people who have actually signed up for insurance. When asked if the administration would lift a gag order and allow insurance companies to provide those numbers to the public, Sebelius said no.</p>
<p>One of the more pointed <a href="http://freedomslighthouse.net/2013/10/30/gop-rep-mike-rogers-during-sebelius-testimony-obamacare-website-not-secure-will-you-shut-down-the-system-for-end-to-end-security-tests-video-103013/">exchanges</a> occurred between Sebelius and Rep. Mike Rodgers (R-MI). Addressing security issues with the website, Rodgers got Sebelius to admit that she did not know whether or not each code fix being added to the website was tested for security. Sebelius insisted that security is &#8220;an ongoing operation,&#8221; yet when Rodgers asked if the system had been tested &#8220;end to end,&#8221; Sebelius didn&#8217;t know the answer.</p>
<p>Rodgers did. He had documentation stating that the website would be rolled out despite the fact that security was only partially completed and that &#8220;this constitutes a risk that must be accepted before the marketplace day one operations.&#8221; Rodgers was incensed. &#8220;You accepted a risk on behalf of every user of this computer that put their personal financial information at risk, because you did not have even the most basic end-to-end test on the security of this system,&#8221; he said. When Rodgers asked if Sebelius would commit to shutting down the system until an end-to-end test of security was conducted she declined, and insisted that ongoing testing is underway. In other words, no end-to-end test has been conducted, and Americans’ confidential information remains at risk &#8212; all of which is apparently fine with Sebelius.</p>
<p>Perhaps it is fine because Sebelius has her own healthcare plan, a point <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/30/sebelius-rejects-enrolling-obamacare-exchanges/">emphasized</a> by Rep. Cory Gardner (R-CO). He told Sebelius that he had rejected the Cadillac coverage offered Congress, and enrolled in a plan in the individual market, only to discover that plan was being discontinued due to ObamaCare. He asked the Secretary why she hadn&#8217;t subjected herself to a similar experience, drawing the only applause during the entire hearing. Sebelius claimed she wasn&#8217;t eligible, because she was covered by her employer.</p>
<p>The <i>Washington Post</i> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/30/sebelius-said-it-would-be-illegal-for-her-to-buy-obamacare-thats-not-quite-right/">discovered</a> that Sebelius was wrong. She could get coverage, but it wouldn&#8217;t be as good as the deal as she gets now. After further challenges by other Republicans, Sebelius <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/kathleen-sebelius-hot-mic-dont-do-this-to-me-obamacare-testimony-2013-10">contended</a> she would “gladly join the exchange” if she didn’t already have her federal plan.</p>
<p>In other words, she can, but she won&#8217;t.</p>
<p>With help from Democrats, the Secretary repeatedly extolled the virtues of ObamaCare, noting that even those who are losing their current insurance will be getting a better, more comprehensive product instead. That has been the fallback answer for this administration, even as it has been revealed that <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57609737/obamacare-more-than-2-million-people-getting-booted-from-existing-health-insurance-plans/">more</a> than two million Americans are losing their current healthcare plans, a total more than <i>triple</i> the number signing up for ObamaCare. &#8220;What we&#8217;re seeing now is reality coming into play,&#8221; said industry expert Larry Levitt, of the Kaiser Family Foundation. Many Americans are unaware that this is occurring because ObamaCare mandates 10 minimum standards, whether Americans need a particular kind of coverage or not.</p>
<p>Representative Renee Ellmers (R-NC) <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/362627/gop-rep-asks-sebelius-why-single-men-need-maternity-coverage-andrew-johnson">drove</a> that point home at the hearing, noting that some single men have to have maternity coverage included in their policy. Sebelius stated that this was necessary because &#8220;an insurance policy has a series of benefits whether you use them or not.&#8221; Thus, those buying insurance must pay for coverage they will never use, so other people can have coverage. In other words, in addition to taxpayer subsidies included in ObamaCare, those buying insurance are also subsidizing other insurance purchasers.</p>
<p>During the course of the hearing, Sebelius promised the website would be completely operational by November 30, but admitted there are no fallback options for those who have lost their insurance, even if they are unable to sign up for a new policy before their current one runs out.</p>
<p>As far as Sebelius taking responsibility for the current failure of the website, one should remember a similar statement was made by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with regard to Benghazi. Clinton&#8217;s acceptance of responsibility amounted to exactly nothing. Since Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest <a href="http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2013/10/30/obama-complete-confidence-sebelius/">announced</a> late yesterday afternoon that the &#8220;President has complete confidence in Secretary Sebelius,&#8221; she is likely to &#8220;suffer&#8221; the same fate.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, as is always the case with this administration and their media sycophants, the real action on healthcare is occurring largely under the radar. While Americans are having difficulty keeping old policies or buying new ones, Medicaid enrollment&#8211;as in enrollment in a single payer government run healthcare program&#8211;is <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505267_162-57609254/medicaid-enrollment-spike-a-threat-to-obamacare-structure/">exploding</a>. The numbers are stark. In Washington, 87 percent of the more than 35,000 people newly enrolled in the healthcare system signed up for Medicaid. In Kentucky, it was 82 percent of 26,000 new enrollments, and New York, Medicaid accounts for 64 percent of that state’s 37,000 new enrollments. &#8220;Medicaid experts say they&#8217;re not sure why they&#8217;re seeing the lopsided enrollment numbers, but point out it&#8217;s easier to enroll in Medicaid than private insurance,&#8221; reports CBS, apparently oblivious to obvious correlation.</p>
<p>What some Americans are <i>not</i> oblivious to is the threat this represents. &#8220;Either the private insurance enrollments come up somewhere around the expected amount or there&#8217;s going to be a problem. &#8230; You need a volume and you need a mix of people that are healthy as well as high users in private insurance, in order to have it be sustainable,&#8221; said Gail Wilensky, a former Medicaid director.</p>
<p>What Americans need to ask themselves is this: is the chaos surrounding the implementation of the healthcare bill, coupled with the explosion of Medicaid enrollments enabled by the same bill, happening by accident or design? “My commitment is to make sure that we’ve got universal health care for all Americans by the end of my first term as President,&#8221; <a href="http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/time-choosing/2013/oct/25/obama-has-failed-designing-system-was-intended-fai/">said</a> Barack Obama in 2007, at an SEIU union Healthcare Forum. Obama envisioned a 10 to 15 year rollout, and some critics contend the current ineptitude is happening too fast for Americans to swallow a wholesale transition to single-payer government run healthcare.</p>
<p>Yet millions of people losing healthcare coverage, with dim prospects of finding affordable alternatives at this moment in time, could conceivably alter that equation. If there is one thing the massive expansion of the welfare state has proven, it is the reality that a record-breaking number of Americans are willing to be subsidized by their fellow Americans. Furthermore, demonizing private insurance companies that many Americans already hold in contempt, to the point where they would be driven into bankruptcy, is certainly not unimaginable. The president did his part yesterday <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/10/30/obama-blames-bad-apple-insurers-for-canceled-insurance-plans/">blaming</a> “bad apple” insurance companies for canceling plans.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for Americans, the demonization may amount to little more than piling on: there is a good possibility the quality of current enrollment is already producing a death spiral in the industry.</p>
<p>The Obama administration has promised to reveal the number of enrollees in the new system the middle of next month. It could be one of the more historic announcements in recent history, as Americans will likely discover just how much of Barack Obama&#8217;s promise to &#8220;fundamentally transform the United States of America&#8221; has been realized. In the meantime, Sebelius and company will ostensibly be trying to &#8220;fix&#8221; the current system. The fix as they say, may already be in.</p>
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		<title>GOP to Obama: Keep Holding America Hostage</title>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Oct 2013 04:56:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[The GOP surrender and what it tells Dems about their crusade to take us to fiscal oblivion. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Obama-Speech-Drone-Policy-med.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-207694" alt="Obama-Speech-Drone-Policy-med" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Obama-Speech-Drone-Policy-med.jpg" width="307" height="265" /></a>A deal ending the government shutdown was <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/16/senate-leaders-announce-agreement-end-shutdown/">reached</a> late last night when the Republican-controlled House approved a proposed package sent by the Democrat-led Senate. Democratic congressional leaders and pundits everywhere are declaring the event a victory for the president and the Democratic Party, as they claim credit for preventing a mythical government default and stabilizing the market. In reality, the GOP&#8217;s surrender has only made it seem doubtful that the party can intervene in a serious way to liberate Americans held hostage to the Democratic spending binge. Meanwhile, the Democrats have announced they will not negotiate. They will not be reasoned with. They will except nothing less than complete submission as they rob the public blind and push us toward fiscal oblivion.</p>
<p>To recap, the deal calls for re-opening the government with a stopgap spending bill that runs to January 15. The government&#8217;s borrowing authority would be extended until at least February 7. It requires both the House and the Senate to name budget negotiators, who will have a December 13 deadline to reach an agreement on a budget for FY2014. And in the one concession granted by Democrats to Republicans, those seeking subsidies under the new healthcare bill will have to have their incomes verified.</p>
<p>That Democrats consider it a concession to require someone to prove his income is low enough to qualify for a taxpayer subsidized insurance premium provides a valuable insight into the progressive view of the free-for-all public trough. Prior to this concession, the Obama administration was willing to <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/07/06/not-qualified-for-obamacares-subsidies-just-lie-govt-to-use-honor-system-without-verifying-your-eligibility/">rely</a> on the honor system, and “accept the applicant’s attestation [regarding eligibility] without further verification” until 2015. Why wouldn&#8217;t Democrats be concerned with the possibility of gaming the system? Because as long as that system fosters greater levels of government dependency, Democrats are all for it. And they are for it irrespective of the costs and by inviting people to defraud the government.</p>
<p>However, this small victory of income verification for the GOP pales in comparison to the almost $17 trillion of national debt that, along with ObamaCare, was the principal driver behind the current shutdown. In Obama’s term alone, spending has increased nearly $6 trillion. Approximately half of every dollar spent by the government is borrowed. At present pace, the debt will exceed $20 trillion by Obama’s last year in office, 2016 (with almost $10 trillion alone overseen by the president by then). According to a Harvard <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/harvard-us-debt-bill-is-123000-per-worker/article/2537299">study</a>, if every working American had to pay off what this nation currently owes, each one would have to come up with $123,000. Every <i>living</i> American &#8212; man, woman and child &#8212; would be forced to pony up $53,000. Already to service the interest on the debt, Americans pay $237 billion every year, or nearly $3,000 for every taypaying household. By 2022, taxpayers will be responsible for $1 trillion per year in interest alone.</p>
<p>Yet at every turn, congressional Democrats, led by President Obama, have not only defended, but have zealously guarded this status quo. Previous threats of government shutdown have resulted in meaningless reforms at best. The president himself has categorically ignored his bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission, whose recommendations call for reforms to discretionary spending and budget behemoths Medicare and Social Security. Though the president and Democrats have spent ample time since 2008 engaging in aggressive class warfare political campaigns and calls for spending more and more taypayer money, they have spent no time championing these Simpson-Bowles reforms, even though the plan calls for raising tax revenue.</p>
<p>Leaving aside the most budget-consuming federal programs, which will take massive political will on both sides to address, the Left has been unwilling to consider reforming even the most absurd examples of government spending insanity. A <a href="http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/theworkversus.pdf">study</a> by the Cato Institute confirmed that for a mother and two children enrolled in a typical mix of seven common welfare programs, the median value of that package is $28,500. Since that value is untaxed, one would have to find a job at a considerably higher salary just to break even. The federal government currently spends $688 billion funding 126 separate anti-poverty programs of which 72 provide cash or other benefits directly to poor families. From 1965 to 2008, a Heritage Foundation study reveals that the total spent only on means tested welfare for the poor in 2008 dollars had reached nearly $16 trillion, more than twice what we have spent on every military conflict from the American Revolution through today. And what we have to show for it is a poverty rate that <a href="http://www.dailyfinance.com/2013/09/17/poverty-rate-stuck-15percent-record-number/">remains</a> stuck at 15 percent, and a record-breaking 46.5 million Americans mired below the poverty line.</p>
<p>The Democrats’ consistent (and only) response to the spending madness has been that the rich need &#8220;paid their fair share” and that taxes need to be raised. However, the top 10 percent of taxpayers paid over <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/12/news/economy/rich-taxes/">70 percent</a> of the total amount collected in federal income taxes in 2010, the last year for which figures are available. The remaining 90 percent accounted for 30 percent of the take, while approximately 47 percent of Americans pay virtually no income taxes at all. <a href="http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110518110349AAuTjaJ">According</a> to the IRS, two percent of Americans earn $250,000 or more. If Congress taxed them at a rate of 100 percent, it would yield $1.4 trillion. Confiscating all of the corporate profits from the entire list of Fortune 500 companies would yield another $400 billion. Confiscating <i>every bit of wealth</i> from America&#8217;s 400 billionaires would yield another $1.4 trillion. Total take? $3.2 trillion.</p>
<p>Thus, reality is stark. Absent real and sustained reductions in spending, the middle class will bear an enormous tax increase to bring America back to anything resembling fiscal sanity. That would be the same middle class whose <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-08-21/business/41431709_1_sentier-research-4-percent-households">incomes</a> have declined 4.4 percent since the so-called recovery began in 2009. <a href="http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-09-08/households-foodstamps-rise-new-record-high-more-americans-live-poverty-population-sp">Record numbers</a> of Americans are receiving food stamps, and <a href="http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/item/15399-record-number-10-9-million-americans-collecting-disability">collecting</a> disability payments, underwritten by working Americans who comprise the <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/06/news/economy/labor-force-participation/">lowest</a> workforce participation rate in 35 years. A staggering 75 percent of jobs created in 2013 were part time. By 2012, the Federal Reserve was buying <a href="http://www.moneynews.com/Headline/fed-debt-Treasury/2012/03/28/id/434106">61 percent</a> of the government debt issued by the Treasury Department.</p>
<p>Moreover, our last debt ceiling crisis occurred in May of 2011, when we reached a debt limit of $14.3 trillion. Two years and seven months later, we&#8217;ve hit a new debt ceiling of $16.7 trillion. In other words, despite all the revenue the federal government has collected in taxes over that same time period, including a <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/US/tax-collection-record-figure/2013/09/17/id/526188">record-setting</a> $2.47 trillion for 2013, the government has blown through an additional $2.4 trillion of borrowed money.</p>
<p>Which brings us to late yesterday, when the Senate finally voted 81-18 to essentially raise the debt ceiling yet again, and make sure that yet another gargantuan debt-driving entitlement plan known as ObamaCare&#8211;whose original cost estimated has nearly <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obamacare-now-estimated-cost-26-trillion-first-decade_648413.html">tripled</a>&#8211;remains unscathed. The debt ceiling bit was a clever gambit conceived by Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). It allows Congress to disapprove of an increase in a formal vote between now and February 7. If they do, Obama can veto that legislation, thus requiring a two-thirds majority to override that veto&#8211;meaning it&#8217;s a done deal the debt ceiling will be raised. Let the taxpayer money flow.</p>
<p>Thus, we have President Obama and Democrats’ &#8220;great victory.&#8221; “The country came to the brink of a disaster,&#8221; said Sen. Harry Reid.  &#8220;But in the end, political adversaries set aside their differences and disagreement to prevent that disaster.” Rest assured nothing has been prevented, only postponed until a later date &#8212; and the disaster is not behind us, but on the horizon.</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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		<title>Democrats&#8217; Peculiar Definition of &#8216;Settled Law&#8217;</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ann-coulter/democrats-peculiar-definition-of-settled-law/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=democrats-peculiar-definition-of-settled-law</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Oct 2013 04:05:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ann Coulter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Wouldn't the law have to have been passed constitutionally in the first place? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1378856461_stretch1.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-207645" alt="1378856461_stretch" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1378856461_stretch1-450x338.png" width="270" height="203" /></a>No major legislation has ever been passed like Obamacare &#8212; and I&#8217;m using the word &#8220;passed&#8221; pretty loosely.</p>
<p>It became law without both houses ever voting on the same bill. (Say, is the Constitution considered &#8220;settled law&#8221;?) Not one Republican voted for it &#8212; and a lot of Democrats immediately wished they hadn&#8217;t.</p>
<p>Historically, big laws have been enacted with large, bipartisan majorities. In 1935, President Roosevelt enacted Social Security with a 372-33 vote in the House and 77-6 in the Senate.</p>
<p>In 1965, Medicare passed in the Senate 70-24 and the House 307-116, with the vast majority of Democrats supporting this Ponzi scheme and Republicans roughly split.</p>
<p>Reagan&#8217;s magnificent tax cuts in 1981 &#8212; which Democrats now denounce as if they&#8217;d been appalled at the time &#8212; passed with a vote of 89-11 in the Senate and even 323-107 in the hostile Democratic House.</p>
<p>Even Bill Clinton&#8217;s signature legislative achievement &#8212; Midnight Basketball for the Homeless &#8212; received more bipartisan support than Obamacare.</p>
<p>No law, certainly not one that fundamentally alters the role of the government, has ever been passed like this.</p>
<p>But now, this greased-through, irregular law is relentlessly defended as &#8220;settled law&#8221; and &#8220;the law of the land&#8221;! (At least the parts that Obama hasn&#8217;t unconstitutionally waived &#8212; again, anybody know if the Constitution is &#8220;settled law&#8221;?)</p>
<p>Wow &#8212; Obamacare sounds fantastic! Not only does Congress refuse to live under it, but its proponents&#8217; strongest argument is that it&#8217;s &#8220;settled law!&#8221;</p>
<p>The most hilarious part of the &#8220;settled law&#8221; argument is that it&#8217;s coming from the left, for whom nothing is ever &#8220;settled&#8221; until they get their way &#8212; as described in my new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1621571912/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1621571912&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=anncoulter-20">Never Trust a Liberal Over Three-Especially a Republican</a></p>
<p>Liberals seem to believe our founding fathers sought to create a country where the pushiest always win. (That&#8217;s why they&#8217;re the party of trial lawyers.) They want the nation&#8217;s policies to be determined by a never-ending co-op board meeting dominated by the most obnoxious shareholders.</p>
<p>As New Yorkers are about to discover if they elect Bill de Blasio mayor, for example, liberals will never abandon their plans to hamstring cops and spring criminals. For 30 years, New York City tried the Democrats&#8217; approach to crime. The result was an explosion of murders, rapes, permanent disfigurements, robberies, car thefts and burglaries.</p>
<p>Then Rudy Giuliani came in and saved the city. The dramatic decrease in crime effected by Giuliani&#8217;s crime policies made commerce, tourism &#8212; life! &#8212; possible again in New York.</p>
<p>But liberals have been biding their time, waiting for people to forget, itching to get their hands on the levers of power so they can start releasing criminals again. (Or as Democrats refer to them, &#8220;our base.&#8221;)</p>
<p>Wasn&#8217;t &#8220;stop and frisk&#8221; &#8220;settled law&#8221;? Why yes, it was, upheld in 1996 by a New York appeals court in People v. Batista. But that settled law was recently overturned by a liberal judge in a case funded by George Soros.</p>
<p>Hey, does anyone know if the Second Amendment is &#8220;settled law&#8221;?</p>
<p>And how many dozens of states have expressly voted against gay marriage? Are we up to three dozen yet? But liberals consider repeated votes of the people merely an invitation to run to the courts to get the people&#8217;s will overturned.</p>
<p>California voters said &#8220;no&#8221; to gay marriage in a statewide initiative to amend their constitution. State courts upheld the amendment prohibiting gay marriage. You might say the No-Gay-Marriage amendment was &#8212; what&#8217;s the expression? &#8212; &#8220;settled law, upheld by the courts.&#8221;</p>
<p>Liberal groups appealed to the federal courts, where an activist judge, who happened to be gay, issued a PC ruling overturning the will of the people. His work done, the judge then resigned from the bench.</p>
<p>Oh &#8212; and how has the left treated &#8220;settled law&#8221; on race preferences? The fight against racial discrimination goes back to the Civil War, Reconstruction and a slew of Republican amendments to the U.S. Constitution.</p>
<p>But Democrats refuse to give up discriminating on the basis of race. (They just switched which race gets screwed.) The triumph of a color-blind political system lasted for about six minutes before Democrats were at it again.</p>
<p>In 1996, the people of California voted to amend the state constitution to prohibit race discrimination by the state. Liberals sued and sued and sued to overturn a majority vote of the people that merely affirmed constitutional rights won by the Civil War nearly a century and a half ago.</p>
<p>They lost. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the amendment and the Supreme Court refused to review that ruling, making the anti-race discrimination amendment &#8230; the &#8220;law of the land&#8221;!</p>
<p>But liberals won&#8217;t stop.</p>
<p>Michigan voters approved a similar amendment to their state constitution in 2006. Guess what &#8220;settled law&#8221; is on its way to the Supreme Court? Again. Right now.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s been 17 years! (One-hundred and forty-eight years, if we&#8217;re counting from the end of the Civil War.)</p>
<p>Liberals will fight until they get their way &#8212; and, as soon as they do, they announce their one victory is &#8220;settled law.&#8221;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s what happened with Obamacare. Weren&#8217;t Americans reasonably clear about not wanting a hostile takeover of our health care system the last time Democrats tried it?</p>
<p>Hillarycare was so widely reviled that the majority Democratic Congress never held an up-or-down vote on it. In the very next election, the public punished Democrats for even thinking about nationalizing health care by voting in a Republican Congress for the first time in almost half a century.</p>
<p>Obamacare wasn&#8217;t passed because the nation changed its mind. We got Obamacare because, at a brief moment in time, the Democrats happened to have aberrationally large majorities in the House and Senate, as well as the presidency. It was quickly and unconstitutionally enacted on a strictly party-line vote.</p>
<p>In the very next election, the American people elected 63 new Republicans to the House of Representatives &#8212; the largest sweep of Congress for any party since 1948. Even liberal Massachusetts elected a Republican senator solely because of his vow to vote against Obamacare.</p>
<p>This is why the duly elected Republican majority in the House keeps funding the entire federal government &#8212; except Obamacare. Or except Congress&#8217; exemption from Obamacare. Or except the individual mandate that Obama has already waived for his big-business friends.</p>
<p>&#8220;Settled law&#8221; has nothing to do with it. When Republicans won&#8217;t give up on an issue, it is because they are defending the will of the people, not pushing some harebrained scheme cooked up by a small group of zealots and imposed on the nation by an activist judge or freak Congress.</p>
<p>When Democrats refuse to give up on an issue, it&#8217;s against the will of the people with one party laughing, &#8220;Ha ha! We have 60 votes!&#8221;</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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		<title>Obama to Boehner: Drop Dead</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/obama-to-boehner-drop-dead/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obama-to-boehner-drop-dead</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Oct 2013 04:55:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Republican overtures on the debt ceiling are rebuffed -- while the president threatens default.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/120912obama_boehner_dngnk.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-207042" alt="120912obama_boehner_dngnk" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/120912obama_boehner_dngnk-450x347.jpg" width="270" height="208" /></a>President Obama has rejected a proposed compromise from House Republicans that could have helped to end the congressional standoff that led to the now 11-day-old partial federal government shutdown.</span></b></p>
<p>House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/10/Obama-balks-at-Boehner-s-debt-ceiling-offer">pitched</a> a “clean” six-week increase with nothing in return to the community organizer in the White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).</p>
<p>As Big Government&#8217;s Matthew Boyle reports,</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;Obama’s and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s decision to completely reject any offer of a compromise from House Republicans confirms what most conservatives already know: Obama will not negotiate on anything (he has said as much numerous times over the past couple of weeks) unless he faces consequences for failing to do so.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>The entirely predictable response from the nation&#8217;s top Democrats throws a public spotlight on their intransigence, and in particular, on Obama&#8217;s refusal to compromise on anything, unless he&#8217;s harming America by shredding the nation&#8217;s nuclear deterrent or extending a welcoming hand to the al-Qaeda operatives who murdered nearly 3,000 Americans on 9/11.</p>
<p>Conservatives had been hoping Republicans would use the leverage GOP leadership doesn&#8217;t seem to realize it has in Congress to kill Obamacare or at least throw a few wrenches in the works.</p>
<p>Republicans&#8217; reasonableness and generosity (with other people&#8217;s money) was rewarded with a swift kick in the teeth.</p>
<p>Boehner apparently succumbed to the relentless stream of horror propaganda from the fiscally illiterate Chicken Littles of the mainstream media and went to Obama with a no-strings attached &#8220;temporary&#8221; debt ceiling increase. Of course, there is no reason to grovel before Obama who has a pathetic 37 percent approval rating at the moment as Americans recoil from the president&#8217;s petty shutdown-related torments but Republicans did it anyway.</p>
<p>Obama and his lieutenants had laid down a marker, falsely claiming that the government wouldn&#8217;t be able to meet its obligations if the debt ceiling wasn&#8217;t raised by Oct. 17. Then Obama&#8217;s former campaign manager turned senior adviser David Plouffe upped the ante by throwing a temper tantrum on Twitter, screeching that Republicans were traitors for refusing to raise the debt ceiling. The smarmy Plouffe accused House Republicans of “committing economic treason” for not offering unconditional surrender to America&#8217;s Marxist president on the debt ceiling issue.</p>
<p>Plouffe didn&#8217;t bother to point out that it was just a few short years ago when Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) suggested it was treasonable <i>to raise</i> the debt ceiling. When President George W. Bush sought an increase in federal borrowing authority Obama said at the time that to do so would be &#8220;unpatriotic.&#8221; But times have changed and consistency has never been a condition that afflicts Saul Alinsky devotees.</p>
<p>And there is no possibility of default, as Moody&#8217;s, the Wall Street rating agency says. The only person who can cause a default is President Obama if he re-orders the government&#8217;s payment priorities. Right now more than enough revenue is coming in to cover interest payments on the national debt.</p>
<p>Republican thinking yesterday was that punting the debt fight till late November would be a good strategic move that would allow the congressional GOP to focus all its energies on undermining Obamacare in the interim. It could at least be argued that piling another trillion dollars or so in government debt on top of at least $16.74 trillion in already outstanding debt would be worthwhile if there&#8217;s a possibility it will afford patriotic lawmakers an opportunity to strangle Obama&#8217;s unholy offspring in its crib.</p>
<p>Heritage Action CEO Mike Needham, who has been pushing hard to defund Obamacare, said the GOP should let Obama have his so-called clean debt limit increase so conservatives can turn their attention to the partial government shutdown and Obamacare.</p>
<p>Under another approach, Republicans could simply go into hibernation and allow Obamacare to go forward. This would let Americans bear the full brunt of this hideous usurpation of civil society. The hope is that public opposition would mushroom to torch-and-pitchfork levels that would force repeal. It is a superficially appealing plan until one realizes that no major entitlement program has ever been repealed once entrenched.</p>
<p>But it&#8217;s a problem that benefits are being implemented early in the process. If people get used to the &#8220;sugar,&#8221; as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) puts it, they are likely to support Obamacare. With each passing day and every new benefit, the people who get the goodies aren&#8217;t going to want to give them up and they&#8217;ll get awfully upset at anyone who tries to take them away. This is the animating principle of the welfare state. If you think it&#8217;s hard to curb government spending now, just wait till the future when the program kicks into high gear.</p>
<p>Republicans could also try to delay the individual mandate for a year, embark on a consciousness-raising adventure, and then pray they crush Democrats in next year&#8217;s congressional elections. Under the best of circumstances, the GOP still wouldn&#8217;t achieve the supermajority it needs to overcome a presidential veto of repeal legislation in America&#8217;s sclerotic House of Lords. On the other hand, every bit of pressure helps to weaken Obama and his signature monstrosity.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, at the end of last month the federal government’s total debt brushed up against the debt ceiling, <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/10/09/5-facts-about-the-national-debt-what-you-should-know/">weighing in</a> at $16.74 trillion, which is slightly more than the $16.66 trillion gross domestic product figure (on an annualized basis) for the second quarter.</p>
<p>Other arms of the U.S. government &#8220;own&#8221; 28.4 percent of the debt, or roughly $4.76 trillion. Like all federal government accounting this is sleight-of-hand, a fiction that increases the money supply and further debases the greenback.</p>
<p>Former SEC chairman Chris Cox and former House Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill Archer (R-Texas) <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323353204578127374039087636.html">say the true debt level</a> is five times the official figure.</p>
<p>&#8220;The actual liabilities of the federal government—including Social Security, Medicare, and federal employees&#8217; future retirement benefits—already exceed $86.8 trillion, or 550% of GDP,&#8221; according to Cox and Archer. &#8220;For the year ending Dec. 31, 2011, the annual accrued expense of Medicare and Social Security was $7 trillion. Nothing like that figure is used in calculating the deficit. In reality, the reported budget deficit is less than one-fifth of the more accurate figure.&#8221;</p>
<p>Some economists <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Business/debt-deal-reached-us-fiscal-woes-worse/t/story?id=14189343&amp;ref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F">say it&#8217;s a lot more</a> than that, even more than $210 trillion, or roughly triple the annual economic output of every single person on the planet Earth combined.</p>
<p>Such a colossal sum could never be repaid even if the U.S. government imposed 100 percent income tax rates on Americans and invaded its neighbors and siphoned their wealth.</p>
<p>Although a real, live default is still probably far off in the future, Americans ought to be nervous that investors&#8217; appetite for U.S. public debt appears to be tapering off.</p>
<p>JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co. <a href="http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4080996">said</a> Thursday that its money market funds have dumped all of their short-term U.S. government debt in an attempt to limit exposure. The mega-bank reportedly said, &#8220;its money market funds no longer held any U.S. Treasurys that mature or have payments scheduled between Oct. 16 and Nov. 6.&#8221;</p>
<p>On Wednesday Fidelity Investments said it no longer possesses U.S. Treasurys that fall due when the government maxes out on borrowing.</p>
<p>&#8220;While JPMorgan Chase &amp; Co. says it believes the probability of a U.S. government default is low, it&#8217;s taking precautionary measures to protect investors,&#8221; the news report indicated.</p>
<p>Wall Street knows the borrowing can&#8217;t go on indefinitely.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p><em>Don&#8217;t miss <strong>Jamie Glazov&#8217;s </strong>video interview with <strong>Daniel Greenfield</strong> about &#8220;Obama&#8217;s Shutdown Strategy&#8221;: </em></p>
<p><iframe src="//www.youtube.com/embed/hpyoCFF-iL8" height="315" width="420" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0"></iframe></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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		<title>Conservatives Balk at Ryan Gov. Funding Plan</title>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Oct 2013 04:35:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=206887</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[While the president may be showing signs of cracking. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/120718_paul_ryan_westcott.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-206889" alt="120718_paul_ryan_westcott" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/120718_paul_ryan_westcott.jpg" width="296" height="223" /></a>Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/327533-ryan-offers-plan-to-end-standoff">come up</a> with a two-step plan aimed at lifting the debt ceiling, and then opening the government long enough to pass meaningful entitlement reforms. In a <i>Wall Street Journal</i> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303442004579123943669167898.html">op-ed</a> published Tuesday, the Chairman of the House Budget Committee insisted that &#8220;both sides should agree to common-sense reforms of the country&#8217;s entitlement programs and tax code.&#8221;</p>
<p>Ryan formally presented his idea at a meeting Wednesday afternoon with the conservative Republican Study Committee. He presented a plan that was ostensibly more detailed than what he outlined in the <i>Journal, </i>but those are the only details currently available. In his op-ed, Ryan said he believed <i>&#8220;</i>most of us agree that gradual, structural reforms are better than sudden, arbitrary cuts.&#8221;</p>
<p>He went on to explain why such reforms are vital, noting that Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates for spending over the next 10 years reveal how much more important it is to get mandatory spending under control than discretionary spending. Discretionary spending, which consists of everything other than debt service and entitlement programs, will increase by $202 billion, or roughly 17 percent over the next decade. By contrast, mandatory spending, which consists mostly of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security funding will skyrocket by an additional $1.6 trillion or roughly 79 percent.</p>
<p>Ryan notes that it is not impossible to reach a bipartisan consensus on an entitlement program, citing the historical <a href="http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2009/04/02/bipartisan-reagan-oneill-social-security-deal-in-1983-showed-it-can-be-done">agreement</a> reached in 1983. Republican President Ronald Reagan and Democrat House Speaker Tip O&#8217;Neill came up with a plan to save Social Security after the plan&#8217;s trustees warned that it was headed for bankruptcy. By raising the payroll tax, phasing in an increase in the retirement age from 65 to 67, requiring government employees to contribute to the system, and delaying a cost of living increase for six months, the agreement extended the fund&#8217;s solvency for an additional two generations.</p>
<p>According to Ryan, these changes didn&#8217;t save any money for the first five years. But after that, the savings were significant, reaching $100 billion through 2012, and as much as $4.6 trillion over the next 75 years.</p>
<p>Ryan&#8217;s &#8220;conversation starter&#8221; for the current impasse includes asking wealthier Americans to pay higher premiums for Medicare, reforming Medigap plans by incentivizing efficiency and reducing costs, and having federal employees make greater contributions to their own retirement packages.</p>
<p>He envisions additional funding for programs coming from &#8220;pro-growth&#8221; reforms &#8220;that put people back to work.&#8221; These include the development of America&#8217;s &#8220;vast energy reserves,&#8221; and bipartisan tax code reform based on efforts undertaken by Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) and Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT). As of September, the Camp–Baucus plan has apparently reached <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-09-09/business/41901672_1_tax-overhaul-tax-code-camp">some consensus</a> with regard to corporate tax reform. But the two chairmen of the Congressional tax-writing committees both say that such reform will not proceed unless they can build a consensus for reframing tax laws that affect individual Americans.</p>
<p>Ryan explains his plan isn&#8217;t a &#8220;grand bargain,&#8221; insisting that Congress needs to undertake a &#8220;complete rethinking of government&#8217;s approach to helping the most vulnerable, and a complete rethinking of government&#8217;s approach to health care.&#8221; But for now, he believes it is more important to open the government, pay our bills, and find a way to make sure we can pay them in the future. &#8220;All it takes is leadership—and for the president to come to the table,&#8221; Ryan concludes.</p>
<p>Conspicuously missing from Ryan&#8217;s plan is any mention of the healthcare bill. That omission didn&#8217;t sit well with several Republicans. Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham was<a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/327469-conservative-leader-paul-ryans-shutdown-offer-off-target"> intransigent.</a> &#8220;The only acceptable way out of this is some sort of deal that funds the federal government without funding ObamaCare,&#8221; he insisted. Amanda Carpenter, the senior communications adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/conservatives-bash-paul-ryans-shutdown-op-ed-missing-one-important-word/">echoed</a> that sentiment. &#8220;There is one big word missing from this op-ed. It starts with an O and ends with BAMACARE,&#8221; she tweeted. Conservative <i>New York Times</i> columnist Ross Douthat had a far more pertinent tweet, which he addressed to National Review editor Robert Costa. &#8220;Who is Paul Ryan speaking for in his WSJ op-ed?&#8221; he wondered.</p>
<p>Apparently it wasn&#8217;t those who attended the Republican Study Committee meeting, many of whom seemed less than thrilled by Ryan&#8217;s ideas. “Somebody needs to convince me why we need to raise the debt ceiling,” said Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL).  “This would not be without some agreement already reached,” said Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), explaining that Ryan&#8217;s plan to concede a short-term increase in the debt ceiling would not be &#8220;clean.&#8221; “It would only give us time to go through the order necessary to get the agreed-upon goals through a conference committee.” Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) said that he and his colleagues &#8220;aren’t going to solve the long-term challenges in a week.” Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who revealed that Ryan had defended downplaying ObamaCare at the meeting, was apparently put off as well. “When you’re talking about continuing to have the largest deficits in our history, how could you not talk about the biggest deficit driver that we have ever had?” he wondered.</p>
<p>Fortunately, there were some revelations about the healthcare plan that emerged yesterday. The privacy policy included the Maryland Health Connection (MHC), the state&#8217;s ObamaCare marketplace was <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obamacare-marketplace-personal-data-can-be-used-law-enforcement-and-audit-activities_762237.html">deeply troubling</a>. While it promised never to sell one&#8217;s health information to others, and that personal information will only be used to carry out MHC functions, it revealed that &#8220;we may share information provided in your application with the appropriate authorities for law enforcement and audit activities.&#8221; The privacy statement further noted that if one communicated with one&#8217;s insurance carrier by email, that communication &#8220;may become a public record&#8230;in accordance with Maryland’s Public Information Act.&#8221;</p>
<p>That may be the MHC&#8217;s definition of privacy, but one suspects the possibility of having one’s health records examined by government officials, or used as part of an IRS audit, might have Marylanders believing otherwise.</p>
<p>In Illinois, residents were <a href="http://www.myjournalcourier.com/news/local/navigators-raise-identity-theft-risk/article_e528f016-2f09-11e3-847a-001a4bcf6878.html">warned</a> by the State&#8217;s Department of Insurance that fraud and identity theft could become a problem due to the emergence of phony healthcare navigators. “We have been made aware that scams are possible,” said Kimberly Parker, a Department of Insurance spokesperson. “If someone is at your door, err on the side of caution.” They also warned people not to give out personal information via “unsolicited telephone calls of any kind.”</p>
<p>Such efforts may be quixotic at best. In 2012, there were 13,000 identity thefts in Illinois, 40 percent of which involved “government documents or benefits fraud.”</p>
<p>Since Americans are being forced to buy insurance at these marketplaces, that number could increase exponentially.</p>
<p>And, as has been the case since its launch nine days ago, the online rollout of ObamaCare continues to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/many-remain-locked-out-of-federal-health-care-web-site/2013/10/08/be8e71e6-302c-11e3-bbed-a8a60c601153_story.html">frustrate</a> Americans. Millions are attempting to navigate a poorly designed, prematurely introduced system aimed at signing up people for insurance that even ObamaCare supporters have <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/nation-world/ci_24248486/obamacares-winners-and-losers-bay-area">discovered</a> could be far more expensive that advertised. Californian Cindy Vinson, whose new individual insurance policy will cost an additional $1800, epitomized the mindset of many of those supporters. &#8220;Of course, I want people to have health care,&#8221; she said. &#8220;I just didn&#8217;t realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally.&#8221;</p>
<p>What every American is currently paying for is the unseemly intransigence of a president who steadfastly refuses to negotiate anything. On Tuesday, Obama <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/8/obama-calls-boehner-still-refuses-negotiate/">called</a> House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to reiterate his refusal to bargain. The same day he <a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/live-stream-president-obama-holds-news-conference-government-shutdown-article-1.1479547">contended</a> that he’s fighting the budget battle because “we can’t make extortion routine as part of our democracy.” At a White House press conference, he <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OBAMA?SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&amp;CTIME=2013-10-08-18-24-20">upped</a> the ante. &#8220;The greatest nation on earth shouldn&#8217;t have to get permission from a few irresponsible members of Congress every couple months just to keep our government open or to prevent an economic catastrophe,&#8221; he contended. Yesterday, he reportedly <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/government-shutdown-house-democrats-white-house-meeting-98047.html">pushed</a> the envelope one more time, telling House Democrats he would negotiate with Republicans but “not with a gun at my head.”</p>
<p>Thus, Republicans are expected to negotiate with a president who has characterized them as irresponsible, gun-toting extortionists determined to bring the nation to economic catastrophe. That’s quite the “ice-breaker.”</p>
<p>Perhaps the nation is slowly catching on. While Republicans still get the most of the blame for the shutdown&#8211;a Washington Post/ABC News <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/10/07/republican-disapproval-grows-in-budget-battle-post-abc-poll-finds/">poll</a> showed 70 percent of Americans disapprove of the GOP&#8217;s handling of budget negotiations, compared to 61 percent for Democrats&#8211;the president is also getting a thumbs down from 51 percent of Americans. Moreover, his approval rating has <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2013/10/09/ap-poll-obama-at-37-approval/">sunk</a> to 37 percent, and 52 percent of Americans said the president isn&#8217;t doing enough to cooperate with Republicans in ending the shutdown.</p>
<p>Perhaps Obama is catching on. Late Wednesday, he <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/10/09/obama-plans-meet-with-gop-lawmakers-shutdown/myxCeKK0y0pjSGmL34DAVJ/story.html">invited</a> Republicans to White House meeting on Thursday. &#8220;It is our hope that this will be a constructive meeting and that the president finally recognizes Americans expect their leaders to be able to sit down and resolve their differences,’’ said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner. Maybe it will be, but the odds aren’t good. Stay tuned.</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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		<title>Democrats to America: We Own the Government!</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ann-coulter/democrats-to-america-we-own-the-government/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=democrats-to-america-we-own-the-government</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 10 Oct 2013 04:29:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ann Coulter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Democrats]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=206892</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How dare citizens object? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/600x3961.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-206893" alt="Government Shutdown Enters Fourth Day With No Resolution" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/600x3961-450x333.jpg" width="270" height="200" /></a>In the current fight over the government shutdown, Republicans are simply representing the views of the American people.</p>
<p>Americans didn&#8217;t ask for Obamacare, they don&#8217;t want it, but now their insurance premiums are going through the roof, their doctors aren&#8217;t accepting it, and their employers are moving them into part-time work &#8212; or firing them &#8212; to avoid the law&#8217;s mandates.</p>
<p>Contrary to Obama&#8217;s promises, it turns out: You can&#8217;t keep your doctor, you can&#8217;t keep your insurance &#8212; you can&#8217;t even keep your job. In other words, it&#8217;s a typical government program, but this one wrecks your health care.</p>
<p>Also, the president did raise taxes on the middle class in defiance of his well-worn campaign promise not to. Indeed, Obamacare is the largest tax hike in U.S. history.</p>
<p>Among the other changes effected by this law are:</p>
<p>&#8211; Obamacare will allow insurers to charge 50 percent higher premiums for smokers, but prohibits insurers from increasing premiums for those with HIV/AIDS.</p>
<p>&#8211; Nationally, Obamacare will increase men&#8217;s individual insurance premiums by an average of 99 percent and women&#8217;s by 62 percent. In North Carolina, for example, individual insurance premiums will triple for women and quadruple for men.</p>
<p>&#8211; Health plans valued at $27,500 or more for a family of four will be taxed at a rate of 40 percent.</p>
<p>&#8211; No doctors who went to an American medical school will be accepting Obamacare.</p>
<p>&#8211; A 62-year-old man earning $46,000 a year is entitled to a $7,836 government tax credit to buy health insurance. But if he earns an extra $22 in income, he loses the entire $7,836 credit. He will have more take-home pay by earning $46,000 than if he earns $55,000. (If he&#8217;s lucky, he already works for one of the companies forced by Obamacare to reduce employees&#8217; hours!)</p>
<p>&#8211; Merely to be eligible for millions of dollars in grants from the federal government under Obamacare, education and training programs are required to meet racial, ethnic, gender, linguistic and sexual orientation quotas. That&#8217;s going to make health care MUCH better!</p>
<p>&#8211; Obamacare is turning America into a part-time nation. According to a recent report by economist John Lott, 97 percent of all jobs added to the economy so far this year have been part-time jobs. Ninety-seven percent!</p>
<p>&#8211; Obamacare is such a disaster that the people who wrote it refuse to live under it themselves. That&#8217;s right, Congress won a waiver from Obamacare.</p>
<p>Responding to the people&#8217;s will, House Republicans first voted to fund all of government &#8212; except Obamacare. Obama refused to negotiate and Senate Democrats refused to pass it.</p>
<p>Then the Republicans voted to fully fund the government, but merely delay the implementation of Obamacare for one year. Obama refused to negotiate and Senate Democrats refused to pass it.</p>
<p>Finally, the Republicans voted to fully fund the government, but added a requirement that everyone live under Obamacare. No more special waivers for Congress and their staff, and no waivers for big business without the same waivers for individuals.</p>
<p>Obama refused to negotiate and Senate Democrats refused to pass it. So as you can see, Republicans are the big holdup here.</p>
<p>A longtime Democratic operative, Karen Finney, explained the Democrats&#8217; intransigence on MSNBC to a delighted Joan Walsh (aka the most easily fooled person on TV) by comparing House Republicans to a teenager trying to borrow his mother&#8217;s car. &#8220;No, I&#8217;m not negotiating!&#8221; Mother says. &#8220;It&#8217;s MY CAR!&#8221;</p>
<p>This wasn&#8217;t a stupid slip of the tongue that other Democrats quickly rejected. Finney had used the exact same metaphor to a panel of highly agreeable MSNBC guests the day before. (MSNBC books no other kind of guest.)</p>
<p>The left thinks the government is their car and the people&#8217;s representatives are obstreperous teenagers trying to borrow the government. Which belongs to Democrats.</p>
<p>That&#8217;s not how the Constitution views the House of Representatives. To the contrary, the House is considered most reflective of the people&#8217;s will because its members are elected every two years.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, the Republicans who mistakenly assume they have something to do with running the government represent most of the people who pay taxes to run it. So it&#8217;s more like a teenager who is making the car payments, maintaining the car insurance and taking responsibility for registering the car being told: &#8220;It&#8217;s not your car.&#8221;</p>
<p>But the Democrats refuse to even negotiate. It&#8217;s their government &#8211; <i>and if you Republicans think you&#8217;re going out dressed like that, you&#8217;ve got another thing coming! </i>Needless to say, they absolutely will not consider the Republicans&#8217; demand that Democrats merely live under Obamacare themselves.</p>
<p>Instead, Democrats say &#8220;the Koch brothers&#8221; are behind the effort to defund Obamacare.</p>
<p>They say Republicans are trying to &#8220;burn the whole house down&#8221; (Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz); &#8220;have lost their minds&#8221; (Sen. Harry Reid); are trying to negotiate &#8220;with a bomb strapped to their chest&#8221; (senior White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer); are &#8220;legislative arsonists&#8221; (Rep. Nancy Pelosi); and are engaging in &#8220;blatant extortion&#8221; (White House press secretary Jay Carney).</p>
<p>The MSNBC crowd calls Republicans &#8220;arsonists&#8221; every 15 minutes. They ought to check with fellow MSNBC host Al Sharpton. He knows his arsonists! In 1995, Sharpton whipped up a mob outside the Jewish-owned Freddy&#8217;s Fashion Mart with an anti-Semitic speech. Sometime later, a member of the mob torched the store, killing seven Hispanic employees.</p>
<p>Every single Democrat in the country uses the exact same talking point: We &#8220;refuse to negotiate with a gun being held to our head.&#8221;</p>
<p>Which means the Democrats will not negotiate at all &#8212; not now, not ever. House Republicans have already passed three-dozen bills defunding, or otherwise modifying, Obamacare. Senate Democrats and liberal commentators had a good laugh at Republicans for passing them.</p>
<p>Now they&#8217;re paying attention!</p>
<p>If you are in the minority of Americans not already unalterably opposed to Obamacare, keep in mind that <i>the only reason the government is shut down right now is that Democrats refuse to fund the government if they are required to live under Obamacare.</i></p>
<p>That&#8217;s how good it is!</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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		<title>ObamaCare: Exposing Citizens to Identity Theft, Fraud</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/volpe/obamacare-exposing-americans-to-identity-theft-fraud/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=obamacare-exposing-americans-to-identity-theft-fraud</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 26 Sep 2013 04:15:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Michael Volpe]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[exchanges]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=205407</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[House Republicans' warning to America. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/fraud-scam.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-205412" alt="Definition of fraud" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/fraud-scam.jpg" width="270" height="179" /></a>A congressional report, issued by Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on September 18, 2013, is warning that a key portion of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) program is being mismanaged and is under threat for abuse and fraud. This report follows another report on the same Obamacare program which also warned the program was susceptible to fraud.</p>
<p>Exchanges were set up in Obamacare to provide a marketplace for individuals not covered by their employer’s health insurance or by Medicare/Medicaid. These exchanges were supposed to be set up by each individual state, but about half refused and forced the federal government to set up exchanges in those states.</p>
<p>“Navigators” were written into the law to be individuals who would help consumers navigate the exchanges and help consumers understand their option to choose the best insurance plan. Because half the states didn’t set up exchanges, “navigators” weren’t set up either. As a result, the Obama administration has set up the federal program of “assisters” a group of federally funded individuals who will help consumers navigate exchanges to find the best deal.</p>
<p>According to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, there is clear language in Obamacare which specifies that only state, not federal funds, be used to fund the “navigator” program, making this new program an end run around the clear language of the statute, according to the report.</p>
<p><a href="http://oversight.house.gov/release/oversight-report-on-obamacare-enrollment-programs-reveals-risk-of-fraud-misinformation/">In a press release,</a> the Committee identified five specific areas of concern for fraud in the “navigator” program: 1) The Administration created the Assisters program without congressional approval, 2) top HHS officials have admitted that the enrollment outreach programs are prime targets for fraud, 3) consumers have no way to verify that someone taking their application or encouraging enrollment is actually a Navigator or Assister, 4) HHS officials were concerned about security risks, but did not look into whether or not they could require background checks, 5) HHS has criticized direct phone calls, door-to-door solicitation, but has not banned them, and in some states, Navigators and Assisters are paid based on the number of persons they enroll, creating a conflict of interest.</p>
<p>The report also pointed out that navigators won’t go through a background check, be required to only have twenty hours of training, and have access to all sorts of personal information which they’ll be authorized to enter into a central database. The congressional report said:</p>
<blockquote><p>Individual Navigators and Assisters will have access to many applicants’ personally identifiable information (PII), including Social Security numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, email addresses, and in many cases the PII for other members of the applicant’s household. Such information may also be stored on computers and scanners owned by Navigator and Assister organizations. Furthermore, unlike agents and brokers, Navigators and Assisters bear no personal liability if they give taxpayers misinformation that damages their financial interests.</p></blockquote>
<p>An email to the HHS media relations department for comment on this story was left unreturned.</p>
<p>The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee wasn’t the only committee expressing concern about the navigator program. <a href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/files/letters/20130920CCIIO.pdf">Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee also fired off a letter last week to Gary Cohen,</a> the Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid, expressing their concerns that the navigator grant program was also ripe for fraud.</p>
<p>This is not the first time that fraud has become an issue in the health care exchanges. <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/volpe/how-obamacare-will-expose-americans-personal-information/">In August an HHS Office of Inspector General report warned that security in the information technology</a> system that would put all health care plans in each exchange on-line was so far behind schedule in its implementation that the final test would only happen on September 30, the day before the exchanges were due to be fully operational.</p>
<p>Separately, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/volpe/obamacares-unraveling/">the $2 billion loan program to augment Health Care</a> Co-ops is now the subject of four separate investigations with allegations of fraud being so systemic the program has been shut down entirely while the investigations go on. Health care Co-ops are non-profits, which would offer health insurance in certain state exchanges to compete with for profit health insurance providers.</p>
<p>With less than a week before Obamacare is to be fully implemented, most news stories are concerned with the economic effects of the law. Fraud, identity theft, and other crimes should be of concern as well since this complicated program is being put together on the fly, with all sorts of individuals being hired to help implement, whether they are qualified to do so or not.</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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		<title>GOP Ready to Cave on Amnesty</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/gop-ready-to-cave-on-amnesty/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=gop-ready-to-cave-on-amnesty</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 09 Aug 2013 04:26:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reform]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=199938</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Why the Left is so optimistic. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/GOP-620x412.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-200016" alt="GOP-620x412" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/GOP-620x412-398x350.jpg" width="279" height="245" /></a>The Republican Party is seemingly on the verge of embracing so-called comprehensive immigration reform. Using a tactic best described as &#8220;calculated incrementalism,&#8221; House Republicans plan to <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/07/Schumer-House-s-piece-meal-immigration-end-game-OK-by-us">pass</a> a series of individual bills addressing various aspects of immigration reform, which will then be combined in conference with the Senate bill. Former House Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-AZ) <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/the-secret-republican-strategy-to-secure-amnesty-for-millions-of-illegal-immigrants/#">cut</a> right to the heart of the subterfuge, saying that the Republicans’ promise “to act tough on border security while looking to secure amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants has become infuriatingly all-too-familiar.”</p>
<p>Indications that House Republicans plan to acquiesce to amnesty were <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/04/Cantor-Doesn-t-Deny-House-GOP-Leadership-Will-Support-Overall-Path-to-Legalization">revealed</a> by House Majority leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) last Sunday. Cantor was repeatedly asked if the House would put 11 million illegal aliens on the so-called &#8220;pathway to citizenship.&#8221; Cantor responded that, while his chamber would not be taking up the Senate version of the bill, they would be taking the position that the system is “broken&#8221; and &#8220;we want to fix it.&#8221; He also expressed support for the House version of the DREAM Act, because children should not he held &#8220;liable for illegal acts of their parents.&#8221;</p>
<p>Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) appears equally on board. In an <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/paul-ryan-immigrants-bring-labor-to-our-economy-so-jobs-can-get-done-20130725">interview</a> with the National Journal, he made the economic case for immigration reform, arguing that even low-skill immigrants &#8220;bring labor to our economy so jobs can get done.&#8221; He insisted that Wisconsin dairy farmers are having a hard time finding workers, and that if they can&#8217;t &#8212; or if they raise wages as an alternative to attract those workers &#8212; both scenarios will lead to the importation of those products.</p>
<p>Ryan&#8217;s reasoning sparked the ire of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Next Monday, they&#8217;ll <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/08/05/200000-ad-campaign-hits-ryans-immigration-plan/">begin</a> running an ad campaign ridiculing Ryan&#8217;s contention that Wisconsin suffers from a labor shortage. “Tell that to the 12 percent unemployed in Racine, the 10 percent unemployment in Milwaukee, the 9 percent unemployment in Janesville,” the ad states. “Thousands are looking for work, yet Ryan supports a plan that could double immigration, grant amnesty to illegal aliens, and bring in millions more foreign workers to take jobs.”</p>
<p>House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) has his <a href="http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2013/08/08/Two-House-Republicans-announce-support-for-pathway-to-citizenship/UPI-19081375943400/#ixzz2bOBJ3ip">own take</a> regarding the pathway to citizenship. He envisions granting illegals the provisional status that was passed by the Senate. After that, Goodlatte believes illegals with provisional status will take advantage of existing U.S. law, allowing foreigners to pursue green cards or permanent legal residency. After <i>that,</i> Goodlatte claims, they will pursue citizenship by already available methods, including marriage to a U.S. citizen, or having an American employer sponsor them. &#8220;All of those are ways they could then eventually find themselves permanent residents and, ultimately, citizens, but none of those would be special ways that have been made available only to people who have come here illegally,&#8221; he told C-SPAN&#8217;s &#8220;Newsmakers&#8221; program last month.</p>
<p>Two other House Republicans, Daniel Webster (R-FL) and Aaron Schock (R-IL), also <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/08/republicans-may-be-changing-minds-on-immigration-reform/">support</a> a path to full citizenship, succumbing to what ABC News described as &#8220;an intense campaign by pro-immigration advocates targeting key House members at town-hall events.&#8221; It is part of a &#8220;larger five-week plan for hundreds of rallies, petition drives and other events across the country timed for the Congressional recess.&#8221;</p>
<p>That campaign will be part of an effort led by the progressive group Americans United for Change, which will coordinate with liberal activists to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/30/progressives-august-recess_n_3678743.html">confront</a> Republicans at every opportunity, demanding that they embrace comprehensive reform. &#8220;This is a new approach. The theory in the past has been to be stealth about the effort to confront members at town halls&#8211;but sometimes it&#8217;s been too stealth, and we haven’t generated enough activity,&#8221; said Brad Woodhouse, president of the organization.</p>
<p>Other pro-immigration groups will be <a href="http://swampland.time.com/2013/08/05/expect-more-than-just-town-hall-protests-this-august/">doing</a> their part as well. Organizing for Action (OFA) the progressive spinoff from Obama&#8217;s reelection campaign apparatus, will hold a national day of action next Monday, aimed at getting Americans to support comprehensive reform. Mi Familia Vota, coordinating with <a href="http://americasvoiceonline.org/blog/alliance-for-citizenship-launches-new-campaign-to-win-citizenship-for-11-million-immigrants/">Alliance for Citizenship</a>, will initiate community campaigns aiming to achieve the same goal. Clarissa Martinez of the National Council of La Raza, an organization that has long demanded an end to the deportation of all illegal aliens, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/07/31/immigration-republican-house-recess/2606309/">promised</a> that a collation of groups will host 360 different events in 52 congressional districts, while Congress remains in recess. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) will also bring pressure to bear. &#8220;This is the beginning of a long, hot summer for the House of Representatives,&#8221; said SEIU member Eliseo Medina.</p>
<p>The above organizations will be countered by organizations such as the aforementioned FAIR, as well as NumbersUSA, which advocates lower levels of legal and illegal immigration, and Tea Party affiliates.</p>
<p>As a result of the latter groups&#8217; efforts, Republicans have been careful to frame their support for reform as one that enhances border security, and promotes the ability of state and local law enforcement officials to enforce immigration laws. Yet as Gang of Eight Senator Chuck Schumer has <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/08/07/Schumer-House-s-piece-meal-immigration-end-game-OK-by-us">indicated,</a> it may be nothing more than talk. &#8220;We would much prefer a big comprehensive bill, but any way that the House can get there is OK by us,&#8221; he told CNN. &#8220;I actually am optimistic that we will get this done.&#8221; Getting there, according to Schumer includes &#8220;certain bottom lines for us: We do need some kind of path to citizenship.&#8221;</p>
<p>Why is Schumer optimistic? Hayworth explains that Republicans are embracing a classic &#8220;bait and switch&#8221; technique that is likely to succeed this time because, as opposed to the 2006-2007 effort, &#8220;the GOP leadership has become smarter, and more devious with their messaging.&#8221; He contends that a tough law enforcement bill sponsored by Rep. Mike McCaul, Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, will receive a vote of approval, but will be subsequently abandoned during the House-Senate reconciliation process. McCaul has reportedly been apprised of this reality &#8212; behind closed doors &#8212; by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).</p>
<p>Instead, a bill <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/11/eric-cantor-bob-goodlatte-kids-act_n_3581635.html">sponsored</a> by Cantor and Goodlatte, tentatively named the KIDS Act, legalizing illegal aliens who came to the country as children, will also be approved, and then become the actual bill that is sent to conference. Once it gets to conference, House Republicans will no longer be able to stop it: only a <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/08/how-immigration-reform-could-still-pass-congress.php">simple majority</a> of conferees from each chamber will be needed to get the reconciled &#8220;Conference Report&#8221; floor votes in both the House and the Senate. This will allow House GOP members to claim they are tough on enforcement, even as Boehner will appoint conferees who can be counted on to embrace the Senate&#8217;s position on amnesty.</p>
<p>As Hayworth explains, when the resulting Conference Report is brought to the House floor, only a handful of Republican votes, coupled with overwhelming Democrat support, will be required to make amnesty a reality.</p>
<p>Hayworth is correct when he says that only a handful of Republicans would have to vote for reform. As it stands currently, the House is <a href="http://clerk.house.gov/member_info/cong.aspx">comprised</a> of 234 Republicans and 200 Democrats, with one vacancy. Assuming Democrats vote as a monolith, as is often the case when ideological principles are involved, (and would undoubtedly be the case here, since amnesty could conceivably make them a permanent majority for the foreseeable future), only 18 Republicans would have to be swayed to support the bill. As it stands now, 21 House Republicans support immigration reform.</p>
<p>Such a reality underscores the true nature of Republican deviousness. Comprehensive immigration reform went down in flames in 2006-2007, because the millions of Americans who opposed it had a quantifiable bill to oppose. By breaking immigration reform into separate pieces, Republicans are hoping opposition to the bill will be similarly splintered&#8211;and muted. Even worse, House members will spend their August recess canvassing their constituents&#8217; sentiment before a bill is even written. Thus, their thinking may be influenced by nothing more than who shows up at a town hall meeting and shouts the loudest.</p>
<p>Given the aforementioned promises of the above activist groups, a quiet recess is unlikely. Yet one gets the uncomfortable feeling that the best Americans opposed to the massive legalization of millions of lawbreakers can hope for is that the pro-immigration activists, as has often been the case, overplay their hands. Loud and noisy demonstrations by progressive activists <i>demanding</i> a pathway to citizenship might sway Republicans to abandon this effort or prompt a backlash.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, House Speaker Boehner <a href="http://thehill.com/video/administration/312879-white-house-boehner-comments-on-immigration-are-laughable">offers</a> little comfort in that regard. “Nobody has spent more time trying to fix a broken immigration system than I have,” he said last month. “I talked about it the day after the election. I’ve talked about it a hundred times since. And while some may disagree about how we’re going about fixing a broken immigration system, it’s been a big goal of mine.”</p>
<p>Like other Republicans, Boehner needs to be reminded that the system is &#8220;broken,&#8221; primarily because the refusal to enforce the crackdown on businesses who hire illegal aliens, and the steadfast refusal to secure the border (mandated by the <i>1986</i> immigration reform bill) has brought us to where we are now. Moreover, there is absolutely nothing stopping those provisions from being enforced <i>right now </i>&#8211; other than the ongoing refusal by the Obama administration, supported by compliant Republicans, to enforce that law. Is there any end in sight to this racket?</p>
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