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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Vote</title>
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		<title>Budget Battle Royale</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/budget-battle-royale/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=budget-battle-royale</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/budget-battle-royale/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Dec 2014 05:25:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cromnibus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democrat]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[omnibus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Republican]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Spending]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vote]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=247279</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The “CRomnibus" bill pushes through. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/141027-electionpoll-editorial.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-247280" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/141027-electionpoll-editorial-450x300.jpg" alt="As Deadline On Debt Reduction Impasse Looms, Super Committee Meets Over Weekend" width="353" height="235" /></a>Thursday was filled with chaos in the capital. By a razor thin margin, the Republican-controlled House voted in favor of the $1.1 trillion “CRomnibus” funding bill. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) was forced to cajole conservative GOPers to switch their votes after it appeared it was headed for defeat earlier in the day. All of the machinations were aimed at preventing a government shutdown beginning at midnight.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">For a brief moment in time early Thursday, the nay votes outnumbered the yeas for the current <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/12/11/Boehner-Omnibus-Bill-Size-Grows-An-Extra-171-Pages-Overnight-Now-1774-Pages-Long"><span style="color: #1255cc;">1,774-page bill</span></a> allocating $1.01 trillion of federal spending for FY2015. That’s because conservative Republicans remain infuriated by the reality ObamaCare remains <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/09/whats-in-the-spending-bill-we-skim-it-so-you-dont-have-to/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">fully funded</span></a>, save for a $10 million budget cut for Independent Payment Advisory Board, and the president’s executive amnesty program remains funded until February. Nonetheless, $948 million has been allocated for the Department of Health and Human Service’s (DHS) unaccompanied children program, increasing that budget by $80 million, and another $14 million is aimed at helping school districts absorb new immigrant students. Adding insult to conservative injury, the State Department is on track to receive $260 million to assist the Central American countries responsible for the onslaught of children crossing the Southwest border over the summer.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">“The fix is in, which I’ve been saying all along,” <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/12/10/Conservatives-Express-Anger-That-Amnesty-Not-Defunded-In-Omnibus-The-Fix-Is-In"><span style="color: #1255cc;">said</span></a> Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) following the Republican conference Wednesday morning. “Promises around here&#8211;regardless of who they are made by&#8211;don’t seem to mean anything,” he added, further explaining that lawmakers’ phones have been “lighting up” with constituents asking them to “do what [they] were elected to do.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Salmon was one of sixteen Republicans, including Reps. Justin Amash (R-MI), Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Dave Brat (R-VA), Mo Brooks (R-AL), Paul Broun (R-GA), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Paul Gosar (R-AZ), Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), Walter Jones (R-NC), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Steve King (R-IA), Raul Labrador (R-ID), Tom Massie (R-KY), Bill Posey (R-FL), and and Steve Stockman (R-TX) who refused to accommodate GOP leadership on the debate vote.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Democrats were equally resistant, with most of their opposition aimed primarily at two riders. The <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/226788-dems-to-boehner-change-the-bill"><span style="color: #0433ff;">first one</span></a> waters down the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, allowing Wall Street banks to trade the risky derivatives banned by that bill. The second provision allows wealthy political donors to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/12/09/spending-deal-would-allow-wealthy-donors-to-dramatically-increase-giving-to-national-parties/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">dramatically increase</span></a> the amount of money they can donate to national political parties. &#8220;Stakeholders from across the progressive community&#8211;including the AFL-CIO, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Public Citizen, Communications Workers, Common Cause, and many others&#8211;have expressed their opposition to passing a funding bill that includes these dangerous provisions,” said leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), who were urging Democrats to vote no.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Yet many Democrats remained ambivalent due to the 2014 election that eliminated their Senate majority and increased Republican numbers in the House. While they don’t like the CRomnibus, some see it as their last chance to exert any influence over spending while they still retain their Senate majority. Furthermore, they were all aware of the reality that if the bill failed, GOP leadership was prepared to move forward with a shorter alternative.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">President Obama offered his support for the package both <a href="http://thehill.com/policy/finance/226817-white-house-signals-support-for-cromnibus-ahead-of-critical-vote"><span style="color: #1255cc;">before</span></a> and <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/113/saphr83h_20141211.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">shortly after</span></a> the vote took place. GOP leadership needed 50-60 Democrats to make up for the likely conservative defectors in their own party, and it appeared the president was well aware of that reality.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Yet even as Obama expressed his support, several Senate Democrats <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/226824-liberal-senators-threaten-to-oppose-omnibus"><span style="color: #1255cc;">rallied</span></a> around Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), viewed by many as that party’s newest star, to express their opposition to the aforementioned provisions for Wall Street and political donors. &#8220;It’s a very black mark on the omnibus if it comes over to the Senate with that in it. I certainly would consider voting no on it,&#8221; said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR). Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) also contended there would be a “problem” if the current language on Dodd-Frank remained intact. Warren remained adamant. “A vote for this bill is a vote for future taxpayer bailouts of Wall Street,” she insisted.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Warren might have a tad more credibility were it not for the reality that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two lending giants at the center of the housing meltdown, will once again be <a href="http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/business/2014/12/09/mortgage-down-payments"><span style="color: #1255cc;">offering</span></a> 3 percent down payments on mortgages to “qualified” home buyers. Those would be the same Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae left <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/272368/dodd-frank-s-fannie-trap-john-berlau"><span style="color: #1255cc;">untouched</span></a> by Dodd-Frank.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Two upsides for conservatives in the package includes a $60 million cut in the EPA’s budget to $8.1 billion. That brings the agency’s budget down a total of 21 percent since 2010, and staffing to its lowest level since 1989. The IRS also takes a $345.6 million hit, and the bill includes a future ban on their now infamous efforts to target organizations seeking tax-exempt status based on their ideological beliefs.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">At 2 p.m. the drama intensified, when House leaders <a href="http://www3.blogs.rollcall.com/218/lacking-sufficient-support-house-gop-leaders-delay-cromnibus-vote/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">called</span></a> for a recess instead of a vote, with a GOP aide insisting “leadership teams are still talking to their respective members. We still plan to vote this afternoon,” the aide added. At that point, whether they were voting on the CRomnibus package or a short-term Continuing Resolution remained unclear. The delay indicated GOP leadership was having trouble corralling enough of their own membership, while Nancy Pelosi sought to undercut support by Democrats and Obama with a fiery floor speech, saying she was “enormously disappointed” with the Obama administration.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Ironically, it was a Tea Party congressman defeated by the GOP establishment who <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/394438/reindeer-farmer-saves-boehner-dramatic-procedural-vote-joel-gehrke"><span style="color: #1255cc;">managed</span></a> to get Boehner past the initial hurdle. With the vote tied at 213-213, Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-MI) change his no vote to a yes. The outgoing reindeer farmer saved Boehner from enduring a major embarrassment that not only had forced Boehner to cast a vote himself (a rarity), but forced him to keep the vote going after time had officially expired. Frustrated Democrats shouted, “Call the vote,” but the Speaker ignored them until he got the result he wanted.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Irrespective of that vote, Obama’s immigration excesses and the healthcare bill remain sticking points for the GOP. Regarding immigration, GOP leadership <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/house/226737-government-shutdown-would-not-stop-obama-action-on-immigration"><span style="color: #1255cc;">posits</span></a> they’ll be better positioned to take on de facto amnesty a month from now, when they get their Senate majority and larger share of the House. “If you’re gonna start a bar fight, start it when you’ve got as many friends in the bar as you can possibly have. Why would you start it now?” said Boehner ally Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK). A leadership aide echoed that contention, insisting the GOP has an “array of legislative and legal options” they can employ—without specifying any of them. The two flies in the proverbial ointment include an Obama veto, and regardless of funding or lack thereof, how many DHS workers could be deemed “essential,” preventing them from being furloughed. That’s why conservative GOPers preferred to fight using the entire budget as a hammer.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">ObamaCare is a different story. Obama still has veto power, but several Democrats, including Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Harry Reid (D-NV), have <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/12/04/after-midterm-drubbing-senior-dems-voicing-regret-over-obamacare/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">expressed</span></a> regret regarding its passage, and ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber embarrassed himself <a href="http://qpolitical.com/thats-the-best-you-got-trey-gowdy-embarrasses-gruber-on-his-insulting-comments-about-americans/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">during</span></a> testimony on Capitol Hill. There was also <i>another</i> video released yesterday in which he <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/11/in-a-new-video-jon-gruber-boasted-that-he-helped-write-obamacare/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">claimed</span></a> he “helped write” the bill. Moreover, the Supreme Court is <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/health-care/how-the-supreme-court-can-kill-obamacare-without-overturning-it-20141117"><span style="color: #1255cc;">poised to rule</span></a> on <i>King v. Burwell, </i>a case where the plaintiffs contend only healthcare exchanges “established by the state” can provide IRS tax subsidies to ObamaCare enrollees. If the Court rules according to the law as written, the roughly 4 to 5 million people now receiving financial assistance would lose it in the 36 states that didn’t set up their own exchanges. And the law, as <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/poll-obamacare-approval-112948.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">unpopular as ever</span></a> with the public, would essentially be gutted. All of this may provide impetus for a bipartisan effort to make majors changes to the law—even changes that might garner enough support to override a veto by Obama.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">At around 5:30 p.m. Democrats <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/12/2015-gop-budget-back-up-plan-113498.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">convened</span></a> a closed meeting to discuss the bill following a series of phone calls from Obama and Vice President Biden, urging party members to vote for it. Pelosi remained against it, insisting Republicans &#8220;don’t have enough votes,” while GOP leadership indicated they could either pass a three-month stop-gap measure avoiding a shutdown, or a weeklong measure giving Boehner more time to marshal support. “We expect the bill to pass with bipartisan support today, but if it does not, we will pass a short-term CR to avoid a government shutdown,” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The American public? <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/11/amnesty-protestors-crash-capitol-hill-switchboard/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">Jamming</span></a> the congressional switchboard with calls most likely opposed to even a temporary funding of Obama’s de facto amnesty, much like a similar wave of calls opposing immigration legislation attempted by both parties in 2006 and 2007.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In the end, the status quo—the member-added pork, the absurd outlays for outrageous inanities, the deficit spending adding to a national debt that now tops $18 trillion, and the public-insulting passage of bills unread by the people who pass them—remains undisturbed. The express train to fiscal oblivion, in a country where national sovereignty is becoming an anachronism in pursuit of cheap labor and cheap votes, and the concerns of the elitist few overwhelm those of an outraged public deemed too “stupid” to know what’s good for them, remains on track.</p>
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		<title>Judeophobia on Full Display at UCLA</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/judeophobia-on-full-display-at-ucla/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=judeophobia-on-full-display-at-ucla</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/judeophobia-on-full-display-at-ucla/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 21 Nov 2014 05:19:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ari Lieberman]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Anti-Semitism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[BDS]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[divestment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[resolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[UCLA]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vote]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245770</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Students vote for economic warfare against the Jewish State. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/la-me-ln-ucla-divestment-israel-20141119-001.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245771" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/la-me-ln-ucla-divestment-israel-20141119-001.jpg" alt="la-me-ln-ucla-divestment-israel-20141119-001" width="331" height="260" /></a>Anti-Semitism on college campuses is nothing new and, partly as a result of the growing influence of groups like the Muslim Students Association (<a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/MSA%20and%20Jihad%20Network%20v5b-1.pdf"><span style="color: #0433ff;">an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood</span></a>) and Students for Justice in Palestine, has witnessed a sharp rise in recent years. In fact, some of today’s institutions of higher learning are among the greatest purveyors of Judeophoboia and anti-Israel sentiment.</p>
<p>At San Francisco State University for example, an institution subsidized by the taxpayer, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/taxpayers-fund-radical-profs-overseas-meeting-with-terrorists/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">Rabab Ibrahim Abdulhadi</span></a>, a pseudo professor of “Race and Resistance Studies,” was allowed (under false pretenses) to meet and collaborate with known terrorists on a university-funded excursion. And at Northeastern University, professors have been <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/09/28/video-shows-professors-teaching-anti-semitism-anti-israelism/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">videotaped</span></a> openly expressing Jew-hatred in the classroom with one professor stating quite candidly that he wears the label of anti-Semite as a badge of honor.  But when it comes to base anti-Semitic vitriol, the University of California, Los Angeles has the dubious distinction of being among the worst of the lot.</p>
<p>On November 18, at around the same time when Jewish worshipers were being hacked and shot to death in a Jerusalem synagogue, UCLA’s student government, by a vote of 8 to 2 with 2 abstentions, <a href="http://www.jta.org/2014/11/19/news-opinion/united-states/ucla-student-government-passes-israel-divestment-resolution"><span style="color: #0433ff;">passed a resolution</span></a> urging the university to divest from Israel and from American companies doing business with Israel.  Despite the fact that some 2,000 students signed a petition opposed to the pernicious measure, the student government, stacked with Judeophopes and their mindless partners in crime, acted as anti-Semites normally do and voted to target the Jews.</p>
<p>Last February, a similar resolution sponsored by the SJP <a href="http://www.jta.org/2014/02/26/news-opinion/united-states/ucla-student-council-rejects-divestment-resolution"><span style="color: #0433ff;">failed</span></a> by a vote of 7 to 5 provoking an embarrassing and memorable <a href="http://legalinsurrection.com/2014/02/video-ucla-student-melts-down-after-anti-israel-resolution-defeated/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">meltdown</span></a> by a BDS-supporting, student note-taker. It is ironic that the instant resolution was co-sponsored by groups like Queer Alliance and Bruin Feminists for Equality. Someone should remind these useful idiots that Palestinians <a href="http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/04/20/pinkwashing-difference-between-israel-palestinians-gay-rights/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">don’t take kindly to gays</span></a> and areas governed by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are rife with so-called “<a href="http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&amp;doc_id=10767"><span style="color: #0433ff;">honor killings</span></a>” where women are often tortured and brutalized. This strange alliance merely demonstrates that when it comes to targeting Jews, radical leftists and their Islamist allies generally find common ground and put their difference aside.</p>
<p>What is also ironic is that the vote comes at a time when the Muslim Middle East is imploding. While dysfunctional countries like Iran, Syria, Iraq and Egypt are devoid of any semblance of democracy and brutally subjugate their people, Israel stands as a beacon of democratic values where minorities enjoy full civil rights and where tolerance is the norm rather than an aberration. Yet the student government saw fit to disregard the facts and instead painted a broad bull’s-eye over the Jewish State.</p>
<p>The vote also comes on the heels of a <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/ari-lieberman/from-gaza-to-ucla-israel-faces-multi-front-war/"><span style="color: #0433ff;">vindictive campaign</span></a> by UCLA’s honorary Brown Shirts to prevent Avi Oved, a Jewish undergraduate and economics major and former vice president of the UCLA student government, from serving as a UC Board of Regents student representative. The campaign failed, but is testament to the broad effort that the SJP is conducting to intimidate Jewish students. UCLA’s SJP’s chapter also tried to invalidate last February’s student government vote of two student government members who allegedly took sponsored trips to Israel that were allegedly subsidized by organizations affiliated with pro-Israel causes. That drive fell flat as well, but the students had to devote much time and effort defending themselves against spurious allegations laced with anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>Though the instant anti-Israel drive was boycotted by Jewish and pro-Israel groups, and the sad but predictable result amounts to nothing more than a publicity stunt with more bark than bite, the malevolent vote represents a black stain and a mark of shame on UCLA. Already, <a href="http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/major-ucla-donor-pledges-pull-funds-if-administration-backs-bds"><span style="color: #0433ff;">prominent</span></a> UC alumni and donors have voiced <a href="http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/second-ucla-donor-pledges-funding-cut-if-administration-doesnt-condemn-bds"><span style="color: #0433ff;">staunch opposition</span></a> to the BDS resolution and have made clear that they will cease donations to the university until it issues an unequivocal rejection and condemnation of the student government’s action.</p>
<p>It does appear that the pressure is having the desired effect. Just a day following the passage of the anti-Semitic resolution, Chancellor Gene Block <a href="http://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/ucla-chancellor-gene-block-statement-on-student-vote-on-israel-divestment"><span style="color: #0433ff;">released a statement</span></a> plainly rejecting the BDS outrage, noting that it unfairly held Israel to a different standard. This axiom is of course ignored by the SJP and other Islamist and radical student groups whose platforms are ensconced in Jew-hatred and xenophobia.</p>
<p>While the Chancellor’s statement represents a step in the right direction, stronger action is clearly needed to stem the growing cancer of anti-Semitism that is so pervasive at UCLA. Until it is seriously addressed, we can expect more abominations from UCLA.</p>
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		<title>Keystone Killed</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/keystone-killed/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=keystone-killed</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/arnold-ahlert/keystone-killed/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 19 Nov 2014 05:30:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Keystone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mary landrieu]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pipeline]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vote]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=245564</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Desperate Sen. Mary Landrieu loses the vote, and likely her Senate seat as well.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="color: #232323;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/r1.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-245574" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/r1-450x299.jpg" alt="A TransCanada Keystone Pipeline pump station operates outside Steele City, Nebraska" width="307" height="204" /></a>The ongoing theatrics surrounding the Keystone XL pipeline <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/18/senate-backers-keystone-pipeline-scramble-for-last-vote/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">continued</span></a> in earnest Tuesday. Desperate Democrat incumbent Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) spent the afternoon trying to secure the critical 60th vote necessary for the filibuster-proof majority that would get the legislation through the Senate and onto Obama’s desk, while her fellow Democrats weighed the pros and cons of alienating their radical environmentalist constituency. Democrats chose to stand with the radicals, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/19/us/politics/keystone-xl-pipeline.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">defeating</span></a> the bill by a 59-41 vote.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">By the middle of the afternoon, Landrieu’s chances of winning over one more Democrat looked increasingly slim. Every one of the Senate’s 45 Republicans were on board, but Democrat support that included those who cosponsored Landrieu’s bill, as well as those who had publicly voiced their commitment to its passage, brought the overall total to 59 votes. On Monday, two Senators Landrieu thought she might flip, Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Carl Levin (D-MI), both reaffirmed their intention to vote against the project. They were <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/18/us-usa-keystone-idUSKCN0J20EQ20141118"><span style="color: #1255cc;">joined</span></a> Tuesday by Sen. Angus King (I-ME). &#8220;Congress is not – nor should it be – in the business of legislating the approval or disapproval of a construction project,” he said in a news release.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Landrieu’s motives were politically transparent. She faces a Dec. 6 runoff against GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy, and her ongoing effort to get Keystone through the Senate was aimed at demonstrating her political clout as chairwoman of the Senate Energy Committee. Yet despite a long <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/congress/mary-landrieu-makes-last-ditch-pitch-for-a-vote-on-keystone-20141112"><span style="color: #1255cc;">speech</span></a> made within minutes of the lame-duck session beginning last Wednesday, during which she contended Keystone was &#8220;clearly supported by sixty or more members of this body,” her message ultimately failed to resonate with her Democrat colleagues.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Landrieu’s future is likely to mirror the Senate vote. On Election Day she was the frontrunner in a <a href="http://elections.nytimes.com/2014/louisiana-elections"><span style="color: #1255cc;">four-way race</span></a> against three Republicans, including Cassidy, Rob Maness and Thomas Clements. Yet she only secured 42 percent of the vote, necessitating the runoff against Cassidy, who finished a point behind. More tellingly, Landrieu finished well behind the overall Republican vote total of 56 percent.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Since that day, a series of inconvenient realities have further diminished Landrieu’s chances of getting reelected. When the GOP takes control of the Senate in January, Landrieu, assuming she survives, will be forced to relinquish her post as chairwoman of the Energy Committee. It was that power position that provided much of the impetus for her campaign. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) pushed the knife in deeper, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/apnewsbreak-gop-promises-cassidy-committee-seat-26851561"><span style="color: #1255cc;">promising</span></a> to put Cassidy on the Energy Committee if he wins. Cassidy also sponsored the House version of the pipeline bill that elicited <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/14/house-keystone-pipeline-vote/19021085/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">overwhelming</span></a> support in the GOP-controlled chamber, sailing through on a 252-161 vote.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In other words, Cassidy prevailed while Landrieu failed.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Adding to Landrieu’s woes, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) has virtually <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2014/11/democrats-ads-mary-landrieu-112647.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">abandoned</span></a> spending any money on her runoff election, canceling more than $1.8 million worth of broadcast buys, even as the National Republican Senatorial Committee (RNSC) remains on track to spend $2.3 million on broadcast ads to put Cassidy over the top. It shows. Of the 26 surveys <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2014/senate/louisiana_senate_race.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">cited</span></a> by Real Clear Politics, Cassidy leads in 20, Landrieu in 5, with one tie. The Senate vote will undoubtedly make those numbers worse for Landrieu. If Cassidy wins the runoff, the GOP will have gained 9 Senate seats in the 2014 mid-term election.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The number nine is also one that puts the lie to the media-promulgated notion that Republicans are the “obstructionist” party: the House’s latest vote to authorize construction of the Keystone XL pipeline <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/14/house-keystone-pipeline-vote/19021085/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">marks</span></a> the <i>ninth</i> time they have done so. The eight prior approvals were sent to the Senate where the nation’s foremost obstructionist, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/mary-landrieus-keystone-lifeline-1415923975"><span style="color: #1255cc;">allowed</span></a> them to languish over the course of the last four years. The <i>Wall Street Journal </i>mocks Reid’s sudden interest in a pipeline vote he has routinely thwarted. &#8220;Call it the Save Mary Landrieu Act of 2014,” the paper states.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Reid is not alone. Liberal Democrats who worship at the Church of Global Warming are also against the pipeline being built. One of them, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) sent an email blast to his supporters asking them to sign a petition rejecting the project. All of them are beholden to the radical environmentalists, including protesters who <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2014/11/17/environmentalists-protest-outside-mary-landrieus-capitol-hill-home/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">swarmed</span></a> Landrieu’s Capitol Hill townhouse on Monday, as well as big-bucks donors like California billionaire Tom Steyer, who ended up <a href="http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/198214/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">spending</span></a> $74 million to support a “green” agenda and oppose Keystone.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Steyer’s hypocrisy is monumental. Prior to his “green conversion” he was one of the world’s <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/04/the-epic-hypocrisy-of-tom-steyer.php"><span style="color: #1255cc;">largest funders</span></a> of coal projects. He is also an unabashed rent-seeker. At one point his hedge fund, Farallon Capital Management, had $40 million <a href="http://freebeacon.com/columns/gas-attack/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">invested</span></a> in Kinder Morgan, an entity building a competitor to Keystone. That revelation elicited a promise to sell his stock shares and donate the profits to charity. Regardless, Democrats—the very same ones who rail about corrupting effect of too much money in politics &#8212; stand with him and a raft of other donors who have, as the <i>WSJ</i> <a href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/little-green-machine-1415319154"><span style="color: #1255cc;">puts</span></a> it, &#8220;made opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline a litmus test of their support for Democrats.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">It is a litmus test wholly embraced by President Obama, who has spent six years stonewalling the project, hiding behind the excuse that he wants the State Department’s seemingly endless environmental evaluations to continue. That would be the same State Department that released a review last January <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/01/31/269529696/state-dept-delivers-unwelcome-news-for-keystone-opponents"><span style="color: #1255cc;">revealing</span></a> there would be no significant impact on greenhouse gas emissions if the pipeline were approved because the oil will be produced regardless of America’s involvement or lack thereof. Nonetheless, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest <a href="http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2014/11/18/white-house-suggests-obama-veto-keystone-bill/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">indicated</span></a> Tuesday Obama would veto the project, irrespective of the Senate vote. “There is a process that’s underway that’s going through it’s regular course.” he said. “The State Department is the proper venue for reaching this determination.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Obama himself indicated his opposition as well during a speech in Burma on Nov. 14 when he <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/article/392913/obamas-keystone-madness-robert-zubrin"><span style="color: #1255cc;">insisted</span></a> that &#8220;we should judge this pipeline based on whether or not it accelerates climate change or whether it helps the American people with their energy costs and their gas prices,” further insisting he has to &#8220;constantly push back against this idea that somehow the Keystone pipeline is either this massive jobs bill for the United States, or is somehow lowering gas prices.”</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The first bit puts Obama at odds with uncomfortable reality. There’s been no global warming for <a href="http://hotair.com/archives/2014/11/17/what-the-mainstream-media-wont-tell-you-about-global-warming/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">over 18 years</span></a>, the oil will be obtained and sold even if it ends up in China, and Obama himself has <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/aug/5/editorial-the-high-price-of-hope/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">promised</span></a> to continue forging ahead with an agenda that would cause energy prices to “skyrocket.” Moreover despite the private enterprise fracking boom, (which Obama likes to take credit for, even though he had nothing to do with it) America still imports nearly <a href="http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec3_7.pdf"><span style="color: #1255cc;">30 percent</span></a> of its oil. This leaves us vulnerable to a cadre of South American and Middle East thugs who yearn for our demise—and use oil revenues to facilitate it.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">The last bit seemingly puts the president at odds with the State Department, which <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/11/17/364727163/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-keystone-xl-oil-pipeline"><span style="color: #1255cc;">estimates</span></a> 42,000 direct and indirect jobs generating about $2 billion in earnings would be created during the construction phase of the pipeline. After the construction, only around 50 permanent jobs would remain, primarily for maintenance.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Perhaps more to the point is the president’s effort to rather casually dismiss part time jobs. Obama is the same president who was touting his administration’s job creation efforts in 2013—despite the fact that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/21/part-time-job-creation_n_3788365.html"><span style="color: #1255cc;">75 percent</span></a> of<i> all</i> net jobs created that year were part time.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Despite the Senate’s rejection, the American public stands firmly behind Keystone. A <i>USA Today</i> survey shows they <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/11/17/usa-today-poll-immigration-isis-keystone-pipeline/19165331/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">support</span></a> the construction of the pipeline by a whopping margin, with 60 percent in favor, versus 25 percent who oppose it. A Pew survey <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2014/11/12/little-enthusiasm-familiar-divisions-after-the-gops-big-midterm-victory/"><span style="color: #1255cc;">reveals</span></a> almost identical support at 59 percent overall, but Democrat support has dropped from 54 percent to 43 percent since 2013.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">Republicans have also made up their minds. While Obama is off the veto hook temporarily, there is no doubt whatsoever a Republican-controlled Congress will send a continuing stream of bills his desk approving the pipeline, forcing him to veto them over and over again. Or perhaps once a soon-to-be Democratic congressional minority gets more time to reflect on their second electoral wipeout in four years, as well as the politics involved in the 2016 races, they might conclude that defying a president who told the electorate they were running on his policies in the mid-terms is the sensible thing to do.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">In other words, a veto-proof majority approving the pipeline might be a possibility.</p>
<p style="color: #232323;">An Associated Press <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WORLDS_LARGEST_SOLAR_PLANT?SITE=AP&amp;SECTION=HOME&amp;TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&amp;CTIME=2014-11-17-14-33-47"><span style="color: #1255cc;">story</span></a> on alternative energy sources demonstrates why. The highly-touted Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, the world’s largest of it type, is producing only half the amount of energy its green cheerleaders predicted it would. Why? &#8220;The sun isn&#8217;t shining as much as expected,” the AP reports. &#8220;Factors such as clouds, jet contrails and weather have had a greater impact on the plant than the owners anticipated,” the California Energy Commission said in a statement. In other words, as far as radical environmentalists are concerned, whether or not American have enough electricity to light their homes should be based on accurate, long-term weather predictions&#8211;and fewer jets flying overhead. One suspects most Americans want a tad more reliability than that.</p>
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		<title>Putin Throws Down the Gauntlet and Obama Shrinks Away</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/joseph-klein/putin-throws-down-the-gauntlet-and-obama-shrinks-away/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=putin-throws-down-the-gauntlet-and-obama-shrinks-away</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 19 Mar 2014 04:45:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=221323</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[East meets Western weakness. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/putin-and-obama.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-221324 alignleft" alt="putin-and-obama" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/putin-and-obama-450x337.jpg" width="315" height="236" /></a>Russian President Vladimir Putin minced no words when he signed on March 18</span><sup style="line-height: 1.5em;">th</sup><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> a treaty with Crimea to signify the absorption of that territory into Russia. Defending the referendum held Sunday in Crimea in which those voting approved the absorption overwhelmingly, Putin declared in a televised address in front of both houses of the Russian parliament and Crimea&#8217;s purported leaders: &#8220;In the hearts and minds of people, Crimea has always been and remains an inseparable part of Russia.&#8221; </span></p>
<p>Responding to President Obama’s stale incantations about international law and “consequences” if Russia does not adhere to its norms, Putin turned around and accused the United States of practicing the “law of the strong.” He said that the current central government of Ukraine in Kiev consisted of “fascists, anti-Semites, nationalists and radicals who seized power in a coup d’état backed by western patrons, and do not legitimately represent the people of Ukraine.”  All from the Russian dictator who sent his shock troops throughout Crimea to ratify an engineered coup d’état in the break-away peninsula. In a veiled threat, Putin said that Russia will do what it has to do to protect the interests of ethnic Russians of Ukraine “diplomatically, through laws and <i>other means</i>.” (Emphasis added) As if to underline his point, a Ukrainian soldier was reportedly killed on Tuesday when a base came under attack by Russian or pro-Russian forces.</p>
<p>Addressing crowds after his parliament speech in Moscow&#8217;s Red Square, Putin exclaimed: &#8220;Glory to Russia.&#8221; Obama and his partners in Western Europe, after much hand-wringing and talk of severe consequences if the Crimean referendum proceeded towards annexation by Russia, decided to impose the weakest of sanctions against a few individuals who couldn’t care less. Their mockery of Obama, and by implication the United States, was palpable. Putin went so far as to joke that Russia was ready to take on NATO forces in Crimea and Ukraine at any time.</p>
<p>The trouble for President Obama is that Putin actually believes his grandiose talk about Russian pride and might. Putin addresses his countrymen in fiery language meant to instill hyper patriotism and explains his rationales for his actions in terms that Russians and Russian-speaking people in Crimea can understand and relate to.</p>
<p>Obama embraces no core principles in defense of freedom. He shies away from muscular diplomacy – peace through strength- and is actually proposing to downsize the U.S. military to its lowest level since U.S. involvement in World War II. Rather than speak to the American people in a prime time address from the Oval Office and explain clearly what he thinks is at stake for international peace and security and American interests if Russia continues its aggressive ways, he plays golf and shops at The Gap.</p>
<p>Putin firmly believes that the West operates on a double standard and, to some extent, he has a point. We certainly do not always practice what we preach. But in using Kosovo as an example of such a double standard, Putin displays Russian doublespeak in action as he tries to defend Russian aggression with a bogus moral equivalency argument.</p>
<p>NATO intervention in Kosovo followed extensive attempts over a decade to persuade Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic to reverse his decision to sharply reduce the autonomy that Kosovo had enjoyed since 1974 and cease his human rights violations. This was happening against the backdrop of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia breaking up as Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence. The Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was admitted as a member state of the United Nations on May 22, 1992 following a bloody war involving Serbian and non-Serbian factions. After Kosovo sought to go its own way and Milosevic cracked down to keep Kosovo part of Serbia, including by the commission of gross human rights violations against civilians, NATO finally intervened in March 1999 with air power.</p>
<p>Although Russia opposed NATO’s military intervention, it actually helped in the final resolution of the conflict. President Boris Yeltsin’s chief Balkans envoy, Viktor Chernomyrdin, along with Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari presented NATO&#8217;s demands to Milosevic in Belgrade on June 3, 1999.</p>
<p>When the war was over, Kosovo was not absorbed into any NATO country. It was not made a protectorate of the United States nor occupied by U.S. soldiers by virtue of a unilateral decision of the U.S. government. Although its status as an independent country or as an autonomous part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia remains disputed, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1244, placing Kosovo under transitional UN administration and authorizing a NATO-led peacekeeping force. Russia supported this resolution.</p>
<p>In other words, contrary to Putin’s attempt to rewrite history with his double-speak, while Russia did object to the NATO bombing campaign, it supported working through the United Nations Security Council to help resolve the Kosovo conflict. Putin is now thumbing his nose at the United Nations Security Council when it comes to Crimea, insisting on what amounts to his claim of a unilateral right for Russia to occupy and then absorb Crimea as a fait accompli. There is no moral equivalence between Kosovo and Crimea.</p>
<p>That said, President Obama needs to make a choice. He can put some teeth into his oft-repeated threat of consequences for Russia’s violation of international law by providing arms to Ukraine and installing sophisticated military equipment such as missile defense systems in Poland, the Czech Republic, and perhaps the Baltic states of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia as well as Western Ukraine. Alternatively, he can decide that, for the sake of more important strategic interests that would benefit from Russian cooperation in dealing with Iran, Syria, the aftermath of the war in Afghanistan and the fight against global jihad, he will work behind the scenes with Russia to contain the damage from the Ukraine crisis and move on. If Obama were to follow the latter course, he would need to nail down significant commitments from Putin with demonstrable actions to back them up – something he failed to obtain when he unilaterally decided to cancel the ballistic missile defense systems the United States was to place in NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic.</p>
<p>As of now, President Obama does not have an effective strategy in either direction. He is acting like a shrinking violet while Putin struts his stuff on the world stage.</p>
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		<title>Did I Move?</title>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 13 Feb 2014 05:30:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ann Coulter]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=218714</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Or did America become different through mass immigration? ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/vote-aqui2.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-218732" alt="vote-aqui2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/vote-aqui2-450x337.jpg" width="315" height="236" /></a>With all the smirking on the left about their electoral victories, it&#8217;s important to remember that Democrats haven&#8217;t won the hearts and minds of the American people. They changed the people. If you pour vinegar into a bottle of wine, the wine didn&#8217;t turn, you poured vinegar into it. Similarly, liberals changed no minds. They added millions of new liberal voters through immigration.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So why are Republicans like Trey Gowdy, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and John Boehner making fools of themselves in order to spot the Democrats three more touchdowns?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The House Republicans&#8217; &#8220;Standards for Immigration Reform,&#8221; for example, contains this fat, honking nonsense: &#8220;One of the great founding principles of our country was that children would not be punished for the mistakes of their parents.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">As the kids say: </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">WTF?</i></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">That may be a pleasant-sounding sentiment, but it has absolutely nothing to do with our country&#8217;s history. Not the first thing. Did Republicans really think they could pawn off the idea that our forefathers fought and died at Valley Forge so that illegal aliens wouldn&#8217;t have to live in the shadows?</span></p>
<p><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Yeah, it was a long shot. We didn&#8217;t know you guys had read the Constitution. We&#8217;ll be quiet now.</i></p>
<p>Apart from the fact that protecting children from the mistakes of their parents has not the slightest connection with the nation&#8217;s founding, it&#8217;s a ridiculous concept.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Yes, children suffer when their parents break the law. Also when their parents get divorced, become alcoholics, don&#8217;t read to them at night, feed them junk food and take them to Justin Bieber concerts. None of that is the child&#8217;s fault.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But it&#8217;s not the country&#8217;s fault either.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">If we have to excuse lawbreaking so as not to &#8220;punish the children,&#8221; there&#8217;s no end to the crimes that have to be forgiven &#8212; insider trading, theft, rape, murder and so on.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">How do you think kids feel when their father has to &#8220;live in the shadows&#8221; because he committed a rape? The kids did nothing wrong, but they have to go to bed every night wondering: </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Is tomorrow the day Dad is going to be caught?</i></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">How do you function like that? And how awful it must be when their dad is sent to prison! How do you think Jack Abramoff&#8217;s kids felt? What about Martha Stewart&#8217;s kid?</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Why not just forgive the crimes of all perpetrators who have kids? At a minimum, shouldn&#8217;t we allow criminals to defer their sentences until their kids turn 26 so they can stay on Dad&#8217;s health insurance? Or at least until their kids have gone to college? Chris Christie can give them in-state tuition!</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8220;It&#8217;s not the kids&#8217; fault&#8221; proves too much. People can get away with anything if they&#8217;re willing to use their children as trump cards to avoid the force of law.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The once-respected Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., compared illegal aliens brought here as kids to children who steal a grape or scream in a restaurant:</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8220;When children wander into neighborhood yards, we don&#8217;t call that trespassing. When children cry and yell and scream at restaurants or on airplanes, we don&#8217;t call that a violation of the noise ordinance. When children eat a grape at the grocery store or eat a piece of candy waiting in line before Mom or Dad pays for it, we don&#8217;t have them arrested for petty larceny.&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Yes, but in those cases, both the child and his parents had a right to be where they were &#8212; the yard, restaurant or grocery store &#8212; when the child suddenly behaved like a child. With illegal aliens, the parents are more like gypsies teaching their kids to beg and pick pockets. The parents forced the kids into being lawbreakers.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Similarly, Palestinians use their children to commit acts of terrorism against Israel, so that when Israel responds, the parents can wail, &#8220;They&#8217;re bombing children!&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">(I thought only liberals couldn&#8217;t do analogies.)</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Americans are under no moral obligation to admit huge numbers of people who have no particular right to be here just because the Democrats need 30 million new voters.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Why shouldn&#8217;t Republicans oppose mass immigration on the grounds that immigrants will vote Democratic? The only reason the Democrats </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">want</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> mass immigration is because they know immigrants will vote Democratic. (Also for the cheap nannies and gardeners.)</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Immigration is the &#8220;single issue&#8221; that decides every other issue. If this country were the same demographically today as it was in 1980, Romney would have won a bigger victory in 2012 than Reagan did against Carter. And we wouldn&#8217;t have to hear about soccer all the time.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">We&#8217;re living in a different country now, and I can&#8217;t recall moving! Had I wanted to live in Japan, I could have moved there. Had I had wanted to live in Mexico, Pakistan or Chechnya &#8212; I could have moved to those places, too.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">(Although maybe not. They all have stricter immigration policies than we do.)</span></p>
<p>I&#8217;m sure they&#8217;re lovely, but I wanted to live in America. Now I can&#8217;t. At the current rate of immigration, it won&#8217;t exist anymore. The Democrats couldn&#8217;t win elections there, so they changed it.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">With the repeal of Obamacare in the balance, I have argued that it&#8217;s insane for Republicans to waste resources primarying their own guys in 2014. Even the most heinous Republican can usually argue, &#8220;Would you really rather have a Democrat in this seat?&#8221;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But any Republican who supports mass immigration &#8212; whether with Marco Rubio&#8217;s amnesty bill, or idiotic arguments about &#8220;not punishing the children&#8221; &#8212; has forfeited that claim. If the country is going to be ruined anyway, it could not matter less who wins any particular seat on this Titanic.</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>U.N. Laments Saudis&#8217; Rejection of Security Council Seat</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/u-n-laments-saudis-rejection-of-security-council-seat/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=u-n-laments-saudis-rejection-of-security-council-seat</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 21 Oct 2013 04:27:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The moral indignation of a human rights abusing nation. ]]></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/saudi-arabia-hrw-555x388.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-207983" alt="saudi-arabia-hrw-555x388" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/saudi-arabia-hrw-555x388-450x314.jpg" width="270" height="188" /></a>In declining to accept a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council that it had actively sought for two years, Saudi Arabia pouted that it could not abide by the Security Council’s “double-standards.” Saudi Arabia had just won the seat last Thursday at a UN General Assembly election, along with Chad, Chile, Lithuania and Nigeria. The Saudis do not like the direction that the Security Council has taken recently in finally coming together to mandate the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles and to formally support the international community’s efforts to hold a peace conference in Geneva that includes representatives of the Assad regime. The Saudis also complained that the Security Council has failed to deal adequately with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.</span></b></p>
<p>&#8220;Work mechanisms and double-standards on the Security Council prevent it from carrying out its duties and assuming its responsibilities in keeping world peace,&#8221; the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement. &#8220;Therefore, Saudi Arabia&#8230; has no other option but to turn down Security Council membership until it is reformed and given the means to accomplish its duties and assume its responsibilities in preserving the world&#8217;s peace and security,&#8221; it added.</p>
<p>The Russian foreign ministry described the Saudis’ decision as “strange.” The French, however, were more understanding. &#8220;We think that Saudi Arabia would have brought a very positive contribution to the Security Council, but we do also understand the frustration of Saudi Arabia,&#8221; France&#8217;s UN ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters.</p>
<p>UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that as of Friday he had not yet received official notification of Saudi Arabia’s decision, but added in remarks to reporters:</p>
<blockquote><p>“We also are looking forward to working very closely in addressing many important challenges with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, particularly to bring an end to the war in Syria, to help Palestinian people to achieve a viable State, and to help the current transition in Yemen, and also to extend humanitarian assistance to all the people in need, and to combat terrorism and nuclear proliferation<b>.”</b></p></blockquote>
<p>Jen Psaki, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, said that “I understand different countries will have different responses, but we&#8217;ll continue to work with them on issues that we share of mutual concern.”</p>
<p>Indeed, while the Obama administration has decided to seriously curtail the ongoing provision of military support to the interim government in Egypt, which is fighting terrorists in Sinai and elsewhere who are threatening regional stability, the administration has just recently announced to Congress “a possible Foreign Military Sale to Saudi Arabia of various munitions and associated equipment, parts, training and logistical support for an estimated cost of $6.8 billion.” This transaction will include various kinds of missiles, on top of a separate deal entered into late last year under which the Saudis are to purchase 84 new and 70 refurbished F-15SA multi-role fighter aircraft and associated weapons.</p>
<p>That’s a lot of armament going to a country that sponsors jihadist attacks outside of its own borders, including, most notably, in Syria where it is enabling the flow of arms to jihadists.</p>
<p>Moreover, for years, Saudi Arabia’s wealthy donors have funded terrorist organizations. Indeed, as a December 2009 diplomatic cable noted, which was signed by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and later disclosed by WikiLeaks, “donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.” The cable added that there was an “ongoing challenge to persuade Saudi officials to treat terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia as a strategic priority.”</p>
<p>Ironically, on the very same day as Saudi Arabia announced its decision to reject a seat on the Security Council, that body was conducting an open debate on the theme “”Women and Peace and Security.” U.S. Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power spoke on the importance of women&#8217;s rights and equal participation to advance peace and security worldwide. One day earlier Ambassador Power issued the obligatory statement congratulating Saudi Arabia and the other four member states on their election to the Security Council. One wonders whether she is relieved at not having to sit next to a representative from the racist, misogynistic society, infused with the supremacist Wahhabi Islamic ideology, which defines Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>As Hillel Neuer, executive director of the non-governmental human rights group UN Watch put it:</p>
<blockquote><p>&#8220;While the Saudi statement invoked UN &#8216;double standards&#8217; as their grounds for refusal, the truth is that Saudi Arabia&#8217;s entire system is a double standard. Under Saudi law and practice, there is one standard for men, and another for women, who cannot vote, drive a car, or travel without a male guardian; one for Muslims, and another for Christians, 53 of whom who were arrested this year by religious police for praying in a private home; one for heterosexuals, and another for gays, where homosexuality is punishable by death, and where gays have been publicly beheaded.</p>
<p>Women are subjugated in Saudi Arabia. They suffer gross and systematic inequality, and discrimination in law and practice.”</p></blockquote>
<p>In sum, as long as an even worse country such as Iran does not replace Saudi Arabia on the Security Council, Saudi Arabia’s decision to give up its seat is a very positive development for those who care about human rights and are concerned about the spreading jihadist threat funded by the Saudis.</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>
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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>Destroying Norway&#8217;s Socialist Paradise?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/bruce-bawer/destroying-norways-socialist-paradise/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=destroying-norways-socialist-paradise</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Sep 2013 04:20:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Bruce Bawer]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Norwegian voters go conservative – and the media go ballistic.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/vote.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-203890" alt="vote" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/vote-450x322.jpg" width="315" height="225" /></a>It&#8217;s hard to believe now, but there actually was a time when I viewed journalism as a noble profession.</p>
<p>(I was very young.)</p>
<p>On Monday, Norwegian voters, by a convincing margin, turned out the socialists and opted for a new, non-socialist government. <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/norway-election-results-antiimmigrant-party-with-links-to-mass-murderer-anders-behring-breivik-set-to-enter-government-under-conservative-leader-erna-solberg-8805649.html%20">This</a> was how the British daily the <i>Independent – </i>which is regarded in some circles as a serious paper – headlined the news:</p>
<p>“Norway election results: Anti-immigrant party with links to mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik set to enter government under Conservative leader Erna Solberg.”</p>
<p>Just below the headline, to underscore the most important part of the message – namely, that the Progress Party has “links” to Breivik – were two equally large pictures of Breivik, the murderer, and Siv Jensen, the head of the Progress Party, which won 16.3 percent of the vote in Monday&#8217;s parliamentary ballot. The <i>Independent</i>&#8216;s reporter, Tony Paterson, devoted a considerable chunk of his text to a recap of the Breivik murders, and only several paragraphs into the piece did he make it clear that the nature of Breivik&#8217;s “links” to the party was that he&#8217;d supported it “in his youth,” but later turned away from it because it wasn&#8217;t “militant enough.”</p>
<p>That&#8217;s it.</p>
<p>Paterson also claimed that after the Breivik atrocities the Progress Party had “toned down its radical anti-Islamic rhetoric” (as if radicalism consisted in opposing, rather than <i>imposing, </i>things like forced marriage and honor killing) and “tried to present itself as a party of government” (as opposed to a party of what?).</p>
<p>“Polls,” Paterson wrote, “have shown that Progress appeals to one in seven of Norway’s voters.” Quick question: why cite polls <i>when</i> <i>there was an election on Monday that tells you exactly how many Norwegian voters support the Progress Party!?</i></p>
<p>(And those voters did so, note well, in defiance of years of vicious, concentrated effort by the Norwegian media and political establishment to isolate the Progress Party and to brand its supporters as racists, bigots, and – since 2011 – associates of a mass murderer.)</p>
<p>The <i>Independent </i>wasn&#8217;t the only international media outlet that seemed determined to make Breivik the face of the Progress Party. The <i>New York Times</i> worked him into the second sentence of its<i> </i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/world/europe/norways-new-premier-prepares-for-talks-with-anti-immigrant-party.html?_r=0">article</a> on the election results. So did <a href="http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2013/09/09/norvege-la-droite-remporte-les-elections-legislatives_3473749_3214.html">Le Monde</a><i>. </i>Ditto the Toronto <i>Globe and Mail, </i>which <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/norwegian-election-signals-shift-to-the-right/article14212097/">perpetrated</a> this disgusting affirmation: “The Progress party, which once had among its members Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in 2011 in a gun and bomb attack targeting Labour, came third in Monday’s poll, giving it a kingmaker role in coalition building.”</p>
<p>An <a href="http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/09/20404155-two-years-after-breiviks-massacre-norways-anti-immigration-party-verges-on-election-success?lite">NBC report</a> did those newspapers one better, incorporating Breivik in its very first sentence. <i>El Pais </i><a href="http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2013/09/10/actualidad/1378765110_075138.html">waited</a> till its second paragraph to mention Breivik, but ran its story under a scare headline warning that the “ultra-right” Progress Party held the key to Norway&#8217;s next government (a statement that seemed to wildly contradict the claim, strenuously underscored throughout the story&#8217;s opening paragraph, that the Progress Party was the day&#8217;s “big loser”). Italy&#8217;s big paper, <i>Corriere della Sera, </i><a href="http://www.corriere.it/esteri/13_settembre_10/norvegia-elezioni-vince-partito-breivik_21d08c22-19de-11e3-bad9-e9f14375e84c.shtml">went</a> with the headline: “Vote shock in Norway: Breivik&#8217;s Party enters government.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, next door in Sweden, <i>Aftonbladet</i> <a href="http://www.aftonbladet.se/ledare/ledarkronika/katrinekielos/article17429455.ab">columnist</a> Katrine Kielos went easy on the Breivik angle, but could barely contain her shock and disgust at the decision of the Norwegian electorate: “Who ever said that politics was fair?” Apparently implying that Siv Jensen was the second coming of Hitler, Kielos fulminated that it was “as if World War II never happened. This in the country that hands out the Nobel Peace Prize.”</p>
<p>And Britain&#8217;s <i>Guardian, </i>not to be outdone by its rival the <i>Independent, </i>hired a Norwegian sociology professor to pen a whole <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/10/norway-lurch-to-right">article</a> – illustrated with a huge picture of Breivik – the only aim of which was to yoke the Progress Party to the insane killer.</p>
<p>The theme running through most of this coverage was clear: as a survivor of Breivik&#8217;s shooting spree told Paterson, the Progress Party&#8217;s “anti-immigrant rhetoric&#8230;will create a more hostile environment.”</p>
<p>Yes, hostile. We don&#8217;t want any hostility, do we? For, you see, under socialist rule, Norway is one big lovefest. Take these examples:</p>
<p>* Earlier this month, Oslo imams and police officials <a href="http://www.osloby.no/nyheter/Imamer-og-politiet-pa-langtur-7298966.html#.UipVrX80_1l">went</a> on a buddy-buddy “team-building” exercise to strengthen their (supposedly) already powerful bonds of mutual respect and trust. <i>Aftenposten </i>depicted the whole thing as just plain adorable. (“Did you remember your sneakers?” one imam was quoted as asking another.) Only a wet blanket – a truly hostile type – would point out that this gaggle of clerics included the likes of Mehtab Afsar, who has <a href="http://www.dagsavisen.no/samfunn/er-det-demokratisk-a-trakke-pa-andre-mennesker/">argued</a> aggressively that Islam should be exempt from criticism, and Ghulam Sarwar, who in an interview earlier this year <a href="http://www.dagsavisen.no/samfunn/imam-gir-joder-skylda-for-mediedekning/">expanded</a> at length on his theory that negative images of Islam in the Western media can be traced to the nefarious influence of “the Jews.”</p>
<p>* Just before the election, the Norwegian government announced its plan to <a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/uriks/Somaliske-statsansatte-far-lonn---Norge-betaler-7302928.html#.Ui3U_X80_1k ">cover</a> the salaries of 380 Somalian government officials. How magnanimous – and how typical of the loving spirit of the Stoltenberg regime! Who but a (yes) hostile observer would draw attention to the fact that Somalia is governed according to sharia law?</p>
<p>* Then there&#8217;s the story of Ola Thune, head of the homicide division at Norway&#8217;s National Criminal Investigation Service, who – as TV2 reported the other day – <a href="http://mobil.tv2.no/nyheter/innenriks/ola-thune-er-blitt-muslim-98132.html%20">converted</a> to Islam at “a beautiful ceremony in an Oslo mosque” where Thune (now known as Ola Amir) “pledged his allegiance to Allah in ringing Arabic.” Who but the most unbearably hostile individual would question the wisdom of having a Muslim convert at the highest level of Norway&#8217;s version of the FBI?</p>
<p>Community! Solidarity! These are Labor Party&#8217;s very slogans; anybody who&#8217;s paid the slightest bit of attention to the election campaign has heard Stoltenberg repeat them dozens of times – and has seen them echoed endlessly in the almost exclusively left-wing Norwegian media.</p>
<p>To be sure, when the subject shifts to Jews&#8230;well, consider the following.</p>
<p>In May, the proudly socialist <i>Dagbladet </i>ran a <a href="http://blog.balder.org/billeder-blog/Cartoon-Norge-Dagbladet-Norge-Joeder-Tradition-Tomas%20Drefvelin-600.jpg%20%20">cartoon</a> that showed a baby lying on a table, screaming in pain and bleeding profusely. While a rabbi sticks a giant fork in the infant&#8217;s head, the hand of another person, presumably a <i>mohel, </i>holds something that looks like a pair of hedge clippers, with which he&#8217;s just circumcised the newborn. A woman holding what is apparently meant to be a copy of the Hebrew Bible tells a cop: “Abuse? No, this is tradition! An important part of our faith!” The cop, smiling, replies: “Faith? Oh, well then it&#8217;s OK!” And another cop, also smiling and already halfway out the door, says: “Sorry for the interruption.”</p>
<p>It was far from the first anti-Semitic cartoon to appear in a major Norwegian newspaper. (Cartoons equating Jews with Nazis are a beloved staple of the Norwegian press.) But this particular cartoon happened to gain a degree of international attention, so much so that <i>Dagbladet </i>felt obliged to publish on its website an incredibly lame <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2013/06/03/kultur/meninger/dbmener/leder1/27495428/">statement</a>, composed in English, in which it defended its decision to run the cartoon, claimed to have “a long and consistent history of fighting antisemitism” (ha!), and insisted that “religious sentiments, dogmas or rituals cannot be exempt from criticism” – an argument that the same newspaper has rejected time and time in regard to Islam, notably in the case of the Danish Muhammed cartoons.</p>
<p>Indeed, <i>Dagbladet, </i>like other major Norwegian dailies, has consistently maintained that freedom of speech <i>doesn&#8217;t</i> give one the right to offend the most cherished religious beliefs of others. But by “others,” it means Muslims – not Jews. Among the latest examples of the paper&#8217;s valiant struggle against anti-Semitism was an August 26 <a href="http://www.dagbladet.no/2013/08/26/kultur/midtosten/syria/irak/libanon/28889582/%20">editorial</a> headlined “The cancerous tumor that is spreading.” The message was straightforward: all the troubles in the Middle East – Iran, Syria, Egypt, Libya, you name it – can be attributed to “the mother of all conflicts,” namely the one between Israel and Palestine. In other words, it&#8217;s all Israel&#8217;s fault.</p>
<p>Such is the beautiful, hostility-free social harmony that&#8217;s being threatened by the ascent of the Progress Party and Siv Jensen – a woman who, over the years, has gotten into hot water for such insufferably hostile activities as defending Israel&#8217;s right to exist, challenging the Labor Party&#8217;s chummy contacts with Hamas, and giving the keynote speech at a 2009 pro-Israel rally.</p>
<p>Then again, Stoltenberg and his socialist cronies will probably be back in power soon enough. Consider this: a new <a href="http://orjas.blogg.no/1378566227_innvandrerne_stemmer_.html?fb_comment_id=fbc_166683060189162_238943_166741623516639#f250b35c20af9b">report</a> shows that about 50% of the country&#8217;s Third World immigrants support Labor, while another 25% vote for the two parties on the far side of Labor – the Socialist Left and the Reds (i.e., Communists). After the new government takes control, any effort at significant immigration reform by the Progress Party is likely to be heavily watered down (if not killed outright) by other parties<i>. </i>Meaning that<i> </i>non-Westerners will continue to flow into Norway – and that the socialists will stand a better chance every day of being returned to power, so they can crush the “hostile environment” created by the Progress Party and reboot the left-wing, Islamophilic, anti-Semitic lovefest.</p>
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		<title>The Death of Amnesty 2013</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/the-death-of-amnesty-2013/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-death-of-amnesty-2013</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Jul 2013 04:50:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[comprehensive]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gang of 8]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Hispanic]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[immigration reform]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[Rubio]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=196510</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[America dodges a bullet. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/160245090-620x407.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-196514" alt="160245090-620x407" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/160245090-620x407-450x295.jpg" width="270" height="177" /></a>If the rumors coming out of Washington, D.C. are accurate, amnesty will die a long, slow death in the House of Representatives. According to <i>Politico,</i> Republican leaders got together yesterday to <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/310179-carney-immigration-reform-has-always-been-an-uphill-battle">plan</a> how they would deliver the news to the public. The current thinking among the House resisters was best expressed by Rep. Steve King (R-IA), who represents those most adamantly opposed to the legislation. He insisted the Senate plan is about helping “elites who want cheap labor, Democratic power brokers, and those who hire illegal labor.” “It would hurt Republicans, and I don’t think you can make an argument otherwise,” he added.</p>
<p>On Monday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/07/immigration-overhaul-where-to-go-from-here/">reiterated</a> a point he has made many times before, namely that he has no plans to take up the Senate bill in his chamber. “The House is going to do its own job on developing an immigration bill,” he said. “The American people expect that we’ll have strong border security in place before we begin the process of legalizing and fixing our legal immigration system.”</p>
<p>It is not just the American people in general who want strong border security to be put in place before anything else is passed. A new <a href="http://www.mclaughlinonline.com/lib/sitefiles/National_Hispanic_Presentation_06-21-13_-_FOR_RELEASE.pdf">survey</a> taken by GOP pollster John McLaughlin reveals that a large majority of <i>Hispanic</i> voters believe the border should be 90 percent secure before any legal status is granted to illegal aliens. Registered Hispanic voters backed that proposal by a margin of 60 percent to 34 percent, while Hispanic adults in general backed the proposal by a 60 percent to 32 percent margin. Hispanic voters also opposed granting illegal aliens the ability to obtain federal benefits, including healthcare, while they are going through the process of legalization, and before the 90 percent goal is achieved, by a margin of 56 percent to 40 percent.</p>
<p>There was a <a href="http://nationalreview.com/corner/352903/poll-60-percent-hispanics-back-enforcement-first-approach-immigration-reform-andrew">divergence</a> between registered and non-registered voters regarding two other issues. Employment verification to determine the status of potential employee was supported by 64 percent of registered voters, compared with just 46 percent of non-registered Hispanics. Increased border security was approved by 55 percent of registered voters, but only 45 percent of non-registered voters.</p>
<p>Yet the most telling part of the poll was a repudiation of the idea &#8220;comprehensive immigration reform&#8221; would constitute some sort of political redemption for Republicans. A whopping 65 percent believe that the Republican Party discriminates against Latinos and Hispanics, 61 percent believe the Republican party doesn&#8217;t care about people like them, and 62 percent believe Republicans are against immigration because they don&#8217;t want any more Hispanics in the country.</p>
<p>If there is a bright side, only 29 percent said the would never vote for a Republican, and 46 percent agree with the statement that there are &#8220;new forces in the Republican Party like Senator Marco Rubio who are fighting for immigration reform and fair treatment for Latinos.&#8221; Yet 39 percent still believe &#8220;it is the same old Republican Party and is as prejudiced as always against Latinos.&#8221;</p>
<p>Thus, despite all the media, squishy Republican, and Democratic hoopla attempting to convince Republicans that they are <a href="http://theweek.com/article/index/243985/if-immigration-reform-fails-the-gop-may-be-doomed">&#8220;doomed&#8221;</a> if they fail to pass this package, their battle to win the hearts and minds of Hispanics is <i>still</i> an uphill battle at best. Furthermore, it may not be a battle worth winning if it alienates their base. As the <i>Huffington Post&#8217;s</i> Charles Babington <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/27/republican-party-base_n_3341811.html">explains,</a> &#8220;Republicans will go nowhere if they lose a hard-core conservative every time they pick up a new unaligned voter with a more moderate message.&#8221;</p>
<p>Yet more importantly, Republicans have lost sight of the big picture in two ways. First, as journalist Steven Sailer <a href="http://www.vdare.com/articles/census-bureau-refutes-comprehensive-immigration-reform-mantra-obama-won-because-of-old-blac">reveals</a>, Census Bureau data, taken after every national election, shows exit polls following the 2012 election overstated the share of the Hispanic vote &#8212; just as they have done in every election since 2000. And not just the exit polls. Sailer notes the mainstream media also exaggerated the Hispanic share of the 2012 vote by a factor of almost 20 percent. In fact, the percentage of Latinos casting ballots declined from 49.9 percent in 2008 to 48 percent in 2012, and the number of Hispanics who claimed to be eligible but didn’t bother to vote jumped from 9.8 million to 12.1 million. Thus, the overall Hispanic vote in 2012 accounted for only 8.4 percent of the total, not the 10 percent as originally reported.</p>
<p>Furthermore, no Republican presidential candidate has won a majority of the Hispanic vote in <a href="http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2013-06-12.html">more than</a> 50 years. George W. Bush reached the highest percentage in that span of time, getting <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/2005/06/27/hispanics-and-the-2004-election/">40 percent</a> in the 2004 election. Even after Ronald Reagan signed the Simpson-Mazzoli bill in 1986, granting unambiguous amnesty to 2.7 million illegal aliens, the Republican share of the Hispanic vote actually declined by from 37 percent to 30 percent in the 1988 election. Yet despite that reality, George H.W. Bush won in a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1988">landslide.</a></p>
<p>In other words, the pernicious notion that the Hispanic vote is critical to Republican success has been grossly exaggerated, a reality made evident by Byron York. York revealed that if Mitt Romney had <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-winning-hispanic-vote-would-not-be-enough-for-gop/article/2528730">won</a> a record-shattering <i>70 percent</i> of the Hispanic vote in 2012, he still would have lost the election.</p>
<p>The other part of the big picture Republicans have lost sight of revolves around the idea disseminated by the establishment wing of their own party, which has promoted the idea that Republicans should vote for comprehensive reform because Hispanics are essentially &#8220;natural Republicans&#8221; who just don&#8217;t realize it yet. This is unadulterated nonsense. Hispanics overwhelmingly <a href="http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/09/18/latinos-support-obamacare-over-romney-healthcare-proposal-poll-says/">support</a> ObamaCare by a margin of 62 percent, and big government by a <a href="http://www.pewhispanic.org/files/2012/04/PHC-Hispanic-Identity.pdf">margin</a> of 75 percent, rising to <a href="http://www.mediaite.com/online/sorry-gop-immigration-reform-won%E2%80%99t-win-you-the-latino-vote/">81 percent</a> among Latino immigrants. Politically speaking, 30 percent of them are self-described liberals, compared to 21 percent of the general population. And, according to the Pew Research Center, 55 percent of Hispanics have a <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/28/little-change-in-publics-response-to-capitalism-socialism/12-28-11-2/">negative view</a> of capitalism, higher than white and black Americans.</p>
<p>None of those are remotely &#8220;natural Republican&#8221; positions.</p>
<p>That doesn&#8217;t mean Republicans should write off the Hispanic vote. The same McLaughlin survey mentioned above notes that immigration reform isn’t as important to Hispanics as healthcare, which ranked second, and the economy, which is issue number one. The rapidly unraveling healthcare bill is so corrosive to Democrats that the president has kicked the rule of law to the curb and unilaterally postponed the employer mandate by one year to get through the 2014 election. Republicans should make a pitched effort to offer <i>every</i> ethnic group a viable alternative. As for the economy, the current official <a href="http://bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t03.htm">unemployment rate</a> for Hispanics is 9.1 percent, compared to 7.6 percent for the nation as a whole. Thus, Republicans must also make the case that legalizing at least an additional 11 million illegal aliens &#8212; a number many consider a low estimate &#8212; will make it even harder for Hispanic citizens to find jobs.</p>
<p>More importantly, Republicans need to realize that the public in general has no use for a Senate immigration bill that has been <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/22/New-version-of-amnesty-bill-grants-Big-Sis-authority-to-completely-ignore-border-security-provisions-in-immigration-bill">revealed</a> as a complete fraud with regard to border control. Virtually every aspect of it can be waived by the Secretary of Homeland Security, absent any repercussions. This reality flies in the face of CNN/ORC international survey that <a href="https://www.numbersusa.com/content/news/june-18-2013/cnn-poll-62-say-border-security-needs-be-first-priority-immigration-policy.html">finds</a> 62 percent of Americans believe border security should be the main focus of U.S. immigration policy, compared to just 36 percent who want a so-called pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens to be the foremost priority.</p>
<p>Yet the most likely reason the Senate bill will die in the House can be boiled down to one word: comprehensive. Comprehensive reform, whether it is <a href="http://obamacarewatcher.org/articles/172">2,400</a> unread pages of comprehensive healthcare reform or 1190 unread pages of comprehensive immigration reform, is riddled with special political deals, exceptions, loopholes, and waivers &#8212; all of which can be manipulated with impunity.</p>
<p>Much to their overwhelming dismay, a majority of Americans have discovered the disturbing details of ObamaCare,<i> after</i> it was passed, exactly as Democrats intended. House Republicans have no incentive whatsoever to repeat that folly, given the realities of the Hispanic vote’s current impact, the fact that many of their members represent districts with insignificant levels of Hispanic population, and the possibility that the results of the mid-term election in 2014 may put them in a far better bargaining position than they are in now.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the fact that border control as a stand-alone policy is completely anathema to Democrats should tell them everything they need to know about the pitfalls of comprehensive immigration reform. If enacted now, it will be carried out by a president with no respect for the separation of powers, an Attorney General presiding over the most racially-polarized Justice Department in memory, and a clueless DHS Secretary.</p>
<p>On Wednesday, White House press secretary Jay Carney <a href="http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/310179-carney-immigration-reform-has-always-been-an-uphill-battle">said</a> that passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill has &#8220;always been an uphill battle.&#8221; If House Republicans care about the future of the nation, it should stay that way until a <i>genuinely</i> sensible series of reforms &#8212; each standing <i>individually</i> on its own merits &#8212; can be enacted.</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>Ramming Amnesty Through the Senate</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/ramming-amnesty-through-the-senate/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=ramming-amnesty-through-the-senate</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Jun 2013 04:55:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Amnesty]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[border security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gang 8]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Immigration]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Why unelected Obama appointees will have unprecedented power to control the border. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/gang.jpg"><img class=" wp-image-194345 alignleft" alt="gang" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/gang-450x337.jpg" width="270" height="202" /></a>On Monday, the United States Senate <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/border-surge-60-votes-immigration-senate-93296.html">passed</a> a procedural vote on the so-called &#8220;border surge&#8221; deal brokered by Sens. Bob Corker (R-TN) and John Hoeven (R-ND) that paves the way for passage of the entire comprehensive immigration reform bill later this week. The vote was 67-27. Despite the objections of 14 GOP Senators who expressed their frustration in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, noting that additional amendments weren&#8217;t getting heard, the so-called Corker-Haven amendment is likely the last major change that will be added to the bill. That is due to the reality that any additional amendments would require a unanimous agreement to bring them to a vote. “We could have had three genuine weeks on this bill, processing amendments and having votes,” said Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Yet, we’re forced to vote on packages that were concocted behind closed doors.”</p>
<p>It is worse than that. This amendment, which is essentially the entire bill, is yet another neon-bright example of the utter contempt our elected officials have for the American electorate. One would think the overwhelming disgust registered by the public regarding Obamacare &#8212; passed into law despite the fact that not a <i>single</i> lawmaker read it in its entirety before casting a vote &#8212; would have prevented such an insult from occurring again. That, however, was not the case. Last Friday afternoon at around 2:30 p.m. EDT, 14 senators <a href="http://heritageaction.com/2013/06/whats-the-rush-on-amnesty-sen-rubio/">introduced</a> the 1,190-page amendment. Since the vote took place at around 7:00 p.m. Monday, senators were given just over 76 hours to read the entire bill. Moreover, since the amendment <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/democrats-to-shut-off-debate-on-a-bill-no-one-has-read.php">makes</a> references to other statutes, as well as the changes to those statues, the supplemental reading made an already herculean task virtually impossible to accomplish.</p>
<p>That impossibility may have been precisely what Democrats and their squishy Republican allies were counting on. As Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) <a href="http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/06/democrats-to-shut-off-debate-on-a-bill-no-one-has-read.php">pointed</a> out on Sunday&#8217;s &#8220;Face the Nation,&#8221; such a setup makes it extremely difficult to determine exactly what the bill says. Sessions cited law professor William A. Jacobson, who <a href="http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/06/loophole-in-gang-of-8-bill-gives-napolitano-wide-discretion-to-allow-almost-anyone-to-stay-in-u-s/">undertook</a> the painstaking effort to analyze just two sections of the bill, 3214 and 3215, which reference another statute, 8 U.S.C. 1182. Jacobson confirmed that these particular sections give the Secretary of Homeland Security &#8220;almost complete discretion to waive all other provisions of the law as to removal, deportation and inadmissibility&#8230;of illegal aliens not just for family &#8216;hardship&#8217; (which itself is huge) but for any reason the Secretary deems in the &#8216;public interest.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
<p>In other words, despite all the promises, a vast swath of this bill comes down to nothing more than giving the unelected DHS Secretary, currently Janet Napolitano, the kind of discretionary power that one would expect to be granted to the officials of a banana republic. If such discretionary power sounds familiar, that&#8217;s because in ObamaCare, vast swaths of <i>that</i> bill&#8217;s sections are completely beholden to the discretionary decisions of the unelected Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, currently Kathleen Sebelius. Her most recent discretionary effort was to <a href="http://www.lifenews.com/2013/06/12/dying-girl-to-receive-lung-transplant-after-sebelius-denied-it/">deny</a> a dying 10-year-old girl a desperately needed lung transplant, until a judge <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/health/judge-orders-girl-added-adult-lung-transplant-list-6C10213393?franchiseSlug=healthmain">ruled</a> otherwise.</p>
<p>It doesn&#8217;t get any more &#8220;discretionary&#8221; than that.</p>
<p>The border security part of the bill <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/22/Another-loophole-in-new-amnesty-bill-Big-Sis-can-decide-to-not-build-border-fence">contains</a> an equally &#8220;flexible&#8221; loophole. Border security was ostensibly the key element of Corker-Hoeven. The following two paragraphs reveals how dishonest the ruling class is willing to be to get immigration reform passed:</p>
<blockquote><p>Paragraph (1): &#8220;Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall establish a strategy, to be known as the ‘Southern Border Fencing Strategy,’ to identify where 700 miles of fencing (including double-layer fencing), infrastructure, and technology, including at ports of entry, should be deployed along the Southern border.”</p>
<p>Paragraph (2): &#8220;Notwithstanding paragraph (1), nothing in this subsection shall require the Secretary to install fencing, or infrastructure that directly results from the installation of such fencing, in a particular location along the Southern border, if the Secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain effective control over the Southern border at such location.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>If it appears that paragraph two gives the DHS Secretary the power to largely negate everything regarding so-called border security required in paragraph one, <i>that&#8217;s because it does.</i> And since current DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano already believes the border is secure, it is almost certain paragraph one will be totally ignored. Furthermore, Napolitano can also waive specific technology listed in the bill, <a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/22/border-security-proposal-gives-napolitano-new-waiv/">such as</a> the 685 ground sensors, 50 towers and 73 fixed cameras to be deployed to Arizona’s two sectors, “if the secretary determines that an alternate or new technology is at least as effective as the technologies described in paragraph (3) and provides a commensurate level of security.” That would be a commensurate level of security adjudged by Napolitano. Adding insult to injury, the DHS Secretary can make the changes a full 60 days before she has to notify Congress that she has done so.</p>
<p>And once again, just like ObamaCare, &#8220;special&#8221; provisions have been <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/new-amendment-adds-jobs-bill-to-gang-of-eight-immigration-plan/article/2532293">added</a> to the bill to ensure its passage as well. For radical leftist Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), unhappy with the reality that legalizing millions of low-skill workers would devastate their Americans counterparts, a section entitled &#8220;Jobs for Youth&#8221; was added to the bill. It would authorize the expenditure of $1.5 billion over the next two years to help Americans between the ages of 16-24 get jobs.</p>
<p>The provision is interesting for two reasons. First, much of it is based on President Obama’s American Jobs Act that never got through Congress. Second, it belies claims by the bill&#8217;s supporters that comprehensive immigration reform will be a net plus for the economy.</p>
<p>Regardless, President Obama offered up the same rationale in a meeting with CEOs and business leaders shortly before the vote. He cited numbers <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/18/CBO-releases-report-on-immigration-bill-s-costs">published</a> by the CBO saying the bill would reduce the deficit by $875 billion over two decades. The report completely contradicts the Heritage Foundation Report that estimates amnesty would <i>add</i> $6.3 trillion to the national debt over a longer time frame. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) explained the CBO numbers are based on the same kind of accounting gimmicks used to hide the true cost of ObamaCare. When the ObamaCare accounting gimmicks were stripped from the CBO&#8217;s report, its initial cost assessment of the healthcare bill more than <a href="http://blog.heritage.org/2013/03/23/obamacare-at-three-years-increasing-cost-estimates/">doubled</a>&#8211;and may increase even further. Expect the same kind of &#8220;revisions&#8221; here if this bill makes it into law.</p>
<p>Yet the Sanders Provision pales in comparison to the one <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/06/22/Harry-Reid-Dean-Heller-insert-Casino-Cronyist-favor-handout-into-amnesty-bill">offered</a> by Harry Reid (D-NV) and Sen. Dean Holler (R-NV) that is nothing more than a crony capitalist kickback to the casino industry. A law known as the Travel Promotion Act, created a &#8220;Brand USA&#8221; government-run public relations campaign, promoting Vegas casinos and other US travel destinations. In a 2012 report, Sens. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) contended the program “reveals a history of waste, abuse, patronage, and lax oversight.” Current law funds it through 2015. The new amendment extends that funding indefinitely.</p>
<p>Apparently the fact that such an amendment has absolutely <i>nothing</i> to do with immigration is of little consequence to pro-Amnesty duplicitous lawmakers.</p>
<p>It should come as no surprise either that the rule of law itself is also being <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/illegal-immigrants-who-commit-crimes-face-lesser-punishment-than-u.s.-citizens/article/2532306">tossed</a> under the bus. Last week on the floor of the Senate, Gang of Eight member John McCain (R-AZ) said that &#8220;[a]nyone who has committed crimes in this country is going to be deported.” Not exactly. A chart complied by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and published <a href="http://washingtonexaminer.com/illegal-immigrants-who-commit-crimes-face-lesser-punishment-than-u.s.-citizens/article/2532306">here</a> by the <i>Washington Examiner,</i> reveals there are serious crimes that do <i>not</i> disqualify illegal aliens for Registered Provisional Status. Moreover, illegal aliens remain eligible even if they have committed as many as<i> three </i>misdemeanor offenses, including, but not limited to, assault, battery, identity or document fraud, and tax evasion. These are crimes that could earn U.S. citizens and legal aliens large fines, prison time, or a ten-year ban on re-entering the country for the latter group.</p>
<p>FAIR’s media director, Ira Mehlman, illuminates the infuriating nature of such a provision. &#8220;What it indicates is this is more than just an amnesty, it’s an amnesty for all kinds of violations,” he explains. “We say nobody is above the law, but apparently illegal immigrants are.”</p>
<p>After the bill gets its virtually certain approval in the Senate, it moves to the House, where it is likely to undergo major revisions. Last week, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said he would <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/18/john-boehner-vote-immigration_n_3459728.html">not allow</a> any bill on the House floor that didn&#8217;t have majority support from both parties. The prospect of the bill either getting those revisions, or remaining bottled up in the House, drew predictable outbursts from the <a href="http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2013/06/24/nbcs-gregory-hypes-claims-conservative-opposition-immigration-bill-wil">media,</a> Democrats, and some clueless Republicans like <a href="http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-06-16/politics/40013226_1_immigration-overhaul-low-skilled-guest-worker-program-estimated-11-million-immigrants">Sen. Lindsey Graham</a> (R-SC), all of whom say that the failure to grant legal status to at least 11 million illegal aliens assured a demographic &#8220;death spiral&#8221; for the GOP.</p>
<p>Gang of Eight member Chuck Schumer (D-NY) took it one step further Sunday, telling Candy Crowley on CNN’s <i>State of the Union</i> that “this has the potential of becoming the next civil-rights movement,&#8221; further insisting he could envision &#8220;a million people on the mall in Washington&#8211;on the platform would not be the usual suspects but the leaders of business, the leaders of the Evangelical movement, the leaders of high tech as well as most Americans pressuring the House to act. I think they’re going to have to act whether they have a majority of Republicans or not,” he concluded.</p>
<p>National Review columnist John Fund puts the lie to Schumer&#8217;s threat. &#8220;It’s telling that the scare tactics deployed by the proponents of comprehensive immigration reform all revolve around politics: massive rallies on the Washington Mall and an angry Hispanic electorate,&#8221; he writes. &#8220;In reality, it might be the folks using the scare tactics who are the ones running scared. Maybe they’re afraid that the longer their bill is debated and the more sunshine it’s exposed to, the less likely the American people are to support it.&#8221;</p>
<p>There is much more to it than that. The GOP has <i>never</i> received a majority of the Hispanic vote. Even after Ronald Reagan signed the 1986 Immigration Reform Act, George H.W. Bush <a href="http://blog.mysanantonio.com/georgerodriguez/2013/01/conservatives-immigration-and-the-hispanic-vote/">got</a> only 30 percent of the Hispanic vote in the 1988 presidential election &#8212; seven points <i>less</i> than Reagan himself received before the bill&#8217;s passage. Perhaps Republicans might want to consider the fact that the <i>real</i> threat of a &#8220;death spiral&#8221; comes from alienating one&#8217;s core constituency. A constituency that has made it clear any bill in which border security isn&#8217;t the top priority is a deal-breaker. That would be <i>genuine</i> border security, not the so-called triggers and/or the aforementioned flexibility that render it completely impotent.</p>
<p>Republicans might want to consider something else as well. Virtually all of the progressive agenda is based on the politics of incrementalism. That means this bill represents a <i>point of departure</i>, not the &#8220;last time&#8221; endgame its supporters in both parties claim it to be. As soon as the ink is dry on any comprehensive reform package, Democrats will be right back to work, attempting to &#8220;modify&#8221; the more &#8220;onerous&#8221; and &#8220;inhumane&#8221; aspects of the bill. It doesn&#8217;t take a scintilla of imagination to envision Chuck Schumer and his cohorts bemoaning the &#8220;cruelty&#8221; of making people wait more than a decade to obtain citizenship, or the &#8220;narrowness&#8221; of the family reunification component, to cite two examples where media-abetted pressure will become relentless.</p>
<p>And then there is the cynicism. Whether Republicans want to believe it or not, Democrats really don&#8217;t care if this bill gets defeated. A defeat of this legislation gives them a self-perceived edge in the 2014 election, where they think the bill&#8217;s failure will allow them to wrest majority control from &#8220;racist&#8221; House Republicans. That scenario is based on the belief that the majority of Americans support comprehensive immigration reform, which some polling data indicates. But when Americans begin to realize that border security is a sham, that support is likely to drop precipitously&#8211;which is exactly why, just like ObamaCare, the push was on to pass a bill no one read.</p>
<p>Are Americans prepared for yet another bill that must first be passed before they can &#8220;find out what&#8217;s in it&#8221;? ObamaCare has generated enormous discontent, even before the true scope of it is realized beginning next year. If passed into law, it is likely comprehensive immigration reform will be equally unsettling, especially to those Americans who will begin to experience the full scope of competing with millions of job seekers who will have been <i>rewarded</i> for breaking the law.</p>
<p>Congress had 27 years to prove it could enforce the 1986 immigration bill. It failed miserably, despite both parties having full control of the government at various times throughout that period. Anyone who believes “this time” will be different is utterly naive.</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>Taxation Without Representation in New York</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/ronn-torossian/taxation-without-representation-in-new-york/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=taxation-without-representation-in-new-york</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 14 May 2013 04:10:24 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ronn Torossian]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Non-citizens poised to obtain the right to vote in the Big Apple. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/tumblr_m8wqjcRcc91qi7ua6.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-189434" alt="tumblr_m8wqjcRcc91qi7ua6" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/tumblr_m8wqjcRcc91qi7ua6.jpg" width="270" height="199" /></a>I choose to raise a family in one of the most outrageous cities in the world, New York.  Many professional and personal peers often try to convince me otherwise, claiming it is too difficult to raise a family in the concrete jungle.  Born, raised and educated here, I have always loved this city and am proud to bring up my family here. However, this week the city has indeed become more ridiculous.</p>
<p>The New York City government is conspiring to take away rights and responsibilities &#8212; the foundation of our democracy &#8212; from American citizens and pass them to non-citizens.  There is no liberty &#8212; and for anyone earning a six-(or more) figure income living in New York City there is indeed <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/ronn-torossian/taxing-the-successful-to-death/">“taxation without representation.</a>”</p>
<p>The newest act of insanity in Gotham has The New York City Council attempting to implement legislation that gives non-citizen immigrants who have been living in the city for at least six months the right to vote in municipal elections. Yes, indeed, even if they aren’t American citizens they’ll be able to vote on legislation in New York City, where we already have five Democrats for every Republican.   Think it’s a political ploy? Indeed it is – and will make this city even more liberal.</p>
<p>The proposed legislation already has 34 co-sponsors &#8211; enough to override a potential mayoral veto. Giving non-citizens the right to vote is simply absurd.  Even raising the issue is asinine.  One should be required to declare allegiance to America and go through the proper channels to attain citizenship prior to voting.  How about representation for those of us who are New Yorkers born and bred here? Letting non-citizens vote hurts every citizen’s vote.</p>
<p>Next week, my <a href="http://www.5wpr.com/about5wpr/management.cfm">PR Agency 5WPR</a> is moving into a new 38,000 square foot office for our more than 100 employees.  Naturally, my democratic rights and liberty aren’t being considered – we are required to use union workers for construction, moving, etc. – which has resulted in a price nearly double what a non-union company would charge.  The rights of a business aren’t relevant in New York City – but non-citizens are.  Of course, we pay and pay and pay.</p>
<p>Recently, NYC’s City Council passed a bill which mandates required sick leave for any businesses with 20 or more employees by April 2014. Businesses are also required to give multilingual written notices to all employees and post similar posters in a visible place in the office regarding mandatory sick leave. Many small businesses will need to fire people to meet these rules, which will require an increase in their spending.  The NYC Department of Health will be watching.  If they discover that an employer fired a worker for calling in sick too many times, the employee has the right to be compensated for at least $5,000 as well as be reinstated and promoted. In all of this, nowhere do we read about or hear about an employer’s rights.</p>
<p>Perhaps to counter the ranking as the worst state in the country to do business on the “<a href="http://www.sbecouncil.org/news/display.cfm?ID=4689">Small Business Survival Index</a>” by The Tax Foundation, New York State is presently running extensive TV ads touting how great it is to do business in New York.  The ads direct viewers to a NY government website – <a href="http://www.bighappenshere.com/">www.bighappenshere.com</a>.  The ads do not mention that the “BIG” they are referring to is indeed big taxes (as a Mercatus Center report stated, NY has “the highest taxes in the country: 14.0 percent of income, three and a half standard deviations above the national mean&#8221;), big legislation and big obstacles.  That is the &#8220;big&#8221; that any business owner can expect in NYC.</p>
<p>While preparing for our move, we have three employees out on jury duty, a mailman who sparingly delivers mail and increased health insurance costs thanks to Obamacare, which raised health insurance fees for businesses nationwide. Kathy Wylde, president of the business organization Partnership for New York City, recently noted, “I think the city council does not understand the cumulative cost, particularly to small business, of their many efforts to make their mark.” In New York, one can add the Cuomo and Obama administrations on top of that “cumulative cost.” Many of us pay taxes which exceed 50 percent.</p>
<p>Anyone with a business in New York City is being taxed yet doesn’t have representation. It will get even worse when non-citizens help determine our fate.  <i>New York, New York.</i></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>The Internet Sales Tax: Another Assault On The Constitution</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/the-internet-sales-tax-another-assault-on-the-constitution/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=the-internet-sales-tax-another-assault-on-the-constitution</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 01 May 2013 04:28:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mark Hendrickson]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Can a last minute conservative backlash stop the anti-consumer bill from being rammed through Congress?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/internet-sales-tax.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-187672" alt="internet-sales-tax" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/internet-sales-tax-450x307.jpg" width="270" height="184" /></a>It’s amazing how fast Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) can act when he wants to. Having doodled and dawdled for about four years without even producing a budget, Reid suddenly shed his torpor during the last two weeks in April. So eager was he to pass a bill authorizing state governments to collect tax on interstate Internet sales that he bypassed the normal committee process of holding hearings so senators could examine the pros and cons. The bill was introduced (actually, reintroduced) on April 16, and if Reid had gotten his way, it would have passed already. Opponents barely managed to postpone the vote on it until May 6.</p>
<p>One of the interesting aspects of this bill (known by the Orwellian title of “Marketplace Fairness Act”) is that 27 Republican senators currently favor it. Only 24 or 25 senators currently oppose the bill—a bipartisan combination of senators from the five states that do not have a sales tax, plus some economic conservatives from the Tea Party wing of the GOP, such as Marco Rubio, Mike Lee, and Ted Cruz.</p>
<p>The reason so many senators favor the Marketplace Fairness Act is simple: State governments are desperate for revenue to fund their ever-escalating expenditures, and their allies in the U.S. Senate are trying to help them collect it. Internet sales in the US totaled $226 billion last year, and a revenue stream that large easily becomes a tempting target for big spenders.</p>
<p>Proponents of the tax focus on “fairness.”  They claim that out-of-state online vendors enjoy a competitive advantage against local brick-and-mortar companies that must pay sales tax to their state governments, and that this inequitable situation must be corrected. This is economically ignorant. The whole point of economic competition is that some businesses have competitive advantages over others. This gives consumers choices and they end up buying from the businesses that give the most value for the least money.</p>
<p>There are, of course, two possible ways for state governments to eliminate the existing disparity: Impose the same tax burden on out-of-state Internet-based competitors, or remove the sales tax burden under which in-state businesses labor. The problem with eliminating the sales tax for in-state firms is that those firms consume various government-provided services (roads, courts, state police, perhaps even business subsidies) and it is only right that the businesses pay for those benefits. The problem with initiating taxes on out-of-state firms is: Why should out-of-staters pay taxes to a government when they consume none of the services or wealth transfers provided by that government? Why should they pay taxes to political entities for whom they are not eligible to vote and who are completely unaccountable to them? That is taxation without representation—a major principle for which American patriots fought the Revolutionary War—and there is nothing fair about it (hence, the Orwellian character of putting “fairness” in the name of the bill).</p>
<p>Allowing state governments to begin imposing sales tax on out-of-state businesses is worse than unfair: It’s unconstitutional. The federal government has no such authority. Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 5 on the United States Constitution stipulates, “No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles Exported from any State.” Article I, Section 10, Paragraph 2 of the Constitution states, “No state shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports…” The constitution created the world’s first large free-trade zone—the United States of America—and for a majority of United States senators to place expediency above constitutional integrity is unconscionable.</p>
<p>One of the sadder aspects of the move to rush this new form of taxation through the Senate was that supply-side guru, the famous economist Arthur Laffer, quickly jumped on board. Laffer and his supply-side allies deserve great credit for reviving an understanding of how marginal tax rates create incentives for individuals, and for showing how some government taxes are less harmful than others. However, the Achilles’ heel of the supply-siders always has been their tendency to focus more on taxation than on the fundamental economic danger: Government spending. Laffer repeats that error today by endorsing the Marketplace Fairness Act.</p>
<p>Writing in The Wall Street Journal on April 18, Laffer cites data showing that state governments could have garnered at least $23 billion in 2012 by taxing Internet sales. He laments that this “lost” revenue resulted in marginal tax rates being raised. While Laffer is correct that raising marginal tax rates is harmful, he is too quick to assume that state governments will lower them if they gain the power to tax Internet sales. Worse, he doesn’t even attempt to make the case that state governments should spend less as the optimal way to stimulate the economic growth that he wants. When it comes to spending, Laffer takes the road of least resistance and comes down on the side of the status quo—clearly a political decision more than an economically sound one.</p>
<p>Indeed, on an economic level, it is amazing that so many senators feel safe in supporting the Marketplace Fairness Act. Having states add a tax to interstate Internet sales will raise the prices that consumers pay. Of course, that is SOP (standard operating procedure) for government; after all, government&#8217;s war against higher standards of living by imposing higher prices on consumers in a multiplicity of ways—e.g., subsidies, quotas, tariffs, business taxes, antitrust law, hyper-regulation, et al. With all those policies, government makes economic goods more costly to consumers.</p>
<p>At the time of this writing, it looks like the expansion of states’ taxing power is a done deal. One can only hope that the Supreme Court will uphold a challenge to the Marketplace Fairness Act’s constitutionality later on. However, in 2009 the Supremes declined to hear a case challenging a Massachusetts law taxing out-of-state corporations that generated sales in Massachusetts. Add to that the contorted verbal gymnastics that were used to uphold the Affordable Care Act last year, and it is hard to feel optimistic about our constitutional rights being safe. It appears to me that federalism is dying and state and national legislators are colluding to extract more money from the private sector.</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>High Noon Over Guns</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/gun-control-bill-debate-begins/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=gun-control-bill-debate-begins</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/gun-control-bill-debate-begins/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 12 Apr 2013 04:16:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[background checks]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Gun Control]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[manchin]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=185412</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Tug-of-war over the gun control bill set to begin.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/gun-control-bill-debate-begins/harry-reid-4/" rel="attachment wp-att-185417"><img class=" wp-image-185417 alignleft" title="harry-reid" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/harry-reid-450x337.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="202" /></a>Yesterday, the Senate voted 68-31 to <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/04/11/gun-bill-clears-senate-hurdle-as-filibuster-falls-short/">begin debate</a> on a gun control package that will initially focus on <a href="http://politics.blogs.foxnews.com/2013/04/11/whats-bill-guide-senate-gun-legislation/">three</a> issues: expanded background checks for the purchase of firearms, harsher penalties for gun trafficking, and increased aid for school safety. &#8220;The hard work starts now,&#8221; said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) after the vote.</p>
<p>The vote was a defeat for the 29 Republicans and two Democrats who were intent on filibustering the bill, arguing that the restrictions would would constitute a violation of the Second Amendment. &#8220;This bill is a clear overreach that will predominantly punish and harass our neighbors, friends, and family,&#8221; <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/04/10/3336034/senators-unveil-deal-on-gun-sales.html">said</a> Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) prior to the vote. Despite their defeat, gun control opponents were threatening to invoke a procedural rule that would force the Senate to wait 30 hours before beginning any consideration of amendments.</p>
<p>Whenever the debate actually begins, it is likely that the first amendment to be considered is the agreement reached Wednesday by Senators Joe Manchin (D-WVA) and Pat Toomey (R-PA), scaling back the call for universal background checks contained in the current bill. The universal background checks were authored by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY). Sen. Reid expects to replace Schumer&#8217;s efforts with the compromise.</p>
<p>Yet that tradeoff reveals part of the problem with the process, in that the bill the Senate is debating will be changing substantially as time goes on &#8212; so much so, that many senators opposing yesterday&#8217;s vote contended that what they are actually voting on remains a mystery. They further noted that while the Manchin-Toomey deal represents a compromise, it is Schumer&#8217;s stricter provision that remains part of the bill. &#8220;Because the background-check measure is the centerpiece of this legislation it is critical that we know what is in the bill before we vote on it,&#8221; Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Mike Lee (R-UT), said in a statement. &#8220;The American people expect more and deserve better.&#8221;</p>
<p>Currently, background checks are limited to transactions conducted by the nation&#8217;s 55,000 licensed gun dealers. Gun control advocates insist that such a limitation allows too many sales to take place without checks, making it easier for criminals and the mentally ill to obtain firearms. The Manchin-Toomey plan would <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/11/us/politics/compromise-on-background-checks.html?_r=0">expand</a> background checks to cover unlicensed dealers at gun shows, and all sales conducted on the Internet.</p>
<p>It would also expand some rights of gun owners, allowing those who have undergone a background check within the last five years to obtain a concealed-carry permit allowing them to buy guns in other states. It would also make it easier for hunters carrying guns to travel through states that prohibit such weapons, and allow active military members to purchase firearms in their home states. They are currently prohibited from making such purchases when they are stationed somewhere else.</p>
<p>Despite such concessions, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other Second Amendment supporters remain leery, saying the proposal is still too restrictive. &#8220;While the overwhelming rejection of President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg&#8217;s &#8216;universal&#8217; background check agenda is a positive development, we have a broken mental health system that is not going to be fixed with more background checks at gun shows,&#8221; the NRA <a href="http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/10/17691562-nra-a-constant-presence-in-background-check-deal?lite">said</a> in a statement. &#8220;The sad truth is that no background check would have prevented the tragedies in Newtown, Aurora or Tucson.&#8221;</p>
<p>Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) took the argument one step further. On the Senate floor Wednesday, he <a href="http://cnsnews.com/blog/joe-schoffstall/sen-lee-backgound-checks-could-allow-holder-create-gun-registry-using">warned</a> that universal background checks could lead to a national gun registry that &#8220;would allow the federal government to surveil law-abiding citizens who exercise their Constitutional rights,&#8221; further noting that the government has no business monitoring <em>any </em>exercise of those rights. &#8220;You see, the federal government has no business monitoring when or how often you go to church; what books and newspapers you read; who you vote for; your health conditions; what you eat for breakfast; and the details of your private life&#8211;including your lawful exercise of your rights protected by the Second Amendment and other provisions of the Bill of Rights,&#8221; he explained.</p>
<p>Even though this compromise ostensibly waters down such checks, National Review&#8217;s Charles Cook <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/345258/toomey-and-manchin-s-slippery-slope-charles-c-w-cooke">explains</a> that gun control advocates will eventually demand more. &#8220;Within a few weeks of the bill’s passage, the eerie progressive silence that has marked this tortured process will be broken, and when it is, legions of prominent gun controllers will take to their feet in order to argue that it makes ‘no sense’ for there to be &#8216;exemptions&#8217; to the <em>almost</em> universal background-check system,&#8221; he warns.</p>
<p>His warning is too late with regard to some states. In New York, the state police initially <a href="http://www.wivb.com/dpp/news/erie/police-wrongly-pulled-mans-gun-permit">forced</a> &#8220;David,&#8221; a 34-year-old college librarian, to turn in his guns after his pistol permit was suspended because he had taken anti-anxiety medication at some point in the past. The NY SAFE Act requires mental health professionals to inform the state when permit holders or would-be permit holders are &#8220;likely to engage in conduct that would result in serious harm to self or others.&#8221; A day later, the state was forced to backtrack, when they discovered they had the wrong man. &#8220;Today, we all look like fools,&#8221; said Erie County Clerk Chris Jacobs.</p>
<p>&#8220;Fools&#8221; is putting it mildly. New York is not only forcing mental health professionals to be de facto agents of the state, it is making an utter mockery of the doctor-patient relationship, in which privacy ought to be the foremost concern. If such checks are implemented nationwide, a 2011 survey by Medco <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/11/16/americans-prescription-pill-use-skyrockets-medco-report-finds.html">reveals</a> that as many as one-in-five Americans, the number currently taking “mental-health-related medications,” could be affected. Furthermore, as the case in New York reveals, due process is hardly an impediment: David&#8217;s guns were confiscated <em>prior</em> to a hearing. &#8220;Due process should come before the suspension,&#8221; said David&#8217;s attorney Jim Tresmond. &#8220;That&#8217;s where due process comes in. Before your rights are taken, due process must occur. That&#8217;s our constitutional right, not the reverse.&#8221; David&#8217;s guns remain in police custody until a judge removes the suspension.</p>
<p>In Washington, gun control advocates remain determined to push, as well as expand, their agenda. Harry Reid has promised to re-introduce the assault weapons ban, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/03/19/reid-cuts-assault-weapons-ban-from-senate-gun-control-bill-amid-waning-support/">dropped</a> from the bill last month, as well as a ban on high-capacity magazines. President Obama brought the families of the Newtown shooting victims from Connecticut to Washington, D.C. aboard Air Force One on Tuesday to help push the legislation. And Freshman Senator Christopher S. Murphy (D-CN) gave his first speech on the Senate floor on gun violence Wednesday, displaying large photos of some of the children killed in the massacre to emphasize his efforts.</p>
<p>Bringing Newtown family members to Washington did not sit well with some gun rights supporters. &#8220;See, I think it&#8217;s so unfair of the administration to hurt these families, to make them think this has something to do with them when, in fact, it doesn&#8217;t,&#8221; Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/10/republican-senator-to-newtown-families-gun-debate-has-nothing-to-do-with-you/">told</a> the <em>Huffington Post.</em> He further contended that the families believe gun control is now a personal issue &#8220;because they&#8217;ve been told that by the president.&#8221; Senator Ted Cruz <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/04/10/ted_cruz_obama_trying_to_take_advantage_of_newtown_shooting.html">accused</a> the Obama administration of &#8220;really playing on emotions. What it is not focused on are actual policies that will stop violent crime,&#8221; he added. The editorial board of Investors Business Daily, who decried the abuse of presidential power in bringing the Newtown families to the nation’s capital, <a href="http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/040913-651294-newtown-families-exploited-with-tax-funded-flight.htm">wondered</a> if Republicans can &#8220;now give Fast and Furious victims&#8217; families taxpayer-funded flights to Washington?&#8221;</p>
<p>It wouldn&#8217;t matter if they could. The mainstream media chose to ignore that controversy. That would be the same mainstream media that has circled the wagons around gun control advocates, so much so that CNN has devoted <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/04/11/Pro-Gun-Control-Senator-to-CNN-Anchor-We-Appreciate-Your-Support">two full days</a> to pushing gun control legislation, even as Second Amendment supporters are ignored.</p>
<p>Yet whatever agreement the Senate reaches may all be for naught. The Republican-controlled House isn&#8217;t likely to allow a more restrictive gun control package to pass, even though House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) reiterated his intention to remain noncommittal prior to the Senate reaching an agreement. &#8220;It&#8217;s one thing for [Manchin and Toomey] to come to some agreement. It doesn&#8217;t substitute the will for the other 98 members,&#8221; he told reporters.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, Joe Manchin expressed his hope that something would be accomplished. “Today is the start of a healthy debate that must end with the Senate and House, hopefully, passing these commonsense measures and the president signing it into law,” he <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/04/senators-crack-impasse-on-gun-background-check/">said</a>. “The event of Newtown, truly the events at Newton, changed us all. It changes our country, our communities, our town and it changed our hearts and minds.”</p>
<p>What hasn&#8217;t changed is the reality that nothing being proposed would have stopped Adam Lanza. Thus, this latest effort is nothing more than an unseemly attempt to use a horrific tragedy as a springboard to infringe upon the rights of law-abiding Americans to bear arms. Therein lies the other fatal flaw in any gun control bill: only law-abiding people will be affected. Furthermore, those well-versed in the American left&#8217;s template of using incrementalism to get what they want, understand that concessions made now will lead to demands for further, and far more onerous, concessions later.</p>
<p>In short, the Second Amendment is under assault. It remains to be seen if America is still a nation of laws, or one that can be manipulated into surrendering constitutional rights for the illusion of safety. Here&#8217;s a <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/videogallery/75330960/Surveillance-video-Shop-owner-fights-back">video</a> released yesterday showing a Chicago shopkeeper fighting off two armed assailants with a baseball bat. As you watch it, remember that Chicago has some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s going on in this video is real life. What&#8217;s going on in Washington is a farce: one hundred senators with armed security details are deciding how much more difficult they will make it for ordinary Americans to enjoy a similar measure of personal security. It doesn&#8217;t get more hypocritical than that.</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>Five Decades of Lies Help Dems Create Monolithic Black Vote</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/larry-elder/five-decades-of-lies-help-dems-create-monolithic-black-vote/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=five-decades-of-lies-help-dems-create-monolithic-black-vote</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 11 Apr 2013 04:34:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Larry Elder]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Black]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[civil war]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[Why keeping blacks ignorant of history remains crucial to the Left's future. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/larry-elder/five-decades-of-lies-help-dems-create-monolithic-black-vote/minorityturnout/" rel="attachment wp-att-185283"><img class=" wp-image-185283 alignleft" title="Minorityturnout" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Minorityturnout.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="150" /></a>As recently as 1956, nearly 39 percent of blacks voted Republican in that year&#8217;s presidential election. After the Civil War, Abe Lincoln&#8217;s Republican Party easily carried the black vote — where blacks were allowed to vote. Unwelcome in the Democratic Party, most blacks voted Republican and continued to do so through the early part of the 20th century. It wasn&#8217;t until 1948, when 77 percent of the black vote went to Harry Truman, who had desegregated the military, that a majority of blacks identified themselves as Democrats.</p>
<p>Yet, as a percentage of the party, more Republicans voted for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than did Democrats. For his key role breaking the Democrats&#8217; filibuster and getting the act to pass the stalled Senate, Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen, a conservative from Illinois, landed on the cover of Time magazine. President Lyndon Johnson called Dirksen &#8220;the hero of the nation.&#8221; The Chicago Defender, then the country&#8217;s largest black daily newspaper, applauded Dirksen&#8217;s &#8220;generalship&#8221; for helping to successfully push through the bill.</p>
<p>Older black voters sometimes explain they&#8217;re opposed to Republicans because of the &#8220;racist&#8221; Southern strategy. But Richard Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchannan, credited with inventing the &#8220;Southern strategy,&#8221; considered the Democratic Party the party of the racists. Buchanan said: &#8220;We would build our Republican Party on a foundation of states&#8217; rights, human rights, small government and a strong national defense, and leave it to the &#8216;party of [Democratic Georgia Gov. Lester] Maddox, [1966 Democratic challenger against Spiro Agnew for Maryland governor George] Mahoney and [Democratic Alabama Gov. George] Wallace to squeeze the last ounces of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice.&#8217;&#8221;</p>
<p>But before that, another pivotal event occurred that helped the GOP-as-racist meme. In 1960, during the presidential campaign, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested following a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in Atlanta. Hundreds of other protestors were released, but King was jailed on a trumped-up probation violation for failing to have a Georgia driver&#8217;s license.</p>
<p>King&#8217;s aides reached out to then-Vice President and Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon. They also reached out to the Democratic nominee, John F. Kennedy. Bobby Kennedy called the Atlanta judge handling the case. Shortly after that call, the judge released King. Nixon, according to Harry Belafonte, a King supporter, &#8220;did nothing.&#8221; Is that true?</p>
<p>Nixon, it turns out, had a much closer relationship with King than did Kennedy.</p>
<p>In the Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, Calif., records show considerable handwritten notes and correspondence between Nixon and King. This includes a 1957 letter from King acknowledging their previous meetings, which thanked Nixon for his &#8220;assiduous labor and dauntless courage in seeking to make the Civil Rights Bill a reality,&#8221; and praised him for his &#8220;devotion to the highest mandates of the moral law.&#8221;</p>
<p>But in 1960, on the eve of the election, Nixon was in a tough spot. Nixon&#8217;s public silence might be misconstrued as acceptance of King&#8217;s arrest. On the other hand, as a candidate for his boss&#8217;s job, Nixon worried about the political costs of appearing ungrateful if he chastised President Dwight Eisenhower for not taking stronger action. Eisenhower, however, was content to let the Justice Department handle the matter.</p>
<p>According to historian and presidential biographer Stephen Ambrose, while Nixon made no public comments, he telephoned Attorney General William Rogers to find out if King&#8217;s constitutional rights were being infringed, thus opening the door for federal involvement. Nixon, a lawyer, was concerned about the ethics of calling a judge to get him to release someone.</p>
<p>Nixon, writes Ambrose, told his press secretary: &#8220;I think Dr. King is getting a bum rap. But despite my strong feelings in this respect, it would be completely improper for me or any other lawyer to call the judge. And Robert Kennedy should have known better than to do so.&#8221; That Bobby Kennedy, also a lawyer, nevertheless made a phone call to the judge did not alter the issue of whether it was appropriate. In retrospect, an easy call, but not at the time.</p>
<p>Two million pamphlets titled, &#8220;&#8216;No Comment&#8217; Nixon Versus a Candidate With a Heart, Senator Kennedy,&#8221; were distributed in black churches. Never mind that in 1956 Nixon revealed he was an honorary member of the NAACP. Or that Nixon pushed for passage of the &#8217;57 civil rights bill in the Senate. Or that Time magazine wrote that Nixon&#8217;s support for civil rights incurred the wrath of one of his segregationist opponents, Sen. Richard Russell, D-Ga., who sarcastically called Nixon the NAACP&#8217;s &#8220;most distinguished member.&#8221;</p>
<p>But the GOP-is-racist meme can be heard nightly on MSNB-Hee Haw and in political science and history classes all over the country. Actor Morgan Freeman calls the tea party racist. Democratic National Committee Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., tells us that the GOP wants to &#8220;literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws.&#8221;</p>
<p>Keeping blacks ignorant of history remains crucial to this caricature of the Republican Party — and to the monolithic Democratic black vote. Not so black and white, is it?</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>Bloodied Hagel Heads to the Pentagon</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/bloodied-hagel-heads-to-the-pentagon/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bloodied-hagel-heads-to-the-pentagon</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Feb 2013 04:55:51 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chuck Hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[confirm]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[The Senate confirms the Defense Secretary nominee -- as the Republicans' opposition crumbles.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/bloodied-hagel-heads-to-the-pentagon/chuck-hagel-4/" rel="attachment wp-att-179245"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-179245" title="Chuck Hagel" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/la-pn-hagel-senate-filibuster-20130213-001-450x300.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="180" /></a>In a largely party-line vote, would-be Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was narrowly confirmed by the Senate yesterday after Republicans&#8217; months-long opposition to the nominee crumbled.</p>
<p>The mullahs are no doubt resting easy in Tehran.</p>
<p>Hagel, who is uncomfortably cozy with Islamists, replaces Leon Panetta. The new Pentagon chief could be sworn in as soon as today, clearing the way for Hagel to insult America&#8217;s allies abroad and bungle what&#8217;s left of the Global War on Terror.</p>
<p>Despite losing in the end, Hagel&#8217;s opponents <a href="http://politi.co/YVTlnW">believe</a> bloodying the nominee was worthwhile.</p>
<p>“In order to get Hagel barely across the finish line, the president had to burn up a tremendous amount of political capital to keep pro-Israel and vulnerable Democrats in line while Hagel was forced to disavow every position he’s ever held that endeared him to foreign policy leftists,” one senior Republican Senate aide told Tim Mak of <em>Politico</em>.</p>
<p>“Bottom line: a weakened White House gets a marginalized secretary of defense who had to disavow all of his views and supporters in order to win confirmation. I’d call that a win for the opposition.”</p>
<p>Obama now has two-thirds of his Islamist-appeasement dream team in place. The other two jewels in this tripartite crown of shame are CIA director nominee <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/raking-brennan-over-the-coals/">John Brennan</a>, and John Kerry, the new, pathologically anti-American secretary of state. The Senate Intelligence Committee may vote on the nomination of Brennan, a useful idiot for Islamofascism, as soon as Thursday.</p>
<p>Obama chose Hagel as Department of Defense boss because the two are of the same mind on defense matters. Obama knows he can count on Hagel to dramatically scale back the U.S. military. As the Left sees it, cutting defense spending frees up more money for welfare programs.</p>
<p>Hagel&#8217;s support for U.S. nuclear disarmament, dramatic defense cuts, and blindness to the threat posed by Iran have long rankled conservatives.</p>
<p>Yesterday&#8217;s confirmation came a day after notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan praised Hagel during a speech at the Nation of Islam Annual Saviors&#8217; Day Convention.</p>
<p>&#8220;America needs a man in Congress like that, who&#8217;s not a rubber stamp for others. You need a man like Senator Hagel as your Secretary of Defense. A man with a mind like that will keep you out of fighting somebody else&#8217;s wars. You need a man in government that has another opinion, that is not controlled. If the Senate does not confirm him as Defense Secretary because of his opinion on Israel, that only proves that the Senate and the U. S. Congress is controlled by the Israeli lobby and it all sentences America to war with Iran for the State of Israel.&#8221;</p>
<p>Amazingly, Farrakhan&#8217;s endorsement of Hagel had no impact on the confirmation process, in part, probably because the mainstream media suppressed the news. Outside of conservative news websites and talk radio Farrakhan&#8217;s comments were not reported.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, the Senate first voted 71 to 27 to end the GOP&#8217;s historic filibuster, the first ever of a defense secretary nominee, and proceed to a vote on the confirmation.</p>
<p>The Senate then approved the Hagel nomination on a vote of 58 to 41. Four Republicans broke ranks and voted to approve Hagel: Mike Johanns (R-Neb.); Thad Cochran (R-Miss.); Richard Shelby (R-Alabama); and surprisingly, Rand Paul (R-Ky.).</p>
<p>The libertarian-leaning Paul, who recently visited Israel to beef up his foreign policy credentials and assuage conservative fears about his support for America&#8217;s key Middle East ally, had opposed Hagel.</p>
<p>Paul said in the end he voted to confirm Hagel because even he though disagrees with the nominee on &#8220;many things,&#8221; the president &#8220;gets to choose political appointees.&#8221;</p>
<p>In fact, the Senate is under no such obligation to do the president&#8217;s bidding, especially when the nation&#8217;s security is at stake. The Constitution gives the Senate the power to confirm or reject presidential nominees for high appointed office for a reason. Every senator has a duty to do what he or she believes is in the best interests of the country. The president&#8217;s convenience or ego-gratification is not supposed to be part of the calculus.</p>
<p>Until a few days ago it was not at all clear if Hagel would be confirmed.</p>
<p>There were so many political setbacks in the confirmation process that at one point Hagel&#8217;s prospects were so bleak that some Democratic senators reportedly asked Obama to withdraw the nomination.</p>
<p>The ornery Hagel, a Republican who represented Nebraska in the U.S. Senate from 1997 to 2009, reportedly claimed in a speech two years ago that Israel is a treaty-breaking rogue nation that is in the process of becoming an apartheid state.</p>
<p>His confirmation hearing was an unmitigated disaster as Hagel appeared to lack the intellectual capabilities to run the Pentagon. Hagel appeared confused, misstating current U.S. policy.</p>
<p>Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a rising conservative star, was so effective in questioning Hagel that sputtering leftists experienced a collective meltdown, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/smearing-ted-cruz/">accusing</a> the freshman senator of &#8220;McCarthyism.&#8221;</p>
<p>Hagel had great difficulty explaining what he meant when he once claimed “the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people” on Capitol Hill, a phrase one might have expected to hear from a professional anti-Semite like President Obama&#8217;s preacher from Chicago, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.</p>
<p>And yet he survived.</p>
<p>Sadly, Hagel now has four years to help Barack Obama fundamentally transform the United States of America.</p>
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		<title>Hagel Derailed &#8212;&#8211; For Now</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/hagel-derailed-for-now/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=hagel-derailed-for-now</link>
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		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Feb 2013 04:58:20 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=177747</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Obama's dangerous foreign policy agenda suffers a setback.  ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/hagel-derailed-for-now/hagel-small-file/" rel="attachment wp-att-177749"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-177749" title="Hagel small file" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Hagel-small-file-691x1024.jpg" alt="" width="296" height="439" /></a><strong>Editor’s note: The graphic on the left is created by our IllustWriter <a href="http://fawstin.blogspot.com/">Bosch Fawstin</a>. Visit his site <a href="http://fawstin.blogspot.com/">here</a>.</strong></p>
<p>Defying a furious White House and Senate Democrats, Senate Republicans successfully <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/14/republicans-filibuster-hagel-confirmation-as-benghazi-battle-intensifies/">filibustered</a> Chuck Hagel&#8217;s nomination for Secretary of Defense. The tally was 58-40, with one “present” vote. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) switched his vote from “yes” to “no,” a procedural move that allows him to revisit Hagel&#8217;s nomination after the Senate recess. The move was historic, in that a Cabinet Secretary has never been successfully filibustered before. Republicans claimed they will allow an up-or-down vote on Hagel only after they get more information about the debacle in Benghazi. For the moment, Obama&#8217;s dangerous foreign policy agenda, personified by the Hagel nomination, has been slowed. But it will not be for long.</p>
<p>Republicans also want <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/army/283279-senate-gop-blocks-hagel-nomination-in-vote">more information</a> from Hagel himself. They blame Democrats for attempting to rush the vote, and the White House for failing to provide more information regarding compensation Hagel received for speeches he has made. Earlier this week, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2013/02/mccarthyite-accusation-radical.html">argued</a> that such records were necessary because Hagel may have given speeches, or received compensation, from &#8220;radical or extreme groups.&#8221; This allegation enraged Hagel supporters, who characterized it as &#8220;McCarthyite,&#8221; but Cruz didn&#8217;t back down. &#8220;We saw with this nomination something truly extraordinary, which is the government of Iran formally and publicly praising the nomination of a Defense Secretary,&#8221; said Cruz on Tuesday. &#8220;I would suggest to you that to my knowledge that is unprecedented, to see a foreign nation like Iran publicly celebrating a nomination.&#8221;</p>
<p>As usual, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was far more conciliatory. “I think it’s appropriate to wait until we come back,” he said, referring to the fact that the Senate will be on break until February 25. “I think there’s plenty of time to have any further questions answered and I intend to vote for cloture then…He’d certainly get mine and a number of others.”</p>
<p>Before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid employed his familiar over-the-top rhetoric, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57569419/reid-warns-against-delaying-hagels-confirmation/">claiming</a> the nation would be without a Secretary of Defense should Hagel&#8217;s nomination be delayed. &#8220;Republicans have been telling our troops, you can have a leader later,&#8221; Reid huffed, even as current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta made it clear he would stay on until Hagel is confirmed. Reid further noted that Hagel has &#8220;answered exhaustive questions about his record.&#8221;</p>
<p>Not quite. On Tuesday, it was <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/12/hagel-omitted-two-speeches-on-middle-east-from-senate-disclosure-forms/">learned</a> that Hagel did not include to Senate investigators two speeches he made regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict. His supporters in the Senate and the administration claimed those speeches were &#8220;informal,&#8221; and thus it was not required that he turn them over to the Senate Armed Services Committee. In fairness, one of those <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/02/hagels-adc-speech-long-sought-by-rightwing-blogs-157059.html">speeches</a>, given before the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) on June 13, 2008, was hardly the &#8220;smoking gun&#8221; many on the right was hoping it would be. Yet it contained one disquieting element that dovetails quite nicely with a president who <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/a_teachable_moment_for_barack.html">believes</a> that American exceptionalism isn&#8217;t particularly exceptional and that Islamic jihad is a jingoistic fantasy. According to Hagel, &#8220;there&#8217;s not one religion, not one region of the world… that represents the most valued and real human dimensions more than any other…I don&#8217;t find any one religion where people love their children more than the other religions, or whether they want peace more than other religions…I&#8217;ve never found that difference, whether you&#8217;re Jewish, Muslim Buddhist, Christian.&#8221;</p>
<p>Perhaps Chuck has missed the copious amount of information that reveals the culture of hate <a href="http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Terrorism-+Obstacle+to+Peace/Palestinian_incitement/Hamas%20Mickey%20Mouse%20teaches%20children%20to%20hate%20and%20kill%2010-May-2007">embraced</a> by Palestinians, including a TV character named Farfur, a Mickey Mouse look-alike &#8220;martyred&#8221; in the show&#8217;s last episode, after being beaten to death by a Jew. Maybe he’s never heard about Palestinian children being <a href="http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/12/19/palestinians-training-kids-to-be-suicide-bombers">trained</a> as suicide bombers. The content of the second speech, given at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies on September 22, 2008, remains unavailable.</p>
<p>Hagel should be grateful the Senate Armed Services Committee only required &#8220;formal speeches&#8221; from 2008 onward. The Washington Free Beacon reveals an eye-witness <a href="http://freebeacon.com/report-hagel-said-state-department-controlled-by-israel/">account</a> of a speech given by Hagel in 2007 at Rutgers University in New Jersey, while he was still a senator with presidential aspirations.  <a href="http://www.ajjan.com/2007/03/hagel-in-nj-0-delegates-down-78-to-go.html">According</a> to Republican political consultant George Ajjan, a Hagel supporter, the Defense Secretary nominee contended that the State Department was controlled by Israel, saying it had &#8220;become adjunct to the Israeli Foreign Minister&#8217;s office[.]&#8221; Ajjan also noted that Hagel &#8220;spoke enthusiastically about the talks on Iraqi stability that will be attended by all the stakeholders, including Iran, Syria, and the US sitting around the same table.&#8221;</p>
<p>Later yesterday, a <a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/heres-is-the-prepared-text-of-chuck-hagels-speech-to-rutgers">prepared text</a> of Hagel&#8217;s remarks from that day was released. Astoundingly, Hagel doubled down on his fairly tale view of Iran, noting their supposed cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan:</p>
<blockquote><p>Iran has cooperated with the United States on Afghanistan to help the Afghans establish a new government after the Taliban was ousted. Iran continues to invest heavily in the reconstruction of western Afghanistan.</p>
<p>On Afghanistan, the United States and Iran found common interests&#8211;defeating the Taliban and Islamic radicals, stabilizing Afghanistan, stopping the opium production and the flow of opium coming into Iran. From these common interests emerged common actions working toward a common purpose. It was in the interests of Iran to work with the U.S. in Afghanistan. It was not a matter of helping America or strengthening America&#8217;s presence in Central Asia. It was a clear-eyed and self-serving action for Iran.</p></blockquote>
<p>Furthermore, Hagel advocated &#8220;offering to re-open a consulate in Tehran&#8230;not formal diplomatic relations&#8230;but a Consulate&#8230;to help encourage and facilitate people-to-people exchange.” Much like the excerpt from 2008 above, such notions speak to the utter inaccuracy of Hagel&#8217;s predictions, and a bizarrely out-of-touch worldview.</p>
<p>That worldview is further illuminated by Hagel’s relationship with the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank he chairs. A report released Tuesday <a href="http://freebeacon.com/the-atlantic-councils-sanctions-busting-backers/">reveals</a> that several foreign corporations funding the Atlantic Council have either attempted to violate, or have violated, American and European sanctions against Iran. One of those sponsors, Italian oil company Eni, was even &#8220;proud&#8221; of its cooperation with the fanatical regime. Another, Deutsche Bank, is being investigated by the U.S. for sanction violations. Hagel is a Deutsche Bank board member.</p>
<p>Since 2010, Hagel has also <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Chuck-Hagel-s-Chevron-tie-not-criticized-4197225.php">been</a> on the board of the Chevron Corporation. That year the company <a href="http://www.chevron.com/chevron/pressreleases/article/09202010_chevronacquiresdeepwaterexplorationlease.news">signed</a> a Joint Operation Agreement with Türkiye Petrolleri Anonim Ortaklığı (TPAO), Turkey’s state oil company, for a Black Sea exploration license. More than ten percent of the Atlantic Council&#8217;s sponsors are linked to Turkish energy entities and companies invested in the Turkish energy sector. They buy as much as 90 percent of Iran&#8217;s natural gas exports. Turkey is also facilitating Iran&#8217;s evasion of sanctions by allowing Tehran to convert oil revenues into gold, which, unlike Turkish currency, can be transported back to Iran. “Turkey is allowing Iran to access means to use the revenues from oil for whatever purposes Iran seeks,” said Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The Turks so far have not been willing to do the things you’d expect them to do to squeeze Iran.”</p>
<p>Although Hagel now claims to support sanctions, provided they are multilateral, both he and the Atlantic Council have been critical of them in the past. And it is yet unclear whether Hagel was aware of the sanction-busting efforts of his corporate sponsors &#8212; which is why yesterday&#8217;s vote delaying his nomination makes sense. “We really need more information, more disclosure, before we can know if Sen. Hagel did something wrong here,” said a congressional aide who has worked on Iranian sanction issues. “The obvious question for Sen. Hagel would be what did you know, when did you know it, and what did you do about it after you found out.”</p>
<p>That goes double for the other reason Republicans delayed this nomination, namely Benghazi. The administration has provided some information, noting that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton contacted Libyan President Mohamed Magariaf on Obama&#8217;s behalf the day of the attack, and that Obama spoke to him on the September 12.</p>
<p>Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has been the most vociferous Republican with regard to <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/14/gop-senators-delay-hagel-vote-over-benghazi/">demanding</a> answers. “There seems to not be much interest to hold this president accountable for a national security breakdown that led to the first ambassador being killed in the line of duty in over 30 years,” Graham said. “No, the debate on Chuck Hagel is not over. It has not been serious. We don’t have the information we need. And I’m going to fight the idea of jamming somebody through until we get answers about what the president did personally when it came to the Benghazi debacle.”</p>
<p>Graham further contended that Obama only spoke to the Libyan government &#8220;after everybody was dead,&#8221; suggesting that it was possible the president might have made a difference if he hadn&#8217;t, as current Defense Secretary Leon Panetta <a href="http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0213/ahlert020813.php3">testified,</a> left the entire operation up to him and Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey. Democrats and an utterly corrupt mainstream media have ignored the reality that Barack Obama not only showed no further concern at any point during the eight hours of fighting that cost four American their lives, but attended a fund-raiser in Las Vegas the following day.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Republicans&#8217; newfound character may be a temporary aberration. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) was one of a number of Republican Senators who suggested that a cloture vote might not even be necessary after the recess. He even believed the White House would provide the requested information. “I think the legitimate information that’s been asked for will come,” Corker said. “Some people may have asked for things that are over the top&#8211;I don’t know that, by the way&#8211;but I think the legitimate requests will be answered.”</p>
<p>One is left to imagine what constitutes over-the-top with regard to a thoroughly inept nominee for Secretary of Defense, and massive disinformation campaign surrounding the deaths of four Americans in Libya. Harry Reid has <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2013/02/harry-reid-blasts-gop-over-chuck-hagel-block-87659.html">scheduled</a> another vote for February 26, during which he and his fellow Democrats expect Hagel to be confirmed.</p>
<p>For the next eleven days, Democrats and their media allies will whine about Republican obstructionism. Republicans need to spend their time reminding Americans of Hagel’s utter lack of qualifications, as well as the mockery that the self-described &#8220;most transparent administration in history&#8221; has become. The families of four dead Americans, along with countless other Americans who put their lives on the line for this nation, deserve nothing less.</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>Double-Voting for Obama</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/double-voting-for-obama/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=double-voting-for-obama</link>
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		<pubDate>Wed, 13 Feb 2013 04:51:58 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Matthew Vadum]]></dc:creator>
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		<description><![CDATA[Activist of Soros-funded group admits her crime -- but more is beneath the surface. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/matthew-vadum/double-voting-for-obama/early-voting-cuyahoga-county-board-of-electionsjpg-c50007366c35cdc2/" rel="attachment wp-att-177529"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-177529" title="early-voting-cuyahoga-county-board-of-electionsjpg-c50007366c35cdc2" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/early-voting-cuyahoga-county-board-of-electionsjpg-c50007366c35cdc2-1024x739.jpg" alt="" width="293" height="211" /></a>After publicly boasting that she voted twice for President Obama in November, a left-wing Ohio activist associated with a George Soros-funded group claims she did nothing wrong by double-voting.</p>
<p>“There’s absolutely no intent on my part to commit voter fraud,” said Melowese Richardson, a longtime Cincinnati poll worker and Democratic activist whose unlawfully cast ballot <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/340174/voter-fraud-never-happens-keeps-coming-back-john-fund">canceled out</a> a lawful ballot and thereby deprived another citizen of his or her right to vote.</p>
<p>Voter fraud, also known as vote fraud, election fraud, and electoral fraud, <a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/voter_fraud_redefined.html#ixzz2Kiv9uPlR">refers</a> to the specific offenses of fraudulent voting, impersonation, perjury, voter registration fraud, forgery, counterfeiting, bribery, destroying already cast ballots, and a multitude of crimes related to the electoral process.</p>
<p>Having already incriminated herself in front of a TV news camera, Richardson said she&#8217;ll contest criminal voter fraud charges. “I’ll fight it for Mr. Obama and for Mr. Obama’s right to sit as president of the United States,” she said nonsensically.</p>
<p>Hamilton County, Ohio, records reportedly indicate that Richardson voted by absentee ballot on Nov. 1. Ten days later she told an official she also voted at a polling place out of fear that her absentee ballot would not count.</p>
<p>County records also accuse Richardson, who has registered thousands of people to vote, of being disruptive and hiding &#8220;things from other poll workers on Election Day after another female worker reported she was intimidated by Richardson.&#8221; An investigation revealed that the perpetrator&#8217;s granddaughter, India Richardson, also voted twice in November.</p>
<p>All of this is fine with the activists of the Left who only care about observing laws and technicalities when they advance their cause.</p>
<p>Left-wing activists and think tanks such as the Brennan Center for Justice constantly churn out studies and reports financed by George Soros, purporting to prove that voter fraud is as unreal as the Loch Ness Monster. They claim that those on the Right want to crack down on voter fraud solely as a means of preventing the poor and minorities from voting.</p>
<p>Voter fraud is a figment of your paranoid conservative imagination, according to pseudo-journalist Brentin Mock of Colorlines, a racial-grievance website run by the radical Applied Research Center. &#8220;Voter fraud as a thing has been exposed by civil rights watchdogs and a wide range of journalists as pure conspiracy theory,&#8221; Mock writes.</p>
<p>Brennan Center lawyers Michael Waldman and Justin Levitt ridicule the idea that anyone would double-vote. “A person casting two votes risks jail time and a fine for minimal gain,&#8221; they said last year. &#8220;Proven voter fraud, statistically, happens about as often as death by lightning strike.&#8221;</p>
<p>&#8220;Well, lightning is suddenly all over Cincinnati, Ohio,&#8221; quips John Fund at National Review Online. &#8220;The Hamilton County Board of Elections is investigating 19 possible cases of alleged voter fraud that occurred when Ohio was a focal point of the 2012 presidential election. A total of 19 voters and nine witnesses are part of the probe.&#8221;</p>
<p>Some Americans believe they are entitled to vote more than once in order to exact revenge against a society they feel did them or their ancestors wrong. Some left-wingers say that election fraud is justifiable because in a sense it compensates the poor for having little political power.</p>
<p>Richardson is far from alone. Double-voting is distressingly common.</p>
<p>For example, in September Wendy Rosen <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/09/10/maryland-dem-drops-out-of-congressonal-race-amid-allegations-she-voted-in-two-states/">dropped out</a> as the Democratic candidate in the first congressional district in Maryland after it was revealed she double-voted in two elections. State Democratic officials admitted Rosen voted in both Florida and Maryland in the 2006 general election and in the primaries in 2008.</p>
<p>In 2011 a Tunica County, Miss., jury convicted local NAACP official Lessadolla Sowers on 10 counts of fraudulently casting absentee ballots. Sowers was sentenced to a five-year prison term.</p>
<p>Voter fraud, which left-wing activist groups <a href="http://www.truethevote.org/news/how-widespread-is-voter-fraud-2012-facts-figures">encourage</a>, <a href="http://www.truethevote.org/news/did-you-know-there-are-voter-fraud-convictions-and-prosecutions-in-46-states">has long been</a> a problem in the U.S. It was <a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/11/the-big-list-of-vote-fraud-reports/">rampant</a> in the 2012 election.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s not hard to see why. According to <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Election_reform/Pew_Upgrading_Voter_Registration.pdf">one report</a>, about 24 million voter registrations across the nation are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate, more than 1.8 million dead people are registered as voters, and 2.75 million Americans are registered to vote in more than one state.</p>
<p>Richardson is also active in an ACORN-like Cincinnati-based activist group called Communities United for Action.</p>
<p>The Obama administration has <a href="http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/6010C547583CBEE08525779E0069F902">funneled taxpayer money</a> to its friends at Communities United for Action. In 2010 the Environmental Protection Agency gave the group $25,000 to indoctrinate local children about &#8220;environmental justice.&#8221;</p>
<p>Communities United for Action is part of a larger Saul Alinsky-inspired organizing network called National People’s Action (NPA). NPA makes no bones about its desire to overthrow what remains of America’s free enterprise system.</p>
<p>Activists from the NPA network <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/matthew-vadum/marxist-radicals-mug-paul-ryan/">tried to silence</a> presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan in the past election cycle, aggressively heckling the two during speeches.</p>
<p>Left-wing activists call this “accountability,” an Orwellian euphemism. Accountability, as they use the term, is not about transparency or good government. Following the lead of the so-called father of the New Left, Herbert Marcuse, who favored silencing non-leftists, accountability actions focus on harassing and intimidating political enemies, disrupting them and forcing them to waste their resources dealing with activists’ provocations.</p>
<p>The preeminent funder of the Left, George Soros, underwrites NPA&#8217;s agitation through one of his philanthropies, the Foundation to Promote Open Society ($300,000 since 2010). So does the Woods Fund of Chicago ($50,000 since 2009) on whose board Barack Obama and Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers served. Other institutional funders of NPA include the Arca Foundation ($421,240 since 2010), W.K. Kellogg Foundation ($150,000 since 2011), and Barbra Streisand Foundation ($10,000 since 2010).</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Left is gearing up for a fight in Congress over voter registration and voting. Activists want the rules governing elections to be even more lax, thus making fraud easier.</p>
<p>In the State of the Union address last night, President Obama said Americans shouldn&#8217;t have to wait for hours in line to vote. Obama announced the creation of a non-partisan commission &#8220;to improve the voting experience in America.&#8221;</p>
<p>Obama said the body will be led by &#8220;two longtime experts in the field&#8221; who served as top attorneys for Mitt Romney&#8217;s campaign and his own campaign. The Republican lawyer is Ben Ginsberg; the Democrat, <a href="http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/individualProfile.asp?indid=2435">Bob Bauer</a>.</p>
<p>Bauer is the bottom-feeding barrister who asked the Department of Justice in 2008 to prosecute Obama critics and fine television stations for daring to carry an ad about Obama’s close personal friendship with Bill Ayers. Bauer, Obama’s former White House Counsel, is married to Anita Dunn, the Mao-quoting former communications director in the Obama White House. Bauer has been instrumental in whitewashing Obama’s radical roots by filing lawsuits keeping a bewildering array of the president’s personal papers hidden away.</p>
<p>With Bauer serving on the new commission, at least cartoon characters and the dead will be well-represented.</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>Key Questions on Chuck Hagel Go Unanswered</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/key-questions-on-chuck-hagel-go-unanswered/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=key-questions-on-chuck-hagel-go-unanswered</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/key-questions-on-chuck-hagel-go-unanswered/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 12 Feb 2013 04:45:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Joseph Klein]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Chuck Hagel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[confirmation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hearing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vote]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=177343</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Opponents' requests for financial documents on Middle East donors are stonewalled.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/joseph-klein/key-questions-on-chuck-hagel-go-unanswered/attachment/73668313/" rel="attachment wp-att-177352"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-177352" title="73668313" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/73668313.jpg" alt="" width="237" height="198" /></a>Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, plans to proceed on Tuesday with a committee vote on the confirmation of former Senator Chuck Hagel to serve as the next Secretary of Defense.  Senator Levin has brushed aside objections from at least 25 Senate Republicans that a vote is premature until Hagel releases more information about whether the entities he has been affiliated with since leaving the Senate in 2009 have received money from foreign groups or governments.</p>
<p>&#8220;The committee cannot have two different sets of financial disclosure standards for nominees, one for Senator Hagel and one for other nominees,&#8221; Levin wrote in a letter last Friday to the committee&#8217;s ranking Republican, Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe.</p>
<p>We can expect a committee vote largely along party lines.  Since the Democrats  hold a majority on the committee, Hagel should pass this hurdle and have his fate decided on the Senate floor where a Republican-led filibuster is possible.  Senator Inhofe has threatened to use procedural roadblocks that would have to be overcome by a 60-vote super-majority.  Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has also threatened to hold up a floor vote on Hagel until Senator Graham is satisfied that the full truth about the Benghazi debacle is revealed.</p>
<p>Republican senators are split on whether to try to prevent an up-or-down floor vote on Hagel&#8217;s confirmation. Senator John McCain, while indicating on Fox News Sunday that he was presently inclined to vote no on Hagel&#8217;s confirmation, has opposed the idea of a filibuster.  “I just do not believe a filibuster is appropriate, and I would oppose such a move,” Senator McCain told reporters last week.</p>
<p>At least three other Republican Senators &#8212; Senators Richard M. Burr of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri &#8212; have also come out against a filibuster.  When also taking into account the two Republican senators who have declared their support for Senator Hagel&#8217;s confirmation &#8212; Senators Mike Johanns of Nebraska and Thad Cochran of Mississippi &#8212; a filibuster or hold on the floor vote is unlikely to succeed. It will only delay the inevitable. The Obama administration is arguing that an immediate vote before the Senate recesses late this week is necessary for national security purposes, possibly to set grounds for a recess appointment if no vote is taken.  However, in light of the Court of Appeals decision last month striking down President Obama&#8217;s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board on constitutional grounds, Obama may not want to go that route again so soon after the court&#8217;s ruling.</p>
<p>Filibusters cut both ways.  A party in the minority may find itself regretting the day it set a precedent for filibustering a confirmation of the president&#8217;s choice for an important cabinet post when the shoe is on the other foot.  Nevertheless, while the nomination of Senator John Tower by President George H.W. Bush was rejected in a floor vote and not filibustered in 1989, Republicans can point to how roughly he was treated by Democrats over allegations regarding his private conduct and about possible conflicts of interest.  After his defeat, Tower rebuked his former fellow senators with an unflattering comparison to Lebanon: &#8220;They&#8217;re pretty straightforward what they do in Beirut. They hurl a grenade at someone or shoot a machine gun. Up here, it&#8217;s a little more subtle, but just as ruthless, just as brutal. They kill you in a different way.&#8221;</p>
<p>Even if Republicans, as expected, decide not to go forward with a filibuster, Hagel should be pressed to release more financial information before the final vote proceeds.  Enough embarrassing information could start to come out that might lead Hagel to withdraw his name, rather than face the drip-by-drip disclosure of even more embarrassing information.</p>
<p>Senator McCain is plain wrong in his assertion that Hagel has provided sufficient financial information to meet disclosure requirements. After being prodded, Hagel did ask the Atlantic Council (which he chairs) to release information concerning foreign government and foreign entity donations. <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/LetterChuckHagelfromFredKempe02082013.pdf">The Atlantic Council complied.</a> But it barely scratches the surface.</p>
<p>The governments of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as five separate Turkish government entities, are on the list of donors.  NATO, the European Commission and the governments of such Western countries as Norway, Sweden, Finland, Luxemburg and the United Kingdom are also listed as donors, but their trans-Atlantic focus makes sense while the interest of Arab states in financially supporting the Atlantic Council is far less clear.  Turkey is a member of NATO, but it has been turning eastward in its foreign policy focus rather than toward Europe and the Atlantic.  Why such an interest by Turkish government entities in the Atlantic Council?</p>
<p>Money can translate into influence. However, while the donor list looks fairly diverse on the surface, it is not possible to evaluate degrees of influence without knowing the specific amounts contributed by each donor.</p>
<p>Moreover, the information that the Atlantic Council made available to the Senate presents more questions than answers.   For example, why are there so many separate Turkish government entities listed as donors, disproportionate to any other country?   And why are so many of those Turkish government entities, which made separate donations, involved in the energy industry? When did these donations commence?</p>
<p>In February 2009, Chuck Hagel was elected chairman of the Atlantic Council. The very next year Chuck Hagel joined the Board of Directors of Chevron. Is it a mere coincidence that one of the Turkish donors &#8211; Turkish Petroleum Corporation &#8211; signed a major deal with Chevron for joint oil exploration in the Black Sea in 2010?  The exploration phase is non-operated, but Chevron would become operator during any future development of the project. How about the deal that Chevron has entered into with Iraq&#8217;s semiautonomous Kurdish enclave for oil exploration, that could be followed by the construction of a pipeline for transporting oil from the enclave into Turkey? Turkey&#8217;s Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS), like the Turkish Petroleum Corporation, is on the Atlantic Council donor list.</p>
<p>Closer to home, Chevron received nearly $1.2 billion in contracts and grants from the Defense Department during fiscal years 2010, 2011, and 2012, according to an article last month in the <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Chuck-Hagel-s-Chevron-tie-not-criticized-4197225.php">San Francisco Chronicle</a>. Will Chuck Hagel recuse himself as Secretary of Defense from involving himself in any decisions regarding the future of those contracts and grants even if, as expected, he resigns as a Chevron Board member and either sells or puts his Chevron stock into a blind trust?</p>
<p>The Saudi Arabian Khaled Juffali Company is another Atlantic Council donor.  Khaled Juffali, Managing Partner of  E. A. Juffali and Brothers Co. and Chairman of Khaled Juffali Company, was also co-chairman of a gala Atlantic Council dinner held in September 2010 in New York.</p>
<p>It so happens that while Chuck Hagel was teaching at the Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, Omar Shakir, the founder and president of Students Confronting Apartheid by Israel at Georgetown University, was a recipient of the school&#8217;s Khaled Juffali Scholarship.  Shakir was pursuing his masters degree in the Arab Studies Program at its School of Foreign Service in 2010.  Fox News has just reported that in September of 2008,  a few months before Hagel commenced his professorial duties at Georgetown, Hagel delivered a speech at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Hagel did not disclose this speech in materials he submitted to the Senate submitted to the Armed Services Committee, as well as another speech he had delivered to the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee in June of 2008.</p>
<p>It may be a complete coincidence that Kahled Juffali&#8217;s name comes up in connection with two separate organizations with which Hagel has been affiliated. However, it is worth asking whether Hagel had any input into the decision of Georgetown University&#8217;s School of Foreign Service, where he was given the title of &#8220;Distinguished Professor,&#8221; to grant an avowed Israel hater with a scholarship funded by the same Saudi connections who were providing contributions to his Atlantic Council.</p>
<p>Surely, if John Tower had to go through such a brutal examination of his personal life that Tower would have preferred being in Beirut, Hagel&#8217;s record deserves far more scrutiny than the Democratic Senate majority and President Obama appear ready to permit.</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>Far from the Fiscal Cliff Finish Line</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/far-from-the-fiscal-cliff-finish-line/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=far-from-the-fiscal-cliff-finish-line</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 01 Jan 2013 04:54:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Arnold Ahlert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fiscal cliff]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[house]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Obama]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Senate]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vote]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=171771</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A House vote looms. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/far-from-the-fiscal-cliff-finish-line/obamafiscalcliffa/" rel="attachment wp-att-171774"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-171774" title="Obama+Fiscal+CliffA" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Obama+Fiscal+CliffA-450x319.jpg" alt="" width="270" height="191" /></a>It looks as if the fiscal cliff will be averted &#8212; maybe. Early New Year&#8217;s morning, the Senate <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/01/senate-leaders-aim-for-vote-on-fiscal-crisis-deal-as-congress-misses-deadline/">passed a bill</a>, in a bipartisan vote of 89-9, eliminating the tax hikes on most Americans while raising them on the rich. Automatic spending cuts that would have kicked in as the result of the sequestration have been postponed for two months. The deal was cobbled together by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). It now goes to the House where its chances of passage remain unclear. “Decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members&#8211;and the American people&#8211;have been able to review the legislation,” <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/fiscal-cliff/biden-mcconnell-continue-cliff-talks-as-clock-winds-down/2012/12/31/66c044e2-534d-11e2-8b9e-dd8773594efc_story.html">said</a> Boehner and other GOP leaders in a written statement.</p>
<p>The agreement was reportedly put together at around 9PM New Year&#8217;s Eve, when two of the major sticking points were finally overcome. Republicans <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/01/senate-leaders-aim-for-vote-on-fiscal-crisis-deal-as-congress-misses-deadline/">surrendered</a> ground on the across-the-board spending cuts, delaying for two months the $109 billion in spending reductions aimed primarily at the Pentagon, as well as some domestic agencies. The White House gave ground on the estate tax, with the top rate pegged at 40 percent while exempting the first $5 million for individual estates, and $10 million for family estates. Thus estate taxes go up, but the exemption levels are increased.</p>
<p>With regard to taxes, the Bush tax cuts remain in place for individual Americans making less than $400,000 and couples making $450,000. Caps have been imposed on itemized deductions and personal exemptions will be phased out for individuals making $250,000 and couples earning $300,000. Taxes on both capital gains and dividend income would rise from 15 to 20 percent on income over $400,000 for individuals, and $450,000 for families.</p>
<p>The dreaded alternative minimum tax, originally enacted to ensure that wealthy Americans could not completely avoid owing taxes by way of loopholes, was one of the more sensible agreements emerging from the deal. It was finally indexed for inflation, exempting 30 million middle- and upper-middle-class Americans from owing an average of $3000 in additional taxes. In a victory for the president, the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit, and as much as a $2,500 tax credit for college tuition have been granted five year extensions. Several business tax credits, including accelerated depreciation for investments in business equipment and property, credits for research and development costs, and those for renewable energy sources have been extended for one year at a <a href="http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/01/16280618-in-last-minute-vote-senate-approves-fiscal-deal?lite">cost</a> of $64 billion.</p>
<p>On the more dubious side, unemployment benefits will be <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/31/unemployment-insurance-extended_n_2389634.html">extended</a> for another year without any commensurate offset, meaning another $30 billion will be added to the deficit. Democrats point to figures released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which estimated keeping the benefits would <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/28/unemployment-benefits-cbo_n_2207219.html">raise</a> GDP by two-tenths of a percentage point in the fourth quarter of 2013. This has been touted as the equivalent of 300,000 jobs. Less touted is the cost of $100,000 for each of them.</p>
<p>The agreement also includes yet another suspension of the so-called &#8220;doc fix,&#8221; <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/news/one_year_doc_fix_included_in_fiscal_cliff_package-220436-1.html">blocking</a> a 27 percent reduction in Medicare payments to physicians for another year. The $25 billion cost of this suspension will ostensibly be offset by other, as yet unspecified, reductions in medical expenses. And finally, the deal reinstates the 6.2 percent Social Security payroll tax that had been cut to 4.2 percent two years ago.</p>
<p>Both Senate Republicans and the president gave the agreement a tentative thumbs up. “The president wanted tax increases, but thanks to this imperfect agreement, 99 percent of my constituents won’t be hit by those hikes,” said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. &#8220;There’s more work to do to reduce our deficits, and I’m willing to do it,&#8221; said President Obama in a statement. &#8220;But tonight’s agreement ensures that, going forward, we will continue to reduce the deficit through a combination of new spending cuts and new revenues from the wealthiest Americans.&#8221;</p>
<p>Yet the deal is far from the finish line. Although the House is <a href="http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/01/16280618-in-last-minute-vote-senate-approves-fiscal-deal?lite">scheduled</a> to meet today at noon, Breitbart News is <a href="http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/31/GROUP-Boehner-doesn-t-have-support-of-at-least-50-percent-of-House-GOP-members-on-McConnell-Biden-fiscal-cliff-deal">reporting</a> that a conservative group, American Majority Action, claims that House Speaker John Boehner lacks the necessary support to get the deal through the Republican-controlled chamber. AMA spokesman Ron Meyer sent an email to reporters Monday, saying he’s “heard directly from senior GOP conservative members in the House that Speaker Boehner does not have a majority of support from the GOP caucus&#8211;not even close.”</p>
<p>Boehner himself has refused to endorse the deal, yet he has promised to offer a vote on it, or a GOP alternative, perhaps as early as 1PM. Undoubtedly, House Democrats will vote for it. House conservatives? &#8220;It&#8217;s three strikes in my book and I&#8217;ll be voting no on this bill,&#8221; Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) told CNN Tuesday morning. Huelskamp expressed his dismay regarding the effect the legislation will have on small businesses, as well as the one sticking point that undoubtedly resonates with his fellow conservatives: all the serious spending cuts have been deferred.</p>
<p>Yet even House conservatives may conclude the best course of action is to pass this bill, placating a majority of Americans for the moment, and get down to serious negotiations on spending cuts when the next major hurdle, namely the debt ceiling, is addressed. If truth be told, this agreement is nothing more than a dress rehearsal for those negotiations&#8211;during which the House, whence all spending bills originate, will have considerably more leverage than it has now. “The big battle is yet to come and it’s over the debt ceiling,” Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) <a href="http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/01/01/Will-House-Approve-Senate-Tax-Hike-on-Super-Rich.aspx#page1">said</a> in a Monday floor speech. “That’s the one where we have to find a way to make a deal. And the president is not going to make a deal by poking us in the eye.”</p>
<p>The rancor expressed by Isakson was illuminated by <em>Washington Post</em> columnist Charles Krauthammer, who <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/12/31/krauthammer-obama-showed-incredible-arrogance-in-astonishing-press-conference-video/">referred</a> to President Obama&#8217;s &#8220;incredible arrogance&#8221; during a pre-deal press conference on Monday. “I found it astonishing….He spikes the football on the Republicans. He rubs in the fact that they were resisting a raise in rates and he made them do it. And of course, as always, he places himself hovering benignly at an Olympian level above the fray, where the children are playing in the sandbox, and he is asking that everybody be reasonable, as if he just arrived in Washington on a tourist visa,” Krauthammer said Monday night on Fox News Channel’s “Special Report.”</p>
<p>In other words, even if the House spares Americans from the consequences of the fiscal cliff today, the nation is a long, long way from the finish line&#8211;with plenty of eye-poking from both sides expected along the way.</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>Sharia Now Egypt&#8217;s Law of the Land</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/ryan-mauro/sharia-now-egypts-law-of-the-land/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=sharia-now-egypts-law-of-the-land</link>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 24 Dec 2012 04:30:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ryan Mauro]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[constitution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Democracy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[egypt]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Islam]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[muslim brotherhood]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sharia]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Vote]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=170693</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The Muslim Brotherhood claims its greatest victory yet. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2012/ryan-mauro/sharia-now-egypts-law-of-the-land/egyptian-vote-referendum-new/" rel="attachment wp-att-170699"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-170699" title="egyptian-vote-referendum-new" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/egyptian-vote-referendum-new-444x350.jpg" alt="" width="266" height="210" /></a>Sharia is now Egypt’s law of the land. The Islamist-written draft constitution was approved by about 64% of voters. The Muslim Brotherhood believes its time has come. At long last, it has overtaken the land where the group was founded in 1928. For them, this is a blessing from Allah for their years of discipline and patience. And that blessing will continue as it erects a bloc to eliminate Israel, restore Islamic dominion in Europe and wage “civilization jihad” against the West.</p>
<p>The Egyptian opposition, consolidated into the National Salvation Front, cried foul at the results of the first round of voting. It claimed that 66% voted against it in the first round and the result was <a href="http://www.abc-7.com/story/20412326/egypts-brotherhood-claims-draft-charter-passes">skewed</a> by mismanagement, vote rigging and election violations. The Front is demanding a formal investigation into the irregularities. The Islamists run the Egyptian government, so that will go nowhere.</p>
<p>Part of the Islamist victory can be attributed to the decision by many to simply not show up. Turnout was only 32%. Some in the opposition wanted to deny legitimacy to the process, while others voted to try to defeat the constitution. As Islamist firebrand Wael Ghoneim <a href="http://english.alarabiya.net/views/2012/12/19/255901.html">explained</a>, “Out of every 100 Egyptians, 69 did not take [part] in the referendum, 18 said ‘yes’ and 13 said ‘no.’”</p>
<p>Article 2 of the constitution declares that “the principles” of Sharia are to be the main source of legislation. This is the same language as the previous constitution but that should give no comfort. This phrase is defined later in Article 219 as: “The principles of Islamic Sharia include general evidence and fundamentalist bases, rules and jurisprudence, as well as sources accepted by doctrines of Sunni Islam and the majority of Muslim scholars.”</p>
<p>The decision to retain the Mubarak-era language was nothing more than a shrewd attempt to disguise the monumental change. BBC <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20555478">observes</a> that the passage that previously stated, “The political system is based on pluralism” has been changed to “The political system is based on principles of democracy and on Shura.”</p>
<p>Al-Azhar University, the most authoritative Sunni institution, is to be “consulted on all matters related to Sharia”—but Sharia encompasses virtually everything. The school has a reputation of being “moderate” but Brotherhood spiritual leader Yousef al-Qaradawi is a senior official. In one speech at Al-Azhar, Qaradawi <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/al-azhar-mosque-at-heart-of-concerns-over-islamist-turn-in-egypt/2012/12/21/88fb6770-4a25-11e2-8af9-9b50cb4605a7_story_1.html">said</a> that an Islamic bloc is forming that will destroy Israel.</p>
<p>There are some at Al-Azhar who are uncomfortable with its role as described in the Egyptian constitution. An adviser to the Grand Sheikh said the school doesn’t want to be part of a government and “We don’t like to put the law in terms of a religious dogma that says ‘this is right’ or ‘this is wrong.’” The adviser said that they were forced to accept this position and accused the Salafists of seeking to overtake the institution. The <em>Washington Post</em> <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/al-azhar-mosque-at-heart-of-concerns-over-islamist-turn-in-egypt/2012/12/21/88fb6770-4a25-11e2-8af9-9b50cb4605a7_story.html">says</a>, “[F]ar more hardline elements of Egypt’s Islamic mosaic [are staging] a rear-guard action for control.”</p>
<p>The constitution does not mandate Sharia Law’s <em>hudud</em> criminal punishments but that will come later. Qaradawi preached that Egypt <a href="http://youtu.be/bj7clSyTDAo">should wait</a> five years before cutting off hands. A Pew <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/2010/12/02/muslims-around-the-world-divided-on-hamas-and-hezbollah/%20">poll</a> from 2010 shows the majority of Egyptians favor these criminal laws. About 82% favor stoning adulterers; 77% favor cutting off the hands of robbers and whippings and 84% favor executing those that leave Islam.</p>
<p>The Egyptian Coptic Christians should not relax because of the constitution’s kind language that promises freedom of religion and speech. Article 44 says that “insulting prophets and messengers is forbidden.” That means if a Christian contrasts his religion with that of Islam, he could very well end up arrested.</p>
<p>There are verses in the Quran that describe Christian beliefs as blasphemy. For example, 5:72 <a href="http://www.muslimaccess.com/quraan/arabic/005.asp">says</a>, “They do blaspheme who say: &#8216;(Allah) is Christ the son of Mary.&#8217;&#8221; And again in 5:73: “They do blaspheme who say: &#8216;Allah is one of three in a Trinity&#8217;: for there is no god except One Allah.” To an Islamist authority, the use of the word “blaspheme” could be equivalent to “insulting,” especially if the Christian is making the case for his religion by criticizing Islam and its founder.</p>
<p>Brotherhood preacher Safwat Hegazy, who declared that Morsi would resurrect the Caliphate as the presidential aspirant nodded, <a href="http://www.radicalislam.org/news/muslim-brotherhood-threatens-egypts-christians-over-vote">threatened violence</a> against Christians. “We say and I say to the Church: Yes, you share this country with us; but there are red lines—and our red line is the legitimacy of Dr. Mohammed Morsi. Whoever splashes water on it, we will splash blood on him.”</p>
<p>The glimmer of hope is that Islamist popularity has taken a hit. President Mohammed Morsi only won his election by 3.4 percent. It’s fair to assume that anyone who voted for his secularist opponent remains against the Islamists. The Brotherhood’s popularity steeply declined after Morsi’s power grab and the proposal of the draft constitution, as evidenced in the hundreds of thousands who protested.</p>
<p>The opposition is coalescing and is <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/egypt-opposition-alleges-fraud-in-vote-over-new-constitution-1.489452">considering</a> forming a single political party, but it may be too late. With Sharia as the law of the land, the Islamists have plenty of tools to solidify their power with.</p>
<p>The vice chairman of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, Essam Erian, <a href="http://www.worldtribune.com/2012/12/20/egypts-muslim-brotherhood-weighs-armed-force-to-silence-opposition/%20">said</a> on December 16 that the Brotherhood is considering forming a militia under the authority of the president. “They would have defended themselves in front of the presidential palace and killed the others [anti-Morsi] protesters,” he said.</p>
<p>This weekend’s passing of the constitution is a bigger victory for the Brotherhood than the sweeping of parliament and taking of the presidency. Elected offices are won and lost but the constitution is here to stay. And that means that Sharia law in Egypt is here to stay.</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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