Monthly Archives: July 2014

Jul 9 2014

Sen. Jeff Sessions: Obama created border crisis


The president’s policies have failed to enforce the law and are hurting American citizens.

Re-post from USA Today Jeff Sessions 4:54 p.m. EDT July 8, 2014

The crisis on our border is the direct and predictable result of President Obama’s sustained effort to undermine America’s immigration laws. As the president’s previous director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Sandweg recently acknowledged: “if you are a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero.” Enforcement has collapsed.

Today President Obama says he needs $3.7 billion from Congress to handle the crisis his lawless policies are creating. Amazingly, the funding request further advertises his administration’s amnesty efforts and our fraud-riddled asylum programs, while explicitly omitting any request for expedited deportation authority. The request is also not paid for. The administration wants to borrow every penny.

President Obama has yielded to the demands of open borders groups, to whom he pledged amnesty in 2008. He has dramatically abandoned his lawful duty to the American people. Immigration enforcement for the world’s most powerful nation is now held hostage by a small band of radical immigration activists. That is why the administration still refuses to deliver the crucial message necessary to halt this flow: if you attempt to cross our border illegally, you will be apprehended and deported.

Most egregiously, the president has announced his intention to yet again bypass Congress in order to expand his far-reaching non-enforcement directives. His unlawful actions guarantee that the $3.7 billion will be only the beginning, and that the deluge of illegal immigration — and the huge costs — will only grow.

And growing with it will be the crisis for the American worker. This flood of illegality adds to an already massive flow of low-wage labor into the US. Between 2000 and 2013 the federal government issued 26 million visas to foreign workers and new permanent immigrants — corresponding with falling wages, soaring joblessness, and rising poverty in our struggling communities.

When did we forget that a nation owes its first allegiance to her own citizens?

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., is the ranking member of the Budget Committee and a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Jul 9 2014

Analysis Of USHCN Dataset


The integrity of all the NOAA/NASA data is questionable; many years ago when I was doing a lot of statistical modeling I found how easy it was using statistical methods to get a result I wanted. The methods used maybe valid statistically but never-the-less give results that don’t match that which is being analyzed.

Jul 8 2014

More than half of Israel now under Hamas rocket attack


No casualties. Besides rockets Hamas tries smuggling terrorists in by tunnels and sea

Re-Post from DEBKAfile Special Report July 8, 2014, 10:19 PM (IDT)

First Hamas rockets were fired or intercepted Tuesday night, July 8, over Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Rishon Lezion, Givatayim, Raanana, Caesaria and Yavne, as well as southern Israeli cities. No casualties but a house was hit in North Jerusalem. Beyond shooting dozens of rockets, Hamas also made several attempts Tuesday, July 8, to smuggle terrorists into Israel for attacks. A Hamas naval commando which tried in the afternoon to land from the sea near Ashkelon’s Zikkim beach was repelled by an IDF coast guard. Later, another group of terrorists tried to creep into Israel through a tunnel running under the Kerem Shalom crossing. This was discovered when a tunnel exploded there under an Israeli military post. A large IDF force backed by tanks raked the entire area with fire in case of a network of hidden tunnels was serving Hamas to secretly transport terrorists to civilian locations in Israel. The people living there were told to stay at home and lock their doors.

A wide-ranging search continues in the Ashkelon coastal area in case Hamas terrorists made it through to land. Local roads are blocked.

During the day, the first Hamas rocket over Tel Aviv was blown up in mid-air by an Iron Dome battery after volley after volley hit southern and central Israel.

In readiness for attack, public shelters were earlier opened in Tel Aviv, the beaches along the Mediterranean coast from the south to Netanyahu further north were cleared of bathers and Sdei Dov airport was been closed. Arrivals and departures of flights at Ben Gurion international and Eilat airports were thrown off schedule by Israeli Air Force sorties against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
The IDF called up another 40,000 reservists Tuesday, July 8, after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered Operation Solid Rock expanded against mounting Palestinian rocket assaults – 100 by mid-afternoon. This was after Israel carried out dozens of air strikes Monday night, culminating during the day in raids that killed five leading Hamas operatives: Hamas Naval Commando chief Mahmoud Shaaban, 24, and three passengers were killed when their car was hit from the air. Another airborne raid bombed the Rafah home of Abdul Rahman Juda which served as a command and control center. Thirty Palestinians were injured.

Magen David Adom has treated nine people for minor injuries and anxiety attacks from emergency call centers in the southern and central Israeli regions under rocket attack.

The high-intensity rocket offensive from Gaza, now in its fourth week, has seriously disrupted normal life for millions of Israelis in the rocket-blasted regions – especially within a 40km radius from Gaza. Ashdod port has stopped working, major transport routes like the Ashkelon-Sderot railway halted, end-of-term exams in colleges postponed, children sent home from summer camps and social events called off.

debkafile reported earlier Tuesday: Israeli finally launched its military operation Solid Rock against Hamas Monday night, July 7, after the Palestinians directed a steady stream of 100 rockets from Gaza to expanded targets as far as Rehovot, 50 km away. Most of the 50 IDF strikes were conducted from the air and two from the sea. Ten destroyed Hamas infrastructure facilities plus 4 private buildings which, according to the Palestinians, included the homes of the Hamas commander and a Democratic Front operative in Khan Younes, after Israel gave them advance warning. Hamas reported 17 injured – but kept on shooting rockets through the night and early Tuesday, threatening to further expand the range of their rocket fire.

The government and the IDF have billed the operation as a long-term, staged offensive to destroy Hamas’ logistical and strategic infrastructure, to be escalated stage by stage as needed, up to a limited ground incursion, which would require additional reserve call-ups, as well targeted assassinations. This progression will be adjusted to the enemy’s response and how quickly “quiet is restored to the South.”

The population has been forewarned that the contest may be protracted and asked to refrain from public events within a 40km radius from Gaza.

Iron Dome batteries are in place.

Israel’s security cabinet and the IDF command are counting on the prospect of losing its infrastructure deterring Hamas and persuading it to halt its rocket war on Israel.

But Hamas has its own game book and is unlikely to play by the rules dictated by Israel.

Both sides have therefore entered a dark corridor in which the two adversaries will try and outdo each other in damage. Israel began by limiting itself to air strikes. Hamas hit back with a mighty barrage of 100 missiles and expanding its range of targets.
The rules of Operation Solid Rock now require Israel to scale its response up to the next stage, in response to which Hamas will no doubt go for Tel Aviv. No one seems to know how this tit-for-tat duel will end.

The inherent weakness of the thinking behind Israeli military operation is that it requires the IDF to catch up with and undo the damage caused by Israel’s passivity after the three boys, Gil-Ad Shaer, Naftali Fraenkel and Eyal Yifrach, were kidnapped and murdered on July 12. The IDF’s campaign against its facilities on the West Bank left Hamas more confident than ever. In the space of a month, the Palestinian Islamists have maneuvered Israel into launching not one but two major operations – Brother’s Keeper to find the kidnapped boys and their abductors (who are still at large) and now Solid Rock – and they still hold the initiative against Israel, as well as the whip hand in the Palestinian movement.

They certainly owe their advantage in part to the atrocious murder by a handful of Israelis of the Palestinian boy Muhammad Abu Khdeir from Shuafat, Jerusalem. This was a gift which Hamas had never dreamed of. The Islamists have been able to assert control over and calibrate Palestinian fury across the board, in Gaza, the West Bank and the Israeli Arab community – a second front against Israel.
With all these cards stacked against Solid Rock, the IDF will have its work cut out to repair the damage and bring its operation to a successful conclusion.
On the diplomatic front, Israel suffered another letdown when Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi disappointed the hopes Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had vested in him to intercede powerfully with Hamas for a ceasefire. El-Sisi decided that the Israeli-Hamas conflict was a minor episode in regional terms and no real threat to Egypt’s national interests and dropped his role as peace broker.

This was a bitter disappointment to Jerusalem. It left Israel facing the Palestinian aggressor alone, but for the Europeans. They are willing to assume this role, but they are seeking the restoration of the short-lived Palestinian reconciliation and a unity government, which is the direct opposite of Netanyahu’s most fervent objective.

Jul 8 2014

Border Patrol Tells Agent: ‘You Must Cease and Desist’ from Speaking with Media


The agent says he expects to lose his job for exposing irresponsible public-health policies at the agency.

Re-Post from National review on Line By Ryan Lovelace July 8, 2014 2:10 PM

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency has served one of its agents with a letter saying “you must immediately cease and desist” from issuing statements and press releases to the media with information that is “Law Enforcement sensitive,” according to the document, obtained by National Review Online.  

Kathleen Scudder, assistant chief patrol agent of the San Diego Sector, sent the letter to agent Ron Zermeno, health and safety director of National Border Patrol Council Local 1613, notifying him of an investigation into his conduct and to “remind” him that no agent should make statements or issue press releases “without proper authorization.”

Zermeno confirmed the validity of the letter to NRO. He says he thinks the order is retaliation for his actions as a whistleblower, which have involved exposing the public-health risks associated with the illegal immigrants transported to the San Diego Sector. “As a union officer, I feel it’s my job to expose when management is putting people at risk,” he says. “They violated their oath as Border Patrol agents.” Before receiving the cease-and-desist letter, Zermeno wrote Paul Beeson, the San Diego Sector’s chief patrol agent, to explain that two agents at the Brown Field Border Patrol Station contracted scabies after processing illegal immigrants transported from Texas last week, according to a letter obtained by NRO. Zermeno has spoken to local news outlets about the scabies outbreak too.Scudder writes in the cease-and-desist letter that she’s formed no opinion about the allegations against the agent thus far, but Zermeno says he expects to have his employment terminated. “I’m willing to lose my job over this because I know I’m doing the right thing,” Zermeno says. “I’ve been in this agency for 20 years and this is the worst I’ve seen it. It’s similar to the VA.”

The letter does not provide insight about the certain actions of Zermeno’s misconduct. “The Agency has not yet completed a review of all of the facts and circumstances surrounding the allegation set forth above,” it states. “I expect that you will be given an opportunity to provide information regarding the allegation when reviewed as part of a management fact-finding inquiry.” But Zermeno says other agents have told him that management believes he helped instigate the protests in Murrieta, Calif., against the buses carrying illegal immigrants into the San Diego Sector.

He says he will continue to speak out about public-health problems in the sector until the agency addresses them. He says he’s recently received word that a third Border Patrol agent contracted scabies at the Brown Field Border Patrol Station.

“It’s just ridiculous,” Zermeno says. “They just don’t care. They don’t care what they’re exposing the agents to. They don’t care what they’re exposing the detainees to.” Imagine the health risk that would have existed for the surrounding community had he not spoken out, Zermeno says. “I’m just exposing the truth.”

— Ryan Lovelace is a William F. Buckley Fellow at the National Review Institute.

Jul 8 2014

Obama plans to use the Executive Order to grant more Amnesty to illegals


President Barack Obama is reportedly set on using executive actions to give temporary amnesty to nearly 7 million more illegal immigrants in America this year, including the parents of illegal immigrant children.

Re-Post from Breitbart by 7 Jul 2014 

According to National Journal, in a meeting with pro-amnesty activists last week, “Obama made it clear he would press his executive powers to the limit” and “gave quiet credence to recommendations from La Raza and other immigration groups that between 5 million to 6 million adult illegal immigrants could be spared deportation under a similar form of deferred adjudication he ordered for the so-called Dreamers in June 2012.”

At least 670,000 illegal immigrants received temporary amnesty and work permits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Obama has reportedly “now ordered the Homeland Security and Justice departments to find executive authorities that could enlarge that non-prosecutorial umbrella by a factor of 10.”

Senior officials told National Journal that “Obama wants to see what he can do with executive power to provide temporary legal status to undocumented adults” and “will shift Immigration Control and Enforcement resources from the interior to the border to reduce deportations of those already here and to beef up defenses along the border.” That means illegal immigrants who are already in the country who are not violent criminals are likely not to be deported, which may give migrants from Central America more incentive just to get across the border.

National Journal reported that Obama also said that “presidents must send the message that you can’t just show up on the border, plead for asylum or refugee status, and hope to get it,” but the White House may be doing exactly that by vowing to not rescind DACA. Those who received DACA can renew their status for another two years in September without an age cap. Those who were not 16 in 2012 but are now can apply for the first time, which means more illegal immigrants will get temporary amnesty this summer even if Obama doesn’t enact any executive actions.

The flood of illegal immigrants from Central America has drastically increased after Obama enacted DACA by executive fiat.

As the Christian Science Monitor noted, “during the decade preceding fiscal year 2012, the federal government agency tasked with caring for unaccompanied minors who cross the border illegally dealt with an average of 7,000 to 8,000 cases a year.” In fiscal year 2011, there were 6,560, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The year after Obama enacted DACA, “the number jumped to 13,625,” and “at least 50,000 have entered illegally since October of last year. Officials estimate at least 150,000-160,000 more will try next year.”

Jul 8 2014

Spending and Morality


Williams is right on!

Re-Post from CNSNEWS.com July 8, 2014 – 7:00 AM

By Walter E. Williams

During last year’s budget negotiation meetings, President Barack Obama told House Speaker John Boehner, “We don’t have a spending problem.” When Boehner responded with “But, Mr. President, we have a very serious spending problem,” Obama replied, “I’m getting tired of hearing you say that.”

In one sense, the president is right. What’s being called a spending problem is really a symptom of an unappreciated deep-seated national moral rot. Let’s examine it with a few questions.

Is it moral for Congress to forcibly use one person to serve the purposes of another? I believe that most Americans would pretend that to do so is offensive. Think about it this way. Suppose I saw a homeless, hungry elderly woman huddled on a heating grate in the dead of winter. To help the woman, I ask somebody for a $200 donation to help her out. If the person refuses, I then use intimidation, threats and coercion to take the person’s money. I then purchase food and shelter for the needy woman. My question to you: Have I committed a crime? I hope that most people would answer yes. It’s theft to take the property of one person to give to another.

Now comes the hard part. Would it be theft if I managed to get three people to agree that I should take the person’s money to help the woman? What if I got 100, 1 million or 300 million people to agree to take the person’s $200? Would it be theft then? What if instead of personally taking the person’s $200, I got together with other Americans and asked Congress to use Internal Revenue Service agents to take the person’s $200? The bottom-line question is: Does an act that’s clearly immoral when done privately become moral when it is done collectively and under the color of law? Put another way, does legality establish morality?

For most of our history, Congress did a far better job of limiting its activities to what was both moral and constitutional. As a result, federal spending was only 3 to 5 percent of the gross domestic product from our founding until the 1920s, in contrast with today’s 25 percent. Close to three-quarters of today’s federal spending can be described as Congress taking the earnings of one American to give to another through thousands of handout programs, such as farm subsidies, business bailouts and welfare.

During earlier times, such spending was deemed unconstitutional and immoral. James Madison, the acknowledged father of our Constitution, said, “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” In 1794, when Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist some French refugees, Madison stood on the floor of the House of Representatives to object, saying, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” Today’s Americans would crucify a politician expressing similar statements.

There may be nitwits out there who’d assert, “That James Madison guy forgot about the Constitution’s general welfare clause.” Madison had that covered, explaining in a letter, “If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one.”

Thomas Jefferson agreed, writing: Members of Congress “are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare. … It would reduce the (Constitution) to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.”

The bottom line is that spending is not our basic problem. We’ve become an immoral people demanding that Congress forcibly use one American to serve the purposes of another. Deficits and runaway national debt are merely symptoms of that larger problem.

Jul 8 2014

Sarah Palin: ‘It’s Time to Impeach’ President Obama


Sarah has it 100% right!

Re-Post from Breitbart by 8 Jul 2014, 8:05 AM PDT 

Enough is enough of the years of abuse from this president. His unsecured border crisis is the last straw that makes the battered wife say, “no mas.”

Without borders, there is no nation. Obama knows this. Opening our borders to a flood of illegal immigrants is deliberate. This is his fundamental transformation of America. It’s the only promise he has kept. Discrediting the price paid for America’s exceptionalism over our history, he’s given false hope and taxpayer’s change to millions of foreign nationals who want to sneak into our country illegally. Because of Obama’s purposeful dereliction of duty an untold number of illegal immigrants will kick off their shoes and come on in, competing against Americans for our jobs and limited public services. There is no end in sight as our president prioritizes parties over doing the job he was hired by voters to do. Securing our borders is obviously fundamental here; it goes without saying that it is his job.

The federal government is trillions of dollars in debt, many cities are on the verge of insolvency, our overrun healthcare system, police forces, social services, schools, and our unsustainably generous welfare-state programs are stretched to the max. We average Americans know that. So why has this issue been allowed to be turned upside down with our “leader” creating such unsafe conditions while at the same time obstructing any economic recovery by creating more dependents than he allows producers? His friendly wealthy bipartisan elite, who want cheap foreign labor and can afford for themselves the best “border security” money can buy in their own exclusive communities, do not care that Obama tapped us out.

Have faith that average American workers – native-born and wonderful legal immigrants of all races, backgrounds, and political parties – do care because we’re the ones getting screwed as we’re forced to follow all our government’s rules while others are not required to do so. Many now feel like strangers in their own land. It’s the American worker who is forced to deal with Obama’s latest crisis with our hard-earned tax dollars while middle class wages decrease, sustainable jobs get more scarce, and communities become unrecognizable and bankrupted due to Obama’s flood of illegal immigration.

Who’s looking out for the American workers? Who has their backs? Who fights for them?

We should.

President Obama’s rewarding of lawlessness, including his own, is the foundational problem here. It’s not going to get better, and in fact irreparable harm can be done in this lame-duck term as he continues to make up his own laws as he goes along, and, mark my words, will next meddle in the U.S. Court System with appointments that will forever change the basic interpretation of our Constitution’s role in protecting our rights.

It’s time to impeach; and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment.

The many impeachable offenses of Barack Obama can no longer be ignored. If after all this he’s not impeachable, then no one is.

Jul 8 2014

Drugs, terrorists, weapons of mass destruction, criminals, illegal aliens now flow freely across our southern border, as America has not committed the resources to prevent it by securing the border. We need military assets there NOW!!!!….


Coming from an active duty General this is scary — he could be relieved of his commission for speaking out.

thomas madison's avatarPowdered Wig Society

Active 4-Star General: Obama’s Border Crisis Threatens America’s Existence

From Capitalism Institute

The ongoing crisis at our southern border is more than just unaccompanied illegal immigrant children crossing in search of family or amnesty.

It is a matter of national security, as our already overworked and stretched thin Border Patrol has been overwhelmed trying to deal with the flood of immigrants, leaving stretches of the border undefended for criminal cartels, gangs and terrorists to conduct their operations, sometimes with a little help from corrupt Mexican military units.

Texas has initiated a ‘border surge’ to increase security on their own, and numerousmilitia units are filling in the gaps where they can, but that isn’t enough.  It has become increasingly clear that we need to begin deploying US military units on the border to effectively shut it down.

Now a very high-ranking active-duty Marine is weighing in on the subject. …

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Jul 8 2014

Ben Carson on Benghazi


Listen to this man he knows what he is talking about.

dcbarroco's avatarDistrict of Calamity

In a wide ranging interview with World Net Daily, Dr. Ben Carson expresses the hope that Americans will save their constitutional Republic by rising  above the distractions and educate themselves so as not to be so easily manipulated. 
 


 Otherwise, we risk living in a pre-fascist or pre-revolutionary state where warring factions stop communicating with each other. The chaos which ensues when conflict begins leads the masses to beg for authority to take charge, which surrenders our personal liberty. 



 h/t: World Net Daily

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Jul 8 2014

ObamaCare: The Perfect New-Keynesian Policy Prescription? | Health Policy Blog | NCPA.org


This is the very heart of the “FALSE” belief of those follow Keynesian Economics, which in essence is that any savings is bad since it takes away from spending and therefore causes unemployment.

Forum for Healthcare Freedom's avatarForum for Healthcare Freedom

DEPaul Krugman is apparently so entranced by the magic that he believes that forcing firms to replace capital, even if it makes them poorer, “can stimulate spending and raise employment” and “the broken windows fallacy ceases to be a fallacy.” In this alternate universe, hurricanes Katrina and Sandy could do more for U.S. economic growth than the development of the petroleum industry, the refinement of the internal combustion engine, the development of the electric power industry, or the development and use of the semiconductor transistor.

Professor Cochrane writes that macroeconomists looking at new ways to explain the slow growth disaster are considering the uncertainty introduced by arbitrary policy changes, large distorting taxes, intrusive regulations, and the “unintended disincentives of social programs.”If these new approaches are correct, and one’s goal is to inflict maximum economic damage on Americans, ObamaCare is a smashing success. It affects the whole population, generates huge uncertainty…

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