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Representative Sensenbrenner does not appear to have read the law he "wrote."
Confronted with a few embarrassing assertions in his autobiography, pro-basketball legend Charles Barkley famously protested, "I was misquoted." Apparently, Representative James Sensenbrenner knows the feeling. The Wisconsin Republican claims to have written the PATRIOT Act. Like the Round Mound of Rebound, though, he seems less than familiar with his handiwork.
Congressman Sensenbrenner purports to be stunned by revelations that the National Security Agency (NSA) has, for years, collected records of phone usage by untold millions of Americans. This was done under the PATRIOT Act's business-records provision, passed and later reauthorized while Sensenbrenner chaired the House Judiciary Committee. He is thus closely identified with the law and incensed over its use to amass this "metadata" trove. Or is it that he is mortified over publicity about the trove and the ensuing ire it has provoked in some Republican and tea-party precincts?
In such a spot of bother, most politicians would be content to gripe that their legislation is being used in a way they never contemplated. Not Sensenbrenner. He insists that the law is being violated. The PATRIOT Act's plain terms, he maintains, do not permit the ongoing data collection, period. He therefore accuses both the Justice Department (which began the program under Bush and has expanded it under Obama) and the judges of the FISA Court (the special tribunal created by Congress in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) of running roughshod over the strict, clear limitations he says he wrote into the law.
So is Sensenbrenner encouraging you to verify this by reading the law for yourself? Nope. His highly exaggerated claim of PATRIOT Act authorship is a transparent attempt to become the showstopper authority on what the act says. Just take his word for it - no need to check his version against the text.
Russian Paper Says "Weak Eyed Obama" Is Leader Of Sodom & Gomorrah Following G8 Summit
Although Obama is painted as a great President here in the United States, we must wonder just what do the nations of the world really think of President Barack Obama. We do use the label "President" very loosely here. It seems that the people of Russia are calling the United States the modern day Biblical Sodom and Gomorrah! We will get into that comment later. One now has to wonder just how in the world did the United States, once heralded as the greatest nation on earth, get such a very bad reputation by some outside our nation? It seems that the United States has taken a slide since 2008, but actually it could be traced even father back. We will just continue on what has been presented recently in the Russian Paper Pravda!
We received a communication from our friend Xavier Lerma and he sent us a very disturbing article based upon the perception of the people, not just in Russia, but maybe even the world. This has come to us and we are seeing the world now laugh at the United States to the point where the United States is now considered as a huge boiling pot of hate, anti-Christian, and very weak. Given this, we now wonder just why should we decide to drop our guard now with the other powers of the world gearing up to perhaps just walk into our nation and declare parts of it for themselves! Many have seen the two versions of the movie "Red Dawn," but few will ever think that maybe we should be well prepared for such an invasion, especially since it seems that Obama wishes to nearly give the other powers of the world the way to do just as is done in both of those movies.
Now that we have primed up your interest about what we have to show as proof that we as a nation should not just start being concerned about such an event, but even get ourselves prepared for this. The only thing keeping those who wish to do as was done in that movie is the fact that the vast population of this nation owns guns and that is being slowly taken away by Obama and once that happens, we may well see a "RED DAWN" scenario. Our thinking on this comes from the latest article by Mr. Xavier Lerma. It shows some things that we as a nation should look at and then yell at those who seem to be doing just what Mr. Lerma states!
Groups Plan Nationwide Protest on July 4 to 'Restore the Fourth' (Amendment, That Is)
The Blaze | Liz Klimas | Jun. 23, 2013 2:00pm
In the weeks since the leak of classified programs revealing government surveillance of citizen's communications data, Nathan White said he's seen people express first a sense of shock that then turns to anger and a "what are we going to do about it"-attitude.
This is where White says the social news site Reddit is filling a role that wasn't possible in recent years. As it did with the controversial SOPA and PIPA legislation (Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect Intellectual Property Act) last year, Reddit has been a rallying point of information regarding the leaks of the NSA's phone metadata program and its PRISM program, which collects information from cloud service providers.
It is on Reddit where people are learning how to send in letters to legislators about the program and are organizing around an upcoming, nationwide protest to take place on July 4 to "Restore the Fourth" - the Fourth Amendment, that is.
This is it!! We have a small window in which to act! The State budget is due on June 30th so the timing is right. Call! Let the representatives in our State government know we are aware. We know what they did back in 2001 and we want them to undo it! We know their pension plans are responsible for PA's $47 billion unfunded liability which is equivalent to $3700 for each Pennsylvanian. We know this pension crisis will cause more cuts to educational programs and more teacher layoffs. Demand they take taxpayers off the hook for their lavish pension packages. Go here to find your representatives - http://tinyurl.com/m4yyd2l
Inform yourself with the attached pamphlet . PA state workers pension program violates Fiscal Responsibility and Constitutionally Limited Government. Our public servant representatives need to fix the problem of untenable state worker pensions. It's not that we resent paying it, it's just that we can't afford it. Action Items 1. Call your representative and Senator and tell them you want to see pension reform that brings our state budget into balance. Talk to two friends or family members and convince them to make the phone calls and get two others to do the same, and so on, and so on.
2. Print the attached pamphlet using duplex (2-sided); check box for "flip on short edge". Give it to as many neighbors as you can the next 2 weeks. If you need some mailed, send me your address.
Keep an eye on your email inbox because we will be planning more activities focused on our goals of pension reform as well as privatization of our liquor stores
Thanks for your efforts Pam, Jim and Tim
How To Use The 2nd Vote App
There is an awesome application for computer and cell phone called 2ND VOTE (2ndvote.org) Want to know what companies support conservative issue and what companies support liberal agendas. It rates the companies and tells you how they finance different issues. Please take a few minutes to watch a short video on this application. Politicians understand only two things 1. Getting power 2. Keeping power. Business too understands just 2 things 1. Getting your money 2. Getting more of your money. Start using the free market system while we still have it. There is ALWAYS an alternative.
PLEASE SHARE WITH EVERYONE you know. Post on FaceBook and Twitter. This software was developed by a concerned conservative from Tennessee.
JUST GET THE WORD OUT!
Beyond Disrespect
Subject: Abraham asked the Lord to spare 50 righteous people. God responded to Abraham's plea "If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all ....Genesis 18:16-33
The movie " Corpus Christi " is due to be released this June to August. A disgusting film set to appear in America later this year depicts Jesus and his disciples as homosexuals! As a play, this has already been in theaters for a while. It's called " Corpus Christi " which means "The Body of Christ". It's revolting mockery of our Lord. But we can make a difference.
That's why I am sending this e-mail to you. If you do send this around, we just might be able to prevent this film from showing in Canada and America . Let's stand for what we believe in and stop the mockery of Jesus Christ our Savior. Where do we stand as Christians? At the risk of a bit of inconvenience, I'm forwarding this to all I think would appreciate it, too. Please help us prevent such offenses against our Lord. There is no petition to sign, no time limit, or minimum number of people to send this to.. It will take you less than 2 minutes!
If you are not interested and do not have the 2 minutes it will take to do this, please don't complain when God does not have time for you because He is far busier than we are. Hey it's worth a shot! Apparently, some regions in Europe have already banned the film. All we need is a lot of prayer and a lot of e-mails.
JUST GET THE WORD OUT!
Patriotic Summer Movie!
FROM THE DIRECTOR OF GODS AND GENERALS AND GETTYSBURG COMES THE LIBERTY MOVIE OF THE YEAR
RON MAXWELL'S COPPERHEAD
For anyone who reveres and believes in the preservation of the Constitution of the United States, Copperhead is a must see this summer!
Copperhead is unlike any Civil War movie to date. It is a film of the war at home - of a family ripped apart by war, of a community driven to an appalling act of vengeance against a man who insists on exercising his right to free speech during wartime. A story of the violent passions and burning feuds that set ablaze the homefront during the Civil War, Copperhead the movie is also a timeless and deeply moving examination of the price of dissent, the place of the individual amidst the hysteria of wartime, and the terrible price of war - a cost measured not in dollars but in fractured families, broken loves, and men dead before their time.
Based on the extraordinary novel by Harold Frederic, who witnessed these conflicts firsthand as a small child, Copperhead tells the story of Abner Beech, a stubborn and righteous farmer of Upstate New York, who defies his neighbors and his government in the bloody and contentious autumn of 1862.
Join Us For Our Next Monthly Meeting!
Thursday, June 27th @ 7:00pm
The Standard Club (formerly the "Moose Lodge") 127 E State St Doylestown, PA 18901 (215) 348-9135 Disaster Preparation Instruction Bob Collins Wilderness Survivalist
Bob Collins gained his teaching and survival experience as an instructor at the U.S. Army NCO Academy and Army Aviation Unit.
Now retired from the Air Force, Bob will discuss the following topics: Surviving natural or manmade disasters by applying the principals of wilderness survival. Even if we stock our homes with food and water, we will spend more than 50% of our lives out of our homes. We'll discuss the tools and techniques that will get you where you want to be.
TO MY POLITICAL FRIENDS: Please mark your calendars for Monday, July 15...there is going to be a upcoming rally in Washington DC at Freedom Plaza at 9:30 AM. From what I understand this rally is organizing AGAINST ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION and IN FAVOR OF JOBS FOR AMERICANS!! You can get more info about it at: http://dcmarchforjobs.com/ is the link site. A number of organizations are sponsoring it and organizing for it including: the Black American Leadership Alliance and the New Jersey Citizens For Immigration Control. If you are not available that day to attend the rally, you can still donate money towards helping to offset the costs of the buses to get to DC. From what I understand buses will be headed to DC for this rally coming from all over the United States!!. So if you support jobs for Americans then please join the rally.
Dear RedStater,
We are excited to announce that Governor Nikki Haley will be attending this year's RedState Gathering!
We'll be in New Orleans August 2nd and 3rd with an all-star line-up to celebrate our Fifth Annual event. Nikki Haley hosted us two years ago in South Carolina where she hosted a great welcome reception and gave a fantastic speech that really got the crowd fired up on Saturday morning. We are thrilled to welcome her back to the RedState Gathering in New Orleans.
Confirmed speakers include:
Ted Cruz
Ken Cuccinelli
Nikki Haley
Bobby Jindal
Jim Bridenstine
Speaker invitations have also been extended to:
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Gov. Rick Perry (TX)
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Sen. Marco Rubio (FL)
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Liz Cheney
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Rep. Mick Mulvaney (SC)
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Sen. Tim Scott (SC)
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Rep. Steve Scalise (LA)
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And more!
We'll have plenty more speaker announcements coming shortly, but we're guaranteed to have a good mix of elected officials, potential 2014 cycle candidates, and other RedState friends. Remember, the Gathering is unique in conservative events in that speakers pay their own way and are required to take questions from folks in the audience.
What better excuse for a trip to New Orleans? And, don't forget, your registration even includes most of your food, as well as access to deeply discounted hotel rooms.
As some of you may know, I am associated with Coventry Christian Schools as a parent of a graduate (2010) and as member of the Board of Trustees. Last October we spent a wonderful evening honoring Mark Niehls at our revitalized Founder's Dinner and celebrated our shared heritage in the remarkable community that is Coventry Christian Schools. Our vision for future Founder's Dinners is to inspire and inform not only our alumni and current CCS families but to inspire and inform the Tri-County Area and even our region by hosting speakers and artists who can uniquely assist us in celebrating the heritage, core values, and mission of CCS while also lifting our vision for an even greater future built upon the foundation of our past. The caliber of our speakers and guest artists should provide us with wonderful opportunities to share our CCS story with new partners in Christian education. Proceeds from the dinner will be applied to our annual Coventry Kids Fund for CCS scholarships.
This year we are proud to announce that our distinguished guest and speaker is Dr. Benjamin Carson, and our dinner's theme is "Faith of Our Fathers: The Role of Faith in American Schools." Please join us as we welcome Dr. Carson to the Tri-County Area and celebrate the great things God is doing at CCS!
Dr. Carson is a highly regarded neurosurgeon and motivational speaker who has addressed various audiences across the country. He is one of the most honored and recognized physicians in the world and holds more than 60 honorary doctorate degrees along with hundreds of awards and citations. He is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. He is the author of five books and is the founder of the Carson Scholars Fund. The 2009 award-winning movie entitled Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Carson, premiered on TNT and is based on his memoir. Dr. Carson is an authentic disciple of Christ, has been married to his wife Candy for more than 37 years, and is the father of three sons.
The 2013 Founder's Dinner, which will once again be a part of our Homecoming festivities, will be held at the historic Sunnybrook Ballroom in Pottstown on Sunday, October 13th, 2013. Doors will open at 4:30pm, followed by dinner at 5:15. Dress will be business/professional. Tickets will be priced at $100 until May 15th, then will be $125, so reserve your tickets for the reduced price.
Due to Dr. Carson's international reputation and recent prominence in the media, including his recent speech at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, we fully anticipate that this event will sell out quickly once advertised to the public. Tickets go on sale to the public April 15. If you are interested in attending, tickets can be purchased online. I will send the link out to those who wish to go on April 15
th
. While online reservations are preferred because they facilitate efficient event planning, you may also complete a paper order form, which I can forward to you as well.
All of us at Coventry Christian Schools, look forward to sharing this very special evening with you and acquainting you with the school and its mission!
Blessings,
Christine Gordon
Sponsorships are available as well and are as follows:
Gold Sponsor $3,000
Two tickets at Speaker's Table
Two tickets at Headmaster's Table
Listed as sponsor on school website through 12 months post event
Listed as sponsor on pre-event print marketing
Mentioned by name at event
Full Page ad in Dinner Program
Silver Sponsor $1,500
Two tickets at Speaker's Table
Listed as sponsor on school website through 12 months post event
Half page ad in Dinner Program
Bronze Sponsor $500
Two tickets at Headmaster's Chairman's or Founder's Table
Listed as sponsor on school website through 12 months post event
·Quarter page ad in Dinner Program
WHAT IS COMMON CORE?
Common Core, or the Common Core State Standards Initative (CCSSI), as it is known at the State and Federal level, is a set of national education standards that will fulfill the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, through a waiver system. (The NCLB Act was put into place by Congress in 2001 and signed into law by President George W. Bush). Many states were failing to meet the NCLB Act requirements and, therefore, wanted something to replace NCLB.Common Core is part of the UN's plan for complete federal control over our education systems and the "Dumbing-down" of America.
COMMON CORE IS A TROJAN HORSE AND TIED TO THE UNITED NATIONS (UN)
If you cannot see that Common Core is tied to the United Nations you have not done your homework! The major funder of the Common Core Movement is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has pledged $60 million dollars to this effort. Bill and Melinda Gates are tied to UN through-and-through and have spent money in America and overseas for UN programs in Africa and all over the world for decades.
From the Conservative Teachers of American organization, they wrote an article entitled: "Common Core Standards and the Federalization of Education." In this article we read: "Many are concerned that the Common Core Standards, once successfully implemented, will provide unfettered access of our educational system by the United Nations. Some textbooks and curricula for our public schools have already been written by the [United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization] UNESCO and the International Baccalaureate program, that is currently in many school districts, across the United States. Grabbing additional access is a natural next step. Once they write the curricula, they must have authority to develop all testing tools."
The UN involvement in the American educational system has already been facilitated by treaties signed by American presidents from both parties. Those documents include but are not limited to: Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Treaty on the Rights of the Child, Civic Education: Classroom Connections, and Agenda 21.
The US Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development (since 2003), is the nexus of the UNA-USA and Global Leadership Coalition at the Department of Education, which altogether leverages the UN Decade on Education for Sustainable Development 2005-2014. UNESCO, the lead agency of the Decade, defines Education for Sustainable Development as "education for everyone everywhere" for the "lifelong learning" of "present and future generations".
The UNA-USA sponsors Model UN across America and tailors its Global Classrooms curricula to whichever setting the kids happen to be participating. Children are unknowingly trained to respond with prescribed consensus to the situations, simulations and stimulation's of the particular activity (Delphi Technique). Global Kids is the CFR arm of Connect All Schools Consortium, a new Department of Education network, led by Independent Sector and The White House via United Planet Partners. Global Kids is preparing children for Agenda 21.
The White House, NSA and CIA now have website divisions aimed at kids. The Public Education Network is a national association funded by Independent Sector donors: plus Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Department of Education
From the Partnership for 21st Century Skills aligning the Common Core State Standards with "professional development" content for teachers and principals and Lego Robotics curricula for students (Carnegie Mellon/Lego Education); to software curricula through websites like: cyberschoolbus.un.org, icivics.org, atomiclearning.com, renlearn.org, brainpop.com and ttl4.sunburst.com; to the weekly deliveries of Time for Kids magazine and textbook curricula into classrooms; kids are programmed with UN-defined values. State Governors administer Federal funds to "Community-Oriented Policing" systems like Crime Stoppers (The UN, FBI and other law enforcement and corporate partners administer Crime Stoppers International), the local student-equivalent of the Department of Homeland Security's' "See Something, Say Something" campaign; whereby children see hand-drawn posters of child characters on school walls displaying "Eyes Looking", "Ears Listening", "Mouth Reporting" with a hotline to call. Presidents Bush and Obama have personally followed the George H. W. Bush/Clinton trail of the Agenda 21/ Sustainable America megabanks-maze in "bipartisan" fashion.
UNESCOPLEDGESSUPPORT OF COMMON CORE
From UNESCO's document "The Vision of Education Reform in the United States" it states: "My department has been pleased to partner with the US Agency for International Development to help ensure that our best domestic practices are shared world-wide. The United States provides over a billion dollars annually to partner countries working on educational reform. Our goal for the coming year will be to work closely with global partners, including UNESCO, to promote qualitative improvements and system strengthening....Ultimately, education is the great equalizer. It is the one force that can consistently overcome differences in background, culture, and privilege."
Principle #25- "Children and Youth in Sustainable Development." In the "Activites 25.9.d" it states: "Ensure access for all youth to all types of education, wherever appropriate, providing alternative learning structures, ensure that education reflects the economic and social needs of youth and incorporates the concepts of environmental training, implementing innovative methods aimed at increasing practical skills, such as environmental scouting."
Principle #36- "Promoting Education, Public Awareness and Training." In the Activities Section of this document in "36.5.g" we read: "Within two years the United Nations system should undertake a comprehensive review of its educational programmes, encompassing training and public awareness, to reassess priorites and reallocae resources. The UNESCO/UNEP International Environmental Education Programme should, in cooperation with the appropriate bodies of the United Nations system, Governments, non-governmental organizations and others, establish a porgramme within two years to integrate the decisions of the Conference into the existing United Nations framework adapted to the need of the educators at different levels and circumstances. Regional organizations and national authorities should be encouraged to elaborate similar parallel programmes and opportunies by conducting an analysis of how to mobilize different sectors of the population in order to assess and address their environmental and development education needs."
In the Activities Section of this document in "36.5 h" we read: "There is a need to strengthen, within five years, information exchange by enhancing technologies and capacities necessary to promote environment and development education and public awareness. Countries should cooperate with each other and with the various social sectors and population groups to prepare educational tools that include regional environment and development issues and initiatives, using learning materials and resources suited to their own requirements." Sounds just like PARCC and SLDS. ASU's Institute for Global Sustainability and their "Sustainable Cities Network" is doing a fine job "brain-washing" our students in our high schools on sustainability, global warming (aka climate change), etc. Go here to meet the ASU sustainability schools!
COMMON CORE SCIENCE STANDARDS TEACH GLOBAL WARMING!
Reality Check.....COMMON CORE EDUCATION = COMMUNISM IN AMERICA!
Common Core Education is the INDOCTRINATION of our CHILDREN.
DO NOT LISTEN TO THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT RHETORIC FROM MIKE HUCKABEE!!!
Reality Check- just in case you ever had a doubt......MIke Huckabee is a typical GOP Establishment person.
Mike Huckabee is now championing Common Core Education on Fox News for the GOP! How disgusting is that?!?!? "Mike Huckabee Urges Conservatives to Back Common Core Standards"
This is another reason why Constitutional Conservatives MUST leave the GOP and beware of what you hear on Fox News. Fox News continues to move to the left - to the liberal progressive side of issues. That is the very very sad but true fact. Mr. GOP Huckabee....."It's disturbing to me there have been criticisms of these standards directed by other conservatives including the RNC," Huckabee wrote. "The truth of the matter is, these criticisms are short-sighted." see attached article from Sunshine News. Send a message to Mr. GOP Huckabee at http://www.mikehuckabee.com/masterfeedback and send a loud message to the every more liberal progressive Fox News! Americans that believe in our Constitution must not be silent about this!
Do NOT let Fox News get away with promoting the very liberal progressive Common Core Education that promotes the ideology that American Children are Common/Community Property!
Do NOT let Fox News get away with promoting the loss of state's rights and the federal government taking over Education. WE NEED TO ABOLISH THE FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION - NOT EMPOWER IT!
If you support SOCIALISM AND COMMUNISM FOR THE U.S.A. then COMMON CORE EDUCATION IS FOR YOU. If you believe in the U.S.A. CONSTITUTION....then YOU WILL LOUDLY AND OPENLY REJECT AND OPPOSE COMMON CORE EDUCATION AND ANYONE THAT PROMOTES IT!!
Common Core Education is the indoctrination of American Children. This is NOT acceptable if you still believe in FREEDOM!!
The proponents of Common Core say that the standards ARE state led because they were developed by The National Governors' Association.
Well, perhaps this is true in a way that is very disturbing! Listen to this speech at the 1989 NGA conference on education (at 12:48).
The Development of Common Core, Explained by Michael Chapman
The video says this is a clip from the 1989 National Governors'Assoc conference on Education:
Sr. Director of Mid-Continental Regional Education Laboratory, Dr. Shirley McCune
She says about education:
#1) Total transformation of our society
#2) Teaching of facts and information (knowledge) is no longer the primary purpose of education
#3) Close connection between economic (sustainable) development and human capitol (human resource labor for a planned economy)
A group that allowed this kind of rhetoric to be said at their meeting? I don't think I want them developingeducational standards! Please read to the bottom for transcripts from the 1987 NGA meetings chaired by Bill Clinton. These transcripts are eye-opening. They are clearly more concerned with workers for the manufacturing. They seem to have concerns that we have students who can't read well enough (non-English speaking especially) to function in the manufacturing plants, and then on the other end of the spectrum... too many with higher ed degrees who don't WANT to work in the manufacturing. So... what to do about all this? Hummm.... standards! Make sure they read well enough to function as the industrial workers, but not so well that they don't want to!!! This is the John D. Rockefeller goal of the early 20th century when he started pushing for compulsory government schooling and funding the building of government schools.
NOW.... review the transcripts below of the conferences chaired by Bill Clinton: National Governor's Association website (find all annual meetings here with transcriptsm- ) 1986-87 NGA Chair Gov. Bill Clinton's Initiative
Making America Work: Productive People, Productive Policies
1987 Annual meeting.See page 34of this document to see how those governors seem to be concerned that we aren't training our students for the "workforce." They are concerned that the professors of higher ed are telling students to strive for more than the job of working in the manufacturing plants. On page 40 they start talking about standards needed in education. " See page 42 with this statement by Governor Sinner (great name!) to Lee Iacoccoa: "But you also made a point about the terrific cost to industry of the disparity between states in these regulations and I wondered, with all the fuss and the furor that we make over states' rights...." http://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/1987NGAAnnualMeeting.pdf
June 11, 2013: Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) leads the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee in a markup of the Strengthening America's Schools Act of 2013, an education initiative to replace No Child Left Behind. http://www.c-spanvideo.org/event/220036
At the June 10 Common Core forum in Fayette County, Superintendent Barge stated over and over again that if Georgia wants to change these standards at any time, we have the ability to do so.The testimony below contradicts this belief by Superintendent Barge and confirms that states who adopted the Common Core standards DO NOT have the ability to change the standards in any way on their own.
2:23:00 - Rep. Tim Scott discusses his amendment to Harkin's bill. Instead of states being forced to adopt blanket standards like Common Core as a prerequisite for funding, let's put decision-making back in the hands of parents and teachers in our communities."
2:31:00 - It is admitted that states who want to change the CC standards,the Secretary of Education would have to approve it. States DO NOT have the ultimate decision making abilities!
2:39:00 - Alexander reads page 89 of the bill stating that any changes to standards MUST go through the Secretary of Education for approval. As are most of the amendments offered by Republicans to this education bill, the Scott Amendment is defeated 12-10.
DATA COLLECTING: Senator Burr at the 1:00:00 mark reveals information about ADDITIONAL data points that this legislation will add to the data mining.He says that his count is now 500 data points.
TEACHER EVALUATIONS: Senator Alexander at 2:00:00 mark discusses his amendment to end federally mandated school and teacher evaluations. He says states had a "gun to their head" to adopt the teacher evaluations because they were desperate for NCLB waivers. He makes the charge that the Harkin bill creates a "NATIONAL SCHOOL BOARD." The Gates Foundation involvement is mentioned frequently.
Harkin says over and over "this is voluntary." If states don't want to implement the programs in the bill we just don't accept the money!" More strong evidence that our states need to "just say no" to all federal education dollars. As is pointed out in this debate: Any private business that entered into a partnership where the partner who contributed 10% funding got 80-90% of the control (as is the case with education funding under NCLB and Common Core) the partnership is DOOMED TO FAIL!
We all know how tough it is to maintain your morals in today's media world. Here are two gifts from the AFA to you, each meant to help you navigate your way through media today:
The critically-acclaimed film, The Third Jihad - Radical Islam's Vision for America educates about the nature of radical Islamic ideology. Law enforcement agencies across the country have used the film in their counter-terror training.
Understanding the threats of terror is the first step in preventing deadly attacks.
Please consider supporting our efforts
AGENDA 21 RESOURCE PAGEs
Agenda 21 and the impact on personal property rights and land rights content, This page is updated often, last update was May 3rd, 2013 about conservation easements by Rick Buchanan The most recent updates are first, but the foundational video series are below. under the
Taking Liberty Video Documentary. We have had several hundred thousand visitors to this page due to its indepth resources on Agenda21 and property rights. You can also search our database of over 15,000 content news and commentary articles for more information. Use the search box in the upper right corner above the newsletter subscription button. Recently the UN website removed some long standing links to the 351 page document on Agenda21 (link below) Just a note: Don't be fooled by the term "non-binding", as that can be easily edited by the removal of 3 letters.
Donna Holt from Campaign for Liberty has also written extensively on this issue and her research provided valuable information both to James Simpson and Right Side News, and most importantly, the citizens of Virginia to get them involved at the local level.
Sustainable Development is code for a policy designed to transform human society, essentially eliminating individual life decisions and replacing them with top - down, one-size-fits-all government control. In steady fashion, the agenda for this new policy, designed at the international level, is put into place piece by piece with a new government council here, and new regulation there, each designed to appear as a "local" development program. Like the proverbial frog in the slowly boiling pot, many Americans fail to notice the rise in government heat.
The main course of action to impose the new agenda is through the pretense of environmental protection; "Sorry about your rights, but if we don't save the planet, then we will all perish!" And so with the devastation of a thousand pin pricks, America and its form or government is being changed through the creation of non-elected boards, councils and regional governments, designed to enforce the new regulations and "assure that we protect the environment."
The pin pricks come disguised as such issues as controls on community development; controls on use of private property; controls on use of open space; creation of development areas, many times under the excuse of historic preservation; communities designed on the blue print of pack and stack housing; making it harder to drive as roads are narrowed, even forcing cars to share the road with bicycles; the enforcement of expensive mass transit boondoggle projects; and the never ending spending spree on inefficient, unworkable alternative energy, such as wind and solar power.
In fact, control of energy and water are the two most effective tools in the enforcement of the Sustainable Development agenda. Without energy and water, human society stops. Using strict controls on how, or even if, energy and water can be used provides government with the power to dictate every aspect of society.
Today the San Francisco Chronicle confirmed *utilities are giving customers smart meter data to the government and third parties. Reporter David Baker writes, "Phone records and e-mail aren't the only kinds of personal data that government agencies can collect on Americans. They can look at your home's energy use, too. And that information can be revealing."
Smart meters are a surveillance tool, best described by Jerry Day in this video- which has reached over 1.7 million viewers. And now we have proof that if you have a smart meters on your home, your privacy: what you do in your home, or if your not home, when you cook, watch TV, or if you get up in the middle of the night is provided to third parties for "legal" purposes when requested. The smart meter data when analyzed shows a detailed pattern of your life.
The Northern California ACLU writes, "transparency reports filed by the California utilities companies and obtained by the ACLU of California show that a significant amount of data about the energy use of Californians is also ending up in the hands of third parties. In 2012, a single California utility company, San Diego Gas & Electric, disclosed the smart meter energy records of over 4,000 of its customers."
The "privacy" rules, adopted by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) allows disclosure of smart meter data for legal purposes, or pursuant to situations of imminent threat to life or property. San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) disclosed the records of 4,062 customers. PG&E disclosed 86 and SCE disclosed one.
"In 4,000 of those [SDGE] cases, the information was subpoenaed by government agencies, often in drug enforcement cases or efforts to find specific individuals, according to the utility. The other 62 disclosures came as the result of subpoenas in civil lawsuits. Some of the released information focused solely on billing information, account addresses and other data that could be used to locate an individual." David Baker- SF Chronicle
According to the ACLU "a single legal request can potentially result in the disclosure of millions of customers' records."
*The SF Chronicle is not allowing full access to the article without a subscription. The initial information for the story can be found on the ACLU website.
Following is a list of all members representing Pennsylvania in the United States House of Representatives. Their name, party affiliation, office number, phone number and Congressional assignments are listed. You can print this list for immediate reference. If you wish to have the email address of your representative, type in "United States House of Representatives," click on 'Members" and then search for your Congressman's name. Go to his web page, where you will find his email contact page, regional office phone numbers and addresses and, hopefully, other information regarding what he is doing to preserve the Constitution.
Please note the committee assignments of each representative. They are very important.
Please pass this information to all those on your list!
Going his own way: Goodlatte (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
The most succinct way to describe how nervous Republicans will vote on a bill that would give millions of unauthorized immigrants a path to citizenship comes from a Democrat, former Rep. Bruce Morrison of Connecticut, a onetime chairman of the House Immigration Policy and Enforcement Subcommittee.
"This is all about Republicans who could vote for this, and might not: whether they're persuaded that there is enough pain and enough enforcement [to vote yes]. There's no meter that says it's just right," said Morrison, who now represents the engineering association IEEE-USA, which is heavily involved in Congress's immigration-reform debates.
It almost doesn't matter whether negotiators get the enforcement metrics right. Republicans simply need to fight tough enough to justify walking away if they don't get what they want. And getting a significant boost in border security and enforcement is about the only way they will be able to justify an otherwise unpleasant vote to give legal status to lawbreakers. Ideally, if the new policy makes it almost impossible for undocumented immigrants to work or live in the U.S., skittish lawmakers might never have to deal with this problem again.
On Thursday, the Senate reached a tentative deal on border security aimed at encouraging more Republicans to support so-called comprehensive immigration reform. Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and John Hoeven (R-ND) put together a deal with the "Gang of Eight" that calls for 700 miles of new fencing along the Mexican border, a near doubling of Border Patrol agents, and the purchase of aerial drones for additional border policing. Breitbart's Matthew Boyle accurately describes the real objective behind this effort. "The so-called 'compromise' on border security...is a sham meant to give political cover to Republicans who want to vote for amnesty but cannot be seen opposing border security."
Boyle's spot-on assessment is burnished by the reality that earlier the same day, the Senate defeated an amendment offered by Sen. John Cornyn's (R-TX), calling for mandatory border security triggers to be put in place before illegal aliens were granted legal status. The vote was 54-43 to table the effort, with Sens. John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), all voting to kill the measure outright, and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) voting to table it. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who may have sensed that he needed to save what little is left of his shredded credibility, broke ranks with the Gang of Eight and supported Cornyn. Yet later in the day, when the aforementioned compromise was reached, Rubio was effusive. "If you look at what's being proposed here, this is a dramatic expansion and improvement in border security that I hope will allow finally for this legislation to have the support it needs," he told Fox News.
Is Marco Rubio Among Those Helping Islamic Terrorists Into The US?
You are damn right he is. I have sat here for two hours tonight trying to calm down enough to write this. It's not going to happen. Let me explain...
There is so much news happening every single day and my schedule is hectic. It wasn't until late Wednesday Night that I found out about Tuesday's vote on the 700-Mile fence that is meant to secure our Southern border. For those of you who may have been hiding under the same rock that I have, let me update you courtesy of The Washington Times:
Senators on Tuesday rejected building the 700 miles of double-tier border fencing Congress authorized just seven years ago, with a majority of the Senatesaying they didn't want to delay granting illegal immigrants legal status while the fence was being built.
The 54-39 vote to reject the fence shows the core of the immigration deal is holding. The vote broke mostly along party lines, though five Republicans, including Sen. Marco Rubio and the rest of the bill's authors, voted against the fence, and two Democrats voted for it.
Republicans had offered the fence as a way to build the confidence of voters skeptical that the government will enforce its laws, but opponents said building more fencing is costly, would take too long, and shouldn't be dictated by Washington.
By all means we should rush to grant legal status. Let's not worry about what is in the bill. Sometimes you have to pass it to find out what is in it. I honestly cannot believe what I just read.
So what's the big deal about a fence?
It's a huge deal when you understand that it is not just Mexicans who come in through our Southern borders. As not to be remiss, I am picking on Rubio but 53 others voted the same way.
Why am I picking on Rubio? Because so many people seem to be falling for his charm but I am not. He is no different than John McCain or Lindsey Graham. I know that people want to believe he is but just look at his record.
People put Marco Rubio on a pedestal because they think he can get Hispanics to vote Republican in 2016. Whatever.
Whatever happened to looking at a man's character rather than the color of his skin?
Let me explain something if I may. There is documentation that Islamic terrorists use our Southern Border to sneak into the country. Every damn Senator who voted on this fence knows it and they simply don't care.
Amy Payne and Kelsey Harris | June 24, 2013 at 6:50am
The immigration debate barrels ahead in the Senate this week-and the Gang of Eight wants you to believe it's a done deal.
The media and many Senators have been trumpeting a new amendment to the bill by Senators Bob Corker (R-TN), John Hoeven (R-ND) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY), saying it would fix the border security holes in the original legislation. But Heritage experts have explained why the amendment is deeply flawed and "does not even promise a reduction in illegal immigration."
Today, the U.S. Senate will vote at 5:30 p.m. to end debate. That's typical Washington-rush to pass a bill before lawmakers can find out what is in it.
To help you understand what's at stake, the Heritage Immigration and Border Security Reform Task Force released a paper detailing the top 10 concerns about the bill. Here is an infographic you can share with some of the highlights.
Read the Morning Bell and more en español every day at Heritage Libertad.
Quick Hits:
This week, the Supreme Court will decide two cases dealing with the definition of marriage. Here are five things you need to know about these cases.
AT&T and Verizon are looking for more revenue, and that means more fees on customers, according to this report.
RedState Morning Briefing
For June 24, 2013
1.Latest "Deal" from the Senate: Pass Amnesty First, Read the Bill Later
On Monday at 5:30pm, the United States Senate will vote on the most sweeping immigration reform proposal it has considered in almost 3 decades - and it will do so having only seen the nearly 1200 pages of text for approximately 72 hours.Americans - including myself, my fellow senators and our staffs - are still trying to figure out exactly what is in the new Schumer-Corker-Hoeven "deal."
Sound familiar?Pass it to find out what's in it?Reminiscent of Obamacare, the lengthy amendment to replace the Gang of 8's original bill was crafted behind closed doors and introduced late on Friday, after many members had left town.In the 2007 immigration debate, close to 50 amendments were considered.But this year, we have only debated 9 - with some of us being completely shut out.
Given only a weekend to review the language, we will now vote on whether to end a debate that never really began. To be clear - this is not a difficult vote. On process alone, we should all vote "no."This was by design - the President, Harry Reid and the Gang of 8 preferred all along to ram through a "deal," and not have a real debate - just like Obamacare.Worse, just like Obamacare, the "deal" involved lots of horse-trading and buying off of votes at the last minute - a display of everything that is wrong with Washington, and one of the things I specifically campaigned against.
But, on substance - the vote is even easier. There are too many troubling provisions of the bill to list, such as de facto affirmative action hiring for current illegal immigrants due to Obamacare and huge amounts of discretion for the DHS Secretary to waive deportation and inadmissibility. And for all the talk, the new Schumer-Corker-Hoeven "deal" is nothing new at all.It's the same amnesty-before-false-promise-of-security of the Gang of 8 and the bills of debates past.
That is why we started this petition, so that Americans can speak out and let Senators know that they oppose the legalization-first bill offered by the Gang of 8 and Schumer-Corker-Hoeven.
I'm being a bit more cautious and including a few who, like the co-sponsors of the Corker plan, will probably vote for the immigration bill, but should be called anyway. Call them and tell them to oppose the Corker amendment (yes, tell Bob Corker) and to oppose the immigration legislation.
Winning political parties don't change their core principles or flip-flop on the major issues that animate major elements of their coalition. But they do pick their battles with care to maximize the number of wedge issues that favor them. Understanding this is key to understanding why the House GOP is right to push a late-term abortion bill that contains a rape exception. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
4.Ed Snowden flees Hong Kong, goes to... Russia.
This isn't civil disobedience, by the way: civil disobedience is when you tell the cops to go ahead and arrest you, the legal system to go ahead and convict you, and the government to go ahead and actually put you in jail. Civil disobedience is about doing what you think is right and accepting the consequences. Otherwise, it's presumption, arrogance, and the arrogant presumption of privilege (literally: "private law"). Which is an excellent way to describe Ed Snowden, frankly. And Wikileaks, come to think of it. . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
5.Mayors Against Illegal Guns Uses New York City Resources
The official website of gun control advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) is hosted by the City of New York, according to publicly available web hosting records. This revelation, first reported by conservative blogger John Ekdahl on June 20, is the latest evidence of coordination between government officials and MAIG using public resources.
Founded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, MAIG is registered under section 501(c)(4) of the tax code as a social welfare organization granted a tax exempt status.
Domain records at WhoIs.net also state that the registrant of MayorsAgainstIllegalGuns.org, MAIG's primary website, is the New York City Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (NYCDoITT). . . . please click here for the rest of the post →
6.The Mission Fields
My wife and I spent the better part of last Friday afternoon and evening in the emergency room at a local hospital. Long story, but all is well. While there, only a curtain separated our section of a room from another. Several patients rotated through on the other side of the curtain.
The first was a young man with terrible ear pain. A nurse came to ask questions of the young man. He had no job. He smoked eight joints a day and two to three cigarettes. He only drank on the weekend, but all weekend. He would only laugh when asked about other drugs he might use.
The older man would scold him, but there was no punishment, just acceptance.
The next patient was a child who had been playing football, tripped, and possibly had broken his wrist. Neither adult with the child worked. The child was scared and in pain. The adults with the child kept berating the child for making them get out of bed. It was after 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
A child in need of comfort received criticism and anger - anger over the adult having to get out of bed, anger over the male adult missing a wrestling program, anger about a waste of time, etc.
Obama Dealing with the Devil in Qatar William Sullivan Barack Obama has crossed his fingers and shot the dice, hoping for an honorable exit from Afghanistan by extending the olive branch to the Taliban. More
Obama's Terror Gambit G. Murphy Donovan Administration strategy seems to assume that the voting public is too inert, lazy, ignorant, and corrupt to care much about foreign policy. In this, team Obama may have their finger on the American pulse More
From the Front Lines June 23, 2013 The situation in Turkey is nothing like what you've heard from the state's media. More
Beck Goes Crazy, Reveals Master Plan
Untying the hands of our border patrol agents
Shock: Immigration Bill Waives Felony Document & Social Security Number Fraud
Sen. Ted Cruz Discusses Immigration Bill with Eric Bolling
LibertyNEWS TV - "The Lightning Round - Updating the Big Issues"
"America's Falling Star"
James O'Keefe Confronts Attorney General "Richard Head" Over Indicting Journalists
PM Netanyahu Meets with Cisco CEO John Chambers
June 23, 2013, 9:30 PM
Dear Members and Friends,
It has become a tradition for us to announce, every Flag Day, our Betsy Ross Activist of the Year for the states of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
The announcement was delayed, this year, as we waited to inform the recipients.
This 2013, we are also announcing the recipient of our George Washington Leadership Award, which is given to the leader of a grass roots organization.
Delaware 2013 Betsy Ross Activist of the Year
Jason O'Neill, Association board member; member, Faith and Freedom Coalition, Delaware Chapter; member, Knights of Columbus.
2012 recipient: John Raddell, founder, Faith and Freedom Coalition, Delaware Chapter.
New Jersey 2013 Betsy Ross Activist of the Year
Brenda Roames, president, Greenwich Tea Party Patriots of South Jersey.
2012 recipient: Cort Rosholt, Association board member, longtime conservative activist.
Pennsylvania 2013 Betsy Ross Activist of the Year
Stephanie Lieberman, original Association board member; conservative activist.
2012 recipient: Lisa Esler, steering committee, Delaware County Patriots.
2013 Betsy Ross Lifetime Activist Award
Patricia Peteraf, Association member and lifetime Republican activist.
2012 recipient: Lin DeCesare, original Association board member; member, Saturday Morning In America, lifetime activist.
2013 George Washington Leadership Award
Karen Miller, president, Pennsylvania Conservative Council; former member, West Chester Area School Board.
2012 recipient: Rich Davis, founder, American Sheepdogs.
This July 4th: Preserving America's Heritage
Plans for our 5th Annual Independence Day Celebration are being finalized.
We are honored that 'recovering congressman' J. D. Hayworth (above left) will be joining us to put the 1200+ page Immigration bill into its proper perspective.
As Congressman, J. D. Hayworth (R-AZ) co-authored the book, Whatever It Takes:
Illegal Immigration, Border Security, and the War on Terror.
We are very pleased that New Jersey Republican Senatorial Candidate and health expert, Alieta Eck, MD, will provide timely commentary on the state of ObamaCare.
Also joining us, American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) Executive Director, Jordan Sekulow. Attorney Sekulow will address the IRS Scandal and the lawsuit filed by 25 Tea Party Groups which included the Greenwich Tea Party Patriots of South Jersey.
Dean of the region's talk show hosts, WHPT's Dom Giordano will kick-off the event by discussing the cumulative effect of the various Obama scandals.
Also on board, the new Chairman of the Pennsylvania Teenage Republicans, Brandon Posner, and Montgomery County Young Republican, Tory McClintock.
The Whitehall Guard Fife and Drum will be on hand to play traditional colonial music.
As we have invited additional speakers, we expect the list to grow.
Of course, there will be a reading of the Declaration of Independence and lite
refreshments.
5th Annual Independence Day Celebration: Preserving America's Heritage
When: July 4th, 2013, 1-3 PM; Doors open, 12:30 PM
Where: Ballroom, Independence Visitors Center, 6th and Market Streets, Phila.
Cost: $15, Adults, $7.50, Students
We hope to see you!
On behalf of the Association Board,
Teri Adams,
TheReligionofPeace.com Presents:
Muslims often complain of popular "misconceptions" about their religion in the West.
We took a hard look, however, and found that the most prevalent myths of Islam are the ones held by Muslims and Western apologists. The only glaring exception to this is the misconception that all Muslims are alike (they aren't, of course), but even Muslims often believe this as well, as evidenced by the various contrary factions insisting that they are the true Muslims, while those who disagree with them are either infidels, hijackers, or hypocrites.
Don't be fooled! Hear the myths, but know the truth.
Report: Syrian Rebels Behead Christian Man and Feed His Body to Dogs
Jan. 1, 2013 Sharona Schwartz
Syrian Orthodox Christians attend Easter mass in Damascus, Syria in April. (AP Photo/Bassem Tellawi)
It seems there's no lowest point to the depravity of those murdering the innocent in Syria, and that includes atrocities carried out by those whom the West has decided to support. With each new atrocity, one can't help thinking "It couldn't be worse." Well, it just got worse.
A leading nun in Syria is reporting that a young Christian man in Syria was beheaded by jihadi rebels who then fed his mutilated body to dogs.
Speaking to Britain's Sunday Times, Agnes-Mariam de la Croix - who is mother superior of the Monastery of St James the Mutilated located between Damascus and Homs - said of the incident which occurred in early December: "They beheaded him, cut him into pieces and fed him to the dogs."
She says 38-year-old Andrei Arbashe was a newlywed whose wife was about to give birth.
Those who killed him apparently acted after Arbashe's brother was overheard complaining the rebels were "behaving like bandits."
When Rubio was running for the Senate in 2010--as a conservative backed by the Tea Party - he insisted that illegal aliens inside the US would need to go home and that giving illegal aliens "an earned path to citizenship," was nothing more than a "code for amnesty."
MSNBC is not a news network for the unemployed. It is a news network for aging liberals still addicted to listening to angry liberals yell about George W. Bush.
The American people have been betrayed by the political class, amid promises that the glaring problems of illegal immigration will somehow be completely remedied by the next legislative sellout.
Imagine FBI Director being given a Senatorial third degree over the IRS scandals and the blinding of the FBI over Benghazi and the Boston Marathon bombing. It should have happened to Hillary, too.
Due to IRS abuse, funding has become more difficult for nonprofits like FSM.
Did you know that if everyone who visited our FSM website this year donated just $1, we would easily exceed our annual budget?
Your gift will be an investment in freedom.
As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, The Family Security Foundation relies upon the thoughtfulness and (tax-deductible!) generosity of visitors like you.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same." ~ Ronald Reagan
"The wall belongs to history," President Barack Obama said, near the end of his speech in Berlin Wednesday. The Berlin Wall, which fell in November 1989, was not the only one he had in mind. Wherever liberal opinion perceives a barrier, physical or spiritual, to human equality, Obama argued, we must take out our chisels and pickaxes. "As long as walls exist in our hearts to separate us from those who don't look like us, or think like us, or worship as we do," he said, "then we're going to have to work harder, together, to bring those walls of division down." Or as his wife might say: Let's move.
Websites in North Korea were shut down early on Thursday after the anarchist group Anonymous reported stealing secret data from the reclusive communist state on Pyongyang's missile programs.
Billionaire environmental activist Tom Steyer said on Thursday that the millions of dollars he is devoting to stopping the Keystone Pipeline have nothing to do with the financial gains he could enjoy if the pipeline is not approved.
Iranian President-elect Hassan Rowhani sat on the secretive government council responsible for orchestrating the global assassination campaign against perceived enemies of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the 1990s, according to a 2008 report by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) .
In your typical zombie movie, the focus is on a group of people holed up somewhere, trying to survive. They man the barricades and scavenge for supplies, desperate to avoid detection by the flesh-eating hordes.
It's worth acknowledging that without James Gandolfini's star-making turn as Tony Soprano the New Golden Age of Television we now enjoy may never have happened.
Daily Email - June 21, 2013 Top StoryThe ACLU Joins Senator Paul's Anti-NSA Campaign By Cliff Kincaid | June 21, 2013 Senator Rand Paul's alliance with the ACLU, which opposes government surveillance of radical Muslims and other potential terrorists, is being defended by his Senate office. A spokesman told Accuracy in Media that "We will work with anybody that supports the following: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and [...] From the AIM Blogs Brokaw Finds Expansion of "Blogosphere" Troubling By Don Irvine | June 20, 2013 AIA Videos Dark Side of the Arab Spring Egyptian human rights activist and novelist Cynthia Farahat describes how women are treated under radical Islamic Shariah law.
Victims of Communism Remembered Heritage Foundation historian Lee Edwards talks about efforts to memorialize the victims of Communism.
In 2007, AIM produced a 30-minute video that covered the unveiling of the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington. It includes comments by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Cal.), former Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Cal.), and former President George W. Bush. You can view it here.
Rand Paul on the Surveillance State Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, questions whether government surveillance efforts make America safer. Guest ColumnMore Mega-Legislation: Senate Takes Up Immigration 'Reform' By Alan Caruba | June 21, 2013 If you liked Obamacare, you will love the proposed immigration "reform" bill which is all about the politics of the Left with no regard to the welfare of U.S. citizens by birth and naturalized citizens. Its final length remains unknown, but it was more than 1,500 pages by late April. The Senate takes up the [...] AIM Newswire U.S., Cuba to resume mailing relations
Please be sure all your friends in every State see these names. The vote and the bill is a matter of public record.
Over the weekend, we camefour votes away from the United States Senate giving our Constitutional rights over to the United Nations. In a 53-46 vote, the senate narrowly passed a measure that will stop the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.
The Statement of Purpose from the bill read:
To uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.
The U.N. Small Arms Treaty, which has beenchampioned by the Obama Administration, would have effectively placed a global ban on the import and export of small firearms. The ban would have affected all private gun owners in the U.S. , andhad language that would have implemented an international gun registry on all private guns and ammo.
Astonishingly,46 of our United States Senators were willing to give away our Constitutional rights to a foreign power.
Here are the 46 senators who voted to give your rights to the U.N.
Baldwin (D-WI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bennet (D-CO)
Blumenthal (D-CT)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Coons (D-DE)
Cowan (D-MA)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Franken (D-MN)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hirono (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kaine (D-VA)
King (I-ME)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murphy (D-CT)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schatz (D-HI)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Udall (D-CO)
Udall (D-NM)
Warner (D-VA)
Warren (D-MA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
Hello All, here is the list, note thatnone were Republicans
Thank God there was none listed for OK, AR, TX, WY, KS
People,this needs to go viral. These Senators voted to let the UN take our guns. They need to lose the election. We have been betrayed.
46 Senators Voted to Give your 2nd Amendment Constitutional Rights to the U.N.
God Bless America And those that protect her
The McCarthy-VDH Reader A digest of the latest commentaries from Andrew C. McCarthy and Victor Davis Hanson.
Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog4 Comments
Thank G-d, the medical situation mentioned in earlier weeks is improving. Hopefully this coming week will bring better news. This week was surprisingly all original articles, despite the conditions.
The roundup will still be brief as I am typing this up with not that much time left before I have to head out to the hospital. A place which I hopefully will never have to see for a very long time afterward.
OBAMAWAR 2: THE SEQUEL
To invade Libya, Obama lied and told the American people that the residents of Benghazi were about to suffer a massacre that would stain "the conscience of the world." No such massacre had taken place or was ever going to take place. The only innocent people who wound up massacred in Benghazi were the Americans sent there by Hillary Clinton.
This time, swap out Aleppo or Homs for Benghazi as the cities badly in need of American protection. Never mind that the Christians of Aleppo and Homs, the only innocent parties in a religious war between a Shiite government and Sunni terrorist groups, are in far more danger from the Islamist Sunni terrorists that Obama is proposing to arm.
The Free Syrian Army's Farouq Brigades went door to door expelling Christians in Homs. Of the 160,000 Christians in the city, there are now barely a 1,000.
In Qseir, the city recently recaptured by the Syrian Army from the Sunni militias, whose loss partly triggered the rush to war by the Western allies of the Muslim Brotherhood, most of the Christians had fled a place where they were once 10 percent of the population following Sunni Muslim persecution.
The 10,000 Christians of Qseir were ordered to leave the city by loudspeakers on mosques. If Obama's intervention helps the Islamist militias retake Qseir; there will soon be no Christians left in the city at all. And the same goes for Homs and Aleppo.
Obama is quickly tightening his reign of power in. We need to be watchful on how he'll try and keep power here in the next few years.
Check it out:
Even before a former U.S. intelligence contractor exposed the secret collection of Americans' phone records, the Obama administration was pressing a government-wide crackdown on security threats that requires federal employees to keep closer tabs on their co-workers and exhorts managers to punish those who fail to report their suspicions.
President Barack Obama's unprecedented initiative, known as the Insider Threat Program, is sweeping in its reach. It has received scant public attention even though it extends beyond the U.S. national security bureaucracies to most federal departments and agencies nationwide, including the Peace Corps, the Social Security Administration and the Education and Agriculture departments. It emphasizes leaks of classified material, but catchall definitions of "insider threat" give agencies latitude to pursue and penalize a range of other conduct.
Government documents reviewed by McClatchy illustrate how some agencies are using that latitude to pursue unauthorized disclosures of any information, not just classified material. They also show how millions of federal employees and contractors must watch for "high-risk persons or behaviors" among co-workers and could face penalties, including criminal charges, for failing to report them. Leaks to the media are equated with espionage.
4 Senators Introduce Bill To Block Obama's Funding Of Syrian Jihadists
On Thursday, four United States senators, in a bipartisan fashion, introduced a bill to block military funds to Syria. Senators Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Mike Lee (R-UT), Chris Murphy (D-CT), and Rand Paul (R-KY) put forth legislation that would prohibit Barack Obama from using any funds on activities that would escalate the United States' involvement in the Syrian war.
WASHINGTON POST HITS OBAMA Finally, the Washington Post speaks out on Obama! This is very brutal, timely though. As I'm sure you know, the Washington Post newspaper has a reputation for being extremely liberal. So the fact that its editor saw fit to print the following article about Obama in its newspaper makes this a truly amazing event and a news story in and of itself. At last, the truth about our President and his obvious socialist agenda are starting to trickle through the "protective wall" built around him by our liberal media. ___________________________
I too have become disillusioned.
By Matt Patterson (columnist - Washington Post, New York Post, San Francisco Examiner)
Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, the result of a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job?
Imagine a future historian examining Obama's pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a "community organizer"; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote "present"); and finally an unaccomplished single term in the United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions.
He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as a legislator. And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama's "spiritual mentor"; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama's colleague and political sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected president?
Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal: To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers, would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberal Dom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass. Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass - held to a lower standard - because of the color of his skin.
Is Hollywood about to nail it with a top faith movie?
Take this behind-the-scenes look at the true story of a remarkable, humble, faith-filled coach who not only achieved an enviable record in college football, but greatly influenced the young men he tled.
Here's why retaliation continues against Christians in military
Despite inclusion of language in last year's National Defense Authorization Act prohibiting punishment of service members for their religious and moral beliefs, retaliation against Christians has increased.
You see, that legal language is meaningless until regulations are defined that tell how the statutory protections are to be enforced.
Guess who has refused to do that ... Hint: he's the same guy who called the conscience protections "unnecessary and ill-advised."
Imagine it's 1946 ... the FBI, trying to track down Nazi war criminals who might be in the U.S., posts their pictures on the sides of buses to elicit the public's help in tracking down these evil men and women.
Wait just a minute, says a member of Congress. That's racist ... they're all German ... you're offending Germans.
Silly, you say? Something like that couldn't happen, right?
Friday afternoon, as Senators were leaving town, Harry Reid filed Cloture on a 1,190-page amendment that completely changes the substance of the Gang of Eight immigration bill.
Your Senators will be voting on the bill Monday afternoon without having time to read it.
They need to hear from you that they must reject this amendment! Call and tell them to vote NO on the Schumer-Corker-Hoeven fig leaf amendment.
Senators know that the Schumer-Rubio amnesty bill is an Obamacare-style train wreck, but some still want to vote for it to pay off political allies. These Senators are hoping their constituents will not find out what is and is not in this bill.
We must stop them!
Senators Bob Corker of Tennessee and John Hoeven of North Dakota worked out an amendment (making back room deals behind the scenes to secure votes) that will be used as a fig leaf for squishy Republicans and red state Democrats who want to vote for bill while appearing to be serious about border security. The bill will retains the "Amnesty First, Border Security . . . Maybe Later" framework of the Schumer-Rubio bill.
Regardless of how strong proponents want to make the amendment sound, it is still weaker than current law! The amendment contains many dreadful changes, like giving permanent amnesty to visa overstayers and adding $38 billion to the bill's price tag. For a more complete list of changes to the bill and political payoffs to specific Senators, Click here (PDF).
If this amendment passes, it is likely to secure passage of the terrible overall bill. We need you to pull out all the stops. Get your neighbors and friends together. Visit your Senators' offices, call, e-mail, send press alerts, write op-eds, make your voices heard! Click here for your Senators' contact information.
Buchanan: Hispanic influx from immigration bill could break US into 'two countries'
9:09 AM 06/23/2013
Jeff Poor
Media Reporter
On Andrea Tantaros radio show last week, conservative columnist and author Pat Buchanan warned of an unintended consequence of the immigration reform bill, a bill which doesn't place a high priority on assimilation.
According to Tantaros, her previous guest, former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey, said that the immigration legislation funnels money to so-called community organizing groups like La Raza with the idea of teaching immigrants "American history, the Constitution and civic participation." That leaves open the possibility of activist groups teaching with a partisan slant - and impedes assimilation.
Buchanan, author of "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?"explained that when different cultures are encouraged to assimilate, nations are susceptible to splitting apart, pointing to recent history as proof.
"With regard to the history and the teachingof it - this is one of the problems I've talked about when you have a single-culture single nation, you have basically a single culture," Buchanan said. "If you indoctrinate or teach kids different views about what their country and how it began, what you get is a growing disintegration of the country, a fragmentation into different parts. And we see this happening all over the world. In the last few decades where ethnic groups and linguistic minorities and ethnic minorities, cultural minorities, given the pressures of ethno-nationalism, [they] are breaking up countries all over the world. It's happening all over the Middle East. It happened in the Balkans where Yugoslavia broke up into seven countries. The Soviet Union broke up into 15 countries."
And when immigrants don't assimilate, as could be the case with the inflow Hispanic immigrants from the impending legislation, nations break up - a possibility he laid out with the United States.
Yesterday the House of Representatives voted down a $940 billion farm bill. The House leadership faced a revolt from both sides of the aisle. Conservative Republicans were angry over too much spending on subsidies, and liberal Democrats were upset over how much was cut from food stamps.
Speaker John Boehner was not able to keep his troops in line as 62 Republicans voted against the bill. Some conservatives are taking comfort in that fact, believing Boehner won't be able to keep them in line on the immigration bill or other key issues that stray too far from the conservative view.
Here's another reason the bill failed. Rep. Steve Southerland (R-FL) offered an amendment that -- horror of horrors -- allowed states the option of adding a work requirement to receive food stamps. Every House Democrat but one voted against the Southerland amendment, and after it passed dozens of them refused to vote for the final farm bill.
Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee, said, "I had people that came up to me and said, 'I was going to stick with you, but this [Southerland amendment] is too much.'" Peterson later told reporters, "Because what they're upset about on the food stamps is the block granting that they did back in '96, and what the Southerland amendment does is exactly the thing that they're upset about."
Ever since Obama took office, Democrats have tried to reverse successful welfare reforms. On Obama's watch there has been such an explosion in the use of food stamps that Republicans are trying to apply a modest, common sense reform to the program -- work for welfare -- but Obama's allies in Congress don't want reform!
More Bad News For Obamacare
The past week brought more bad news about Obamacare. Here is a brief summary with links to each story.
They've already got our phone records and emails. Now, thanks to Obamacare, government bureaucrats will have access to your health data.
Obamacare is hurting job growth and the economy. According to a recent poll conducted by the Gallup organization, 41% of business owners have stopped hiring because of Obamacare.
Thirty-eight percent said they had reduced "plans to grow their businesses," 24% said they were considering dropping their insurance coverage, 19% said they had "reduced the number of employees you have in your business as a specific result of the Affordable Care Act" and 18% said they had cut back on hours.
It's not just the private sector that is cutting back on workers' hours because of Obamacare. Local and state governments are finding that they can't afford it either.
Obamacare's state exchanges are supposed to be up and running as of October 1st. But the Government Accountability Office doesn't think that is very likely.
"The State is great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else." ~ Frederic Bastiat
Two Roads Diverged ...
An Open Letter to the GOP Elites Posted On America's Conservative NewsThere is a deep schism within this Party between a Conservative Tea Party base and an elitist Progressive leadership.
Obama spending $100-Million for 'Symbolism" on African trip By Judi McLeod CanadaFreePress.com"President Barack Obama's upcoming $100-million African trip will take a virtual entourage to Johannesburg, the same place where thirsty children lined up at the region's only water spigot as United Nations delegates gorged themselves on steak and lobster, washed down by fine wines at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Obama Struggles to Form Friendships Abroad By Melanie Batley NewsMax.com[N]ot only has the president struggled to bridge the divide with the leaders of two of America's oldest antagonists, Russia's President Vladimir Putin and China's President Xi Jinping, but he also has a tense relationship with the heads of some of America's most important European allies.
Michigan Moves To Prevent Secret Teen Abortions Life News On June 18, the Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee approved, by a 3-1 vote, legislation designed to prevent minors seeking abortion without parental consent from "judge shopping."
[Video] New Obama Birth Certificate Revelation Barack Obama's digitally altered birth certificate lists his father as "African" but Sheriff Joe Arpaio's Cold Case Posse says it is in possession of 1961 Hawaii birth certificates that use the term "Negro."
Did Paula Deen Call Obama The N-Word? The Daily Caller Though Deen allegedly called Obama the "N-word" in front of her employees, according to a lawsuit, the Southern-bred television personality actually campaigned with Obama in 2008, invited Michelle Obama onto one of her television programs, and praised the first lady's healthy eating agenda.
Obama Eligibility Attorney Linked To IRS Targeting Posted On America's Conservative NewsThe next time someone tells you that the IRS targeting of conservatives was undertaken by a few rogue agents, remember the name, Bob Bauer...
The Guardian Releases NSA Procedures To Target Non-US Citizens By Elizabeth Sheld Breitbart.comGreenwald and Bell write that "the broad scope of the court orders, and the nature of the procedures set out in the documents, appear to clash with assurances from President Obama and senior intelligence officials that the NSA could not access Americans' call or email information without warrants."
More DHS Insider From DC By Doug Hagmann CanadaFreePressAs noted in my June 7, 2013 report titled DHS Insider: It's about to get very ugly, the additional information provided to me that was temporarily withheld from publication is now being released.
Gaffemaster Biden Makes Waves Again WorldNetDailyGaffemaster and Vice President Joe Biden has hit the airwaves again, this time suggesting that today's immigration standards would have kept Barack Obama's ancestors at their shoemaking business in Ireland.
Jun 22, 2013 01:39 pm Recent scandals of the past few months are an indication of how the Obama Administration and their loyal minions are targeting American citizens in order to create a permanent majority. Readers familiar with Obama's political history know he has a habit of destroying or compromising his opponents. Now he and his followers are using the [...]
Video: Obama Called "Hypocrite Of The Century" In Irish Parliament
Jun 22, 2013 01:27 pm
Clare Daly in the Irish Parliament also calls him a "war criminal"... Related posts: Irish Need Not Apply - For U.S. Visas by Tom Purcell Well, this takes the Irish cake. The... Obama A Hypocrite When It Comes To 'Civility' Barack Obama deems speech 'uncivil public discourse' when it suits...
What Would Thomas Jefferson Think Of The NSA Surveillance Program?
Jun 22, 2013 01:19 pm Though many Americans are opposed to it, some still defend the NSA surveillance program as being necessary. I thought it would be worthwhile to visit quotes from someone who commands the respect of conservatives, liberals, and libertarians alike: Thomas Jefferson. Would he be opposed to the modern day surveillance state existing in the US? Undoubtedly [...]
Video: Team Arpaio: We Have Two 1961 Hawaii Birth Certificates That List "Negro", Not "African"
Jun 22, 2013 01:07 pm
Here is another very important update! Part 1: Part 2: Related posts: Unveiled! Hawaii's 1961 Long-form Birth Certificates By Jerome R. Corsi, Worldnetdaily Images of two 1961 Hawaii... Obama Classmate: All Of Us Born In Hawaii Have Same Birth Certificates Fox News catches up with one of Barack Obama's grade...
Jun 22, 2013 01:02 pm "Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants."- William Penn 1668 "We ought to obey God rather than men." - Acts 5:29 This last week, my ministry team made national news (again) as we came under fire for seeking and saving the lost. A deranged "Constitution teacher" physically assaulted my street [...]
Obama continues his assault on the Catholic church... Related posts: Liberal Catholic Sees The Error Of Her Ways Contrary to the wishes of liberal Catholics and their... How Many Catholic Voters Have Been Pushed Away By Obama? At some point in the future, a political scientist-maybe one...
Snowden Charged With "espionage", Theft In NSA Case
Jun 22, 2013 12:54 pm WASHINGTON - Edward Snowden, the former government contractor who says he revealed that the National Security Agency collects Americans' phone records and Internet data from U.S. communication companies, now faces charges of espionage and theft of government property. Snowden is believed to be in Hong Kong, which could complicate efforts to bring him to a [...]
Nice to see a Democrat doing the right thing for a change... Related posts: Congressman Blames Victims Of IRS Scrutiny For Targeting Activity The audacity of this guy (Democrat Congressman McDermott from Washington... Surprise! Dem. Congressman Not So Sure About ObamaCare Now So remember when the President and his Democrat colleagues pledged...
Jun 22, 2013 12:46 pm Earlier this month, President Obama traveled to California to tout the state's progress implementing ObamaCare as a model; but a look behind the curtain finds it is a model for corruption and cronyism. While other states that have accepted ObamaCare have specifically stated that their health care exchanges are covered by open-records laws, California is [...]
Video: Bloomberg's Anti-Gun Group Outrageously Honors Boston Bomber
Jun 22, 2013 12:38 pm
Way too many Americans have forgotten what's important, nor do they care. Related posts: Is There A Third Boston Marathon Bomber? In George Orwell's famous dystopian novel 1984, high officials direct robotic... Singer Writes Love Poem For Boston Bomber Amanda Palmer is getting a lot of attention for what...
Jun 22, 2013 12:34 pm It was my mother's ambition to give my two brothers and I as many opportunities to see the world as she possibly could. Though we were dirt poor, Mom saved every year so we could go on vacation in the summer. One of these summer excursions led us into Mammoth Cave of western Kentucky. As [...]
IRS Sent $46 Million In Refunds To 23,994 'Unauthorized' Aliens
Jun 22, 2013 12:23 pm The Internal Revenue Service sent 23,994 tax refunds worth a combined $46,378,040 to "unauthorized" alien workers who all used the same address in Atlanta, Ga., in 2011, according to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA). That was not the only Atlanta address theoretically occupied by thousands of "unauthorized" alien workers receiving millions in [...]
Video: No Justice For Women Or Foreign Workers In Saudi Arabia
Jun 22, 2013 12:19 pm
The following is a video editorial by William J. Murray, chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition: Related posts: Stop The Torture Of Christians In Saudi Arabia William J. Murray, the Christian son of atheist Madalyn Murray... Militants Can Marry Syrian Women: Wahhabi Cleric In Saudi Arabia A hard-line Wahhabi cleric in Saudi Arabia has recently [...]
Jun 22, 2013 11:59 am HONG KONG - Hong Kong was silent Saturday on whether a former National Security Agency contractor should be extradited to the United States now that he has been charged with espionage, but some legislators said the decision should be up to the Chinese government. Edward Snowden, believed to be holed up in Hong Kong, has [...]
Still More Evidence That ObamaCare Is Costing Jobs
Jun 22, 2013 11:01 am It's about jobs." That was how then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described ObamaCare shortly before President Obama signed it into law. Turns out she was right, although not in the way she meant. Pelosi was, after all, promising that ObamaCare would create jobs - 4 million of them. But we now know that ObamaCare is killing jobs and [...]
Jun 21, 2013 01:39 pm This story is a chilling reminder of the evil alliance of Democrats and unions. When super-storm Sandy slammed into the northeast last October, it left destruction and dangerous debris in startling amounts. Homes were folded up and rolled down streets. Civil buildings and churches were flattened, and dangerous toxic materials covered the landscape. The enormity [...]
Video: Will Democrats Tell Obama To 'Sit In The Back Of The Bus'?
Jun 21, 2013 01:29 pm
At least that's what Christian radio host Bryan Fisher thinks... Related posts: WND's Bob Unruh Discusses Democrats Certification Of Nomination For Ineligible Obama Mr. Unruh discusses ForgeryGate with radio host Peter Boyles.... Continue... Obama 'Is Rubbing The Aborted Babies In The Face Of Every Single American' Christian radio host Mat Staver: "What we see happening [...]
Jun 21, 2013 01:23 pm Those who plot the destruction of others often perish in the attempt."-Thomas More As the Obama administration is being uncovered for scandal after scandal, his plans are beginning to backfire. For example, the ever-increasing scandals at the Internal Revenue Service are now jeopardizing critical funding for the agency as it attempts to play a major [...]
Video: NSA Whistleblower: Obama Wiretapped Back In 2004
Jun 21, 2013 01:14 pm
In this bombshell episode of the Boiling Frogs Post Podcast Show, NSA whistleblower Russ Tice goes on record for the first time with new revelations and the names of official culprits involved in the NSA's illegal practices. Related posts: Boehner Calls NSA Whistleblower A Traitor In an interview with GMA this morning, Boehner called NSA... [...]
Jun 21, 2013 01:11 pm At first, it was mainly the right that questioned whether Obama should receive his Nobel Peace Prize. Increasingly, it is the left as well that is questioning Obama's contributions to worldwide peace. Even Bill Ayers recently accused Obama of being guilty of war crimes. Kris Zane, video contributor at westernjournalism.com, has done an excellent job [...]
A retired Air Force marshal was literally audited by the IRS the day he spoke out against the feds. And this is just the beginning... Related posts: Investigator: Obama's DHS Cyber Army Targets Anti-Obama Sites I suppose the 2009 report released by Obama's DHS over... Richmond Targets Tea Party The Richmond Tea Party said an [...]
Terrorist Memorialized At Mayors Against Illegal Guns Rally
Jun 21, 2013 12:53 pm An event held yesterday in Concord, New Hampshire by out-of-state supporters of Mike Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns movement turned ugly when a 2nd Amendment activist (who was protesting the event) was arrested. But buried in the Union Leader story was an arguably more interesting nugget. During the rally, supporters of the Mayors Against Illegal [...]
Video: McCain Attacks GOP For Not Supporting His Amnesty Plan
Jun 21, 2013 12:51 pm
Senator John McCain erupted on the Senate floor yesterday, blasting Republicans for not supporting his amnesty plan. Related posts: Senator Warns Against Rush To Amnesty Speaking on the Senate floor, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) explained... McCain Defends Clinton Aide Against Allegations WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican Sen. John McCain is defending a...
Priest's Letter To Nancy Pelosi: Renounce The Faith Or Comply
Jun 21, 2013 12:48 pm Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi is openly pro-choice, a stance that, quite obviously, contradicts Catholic teaching. After she recently rebuffed a reporter and used her faith to defend her policy views on abortion, it seems at least one priest is calling for her to either comply with - or renounce Catholicism. In an open letter, Fr. [...]
Video: Voter Fraud Watchdog Groups Also Targeted By IRS
Jun 21, 2013 12:46 pm
Minnesota Majority President Dan McGrath discusses being targeted by the IRS on Fox News... Related posts: MN. Dem Elections Manager Hides 2012 Election Records To Cover Up Voter Fraud In this January 3rd, 2013 edition of the Minnesota Majority... Massive Voter Fraud Across The U.S. Art Thompson, CEO of the John Birch Society, discusses voter...
Jun 21, 2013 12:43 pm Anyone familiar with my position relating to tort reform understands that I feel this nation's overly litigious nature is a factor in many of our current ills. While I firmly stand by that assertion, I also believe a lawsuit can sometimes be the only way to bring much deserved attention to an issue that might [...]
Video: Another Leftist Attack On "Birther" Congressman
Jun 21, 2013 12:36 pm
Dave Pakman attacks Rep. Duncan for daring to answer Obama ID fraud question... Related posts: Congressman: We Should Investigate Obama's "Phony Identification Papers" South Carolina Congressman Jeff Duncan agrees that Congress should look... Congressman Concerned Over IRS Agents Training With AR-15s Congressman Jeff Duncan questions why he saw IRS agents training...
Obama Must Make Peace With America To Avoid Nixon's Fate
Jun 21, 2013 12:26 pm Although those of us who understand the telecommunications business are not surprised, it would appear that the knowledge that the Federal Government has the usage details of your phone number and can read your email is a shocker to many people whose knowledge of telecom is that they know how to text their kids. These [...]
Who do you think we're referring to? Related posts: The Judas Media by Michael Oberndorf The badly misnamed "mainstream" media have... Republicans Are Content To Be The Liberals' Lackeys And Judas Goats Republicans have become the Democrats' lackeys and Judas goats, whose...
Jun 21, 2013 12:20 pm Modern law enforcement officers already face a litany of hurdles and red tape while performing their prescribed duties, and a proposed New York City bill would further hamstring that city's policing efforts. Police in the nation's most populous city are outraged by a city council recommendation that would prohibit them from describing suspects using almost [...]
Video: ObamaCare Implementation Troubles Causing Anxiety Among Democrats
Jun 21, 2013 12:16 pm
A new survey spells really bad news for Obamacare... Related posts: Democrats Joining Republicans In Criticizing ObamaCare Good news, I suppose...... Continue to Post... Democrats Are Very Nervous About ObamaCare This beast is just not workable. The application page is...
Jun 21, 2013 12:06 pm WASHINGTON- The Senate Republican leader, who last year accused the Obama administration of Nixon-style dirty tricks, said Friday that the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative groups is part of a broader government assault on free speech. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky seized on the spate of controversies besetting the White House, saying Americans are [...]
Government Intervention Is Never The Answer - Part 1
Jun 21, 2013 11:49 am I'm convinced that government intervention is never the answer, even in the short-term, as the long-term consequences ultimately are always much more painful. Let's consider the reckless actions taken by our government to uproot our healthcare system. What we are now facing is not the product of intelligent, well-researched, comprehensive reform that enables the private [...]
Jun 21, 2013 11:07 am A question I've been asked a lot lately goes a little something like this: Beyond the fact it betrays the rule of law and rewards lawbreakers by giving them what they broke the law for in the first place, I don't understand why all these Republican "leaders" want to engage in a scamnesty program that [...]
Christendom's Greatest Cathedral To Become A Mosque
Jun 21, 2013 09:53 am While unrest in Turkey continues to capture attention, more subtle and more telling events concerning the Islamification of Turkey-and not just at the hands of Prime Minister Erdogan but majorities of Turks-are quietly transpiring. These include the fact that Turkey's Hagia Sophia museum is on its way to becoming a mosque. Why does the fate [...]
"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules." --Thomas Jefferson
Seven years ago, Congress mandated building 700 miles of fence along the border, though it watered down the requirement a year later. Today, according to The Washington Times, "The border now has 651 miles of barriers, but only 36 miles are at least double-tier fencing. Another 316 miles are single-tier pedestrian fencing, and the rest -- 299 miles -- are vehicle barriers that still allow wildlife, and people, to cross." No wonder John McCain ran a pandering 2010 senatorial ad growling that we need to "complete the danged fence."
The current Senate -- with faux border hawk McCain's help -- rejected several amendments to the Gang of Eight legislation aimed to tighten control of the border. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) proposed an amendment that failed last week, and two offered by Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and Rand Paul (R-KY) likewise failed this week. All three amendments sought to re-establish the border fence or make other security measures preconditions to granting legal status to illegal aliens.
Another amendment by Sens. John Hoeven (R-ND) and Bob Corker (R-TN) may gain enough support for passage by replacing enforcement "triggers" and benchmarks for legalization with 20,000 more Border Patrol agents (doubling the current number), more high-tech surveillance equipment, full implementation of E-Verify and completing the "danged fence." The bottom line, however, is that no serious enforcement benchmarks are going to fly in a Democrat-controlled Senate, and Gang members want to reach 70 votes -- a threshold that will necessitate watering down the bill or loading it with security provisions that won't be enforced. And after the bait-and-switch history of the 1986 immigration reform, why should we believe their promises now?
Then again, illegal immigration has slowed since the last time the issue boiled over -- the Border Patrol says illegal entry is at a 40-year low. Some of that is due to better (not satisfactory) enforcement, but most is a result of the abysmal Obama economy. No jobs means few immigrants. Don't complain that Obama never solved anything.
The House is another matter, too. Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) says he won't bring a bill to the floor that doesn't have majority Republican support. Whatever the Senate bill may be it doesn't meet that standard, so we'll see if Boehner is true to his word.
Thursday night on Fox News's "The O'Reilly Factor," host Bill O'Reilly came out in full-scale support for the immigration reform bill currently making its way through the Senate.
Despite its border security shortcomings, O'Reilly said, "it looks like the secure border is in reach - at least somewhat." He continued, "Talking Points supports immigration reform, even though I well understand the new law will be somewhat chaotic...will be a magnet for more people to come here illegally, which is why we need stepped up security around the border." He concluded, "I hope this bill does become law."
On Wednesday, a former intelligence analyst and Bush-era NSA whistleblower, claimed that the intelligence community has ordered surveillance on a wide range of groups and individuals, including: high-ranking military officials, lawmakers and diplomats. He also said they spied on then Senate candidate Barack Obama in 2004. Get the latest details HERE.
Thursday night, conservative author and commentator Ann Coulter joined Sean Hannity on his television program. Both went after Republicans, whom they believe are falling for a purportedly unpalatable immigration bill. Watch the entire segmentHERE.
Far-left Irish politician Clare Daly, formerly a leader in the country�s Socialist Party, is being called �disgraceful� by her compatriots after lashing out against President Obama in the wake of his visit to Ireland for the G-8 Summit. Ms. Daly took the President to task saying, �It�s hard to know which is worse, the outpourings of the Obamas themselves, or the sycophantic fawning over them by sections of the media and political establishment.� Watch the full videoHERE.
THIS JUST IN: An insider near Washington D.C. has just blown the lid off the 7 Deadly Drugs the U.S. Government can't wait for you to swallow. Click here now for the full list before "Big Brother" catches on...
In an age where you can buy a car or get a college degree without ever leaving the house, Colorado lawmakers have made one thing impossible to obtain from comfort of the couch -- a concealed weapon permit. Read the details of the new law and see if you agree or disagree with the requirements HERE.
Thursday, Louisiana State Sen. Elbert Guillory joined the Glenn Beck Radio Program to speak more about his decision to leave the Democratic party and switch to the GOP. Listen to the moving interview with the brave Louisiana State SenatorHERE.
Beginning in September, at high school sporting events in New Jersey, telling opponents they �throw like a girl� could be a civil rights violation that ends up on the desk of the attorney general as part of a new policy announced Wednesday by the NJ State Interscholastic Athletic Association. Is this a good idea? Get the details and take TheBlaze pollHERE.
Earlier this year, a tour guide discovered a carved column in the old city of Jerusalem, but little has been reported about the treasure that experts say dates back to biblical times and could actually be part of a whole temple or place buried below. See a photo of the rare artifact and get the story behind the silenceHERE.
What makes a good wedding gift? And is there specific etiquette concerning giving and receiving wedding presents? A couple recently sent a special gift basket filled with food to some friends who were getting married. The card attached read, �Life is delicious�.Enjoy.� One of the newlyweds happened to be allergic to most of the items in the basket and took exception to the gift. See the text messaging feud that has risen to "knock-down, drag-out" statusHERE.
Patients suffering from Parkinson�s disease lose some of their motor function, leading to violent trembling, rigidity and stiffness. One of the most invasive treatments of the disease is Deep Brain Stimulation. See the dramatic results that can come from this special brain surgeryHERE.
A group of men in China were in the right place at the right time to catch a falling toddler as she tumbled from a fifth-story window. Surveillance footage aired on Chinese state television CCTV showed the 2-and-a-half-year-old girl plummeting toward the ground and several deliverymen rushing to catch her. Watch the clipHERE.
As of June 10, Veterans Affairs reported 816,839 pending compensation claims for service-related disabilities as the agency continues to come under fire for sluggish processing that has left wounded warriors waiting for months on end for any claims resolution.
Thousands of protesters descended on the Capitol's West Lawn to rally against the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and its targeting of conservative groups. The "Audit the IRS" event organized by the Tea Party Patriots featured several prominent conservative lawmakers, including Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Rand Paul (Ky.), and Ted Cruz (Texas), and Reps. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) and Dave Camp (Mich.).
Protecting Americans from making foolhardy investments in Cuba is one thing, but the people who are truly protected by the embargo are the U.S. taxpayers. And, a reversal in stance on the embargo would likely not net a single vote for the GOP and changing the policy would send a signal to the Castro brothers and the world that if you hold out long enough the U.S. can be duped into forgiving and forgetting anything.
How the Nanny State and the complexity creeps are tearing the nation apart. And sadly, with President Obama being revealed as the corrupt Cook County Machine hack he always was; with ObamaCare set to kick in; and with blue regions on the verge of bankruptcy, it's only going to get uglier.
Lord Black of Crossharbour's unrequited love affair with the USA has survived even imprisonment. Here's a look at his new book, a glance back at some old ones - and the night I came face to face with Hitler in Conrad Black's Toronto mansion.
Year Five of the Obama Presidency, and He's Already Nostalgic for the Good Old Days
Remember when presidents went on overseas diplomatic trips to escape their troubles at home?
National Journal contends this week's trip to Europe was a pretty lousy one for President Obama, a steady demonstration of how he never lived up to the hype of the massive crowds of his 2008 appearance:
President Obama's honeymoon with the world is over.
What was it, exactly, about Obama's controversy-marred trip to Germany and the G8 Summit in Northern Ireland that fell so flat? Ummm, how about ... everything?
There were the snarky words from Vladimir Putin, who expressed an almost Soviet-esque distance from Washington in his views about Syria. "Of course our opinions do not coincide," the Russian leader said bluntly. There was the coded warning from Chancellor Angela Merkel about spying on friends, and her and Obama's continuing frostiness over the issue of economic stimulus versus austerity. Above all, there was Obama's vague attempt at the Brandenburg Gate to capture some wisp of his past glory by pledging vague plans to cut nuclear arms and an even vaguer concept of "peace with justice."
The "peace with justice" line was a quote from John F. Kennedy, Obama's attempt to steal just a little of JFK's thunder from 50 years before. He didn't come away with much, winning just a smattering of applause from a crowd that was one one-hundredth the size of JFK's. A crowd that, at about 4,500, was also much, much smaller than Obama drew as a candidate in 2008.
Not only is the honeymoon long over, folks. The marriage is becoming deeply troubled and, increasingly, loveless. . . .
And even as he quoted Kennedy in his Brandenburg Gate speech Obama appeared to hop lightly from topic to topic, much as his foreign policy has. "The Russians know what they want. I think we've in a situation of strategic drift for several years," says John Arquilla of the Naval Postgraduate School.
You may have sensed a theme to the Jolt's sections on foreign policy this week.
The president's national-security team seems to recognize that there's a danger that the Syrian war, already starting to have a big impact on Turkey, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon, could well become the all-out Sunni vs. Shia war that some feared the Iraqi insurgency would turn into back from 2005 to about 2007. But Obama doesn't really know what he wants to do in Syria; he's sending arms but sending out Ben Rhodes to explain the policy. Kerry wants to intervene, the Pentagon thinks he doesn't understand the risks . . . and so we're in this nether world of sort-of, kind-of intervening in a limited way, and hoping our arms don't end up in the wrong hands.
President Obama wants to get us out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible, and he's willing to pretend that the Taliban are trustworthy negotiation partners if that's what it takes.
The start of peace talks between the United States and the Taliban was delayed on Thursday, with no clear picture of when - or even if - they will restart.
Diplomats were still engaged in discussions about how the Taliban are presenting themselves at their new office here. After Afghan officials angrily announced they would not participate in the talks because the Taliban raised their flag along with a banner reading "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," American officials asked the Qataris to get the Taliban to remove such emblems of legitimacy.
The banner was removed by Wednesday night, and the flag - on a pole in the compound of the Taliban office - disappeared from view around the same time. But Thursday morning, in better light, it became apparent that their flag was still flying, albeit on a flagpole that had been shortened a couple of yards so the flag could not be seen above the wall by the general public. It could be seen only through gaps in the high wall - which is where Afghan Embassy officials were seen Thursday morning, snapping photographs of the scene.
An Afghan official in Doha refused to comment on whether the Taliban had met the government's terms in a way that would reinstate the Afghan delegation to talks.
Senior officials close to President Hamid Karzai made clear in conversations late Wednesday that they wanted the Taliban, at the least, to remove all the visible signs that suggested that the insurgent group believed they were still the legitimate Afghan government.
Syria's bloodbath, what is left when the Americans leave Afghanistan, the Iranian nuclear program -- these are all big, tough issues. Obama rose to power on one big foreign-policy idea, getting U.S. troops out of Iraq. Now that's done, and there's little over-arching framework or worldview of what the American role should be in addressing these sorts of tough issues -- other than giving the usual happy talk at international conferences.
In stark contrast to that of his presidential predecessors, Barack Obama's message on Wednesday was pure mush, another clichéd "citizens of the world" polemic with little substance. This was a speech big on platitudes and hopeless idealism, while containing much that was counter-productive for the world's superpower. Ultimately it was little more than a laundry list of Obama's favourite liberal pet causes, including cutting nuclear weapons, warning about climate change, putting an end to all wars, shutting Guantanamo, ending global poverty, and backing the European Project. It was a combination of staggering naiveté, the appeasement of America's enemies and strategic adversaries, and the championing of more big government solutions.
There was little in this speech that advances US interests, or makes the world a safer place. Completely missing from Obama's address was a call for the West to stand up to the rising threat of Islamist militancy, the defence of Christians facing huge levels of persecution and intimidation in the Middle East, strong condemnation of Iran and North Korea's nuclear ambitions, and any criticism of growing authoritarianism in Russia. The president paid lip service to the NATO alliance, which has proved critical in preserving Europe's security for over 60 years, but made no call for the alliance to be strengthened in the wake of waning support and investment in Europe.
Ace examines why Obama goes back to the old and familiar:
Why give this speech at all? If he had nothing much to say -- and it appears he did not -- why go through the motions?
In asking that question, let's remember Obama's equally-gaseous, equally-empty Speech Made In Front of an Impressive Array of Flags on May 23. Even the liberal Daily Beast thought it was okay to snark on it, noting that the speech could be easily digested into 248 seconds. But even in that abbreviated form, I don't see any policy initiatives or major statements.
What I see is only Obama whining that his job is hard and that he still really really wants to close Guantanamo.
So once again, the question: If there's nothing to say, why say it?
What I see Obama doing when he gets into trouble is . . . continuing to seek to return to his 2008 Woobie of world-adoration and Talkin' About Peace, like a high-school football star who always makes a point of driving by the old field and looking wistfully at the old stands, even 30 years on.
What I see is two speeches empty of new ideas. If there is no policy component to them, then they only have a political component-- that is, for Obama to remind people Hey remember you once liked me, back when I was the rock star of Europe?
I think Obama gave these speeches largely for himself, to convince himself that he's still the Rock Star of 2008. But if he was seeking comfort that he still had his Magic and Mojo, it looks like searched in vain.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns, and Apparently Also Against Examining the Details
At a demonstration Tuesday in Concord, New Hampshire organized by Michael Bloomberg's advocacy group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, participants tried to rally support for gun control by spending several hours reading aloud from a list of gun violence victims who have been killed since the Newtown shooting.
But the list from which the activists were reading - which was compiled by Slate and includes more than 6,000 names -- contained at least 10 murder suspects, including the alleged cop killer Christopher Dorner, who was the subject of a massive, high-profile manhunt in February, and apparently killed himself in a cabin after a gun fight with police.
Already, the Bloomberg group was forced to apologize Tuesday after the New Hampshire Union-Leader reported Tuesday that Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev was named among the victims.
But it still says something about the numbskulls organizing this rally that they didn't recognize the names Tamerlan Tsarnaev or Chris Dorner and figure out that they might not be victims of gun violence. I mean, it's not like either of those guys didn't get some media coverage.
Slate points out: "The interactive is not a list of 'victims' of gun violence -- in fact, the interactive never uses that word, for this very reason. It is a pure accounting of deaths, provided, as our original partner in the project @GunDeaths notes, 'regardless of cause and without comment.'"
But we can tell what Mayors Against Illegal Guns wants to do with this number. You see the number 6,000 and gasp, and initially believe it means that Newtown-style shootings are occurring every day. As Slate writes elsewhere, "roughly 60 percent of deaths by gun are due to suicides." Suicides and homicides are both tragic, but they're pretty different from a public-policy perspective. The absolute very best suicide-prevention programs and policies will have a nominal effect, if any, on the homicide rate, and vice versa.
Oh, Terry
McAuliffe is at it again, hoping you don't pay any attention to anything but what he says.
While McAuliffe is viewed by many as an entrepreneur and businessman, the Republican campaign has been quick to point out two of McAuliffe's ventures, GreenTech and new energy firm Franklin Pellets, have shown sluggish growth.
McAuliffe conceded the businesses haven't taken off as rapidly as he'd hoped during a visit to nearby Loudoun County on June 14.
"I've been involved in starting two very 21st-century innovative businesses. They're both start-ups. They're both successful today at different elements in what they're doing. They take time, maybe they take longer than we'd hope," he said.
An upstart electric car company made the promise of providing hundreds of new jobs in North Mississippi almost one year ago. Taxpayers helped foot the bill to land Greentech Automotive, and now they want a return on their investment.
When a company commits to creating hundreds of jobs, it gets people's attention.
Now model cars are gone from outside of the plant. The only evidence Action News 5 investigators found of any electric car production were a couple of cars whizzing around the parking lot after our crew started filming.
Based on last year's announcement this facility should be booming by now.
For months, the Action News 5 Investigators asked to get back inside Greentech to see the operation and the Mid-Southerners hired to fill those promised positions. Greentech Vice President Marianne McInerney denied our requests each time, but share 78 employees worked inside.
ALAN KEYES - Remember the Time magazine cover that touted Marco Rubio as the new voice and savior of the GOP? Now his complicity in the Gang of 8's betrayal of America's sovereignty is forcing conservatives to admit what Time magazine's stamp of approval should have proven to them already. Marco Rubio is just another deceitful figurehead of the elitist faction forces working to overthrow constitutional self-government in the United States.... (more)
FRED HUTCHISON, RA ANALYST - Both the Roman Republic and the American Republic enjoyed a period of energy and vitality. The thesis of this essay is that the American Republic is still in its era of vitality.... (more)
CLIFF KINCAID - If the NSA or the FBI wants to find fugitive Edward Snowden, who is apparently in hiding in Chinese Hong Kong, its analysts and agents might want to examine a controversial non-profit group, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and its main financial sponsor, the San Francisco-based Foundation for National Progress.... (more)
WORLDNETDAILY - London Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story exposing the National Security Agency's collection of the telephone records of millions of U.S. Verizon customers, founded a progressive activist coalition that encompasses a who's who of the George Soros-funded radical left.... (more)
NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE - For conservatives who oppose the Gang of Eight immigration bill championed by Senator Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), yesterday was their day to proclaim their disagreement loud and clear.... (more)
WASHINGTON TIMES - Thousands of activists rallied outside the Capitol on Wednesday to protest the IRS targeting of conservative and tea party groups, with many of the event's speakers laying the blame for the fiasco squarely at the White House.... (more)
NEWSMAX - Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy says President Barack Obama's bombshell revelation in Berlin that America's nuclear arsenal should be dramatically reduced was a mistake and "may turn a lot of Americans off."... (more)
NEWSMAX - President Barack Obama's call on Wednesday for "peace with justice" as he proposed the reduction of America's nuclear arsenal has communist overtones and could trigger an arms race, veteran journalist Bill Gertz says.... (more)
CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY - Despite passing the U.S. House of Representatives, a bill to prohibit abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy faces an uncertain future as President Obama's administration has suggested that he will veto it.... (more)
JOSEPH FARAH - Only 10 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, struck down sodomy laws in the Lone Star State. In his dissent in that case, Justice Antonin Scalia warned that such a ruling would open the door inevitably to polygamy and same-sex marriage.... (more)
TERENCE JEFFREY - Likening religious schools to segregation--a racist system that forced blacks to attend different schools and use different facilities than whites in the American South--President Barack Obama told a town hall meeting for youth in Belfast, Northern Ireland on Monday that there should not be Catholic and Protestant schools because such schools cause division.... (more)
WASHINGTON TIMES - A Republican congressman called Wednesday for an audit of all U.S. government secrecy standards, saying "classification inflation" is forcing federal agencies to issue more and more clearances, increasing the chances for leaks about vital programs.... (more)
MSNBC - A Republican congressman is reviving the birther conspiracy and calling on Congress to revisit key issues that he says test "the president's validity."... (more)
CLIFF KINCAID - WorldNetDaily quotes radio host Michael Savage as saying, "The NSA surveillance scandal is the biggest story of your lifetime," that "whistleblower" Edward Snowden is "a patriot, not a traitor," and that "They obviously weren't spying on Muslims, or people known to have associated with terrorists."... (more)
WASHINGTON TIMES - Senators on Tuesday rejected building the 700 miles of double-tier border fencing Congress authorized just seven years ago, with a majority of the Senate saying they didn't want to delay granting illegal immigrants legal status while the fence was being built.... (more)
ROBERT KNIGHT - It doesn't matter whether the Republican-led House passes good, workable immigration legislation. The bill would have to go to a House-Senate conference committee, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would almost certainly trash border enforcement and ensure mass amnesty for an estimated 11 million illegal aliens, also known as "unregistered Democrats."... (more)
MICHELLE MALKIN - You can try to put "conservative" lipstick on the lawless amnesty mob. But in the end, it's still a lawless mob. The big government--big business alliance to protect illegal immigration got a lot of mileage using foolish Republicans Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan as front men. But the true colors of the open-borders grievance-mongers always show through.... (more)
THE BLAZE - After Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts voted to uphold the Affordable Care Act, more commonly known as "ObamaCare," many wondered if there could be a yet-unknown reason why the Republican-nominated justice made the unexpected decision.... (more)
WASHINGTON TIMES - Louisiana State Sen. Elbert Guillory said in a video message delivered to constituents -- and particularly, his fellow black voters -- that he's finally come to his senses and realized the Democratic Party disguises an all-consuming quest for control as concern and aid for minorities.... (more)
CNSNEWS - Actor John Ratzenberger said Friday that when he was a child, there was no need for surveillance, "because we knew God was watching us."... (more)
The next time we hear about a conservative college professor forcing his/her students to support a political position will be the first time such news comes to us. Pulling stunts like that is the province of the Left.
Like most people of the Left, college professors are cowards and bullies who will do anything to force Americans to support their causes. Leftist college professors have created a "hostile" environment in our college classrooms.
From first-hand experience I know this has been the case for at least forty years. Being one of only three straights (of 25 students) in a cynically labeled "English Lit" course "taught" by a Black Lesbian was not a pleasant experience.
Recent scandals of the past few months are an indication of how the Obama Administration and their loyal minions are targeting American citizens in order to create a permanent majority. Readers familiar with Obama's political history know he has a habit of destroying or compromising his opponents. Now he and his followers are using the power of government to silence any criticism of the Democrat president and the Regime.
NSA The Signal Intelligence arm of the Department of Defense has used the Patriot Act to force communications companies to hand over American customer records. On the surface this may seem a minor concern but the agency has admitted to listening to the conversations of Americans without a warrant. According to our national media, the agency only collected metadata, so U.S. citizens need not worry about the government watching them.
And here's a throwaway line that should scare all Americans: the NSA is ... Continue Reading:Big Brother, Obama Style
This is an old video but it sheds light on the low character of Arizona's John McCain. McCain has always stopped any inquiry into POW records because he doesn't want us to know what HE did as a POW. THIS is why he is so easily manipulated by the Democrats. Is he being blackmailed? You decide.
This story is a chilling reminder of the evil alliance of Democrats and unions.
When super storm Sandy slammed into the northeast last October it left destruction and dangerous debris in startling amounts. Homes were folded up and rolled down streets. Civil buildings and churches were flattened and dangerous toxic materials covered the landscape. The enormity of the clean-up was such that local governments had to work fast and work cheap to clean up their streets. Since "fast and cheap" are not words associated with unions the emergency demanded non-union labor as the only available and affordable course of action.
To honest Americans this is simple common sense, but unions want what they want when they want it and your "common sense" be damned.
The House of Representatives yesterday rejected a nearly trillion-dollar food stamp and farm bill. This is an important victory for taxpayers and a reaffirmation of fiscal responsibility. It is also a slap in the face for the Washington Establishment.
For some time now, The Heritage Foundation has been highlighting this bill and how it does not do what most people think it does. Encouraging lawmakers to reconsider the farm bill has long been a priority for Heritage--even though the Washington Establishment was sure it would sail through Congress.
Our efforts have paid off. Congress will no doubt look to the farm bill debate as an indication of what can happen when the American people are informed and engaged.
Sixty-two Republicans bucked their own party to vote against the bloated bill. Coupled with a large bloc of Democrats who wanted more spending on food stamps, the bipartisan opposition was enough to sink the measure. It's unclear if or when House leaders will bring the bill back to the floor for a vote.
Thanks to your efforts, Congress is listening to you. Taxpayers have seen enough wasteful and reckless spending come out of Washington. They are tired of the backroom deals and the political grandstanding. Hopefully, the sinking of the farm bill heralds a new era of principled decision making on Capitol Hill.
Don't let yourself be fooled by Congress' budgeting gimmick. They did it with Obamacare, and now they're trying to do it again with the Gang of Eight's immigration reform bill. The Heritage Foundation's Amy Payne explains:
Here's how they do business. A piece of legislation is going to cost trillions of dollars, but Members of Congress don't want the public to see that. Instead, they have the Congressional Budget Office look at the bill for just the first 10 years-and they move any costly items off into the future on purpose.
They pulled this scam with Obamacare: they saved the actual budget bombshells for later. Now they're trying to do it with immigration reform.
The Congressional Budget Office released a report this week on the Gang of Eight immigration bill. The Heritage Foundation points out facts about the CBO report that aren't being reported by the major media. For instance, did you know the bill will drive down wages for legal American workers?
Heritage Action for America, the sister organization of The Heritage Foundation, has launched new and improved Legislative Scorecard that grades lawmakers on their votes in the current session of Congress.
The Scorecard is a key resource that allows Heritage Action's hundreds of thousands of activists across the nation to keep Congress accountable. Click here to learn more.
Conservatives need to explain clearly and boldly what they stand for if they are to regain their electoral footing, Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint tells Tim Stanley of Britain's Telegraph. "Republicans have been losing because they have been afraid to run on their principles," he said in a podcast recorded last week.
I'm pretty sure it was my first Washington mentor, the great M. Stanton Evans, who told me-and perhaps originated-the famous story of a senior Senate aide explaining American democracy to a Russian visitor shortly after the Soviet Union broke apart in 1991. The story is probably apocryphal, but like Xenophon's re-telling of Cyrus the Great, or Machiavelli's subtle mis-tellings of so many stories, it contains the "effectual truth" of the matter:
It's true, we have a two-party system in America: The Evil Party, and the Stupid Party. And every once and a while the Evil Party and the Stupid Party get together to pass something really evil and stupid. That's called "bipartisanship."
It would seem the perfect description of the Gang of Eight and immigration reform. Please save us from bipartisan gangs.
Stan also taught me that whenever you hear about a bad piece of legislation under development in Congress, when you actually read the bill you invariably find out that it's even worse than you imagined. So Stan's column a few days ago (I don't have a link) notes:
On first appraisal, the amnesty/immigration bill before the Senate looks pretty bad. On a more careful comb-through, clause by clause, it looks much worse - like a complete disaster. It also looks like a massive venture in deception. . .
Quite apart from Rubio's bilingual double talk, the bill itself says in so many words that a lack of border security is expected by its sponsors, since provision is made for that very outcome. The legislation says that if, five years out, the border is not secure, a special commission will be set up to look into the matter (a commission that, on the language of the bill, would be toothless).
Also, even if border security could somehow be established, that wouldn't remedy the countless defects of the legislation. It is shot through with provisos that would swell the number of aliens on a "path to citizenship" to three or four times the 11 million illegals now in the country (if that is in fact the true number) . Most obvious of these are "chain immigration" aspects that will bring in and legalize the spouses and children of illegals, but there are many others of like nature.
One such is a "blue card" (temporary, eight- year) work visa, which might not be a problem in itself, but links to other features. Once here, these workers could qualify for "provisional" immigrant status, just like the illegals, and thus get on the citizenship pathway also. Further, if a future illegal gets apprehended, he can escape removal by requesting "blue card" status for up to two and a half years after the rule is final. Thus, hesto-presto, would future illegals be made legal.
The bill is otherwise riddled with clauses that would help illegals avoid removal, get into the country to begin with, seek "provisional" status, apply for naturalization, ask stays of judgment, and game the system in general. One of the words appearing most often in the bill is "waiver," closely followed by "appeals," "stays," "reviews" and "exceptions" : A thicket of legalisms that could and undoubtedly would be used to thwart enforcement.
It's of course unlikely that a Spanish-speaking immigrant who walks across the border from Mexico would know anything of these legal complexities, but the drafters have foreseen that problem also. The bill sets up a fund, amounting to $50 million (with more money to be added as needed), to represent illegals in every phase of the process - seeking provisional immigration status, filing appeals, blocking efforts at deportation, obtaining naturalization, and so on.
I'm actually in favor of some sensible immigration reforms, and believe the GOP could handle this issue in a way that would make liberals howl (start with including some anti-multicultural poison pills in the law, and then debate the matter openly). But increasingly this bill looks to me that it is this decade's equivalent of the Panama Canal treaty of 1977: if it passes, it is going to end several political careers, starting with Rubio's. Howard Baker's Panama Canal treaty vote not only killed his presidential ambitions, but also eliminated him from serious consideration to be Ronald Reagan's running mate in 1980.
The failure of the farm bill in the House the other day is, however, a good omen. I think it is possible that that vote was really about immigration reform-a shot across the bow of House leadership that they can't be counted upon to go along unless the bill is completely changed, and that Boehner will fight for the House version in a conference committee.
In getting ready to review Pascal Bruckner's terrific new beatdown on environmentalism, The Fanaticism of the Apocalypse, I was pondering his discussion about, of all things, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and my favorite camp-classic, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, and I got to wondering-why don't we have some remakes of classic films within the horizons of today's environmental correctness? How would Psycho's famous shower scene go with a low-flow shower-head? Probably more blood than water going down the drain. And quite obviously Attack of the Killer Tomatoes would be redone with genetically modified tomatoes. Perhaps it would have to be retitled Frankenfood Meets Whole Foods.
How about reshooting the famous car-chase scene in Bullett with Steve McQueen in a Prius instead of a Mustang? Or an electric car whose battery runs dead after 15 minutes?
Put Burt Reynolds in a Nissan Leaf (please-the world would end) and it would have to be Non-Smokey and the Shoplifter. And in the TV version, if we put Boss Hog in a hybrid, will the show have to be downgraded to The Squires of Hazzard?
Other obvious ideas to conjure with:
CHiPs on mountain bikes instead of Harleys.
Driving Miss Daisy . . . in a Tesla.
Casablanca's new script: "Of all the Vegan joints in all the university towns in the world, he walks into mine. . ."
Some other possibilities: Recyclers of the Lost Ark. Dr. Strangedata: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Global Warming. Gone With the Windmills. Endangered Groundhog Day. A Desire Named Streetcar. Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Rail. Van Jones and the Temple of Doom.
But just how would a Network remake work out in today's media landscape? I guess Howard Beale would tweet out that he's mad as hell and not going to take it any more. And then flip over to Fox.
Power Line disclaimer: No actual clichés were harmed in the making of this parody.
60 Minutes performed a classic hit job on Israel in a 14-minute segment on April 22, 2012. Titled "Christians of the Holy Land," video of the segment is here; transcript is here. Bob Simon "reported" the story. I wrote about the segment in a series of posts titled "Who ya gonna call?" (and in a few others as well) for reasons that will become apparent below.
The gist of the story was that Israel is responsible for the exodus of Christians from the West Bank and Jerusalem. The story was short on facts and context, particularly the context of the assaults on Christians and Christian sites in the Muslim Middle East. Anyone who has ever been to Israel knows that the authorities treat all religious sites as a sacred trust. At the American Spectator, Aaron Goldstein asks: "How many Christian churches have been burned down by Israelis? How many Christians have been murdered inside Israel?" Simon failed to "report" the answer to that question, but I'm pretty sure Power Line readers have a good bead on it.
Israel's Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren figured prominently in the 60 Minutes story. Oren knew exactly what was coming down the pike when he heard that 60 Minutes was at work on the story. Oren's March 9, 2012, Wall Street Journal column - "Israel and the plight of Middle East Christians" - must have been written in anticipation of the 60 Minutes story. One can learn more from spending a minute reading Oren's 750-word column than from watching the 60 Minutes segment. The segment was sunk in both cowardice and stupidity.
My favorite part of the segment came when Simon's attack on Oren for contacting Jeffrey Fager to raise concerns about the story in advance of the broadcast. Simon described Fager as "the president of - chairman of CBS News" and treated Oren's call as something like a federal offense. Simon only mentioned in passing in his first reference to him that Fager is 60 Minutes' executive producer. Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters?
Simon reported that Ambassador Oren called Fager because he had information the 60 Minutes segment would be "a hatchet job." Ambassador Oren had a helluva source inside 60 Minutes.
The good folks of CAMERA have now produced a video noting a rather striking error committed in Simon's "reporting." Our man Fager figures prominently in the video. CAMERA has also set up a site dedicated to 60 Minutes' refusal to correct the error. The video is only a minute-and-a-half long. Please check it out and pass it on.
The role of prominent GOP senators in promoting the immigration fiasco is mystifying. It requires a cynicism beyond my poor powers of imagination to understand it. Equally mystifying to me is the misdirection so many have fallen for regarding the issue of border security.
Border security recedes permanently into the distance while amnesty stays in the foreground, but look at the other hand! The news is in the new levels of legal immigration the legislation authorizes (thank you, John Hinderaker), along the same (misbegotten) lines as the 1965 act through which Teddy Kennedy sought to transform the United States.
For their last act, the GOP reprobates facilitating this travesty are performing "the Hoeven-Corker amendment." What do they have up their sleeve this time? Yuval Levin explains:
The Hoeven-Corker amendment to the Gang of Eight bill is essentially a new bill. It is almost 1,200 pages long. Some parts of it are identical to some of the provisions of the original Gang of Eight bill, some parts are very different, and some parts are slightly different in ways that could prove very important but difficult to understand in a hurry. But it has to be understood in a hurry. Given the length and complexity of this proposal, I think it is fair to say that not more than a handful of the senators voting on it on Monday-which is apparently when the vote is scheduled-will really understand it in any detail. There is almost no way any of the senators voting on it could have read it all, and it's unlikely even their staff members could do so in a thorough and responsible way in that time. Only the people who wrote it will know what it says, and I imagine it was written in parts by numerous people from several Senate offices. That means there is probably no one who really knows what it says. It also seems likely that, if the amendment is adopted on Monday, the vote on the final bill would come too soon thereafter to allow CBO to re-score the much-amended bill, and so to offer some sense of how things have changed in terms of costs, economic effects, future immigration flows (legal and illegal) and other key issues.
Is this any way to make such an important set of decisions about the country's future?
Levin leaves off with a rhetorical question. My question, slightly less rhetorical, is: What is going on here?
PAUL ADDS: The Hoeven-Corker routine represents another broken promise by Marco Rubio. He swore up and down that immigration reform would be considered the right way in the Senate. No more voting on a bill to find out what's in it, plenty of time for debate, etc.
Until recently, it looked like this promise would be kept, more or less. Hearings on the legislation were minimal, but at least the legislation was out there for everyone to analyze and there was ample time for such analysis.
But that's no longer the case. As Yuval Levin says in the quotation presented above by Scott, the backers of amnesty have essentially sprung a new bill at the last minute. Apparently, it will be voted on before anyone can perform a proper analysis.
The cynicism and dishonesty of Marco Rubio and company are staggering.
The Washington Post reports that "waves of Egyptians" are pouring into Syria to join the fight against the Assad regime and its allies, Hezbollah and Iran. The Egyptians in question are "fired by the virulently sectarian rhetoric of Sunni preachers" who are "call[ing] for jihad." In other words, the Egyptians pouring into Syria are Islamic jihadists.
Under Hosni Mubarak, the government did all it could to prevent such jihadists from leaving the country to fight in countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. And until recently, the current president, Mohammed Morsi tried to keep a lid on the hatred that impels radical Egyptians to fight in Syria. After all, Morsi has been cultivating closer relations with Iran.
But at the end of the day, Morsi is a Muslim Brotherhood man. Thus, under pressure from his hard line Islamist base, he has taken to denouncing Assad, Hezbollah, and Iran.
The lid is now off.
What does this mean? According to Khaled Salah, editor of a secular-minded Egyptian newspaper, it means that "the Middle East is shifting from a region that was dreaming of democracy to a battlefield between Shiite and Sunni."
That's exactly right, I think. And this means that, as much as people like me believe in American leadership, there isn't much of a role for the U.S. to play in the region now. We have no dog in the battle between radical Sunnis and radical Shiites; nor is there much we can do to mitigate the tragic impact of this clash.
We did, with great difficulty and cost, act as a positive force during the Sunni-Shiite clash in one country - Iraq - because we had lots of boots on the ground and a hard-earned understanding of the players. But these conditions no longer obtain in any country in the region, much less across the range of emerging battlefields.
Moreover, as tragic as the Sunni-Shiite clash will be, it probably favors our interests. The hard question in the Middle East has long been: how can Western interests withstand the tidal wave of rampant Islamist fervor on the part of a vast, young, rootless population? The answer now seems to be: by having that wave play out in the form of vicious infighting, rather than in a war against the West.
As for the immediate problem of Syria, the wave of Sunni fighters from Egypt further undercuts the belief that a Sunni victory would lead to an outcome satisfactory, or even acceptable, to U.S. interests. The secular-leaning side of the Syrian rebel movement has already been pushed to the side. With every foreign unit that arrives in Syria, it becomes more clear that radical Islamists will dominate.
There's also the questions of what will become of weapons the U.S. supplies to rebel forces. Khaled Salah, the aforementioned secular Egyptian newspaper man, predicts that the Egyptian jihadists fighting in Syria will "get weapons and training and one day could come back to fight us." He may be hoping for a long war in Syria and/or elsewhere.
A long war would have its virtues. At the congressional hearing I attended this week on Iran, there was talk that Syria might become Iran's Vietnam. That sounds overstated. Still, an Iranian regime bogged down to any significant degree in Syria doesn't sound like a bad thing.
It would be inhumane, of course, to root for, much less try to promote, a long war. A viable peaceful settlement is the best option in Syria. But if there's any hope for one, it depends on a military stalemate, it seems to me.
Here we see what I believe is the proper framework for the U.S. role in Syria and in the region generally. As I said, we cannot play a leadership role because we're unwilling - wisely - to make a large scale military commitment.
But we can operate at the margin to lower the odds of victory for either side. And we can do this most effectively, and with the least risk of arming our adversaries, by military action that levels the playing field (e.g. a no-fly zone) and/or by air strikes against aspects of a party's military capabilities.
Finally, if there are potentially viable secular forces in a particular trouble spot, we should identify them early and consider backing them. This may (or may not) have been an option in Syria two years ago. I don't think it is now.
And given the growing sectarian nature of the struggle throughout the region, viable secular forces probably will be very much the exception in battlefields to come.
JOHN adds: We, and other countries, acted in the manner Paul advocates during the Iran-Iraq war, by giving Iraq modest amounts of aid when it appeared that Iran might prevail in the early 1980s. That war was bloodier than anything we are likely to see in the foreseeable future, and ended in a stalemate, which from our perspective was a desirable outcome.
As preface to the second half of our conversation with Gabriel Schoenfeld about his e-book A Bad Day on the Romney Campaign, here's one passage of the concluding chapter about how the GOP establishment is reflecting on the aftermath of Romney's loss that is worth taking on board:
The RNC's quest for better data so that it can have better "messaging" is not a mechanism for leadership. It is a mechanism for following the crowd; it is a mechanism for pandering. There is another notable irony here; the professionals are proposing not only the degradation of deliberative democracy, but also a mechanism for losing race after race. . . Mitt Romney's fundamental flaw as a politician is that he attempted to please rather than to lead the American people. . .
What we need is a candidate who understands the country and its problems, is knowledgeable about its history, has a vision for the future, doesn't buy the snake oil that the consultants are peddling, and unabashedly says what he believes. Mitt Romney could have been that candidate. Sadly, this man of so much promise and ability chose a different path.
This second segment is a little over seven minutes long. Needless to say, you owe it to yourself to get a copy. (Among other things, Gabe names names of the guilty among the consultant class around Romney. A decent start for a 2016 Black List if you ask me.)
Where is Jeff MacNelly when you really need him? MacNelly, old timers may remember, was the brilliant editorial cartoonist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch back in the 1970s and early 1980s who took it to Jimmy Carter like nobody. MacNelly sadly died of cancer in his 40s, depriving us of his talents for their use on Bill Clinton and Obama. Because we could use a reprise of MacNelly's "Official White House Portrait of Jimmy Carter" (first image below) adapted for Obama, especially after that Berlin speech. To call that speech a turkey would be an insult to stuffing and corn bread; that speech flopped worse than an overweight albatross landing in a vat of jello.
It was another exciting night of boxing at the Minneapolis Convention Center last night. ESPN was in town, and broadcast some of the bouts for its Friday Night Fights program. For us, the highlight was local middleweight Caleb Truax's fight against Don "Da Bomb" George. We wrote about Caleb most recently here, after he won a thrilling but decisive decision over Matt Vanda, another Minnesotan.
Truax was a heavy underdog last night; Vegas bettors favored George, who fights out of Chicago, by two or three to one. George is a heavy hitter who came into the fight 24-3 with 21 knockouts, and had only been stopped once in his career, by the reigning light heavyweight champion. He had a deal that would gave given him a million-dollar payday if he had won last night.
The Convention Center crowd, with ESPN's camera
But it was Truax from the opening bell. He put on a stunning display, dominating every round of the fight and putting George away in the sixth. Here, Caleb connects with a right, courtesy of Minnesota Boxing.com:
Truax is a smart fighter, known as a canny tactician and an excellent defensive boxer. The knock on him has been that he doesn't have much power. It will be hard to sustain that critique after last night. He punched with real authority, and George had to be helped out of the ring. It was simply a brilliant performance by Truax, one that undoubtedly put him into the mix for a world championship fight. His record now stands at 22-1-1.
My son bought a table for the event, and my wife and I attended along with our sixteen-year-old daughter. One of Truax's sparring partners was also at our table; I am pretty sure he gave Caleb more trouble in training than Don George did last night. We are hoping that next time I report on one of Truax's fights, it will be from the MGM Grand.
UPDATE: One of the fun things about a card like last night's is that everybody from the world of Minnesota boxing is there. Here is one more photo, of my daughter with the state's top heavyweight, who is undefeated and ranked:
Nothing in sports is more exciting than a good, live boxing match. If you have never experienced live boxing, it might be fun to check it out.
Predictions of Washington insiders were fulfilled yesterday when Harry Reid introduced a substitute amendment that includes the Corker-Hoeven amendment and the rest of the Gang of Eight's bill, refused to allow any other amendments, and announced that the Senate will move straight to final passage of the bill, with debate cut off on Monday and final passage probably on Wednesday or Thursday. The actual text of the Corker-Hoeven Amendment wasn't made public until yesterday, and the senators themselves were still hand-writing edits to the amendment at the last minute.
We explained here why Corker-Hoeven does nothing to address the fatal defects in the Gang's bill, but the amendment's real purpose was political: its supposedly draconian enforcement provisions, most notably a doubling of the border patrol, are intended to give Republicans cover in voting for the bill. Once the text of the bill became public, however, it turned out that Corker-Hoeven is even worse than originally understood. For instance, the government doesn't even have to begin hiring those famous border agents until 2017, and the deadline for completion of the supposedly required (and entirely futile) fence is 2021. And, intentionally or not, Corker-Hoeven provides that future immigrants in the "merit-based, non-immigrant" category who illegally overstay their visas will automatically be legalized. Nice work, guys.
The immigration battle has come to closely resemble what we went through a few months ago with respect to firearms. There has been enormous public attention fixed on the Senate, but why? As it turned out, the administration's gun bill couldn't even get through the Senate, but it would have been dead on arrival in the House in any event. The whole thing was a charade intended to fire up the Democrats' base for 2014.
On paper, that should be true here too. Why on Earth would the Republican House pass an immigration bill that provides for thirty to sixty million new immigrants over the next ten years, 90% of them low-skill, low-wage, likely welfare-dependent at least in part, and overwhelmingly likely to vote Democratic? I don't suppose they will. But the difference between guns and immigration is that the anti-gun forces are well-organized and powerful, while the special interests are pretty much unanimously lined up behind the Gang of Eight's bill. Still, the polls show that the more voters know about the Gang's bill, the more they oppose it. And the Republican rank and file is overwhelmingly opposed to Gang-style immigration "reform."
So there is no reason why House Republicans should panic. If they pass anything, it should be a revamp of our legal immigration system, which was designed largely by Ted Kennedy and is badly in need of a pro-America overhaul. Photocopying Canada's immigration laws would be a good place to start. Then, as with guns and other issues, the battle will be fought in 2014. Everything the Democrats are doing-they make this clear in their emails to the party's faithful-is geared to taking back the House next year, so that the last two years of Obama's term can be "productive," that is to say, disastrous for America. It is up to us to stop them.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell gave an important speech at AEI this morning on the continuing assault on the First Amendment. Senator McConnell is an expert on the First Amendment and he has seen the assault of which he speaks up close. Senator McConnell notes, for example:
There's the widespread effort to stifle speech from within the government itself, something the Obama Administration has been engaged in from its earliest days. Some have traced this back even further, to the 2008 campaign. But my central point last June, and my central point today, is this: the attacks on speech that we've seen over the past several years were never limited to a few Left-wing pressure groups or the DISCLOSE Act. They extend throughout the federal government, to places like the FEC, the FCC, HHS, the SEC, and as all Americans now know - even to the IRS. These assaults have often been aided and abetted by the administration's allies in Congress. And they're as virulent as ever.
Read the whole thing, and stay for the question-and-answer session in which Senator McConnell smacks down AEI's Norm Ornstein (video below).
I first saw LeBron James play basketball early in his junior year of high school when I was working on a case in Akron, Ohio. That afternoon, before a big crowd at the Akron University arena, James couldn't hit an outside shot to save his life (my local counsel attributed this to the fact that he had been playing football all fall). Nonetheless, he scored around 25 points, must have reached double figures in rebounds, played outstanding defense, and led his team to victory over a nationally ranked opponent.
I became a believer.
Pretty early in James' pro career, I tried to show in a yearly series of posts, that he already was performing at least as well in the post-season as Kobe Bryant, then considered the best player in the sport and the epitome of a clutch performer. This, at a time when it was being whispered that James couldn't deliver in prime time.
The whispers would develop into a yell when James still hadn't led a team to an NBA championship by the age of 26. Unfortunately, the analytical capacity of many sports columnists, talk show hosts, etc., does not extend beyond the ability to count "rings" (i.e., championships won). These ringologists (and their nasty cousins the choke detectors) couldn't stop pounding on LeBron.
The pounding halted briefly when LeBron led Miami to the NBA championship last season. But it picked up new steam every time Miami lost a playoff game this year.
During the semi-finals against the Indiana Pacers and the finals against the formidable San Antonio Spurs, every Miami loss (and there were three of them in each series) precipitated earnest discussion about LeBron's legacy. Would he be remembered as the man who couldn't deliver, commensurate with his talent, in big games? Would he fall short of the standard set for him by the ringlogists?
Forget the absurdity of trying to assess a player's legacy while he's in mid-career. James had already established his big-game bona fides by, among other accomplishments, posting some of the best offensive numbers in NBA history in "elimination games" (those in which a team is bounced from the playoffs if it loses).
To make matters more ridiculous, sports pundits (indeed some of the same ones described above, or so it seemed) would change the legacy question after James sparkled in Miami victories. Now the issue was whether he was, or would soon be, the equal of Michael Jordan.
In the end, Miami prevailed over San Antonio in an all-time classic series by winning the last two games. In these elimination games, James averaged 34.5 points, 11 rebounds, and 7.5 assists. He also basically took Spurs star Tony Parker, a future Hall of Famer, out of the game during the long stretches when James guarded him. In Game 7 Parker scored only 10 points on 3-12 shooting, with just 4 assists).
This ends the LeBron bashing, until next season when Miami (or whichever team James plays for) loses a playoff game or two.
As for LeBron's legacy, it's still too early to discuss. But I will say this. He's already one of the top 10 players in NBA history (and would have been if Miami had lost to San Antonio or Indiana this year). Soon, he should be comfortably in the top five.
As for ringology, James already has won more titles than Oscar Robertson and as many as Wilt Chamberlain, both of whom played when there were many fewer teams. He's won as many titles as Michael Jordan and Larry Bird had at the same age. He's won half as many as Tim Duncan who has played almost twice as long.
Is James as good as Michael Jordan? No. The problem (if it's fair to call it that) goes back to what I saw in that high school game in Akron. James still doesn't have an outside shot he's willing consistently to rely on. This means that, to carry his team to victory in big games, he feels the need to drive into heavy traffic. Often, this leads to points, whether via a bucket, free throws, or an assist. But too often, it leads to turnovers - like the two he committed late in Game Six that nearly led to elimination after he had single-handedly brought Miami back into the contest.
But in Game Seven, James was willing to call on his outside shot in crunch time, and it answered. If this becomes the rule, then James will challenge Jordan. After all, it wasn't until mid-career that Michael became a great clutch outside shooter. And Jordan was never the rebounder or assist man that James is.
But let's wait five years or so until we seriously compare the two. For now, just enjoy watching a once in a generation talent in its prime.
Of course they should. The one thing both sides in the immigration reform debate agree on is that the issue is a vital one. The legislative outcome, both sides correctly believe, will say much about what kind of a nation we are and what kind we will be.
If it's a bad idea to challenge Republican incumbents in primaries based on their vote on such a crucial issue, then when is it appropriate to mount a primary challenge? Conservatives would basically be giving Republican incumbents a career-long pass, as long as they avoid sexually harassing congressional pages and tapping their feet in public restrooms.
Will pro-amnesty Republicans be "primaried"? It's starting to look that some will be. The Tea Party, which has fueled past primary challenges, appears finally to have become aroused.
Moreover, Sean Hannity is now expressing deep skepticism about the Gang of Eight legislation and its amnesty-first variations. At least as importantly, he's allowing strong opponents of amnesty express their view on his program. In the past two days, Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter both have done so. It doesn't get much stronger than that.
Bill O'Reilly, by contrast, has come out in support of the Gang's legislation, at least if it is amended by the Corker-Hoeven border security provisions. That's fine, but it would be nice if O'Reilly had guests who took the opposing view. To my knowledge, he has not, though I confess rarely watching his show from beginning to end (I'm just not that into him). [NOTE: see update/correction below]
O'Reilly engages with nutty leftists like Marc Lamont Hill, so it shouldn't be asking too much for him to debate amnesty with mainstream conservative thinkers and/or personalities. Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker has written that O'Reilly is collaborating with pro-amnesty Republican Senators. I don't know about that, but he might as well be formally collaborating, given his behavior. [NOTE: see update/correction below]
However, if the Tea Party becomes fully engaged and Hannity allows debate on his program, this level of pot-stirring, coupled with what's happening on conservative talk radio, should create a drumbeat sufficient to produce primary challenges next year, especially if amnesty-first legislation passes. And already, there is anecdotal evidence that conservatives finally are making their strong anti-amnesty views known to their representatives.
That's really the name of the game. By the time primary season roles around, it may be too late.
UPDATE/CORRECTION: This post is unfair to Bill O'Reilly. In point of fact, he debated Laura Ingraham on his show last night. I tuned out during his interview with Gang of Eight member Jeff Flake. That's excusable, I think, but I certainly should have watched the entire show if I was going to accuse O'Reilly of shunning debate on immigration. So I apologize to O'Reilly and commend him for having Ingraham on to debate immigration reform.
The good news is that Ingraham, Malkin, and Coulter have all appeared on Fox News' top commentary programs in the past two days to attack amnesty legislation. This is the fair and balanced coverage of the issue we've been hoping for.
I've heard of eco-terrorists before, and they are quite real (and, I suspect, a growing threat), such as the people who used to put spikes in trees to injure loggers running their chain saws, or the folks who burned down ski lodges and new housing developments back in the late 1990s. But this takes the cake (from The Daily Caller):
Tennessee Bureaucrat: Water Quality Complaints Could Be Considered 'Act of Terrorism"
Unsatisfied with the quality of your water and eager to let the government know about it?
You might be a terrorist, according to the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.
"We take water quality very seriously. Very, very seriously," deputy director of TDEC's Division of Water Resources Sherwin Smith told a baffled and outraged audience in Maury County, Tennessee. "But you need to make sure that when you make water quality complaints you have a basis, because federally, if there's no water quality issues, that can be considered under Homeland Security an act of terrorism."
Since environmentalists complain about the conditions of everything, perhaps this is just Tennessee's clever way of ridding themselves of environmentalists.
In the ninth year of his four-year term, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently forced the resignation of the widely respected caretaker Salam Fayyad as Prime Minister. Abbas appointed one Rami Hamdallas to succeed him. We noted Hamdallah's appointment here.
Secretary Kerry praised Hamdallah's appointment while encouraging a return to negotiations for a two-state solution. In a congratulatory statement, Kerry said Hamdallah's appointment "comes at a moment of challenge, which is also an important moment of opportunity."
Having been on the job for two weeks, Hamdallah tendered his resignation yesterday. Reuters notes that "[i]t was not immediately clear whether Abbas would accept the resignation by Hamdallah."
Hamdallah in any event posted an explanation on his Facebook page saying his decision was due to "outside interferences in his powers and duties." In other words, Jonathan Tobin (from whom I have adapted the heading for this post) explains, "even though Hamdallah was a Fatah member with no known political ambitions of his own, he still found it impossible to act as a façade for the PA kleptocracy."
Whether Hamdallah stays or goes, and whoever his successor may be (if there is one), Secretary Kerry will maintain that this is an important moment of opportunity. In this topsy turvy world some things never change.
Pray for the Supreme Court and the Nation
June 20, 2013
This weekend America is poised at the edge of a moral cliff. On Monday the United States Supreme Court will decide two cases that ask it to redefine marriage to include homosexual couples. We do not know whether the Court will declare homosexual marriage to be a constitutionally guaranteed right or will leave the definition of marriage to be decided state by state. Neither of those options are a clear victory for the institution of marriage as God created it.
The cases:
Hollingsworth v. Perry - Proposition 8 U.S. v Windsor - Defense of Marriage Act
The question is: Does a law that defines marriage to be only between a man and a woman deny homosexual couples the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of "Equal Protection of the Law?"
We are at a crisis point similar to the weekend before the Roe v Wade decision was announced, which declared abortion a constitutional right. It is a horrible time to face, but a good time to pray.
AFA asks you to pray this weekend for our country and especially for the Supreme Court. A sample prayer is printed below. Please forward this call to prayer request to your praying friends and family.
Prayer for the Supreme Court and the Nation
Heavenly Father, we praise You for Your unchanging truth, holiness, righteousness, mercy and grace. You have given us a nation founded upon the principles of Your word. You have blessed us, but we have squandered Your grace and turned away from Your principles. So we come to You to plead for our nation.
Specifically, we pray for the pending Supreme Court decision on same sex marriage. We pray that next week the Court would not impose a false definition of marriage on our nation. Father, we confess that we in the Church have already sinned against You and have not been good stewards of the gift of marriage through our own issues with unfaithfulness, selfishness, pornography, homosexuality and divorce. Forgive us, Lord. Now our nation is following our imperfect example and seeks to redefine and corrupt the gift of marriage in order to satisfy its own lusts.
We acknowledge that through Jesus Christ we can repent and turn to You. So help the people of this nation to turn to You with repentant hearts, that we all may be covered in Your grace. Lord, have mercy on us. Lord, let Your purity and truth shine in this situation. Help us to proclaim to those enslaved by homosexuality, and any other sin, that liberty and identity is available in Jesus Christ. Help us to lovingly embrace the repentant.
Fill us with Your Spirit so that our thoughts, words and actions reflect Your love and not our judgment. Help us to trust in Your plan, and to act justly throughout it. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, Your Son and our Savior. Amen.
God is faithful to His Word and shall accomplish that which He has spoken. (Isaiah 55:11)
Please forward this to others who will also pray.
Sincerely,
Tim Wildmon, President American Family Association
Can't Americans Do Anything Right?Jeb Bush received a lot of attention for saying that we need mass immigration because immigrants are "more fertile and they love their families".... Full Story
Reid Tries To Rush Amnesty Ahead of Falling SupportWith a new poll showing falling support for the Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has announced an accelerated schedule for votes. Full Story
On Immigration Reform, Is Rubio Just Another Obama Administration Puppet?It appears that the Obama administration's role in the immigration debate is more heavy-handed than the public was initially led to believe. Full Story
Stop Amnesty "Twitter Chat" on Friday, June 20thJoin us this Friday, June 21, 2013 at 2:00 p.m. EST for a "Twitter Chat" about the current amnesty bill. Full Story
Data Shows Border Security Metric in S.744 Subject to Political ManipulationWith the Senate considering numerous border security amendments as it debates S.744, there are growing questions over what constitutes an effective measure of border security. Full Story
Senators To Vote on Back Room Deal on Gang of Eight BillCall Your Senators NOW and Tell Them Not to Cave!!!
FAIR is hearing that the back room deal negotiated by Senators Bob Corker (R-TN) and John Hoeven (R-ND) with the Senate Gang of Eight may be voted on any day now. Passage of this amendment would very likely secure passage of the massive amnesty bill, S.744 in the U.S. Senate .
There is no time to lose! Today could be your last day to call before a weekend vote!
Call your Senators NOW and tell them:
1.You oppose amnesty and
2.They should not fall for more false promises of border security.
Senators Corker, Hoeven and the Gang of Eight have not released official text of the deal, but media outlets report that the deal still does not change the core structure of the bill that grants illegal aliens amnesty FIRST and then offers promises of border enforcement sometime in the future.
Indeed, sources say that the Corker-Hoeven deal does little more than add Border Patrol agents and fencing to the amnesty bill. But don't forget, any resources for border security that are promised in the future still need Congress to appropriate the money. And Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, said on the floor just days ago that she would NOT appropriate any money for the "dumb fence."
Thus, the deal Senators Corker and Hoeven have agreed to - and are right now using to persuade other Senators to join them - has no teeth. It gives illegal aliens amnesty right away and gives Congress ample opportunity to defund or water-down any border security resources promised in the bill. Americans already know how this works: Congress already promised us a border fence back in 2006. That requirement for 700 miles of double-layered fencing has now been watered down to a few miles of double-layered fencing and "vehicle barriers" that don't stop the flow of aliens illegally crossing into the U.S.
With this deal passed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is already suggesting he wants to rush the bill through the Senate, and may hold weekend votes!!!!
There is no time to waste!!! Call your Senators now and tell them not to support the Corker-Hoeven deal. Tell them that you want border security BEFORE amnesty and won't be fooled any more by false promises.
You can find the phone number of your Senators here.
Also, make sure to call Senators Corker and Hoeven and tell them to stop selling out the American people!!
Sen. Corker: 202-224-3344
Sen. Hoeven: 202-224-2551
Call Your Senators TODAY! Join FAIR today for a Tweet Up at #NoAmnesty at 2:00 pm!!
- Tell them to vote NO on S.744
- Tell them you OPPOSE amnesty
Urgent Action
chris chmielenski
Corker-Hoeven Amendment Won't Fix Gang of 8 Bill; Call your Senators TODAY
Friends,
Nearly every piece of major legislation has that one amendment that can help decide the fate of the bill. The Corker-Hoeven amendment announced yesterday is the amendment that could help determine the fate of the Schumer-Rubio-Obama amnesty bill, S.744.
We must do all we can to defeat this amendment!
What does the Corker-Hoeven amendment do? Not much. It reinforces several points that are already in the underlying bill. The only significant change is a requirement to hire an additional 20,000 border patrol agents. Fence-sitting Senators think they can stop illegal immigration and secure the border by throwing money at the problem.
Even with the Corker-Hoeven amendment, S.744 would still:
Grant legal status and work permits to 11 million illegal aliens before any enforcement kicks in
Increase unemployment and reduce wages for American workers, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office
Only reduce illegal immigration by 25% (CBO), setting the stage for am nesty #9
Weaken existing law by requiring an electronic entry/exit system at air and sea ports (current law requires a biometric entry/exit system at ALL PORTS of entry)
Issue 33 million new green cards in the first decade
We've also learned that the amendment's lead sponsors -- Senators Corker and Hoeven -- received significant help from Gang members Chuck Schumer and Bob Menendez in drafting the proposal. Clearly, this is a last ditch effort by the Gang of Eight to pass a bad piece of legislation that was on the road to failure!
Call your Senators TODAY!
Calling is simple! You can use the toll-free number below that will connect you to the Capitol Switchboard. When the staffer answers, tell him/her that the Corker-Hoeven amendment does nothing to change the framework of the bill -- amnesty first, enforcement maybe later. You can also use a few of the bullet points from above.
Again, this amendment will ensure that amnesty for 11 million illegal aliens comes first. But a recent CNN poll found that 62% of Americans want border security FIRST before dealing with any other immigration issues. Supporters of the Corker-Hoeven amendment and the Gang of Eight are turing their backs on the American people to help rescue a bill that was sure to fail.
We've already swung the momentum once, and we can do it again!
A Flagrant Feminist Failure By L. Brent Bozell III Feminism as a political cause is on such wobbly knees that it must rely on charges of rampant sexism that have no basis in reality. "Think Progress" blogger Alyssa Rosenberg surely scrunched up her face in disgust as she wrote the headline "Women Are Half Of Video Gamers, So Where Are The Female Video Game Characters?"She suggested female characters were nearly nonexistent. That, like so much of feminist boilerplate, is fraudulent.
The Palin Doctrine By Patrick J. Buchanan On U.S. military intervention in Syria's civil war, where "both sides are slaughtering each other as they scream over an arbitrary red line 'Allahu akbar' ... I say let Allah sort it out." So said Sarah Palin to the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference. And, as is not infrequently the case, she nailed it.
Uncovering the Camp Bastion Cover-Up By Michelle Malkin All it takes is one crack for a stone wall to start crumbling. Nine months after the deadly 9/14 raid on Camp Bastion in Afghanistan, the families of two fallen Marines may finally get some answers. Real accountability, of course, is another story.
Obama Abroad By Rich Galen Presidents generally get good marks when they're overseas. But for President Obama, not this time.
It might not have been the biggest crowd, and it didn't bring D.C. to a grinding halt, but something about this visit to the nation's capital has changed Glenn's outlook. Glenn talked about his speech and the conversations he had with members of the Black Robe Regiment in the days following. Why was this event different? What do we, as citizens, have to do? And why will it work? Glenn explains on radio today. WATCH
Catholic priest gives scathing rebuke of Nancy Pelosi's abortion comments
Nancy Pelosi has always stood in direct opposition of her church when it comes to the issue of abortion. Her recent comments, however, seem to have bothered the church enough to provoke a response. After declaring her stance on abortion to be "sacred" because of her Catholic faith, a priest couldn't remain silent any longer. Check out his scathing rebuke of Pelosi HERE.
Shock Claims: Another NSA whistleblower emerges
This whistleblower isn't new, he's been around since the Bush days, but his claims are getting a closer look now that we know the scope of the NSA snooping scandal. His comments are chilling and include claims that a Supreme Court Justice has been closely monitored for quite some time. Could a judge have been compromised? Glenn explains on radio today.
The NBA is now promoting... Obamacare?
If you were already annoyed when LeBron colluded with other superstars in the NBA to form a championship caliber team, the latest news coming out of the NBA will drive you batty. The White House is actively looking to secure a partnership with the NBA in order to promote Obamacare. You already had to endure LeBron winning another title, now you might have to watch him talk about how awesome Obamacare is. MORE
Don't miss a brand new episode of For The Record!
On August 6, 2011, the Taliban shot down a Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan's Wardak Province leaving 30 American soldiers dead, including 17 members of the elite Navy SEAL Team Six. It was the largest American loss of life since the Afghan war began. Next Thursday, For The Record, Episode 3: Fallen Angel takes an unflinching look at how tactical errors and mismanagement of our Special Forces factored into this tragedy. Plus, hear from the victims' family as they share memories and celebrate the extraordinary lives of these fallen heroes. Don't miss For The Record: Fallen Angel next Thursday, June 27th at 8pm ET only on TheBlaze. Not a subscriber? Start your 14-day free trial HERE.
Buck Sexton talks to Glenn from the Middle East
Buck Sexton, national security editor at TheBlaze, is traveling to the center of the bloodiest conflict on the globe, near the Jordanian/Syrian border. Buck explains how bad the refugee camps are, what the outlook is, what locals on the ground have to say about America, and more. Check out the interview from radio today. WATCH
Glenn's favorite show on TV
One of Glenn's favorite TV shows is Pawn Stars, and this morning on radio, he interviewed the creator of the show, Rick Harrison. There is no question that Rick is a tough negotiator, but Glenn respects his fairness. Rick explained his business philosophy and revealed some of the incredible government bureaucracy his company has endured. WATCH
Hey Charter customers! Help us get TheBlaze added to your lineup!
Charter has received countless requests from customers just like you to add TheBlaze. Let's make sure they're listening! Fill out Charter's channel request form or call them directly at 1-888-438-2427 to tell them you want TheBlaze added to your channel lineup! Don't forget to make your request public by posting on their Facebook Page! You pay Charter for their cable service every month, shouldn't you have a choice?
The sequel to The Overton Window has finally arrived!
Glenn's blockbuster novel from 2010 now continues with The Eye of Moloch- a thriller that's seemingly been ripped right from today's headlines. Follow Molly and her group of 'Founders Keepers' as they work to expose the secrets of a government that wants them dead. If you're looking for a summer beach read or just something to help you get even less sleep at night, The Eye of Moloch is a perfect choice. Buy a copy now and get an invite to an exclusive online event with Glenn. Get all the details HERE.
5pm ET - The Glenn Beck Program: Glenn talks with members of The Citadel about building a community planted in patriotism and liberty.
6pm ET - Real News: The panel digs into the NSA scandal and looks at Democratic hypocrisy on the issue.
7pm ET - Wilkow!: Andrew examines the role immigration reform will have on our civil liberties.
Saturday @ 10pm ET - The Wonderful World of Stu: Stu breaks down the latest from the NSA scandal and takes to the streets to find out what people really think of solar power. Plus, author Ben Mezich joins the program.
Saturday @ 10:30pm ET - The B.S. of A.: Don't miss Brian and the gang's unique (and hilarious) take on Miss Utah's awkward answer about equal pay, a toy-gun buyback program, the NSA scandal, and much more.
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Confronted with a few embarrassing assertions in his autobiography, pro-basketball legend Charles Barkley famously protested, "I was misquoted." Apparently, Representative James Sensenbrenner knows the feeling. The Wisconsin Republican claims to have written the PATRIOT Act. Like the Round Mound of Rebound, though, he seems less than familiar with his handiwork.
In the weeks since the 
A False Sense of Border Security
"I'm Back" - Glenn explains why we will win
