Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crime. Show all posts

Sunday, January 25, 2015

LATEST OPEN BORDERS INSANITY: Disease and Violent Middle Eastern Criminals Edition

This administration just keeps getting better and better, don't it?

Shot:

Illegal Immigrant from Middle East Arrested in Texas Burglary

An illegal immigrant from the Middle east was arrested Wednesday during a burglary in Plano.

WFAA reported:

The arrest of a burglary suspect in Plano on Wednesday could represent a break in a string of more than two dozen similar crimes since last October.

Riashat Ishmam, 17, provided authorities with the critical and timely information they needed to make take a man into custody. He had been playing games on the computer when the doorbell rang...

Riashat told News 8 that Allahdadi had also broken through the bedroom door with force. The door was shattered around the doorknob.

A panicked teen only had his phone with him — but it was all he needed... “Since this door doesn’t have a lock, I just stood still after I called 911, and luckily he didn’t even check the bathroom,” Riashat said...

The young man said he heard Allahdadi combing through drawers and moving quickly. But the intruder did not get far, because officers arrived within six minutes of that phone call and picked up Allahdadi as he climbed out the window.

Farhood Allahdadi is being held on an immigration hold... He is here illegally.


Chaser:

California Measles Outbreak Likely “Imported” to United States

With the Disneyland measles outbreak expected to grow, California hospitals and doctors’ offices are preparing for new cases and a flood of questions from patients worried about getting the disease. So far 68 cases of measles have been reported in California this year, the bulk of them in people who visited — or had contact with someone who visited — two Disney theme parks in Anaheim. The outbreak could get much worse.

In 2011, there were 222 confirmed Measles cases in the United States, 200 were linked with importations, including 72 that were linked with importations from other countries.

So is this latest outbreak linked to the influx of illegal immigrant children welcomed to America by the Obama administration?

Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet warned about this possibility at The Monitor back in June 2014... and [the] Canadian government blames the current US outbreak on “imported cases.”


Thanks, Obama!


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Saturday, January 24, 2015

TRY AND CONTAIN YOUR SURPRISE: In Vermont, Drivers Licenses are a Magnet for Fraud by Illegal Aliens

By Bruce Parker


WHICH IS WHICH?: Driver’s privilege cards look nearly identical to Real ID-compliant driver’s licenses, but it’s the privilege cards that out-of-state migrants prefer most.

As California battles a flood of immigrants seeking driver’s licenses after enactment of Assembly Bill 60, Vermont’s Department of Motor Vehicles has found issuing driver’s privileges to illegals can be a magnet for benefits fraud.

In the first week after AB 60 went into effect in January, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles issued more than 11,000 driver’s licenses and processed nearly 50,000 applications for people living illegally in the U.S. By the end of week two, the number of issued licenses more than doubled, reaching 25,300.

Over the next three years, Golden State taxpayers can expect to pay as much as $220 million to give licenses to 1.4 million undocumented immigrants.

Across the country in Vermont, a different problem has emerged. A law intended to grant driver’s privilege cards to roughly 3,000 migrants is attracting applications from illegals living outside the state.

“In our Bennington DMV office, we have detected some changes where people are coming from outside of Vermont and trying to get a driver’s privilege card. Our investigation has determined that they’re not residents of the state of Vermont,” Glen Button, director of the Department of Motor Vehicles Enforcement Division, told Vermont Watchdog.

As originally reported in the Brattleboro Reformer, the Department of Motor Vehicles recently discovered 130 invalid applications in its Bennington branch, in the southwest corner of the state bordering New York and Massachusetts.

24 Worst Examples of Emperor Obama's Serial Desecration of the United States Constitution

A handy guide you can pass on to progressives, liberals, Marxists, Communists, and other Democrats.

  1. The president’s selective targeting of political opponents for harassment and abuse by the IRS and obstruction and corruption of the resulting investigations
  2. Fraudulent claim that the Benghazi massacre was caused by a film, willfully misleading Congress and the American people, providing false information to Congress, scapegoating an individual instead of taking responsibility for waging a war under false pretenses and inadequately protecting Americans overseas.
  3. Unlawfully granting amnesty to categories of illegal immigrants, pressuring states by expensive litigation and the withholding of federal resources to not enforce laws against illegal immigration
  4. Refusal to enforce border security laws passed by Congress
  5. Denial of equal protection under the law by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) racially discriminatory enforcement of federal civil rights law
  6. Systematic politicization of hiring at Department of Justice
  7. Systematic stonewalling by Department of Justice and other departments and agencies of Congress
  8. Investigation of journalists in violation of free speech and contravention of DOJ guidelines, Attorney General’s (AG) misleading testimony regarding the investigation of journalists
  9. Fast and Furious operation intentionally arming criminals, covered up by the Attorney General’s contemptuous obstruction of a congressional investigation and the President’s specious invocation of executive privilege
  10. Repeated and continued attacks on the first amendment using DOJ to intimidate reporters, stonewalling access to information, prosecuting reporters who do their jobs, and stifling speech through FCC regulations
  11. The politicization of investigation and prosecution by DOJ in order to coerce compliance with administration policy, punish critics, appease political supporters, while funding political allies through sue and settle schemes
  12. Refusal to enforce laws such as DOMA
  13. Coercing state compliance with Obama administration policy by politicizing enforcement actions and encouraging state attorneys general to abdicate their duty to defend valid state law
  14. Unilateral changes to Obamacare
  15. Use of the EPA to regulate into effect legislation that was rejected by the Democratically controlled Congress
  16. Unilateral amendment and maladministration of other environmental policies like the Clean Air Act
  17. Contravention of Congressional and Judicial authority through “sue and settle” lawsuits where the government seeks out advocacy groups to sue on issues that dramatically expand regulatory and enforcement authority, allowing the Executive Branch to settle and increase its power. Unilateral amendment on the eve of 2012 election of law mandating notification of impending layoffs
  18. Unilateral amendment of federal law requiring welfare recipients to work
  19. Defiance of congressional law and court orders in obstruction Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project
  20. Unilateral and illegal release of 4 Gitmo prisoners in exchange for Bo Bergdahl
  21. Making ‘recess appointments’ when Senate was not in recess
  22. Usurpation of Congress’s war powers in instigating an undeclared, unauthorized war in Libya
  23. Contempt tor Congress’s constitutional duty to conduct oversight of executive agencies
  24. Picking winners and losers based on politics

Pity the leadership in the Republican Party has -- in the words of Sarah Palin -- a case of "deflated balls": they refuse to employ the very tools the Framers bequeathed them, whether through cowardice or secret collaboration with these tactics.


Read more at Judicial Watch.

Friday, January 23, 2015

HOW TO RETIRE FROM A LIFETIME IN CONGRESS WITH $100 MILLION OR MORE: Dianne Feinstein Teaches Us How

By Judicial Watch

California Senator Dianne Feinstein, vice chairman of the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, is demonstrating how lowlypaid lawmakers leave office filthy rich, according to a newspaper columnist that writes about the senior Democrat’s most recent scandal.

Like many of Feinstein’s past scandals, this one involves her enormous influence as a veteran federal lawmaker translating into big bucks for her husband, real estate mogul and investment banker Richard Blum. The U.S. Postal Service is selling 56 buildings and Blum’s commercial real estate company, CBRE, stands to make about $1 billion in commissions, the news report says. A few years ago CBRE was selected as the sole real estate agent for the huge deal, most likely with the help of his powerful wife.

Here’s a line from the article, which appears in a New York paper this month: “This feat of federal spousal support was ignored by the media after Feinstein’s office said the senator, whose wealth is pegged at $70 million, had nothing to do with the USPS decisions.” It’s not surprising that the mainstream media swallowed the unbelievable denial since Feinstein is the prototype of the liberal politician that seldom receives any real scrutiny. We’ve seen evidence of this in the mainstream media’s ongoing love fest with President Obama.

Judicial Watch has helped pick up the slack and in fact has exposed many of Feinstein’s transgressions over the years, mostly involving abuse of power to enrich her family assets. The atrocities were so rampant that in 2007 the San Francisco lawmaker was forced to resign as chair of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, where she annually supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars. As chair Feinstein supervised her own staff of military construction experts and she lobbied Pentagon officials to support her favorite projects. During her tenure her husband’s companies got billions of dollars in government contracts.

NUCLEAR INSANITY: As Obama begins $12B payout to Iran, spy shots reveal terror state has new, long-range ICBM

No, this isn't from The Onion. Unfortunately, it's reality.

Shot:

Since 1979, the most aggressive enemy of the USA has been Iran under the control of an ambitious Islamist regime that has used terrorist cat’s paws to kill Americans throughout the Middle East and that is sworn to our national destruction. When it looked like this regime would finally be overthrown by the people it oppresses, Obama conspicuously had not a word of support for the rebellion, which was soon crushed. In jarring contrast, he enthusiastically supported “Arab spring” rebellions that took down friendly (Egypt) or effectively neutral (Libya) governments, creating opportunities for the sort of hostile Islamists who run Iran. Now he has been helping Iran to acquire nuclear weapons by moving obstacles out of its way. In case it was not yet obvious whose side Obama is on, this should clear things up:

The Obama administration on Wednesday paid $490 million in cash assets to Iran and will have released a total of $11.9 billion to the Islamic Republic by the time nuclear talks are scheduled to end in June, according to figures provided by the State Department... Today’s $490 million release, the third such payment of this amount since Dec. 10, was agreed to by the Obama administration under the parameters of another extension in negotiations over Tehran’s contested nuclear program that was inked in November.

Money is the only reason the mullahs are willing to go through the charade of negotiating with Obama, whom they openly despise. Only a total fool would imagine they have any intention of foregoing the continued development of nuclear weapons with which to kill American civilians.

These cash payments by the United States have been made with no strings attached, prompting concerns that Iran could use the funds to finance its worldwide terror operations, which include the financial backing of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other rogue entities.

These operations have already been used to kill Americans (e.g., the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, direct assistance to terrorist insurgents in Iraq).

Not all of the money Obama is sending the mullahs will go toward terrorism. Some will finance the continued development of ballistic missiles. Iran doesn’t need these for a nuclear attack on Israel, but the USA is farther away.

Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), said the ongoing release of these assets has provided Iran with a critical “financial lifeline.”


Chaser:

Iran has built a 27-meter-long missile, capable of delivering a warhead “far beyond Europe,” and placed it on a launch pad at a site close to Tehran, an Israeli television report said Wednesday, showing what it said were the first satellite images of the missile ever seen in the West... It stressed that the missile could be used to launch spacecraft or satellites, but also to carry warheads.

Given that President Obama in his State of the Union address threatened to veto proposed bi-partisan legislation that would impose sanctions on Iran should the negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 fail to come to a successful conclusion by June of this year, a clear weapons program is a newsworthy political development as well. But, the mainstream media is silent.

Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has said, “Iran is clearly taking steps that can only be interpreted as provocative. Yet the Administration appears willing to excuse-away any connection between these developments and signs of Iran’s bad faith in negotiations... The more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran. And it feeds to the Iranian narrative of victimization, when they are the ones with original sin: An illicit nuclear weapons program going back over the course of 20 years that they are unwilling to come clean on."

Certainly Iran’s production and implementation of a missile system capable of carrying a nuclear warhead is a development worthy of reporting. It is a national security story. And when a senior Senator takes a President from his own party to task, it is a major political story as well. And yet… Where’s the coverage?

Moonbattery summarizes these startling developments perfectly: "There is a line between incompetence and treason. Whether Jimmy Carter crossed it by withdrawing support for our ally the Shah and thereby helping the current Iranian government to power is debatable. With Obama [and the media], it is an easier call."


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Thursday, January 22, 2015

OH, MY: Flight Logs Confirm Clinton and Dershowitz Flew on Pedophile Billionaire’s Sex Jet

Clinton 2016: This Time With Pants!

Bill Clinton took repeated trips on the "Lolita Express"—the private passenger jet owned by billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein—with an actress in softcore porn movies whose name appears in Epstein's address book under an entry for "massages," according to flight logbooks obtained by Gawker and published today for the first time. The logs also show that Clinton shared more than a dozen flights with a woman who federal prosecutors believe procured underage girls to sexually service Epstein and his friends and acted as a "potential co-conspirator" in his crimes.

Hillary's got to be livid.


A clear path to the 2016 nomination and now her philandering hubby finds himself entangled in a pedophilia scandal?

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 in Florida to one count of soliciting underage girls for sex (and one count of adult solicitation), for which he served just over a year in county jail. But sprawling local, state, and federal investigations into the eccentric investor's habit of paying teen girls for "massages"—sessions during which he would allegedly penetrate girls with sex toys, demand to be masturbated, and have intercourse—turned up a massive network of victims, including 35 female minors whom federal prosecutors believed he'd sexually abused. He has reportedly settled lawsuits from more than 30 "Jane Doe" victims since 2008; the youngest alleged victim was 12 years old at the time of her abuse.

This is one sick dude. And it begs credulity to believe that Clinton knew nothing about the sex club Epstein is said to have operated for the rich, powerful and connected.

Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Democrat Senator Slams Obama's Pro-Iranian Propaganda

I think I have to rip off     just a bit     a bunch     oh, hell, almost all of Ace's bit on Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) trashing President Obama's pro-Iranian nuclear rhetoric.

"I have to be honest with you, the more I hear from the administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Tehran. And it feeds to the Iranian narrative of victimization when they are the ones with original sin," Menendez said during a Congressional hearing.

...Archliberals Brian Williams and Richard Engel also take Obama to task for his brazenly dishonest claims about national security.

Williams began by asking about Obama's claims about the state of the world, which seem to be entirely fantasized:

"Richard, we woke up here in the States this morning – new ISIS video. Two Japanese hostages," Brian Williams began. "They’re asking for $200 million, or they're going to assassinate both of them. Video of a Russian intelligence ship cruising into the harbor in Havana; it might as well have been 1962. And then this on-again, off-again possible coup in Yemen, a U.S. ally."

...Richard Engel delivered the coup de grace: "It sounds like the president was outlining a world that he wishes we were all living in, but which is very different than the world you just described with terror raids taking place across Europe, ISIS very much on the move."

...Obama is doing the same thing as a Soviet dictator claiming the sugar crop hit record levels when in fact it was a catastrophe. He is simply doing it with foreign policy -- an area in which American media have severely cut back on personnel, and so aren't as in strong a position to rebut him.


The folks over at The Tower have more on the first American president in history who seems hellbent on handing nukes to terrorists.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

STUNNER: Even Thoroughly Politicized DOJ Reluctantly Admits it Can't Find Reason to Charge Darren Wilson

It would seem that even the most corrupt Attorney General in modern American history (surpassing John Mitchell, in my view) couldn't find a reason to charge Officer Darren Wilson of the beleaguered Ferguson P.D.

Say, maybe it was the videotape of the "Gentle Giant" ripping off a convenience store and roughing up the owner. And all of the physical evidence at the scene. And the witnesses of every race that backed up Wilson's story. Et cetera.

The Justice Department is taking the final steps toward closing the politically charged investigation into the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Mo., and clearing the white police officer involved of civil rights charges.

Federal prosecutors have begun work on a legal memo recommending no civil rights charges against the officer, Darren Wilson, law enforcement officials said.

That would close the case in the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. An investigation by the F.B.I., which is complete, found no evidence to support the charges against the officer, the officials said.

Of course, facts, logic, reason and evidence won't sway the Leftist race-baiters bent on fomenting division and violence. But enough about MSNBC.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

The Leading From Behind Twitter Stream, Episode 8,028

What do they call it again? Oh yeah, Smart Power™.


In related news, ISIS is executing educated women in Syria and Iraq (War on Women™), throwing homosexuals off the roofs of high buildings (caution: graphic photos) and engaging in a "crucifixion frenzy".

Oh, and another Islamic terror group, Boko Haram, is slaughtering thousands of innocents.

And while all of this is going on, President Obama is doing his level best to ensure that the world's greatest state sponsor of terrorism can finally get its hands on nuclear weapons. Which, should that happen, will result in terror attacks of unprecedented magnitude.

Yes, he's "historic", alright.


SEN. JEFF SESSIONS: McCaul Bill Breaks Republican Promise to Voters on Immigration

By Sen. Jeff Sessions

Republicans won a historic midterm vote on the promise to take real action—not symbolic gestures—to end the immigration lawlessness. It is essential that any immigration measures moved by the Republican Congress actually do the job. Too often, Congress will pass anything on immigration except that which will actually work. Indeed, the repudiated Gang of Eight bill was touted as the ‘toughest border security [and] enforcement measures in U.S. history.’

Unfortunately, border legislation being marked-up on Wednesday in the House Homeland Security Committee again fails to include the measures necessary to fulfill its promises.

One of the most dramatic ways in which the President has undermined immigration enforcement is by ordering agents to release apprehended illegal border-crossers by the tens of thousands. Yet the pending legislation does nothing to end this endemic practice of catch-and-release, ensuring large amounts of illegal immigration will continue unabated.

The Chairman McCaul proposal does not include the following reforms needed to achieve a sound immigration system: it does not end catch-and-release; it does not require mandatory detention and return; it does not include worksite enforcement; it does not close dangerous asylum and national security loopholes; it does not cut-off access to federal welfare; and it does not require completion of the border fence. Surprisingly, it delays and weakens the longstanding unfulfilled statutory requirement for a biometric entry-exit visa tracking system.

If Congress learned anything from last year’s ongoing border disaster, it should be that border security cannot be achieved unless immigration agents are permitted to do their jobs and our laws are actually being enforced. A nation cannot control its borders if being caught violating those borders does not result in one’s swift return home.

As it stands now, Congress provides billions of dollars every year to the Department of Homeland Security for border security and immigration enforcement and yet DHS uses those resources to flout the laws Congress has passed, rather than to enforce them. Without ending catch-and-release, any additional funds for DHS will simply be used to facilitate the transfer of more illegal immigrants into U.S communities. Border security must be approached differently in a time when we have a President who makes up his own laws, and where illegal immigrants actually hope they will be apprehended so they can be released into an American city or town. We live in a new reality.

As such, it is essential that any border plan include some of the following measures, or that these measures be adopted first:

  • Mandatory E-Verify
  • Mandatory detention and repatriation for illegal entrants
  • Expedited deportation for border-crossers
  • Close asylum loopholes
  • Bar access to welfare and tax credits
  • Penalties for the Administration’s continued failure to implement the biometric entry-exit system as required by law
  • Penalties for the Administration’s continued failure to build 700 miles of double-layer border fence
  • Refusing visas to countries with high overstay rates or that will not repatriate their citizens

Americans have begged and pleaded for years for an end to the lawlessness. But the politicians have refused to listen. Time and again, proposals are offered with tough promises that the legislation does not fulfill. This time must be different. We cannot be satisfied with measures that create the appearance of doing something while changing little. We need reforms that actually work, protecting the jobs and communities of the American citizens we represent.”

NOTE: To read Sen. Sessions’ recent immigration handbook on an effective immigration strategy for the 114th Congress, please click here (PDF). You can contact Chairman McCaul by calling 202-225-2401.

Monday, January 19, 2015

According to the government, there's no inflation. And there isn't. Unless you live in the real world.

By Jim Quinn

Government data reports are so funny. The blaring headlines today tells us that prices dropped in December. We are all saving billions from the drop in oil and gas. Hallelujah!!!

The corporate MSM never digs into the numbers to get the real truth. These reports and their distribution to the sheep are designed to keep you sedated and calm. Facts are not necessary. How this data pertains to your everyday life is not important to the .1% who control the flow of information.

Here is a link to the detailed inflation numbers by category. We already know they massage these numbers to achieve a happy ending, but even the massaged numbers tell an entirely different story than the one peddled to the masses by the government and corporate media.

Remember When Liberals Sided with U.S. Workers?

By Bill Chip


1991 Push to Allow Hiring of Illegals Stopped by Coretta Scott King Letter

Congress's frenzied reaction to President Obama's second-term push for "comprehensive immigration reform" (CIR) has revealed a split within the GOP, and within the conservative movement more generally. This split, which is not new, pits businesses that want to maximize access to low-cost foreign labor against "social conservatives" who are uncomfortable with the liberal project to transform American society through mass immigration. The split has been skillfully exploited by Democratic politicians and by mainstream media outlets that have been advancing the notion that CIR is inevitable.

Not so long ago, this conservative split on immigration policy was matched by a split among liberals or "progressives" on balancing the needs of native-born and foreign-born workers. Indeed, from the earliest days of the Republic, and even before, American reformers who fought against child labor, union-busting, and racial discrimination were also supportive of immigration restrictions that would balance the desire of aliens to relocate to this country with the desire of American workers to earn wages that permitted formation of a family. This created a split on the left, analogous to the longstanding split on the right, between those who viewed immigration restriction as discrimination against foreigners and those who viewed open borders as discrimination against American workers, especially minority workers.

Booker T. Washington, America's pre-eminent civil rights leader in the late 19th century, was unconcerned about accusations of "nativism" when he pleaded with Southern business leaders to look for workers "among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you know" rather than to "the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and habits". The country's most authentic Mexican-American leader, Cesar Chavez, was unashamed to have his United Farm Workers report undocumented workers to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and he was joined in protests against the hiring of illegal immigrants by liberal icons such as Ralph Abernathy and Walter Mondale.

Sunday, January 18, 2015

AMERICAN INTIFIDA: Democrat Leftists and Islamists Join Forces to Promote Terrorism

By Terresa Monroe-Hamilton

Trevor Loudon wrote an article that each and every one of us should read and take note of: Intifada USA? American Radicals Build Ties to “Palestinian” Revolutionaries. I agree completely with Trevor when he says that 2015 could usher in chaos, unrest and violence as we have not seen in our lifetime. The Communists are now joining hands in America with the Radical Islamists, forming an American Intifada – an uprising, resistance, revolt. They are using racism as the building blocks and their hate for America as the glue to forward massive havoc and violence in our streets.

The riots in Ferguson and New York were just the warm up act for these thugs. They are looking to create what they think is an American Spring, which will push every radical and Communist ideal there is out there. It will scream racism, go after the police and alphabet agencies, cry social and environmental injustice, push demands for Islamic acceptance and Shariah law – and in the mix will be the ever-present Jew-hatred which is the kindling for their hatred. In this twisted case, the enemy of my enemy is my ally. For the short term anyway.

The Dream Defenders

Taking the lead are primarily Black and Latino revolutionaries who claim to represent the movements for “black lives” and racial justice, who took a jaunt to Palestine to show solidarity against – you guessed it – Israel. Meet the Dream Defenders Palestine Delegation:

Everything in this article is a lie – and that’s the truth

By Lawrence Sellin

It is difficult to write satire in a political-media environment that is delusional and corrupt. Satire is a comparative art, where, ultimately, truth is the basis of that comparison. When everything is a lie and reality is absurd, the similes and metaphors of satire lose their impact.

Conservative movement leaders have published a Citizen's Mandate, which outlines initiatives they want Republicans in Congress to take in order to "stop" Barack Obama's "fundamental transformation of America," something they say the American people made clear in the 2014 midterm elections with such decisive GOP victories.

According to Breitbart's Matthew Boyle, the major bullet points that the conservative leaders say the citizenry expects of Republicans include: an end to Obama's "promised ‘Fundamental Transformation' of the country," a stop to overreaches by the executive branch, a restoration of "Constitutional balance of power among the three branches of government," for Republicans to "bring an end to the perennially unpopular Affordable Care Act,"  to stop "the President's Executive Amnesty initiatives," while holding "the Executive branch accountable for its myriad abuses of power and its national security failures both foreign and domestic" and a new beginning that puts "the interests of the United States of America first among nations."

They are all sensible and laudable goals, yet they do not address the essence of the problem.

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Here's one way the United States should emulate Saudi Arabia!

By Investor's Business Daily

Homeland Security: To keep out Islamic State terrorists, the Saudis are building a 600-mile-long barrier — complete with five layers of fencing, underground movement censors and radar cameras — on their northern border. If they can do it ...

Good fences, it is said, make for good neighbors, which on a grand scale was the intent of the Great Wall of China in antiquity and the Israeli fences of more recent vintage. Both were designed to keep out intruders and to make sure all guests were invited guests. Unlike the Berlin Wall, they were built to keep hostiles out, not citizens in.

As the threat of IS terrorism grew in Iraq and Syria, Saudi Arabia decided it might be a good idea to put such a barrier between its citizens and those who might want to kill them. Last September, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud initiated construction of a multilayered barrier that eventually will stretch along the entire Iraqi border from Kuwait to Jordan.

Friday, January 16, 2015

DENNINGER: How is it that no one is ever held accountable for the failures of government?

The Market Ticker points us to the catastrophic fail that is the Department of Homeland Security under the most feckless, criminally stupid, and corrupt transparent administration ever.

Homeland Security spent $50 billion over the past 11 years on counterterrorism programs, but the Department cannot demonstrate if the nation is more secure as a result.

[Sen. Tom] Coburn also found that 700 miles of the nation’s southern border remain unsecured. The DHS is not effectively administering or enforcing the nation’s immigration laws, while only 3 in 100 illegal immigrants will ever face deportation.

The report also found that the DHS spends more than $700 million annually to lead the federal government’s efforts on cybersecurity, but struggles to protect itself, federal and civilian networks from the most serious cyberattacks.

The Department has spent $170 billion for natural disasters since 2002 because of an increased federal role in which the costs of small storms are declared “major disasters.”


In short, DHS has done nothing of use in its time on the planet.

It cannot demonstrate any impact in reducing terrorism.

It cannot secure the border.

It cannot prevent or deter hacking, nor has it improved security of the nation's computer infrastructure.

It has blown ridiculous amounts of money on storm damage repairs, but only because small storms are rapidly declared "major disasters" and thus the font of federal spending opens.

In short "DHS" does nothing other than waste money and funnel it to friends and family.

Yet here's the punchline:

Even with the grim findings, Coburn expressed optimism about the Department’s future if Congress acts swiftly to address the problems in the report.

Uh huh.

If you had a department in a company that had five tasks and executed rationally on none of them you'd fire everyone involved. You certainly wouldn't allow it to go on for more than a decade before taking that action either.

But see, that's the problem with government. It never shrinks because nobody is every held accountable for failures nor do they lose their job when they either are incompetent or worse.

A corollary observation: government never shrinks, it always grows larger. Like some sort of tumor on the body politic, agencies expand in good times and bad. At best, incompetence and unaccountability are the hallmarks of most federal agencies. And, at worst, like the IRS under Steven Miller and Lois Lerner, government becomes weaponized against the very people who fund it.


Hat tip: BadBlue Prep News.

Thursday, January 15, 2015

STIMULUS: ICE Begins Releasing Deportable Aliens to Work in the U.S.

By Jessica Vaughan

Most of the attention directed toward the president's executive actions on immigration has been focused on the plan to issue work permits to potentially five million illegal aliens who are the parents of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents (LPRs). But these are not the only illegal aliens who are getting work permits as part of the executive amnesty. Starting almost immediately after the president's announcement in November, ICE offices around the country were directed to go through their caseload of illegal aliens in the process of being deported and start releasing all those who, by the stroke of the president's pen, were no longer priorities for enforcement. And, under current policy, many illegal aliens who have criminal records and/or prior deportations also are getting work permits.

According to media reports, as of the end of 2014, more than 600 detained illegal aliens were freed by the executive action, 200 of whom were in Arizona.

Who gets a "get out of jail free" card?

"This vote represents one of the most important constitutional votes that has ever come before this body"

By Sen. Jeff Sessions

Today the House of Representatives acted to defend the American people, the Constitution, and the authority of Congress. They have voted to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security while denying the use of any funds to carry out the President’s illegal amnesty.

President Obama’s executive-ordered amnesty eliminates the immigration laws that exist today in order to force onto the nation immigration measures that Congress has repeatedly refused to pass. His action is unlawful, unconstitutional, and in violation of our legal heritage. At the time of our founding, even British kings had long been bound by acts of Parliament. This idea of the legislature—the people’s representatives—as the lawmaking body represents centuries of human progress and legal history that forms the foundational base of our Republic.

President Obama himself has emphatically declared many times that he lacked authority to execute this nullification scheme, correctly asserting that only an Emperor could issue such edicts.

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Can a Republican Governor Start to Fix the Nation's Worst Economic Mess in Illinois?

By Investor's Business Daily

State Government: Bruce Rauner became Illinois' 42nd governor on Monday, the first Republican since 2003. He inherits a state that's been dubbed "America's Greece," but it's another opportunity to show what a GOP chief executive can do.

A big part of the GOP tsunami in 2014 occurred at the state level, with Republicans expanding their hold on governors' mansions and legislatures with wins in blue states such as Maryland, Massachusetts and President Obama's Illinois.

The number of GOP governors has grown to 31 from 21, control of legislatures has expanded to 68 of 98 partisan legislative chambers, and Republicans now have total control of some two dozen states.

There's a reason for this success, and it's the fact that GOP governors tend to promote a free-market economy with lower taxes, less regulation and a generally friendlier business climate that emphasizes wealth creation rather than redistribution.

According to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nine of the 10 fastest-growing state economies last quarter had GOP governors, including North Dakota with its fracking boom and 8.4% growth rate. Six of the 10 worst-performing states were run by Democrats. We'll refrain from another Texas vs. California comparison.

Surrounded by Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin, where GOP governors Rick Snyder, Mike Pence and Scott Walker turned their states around by taking on public-sector unions and enacting right-to-work laws, Illinois has languished as the bluest of blue states, an example of the atrophy that dominance by statist Democrats can impose.