Thursday, June 20, 2013
Crime Pays: And the Rubio-Schumer Amnesty Bill Proves It
It's true: the federal government believes you and I exist to serve the illegal immigrant.
You and I, who pay everyone's freight, are no longer citizens. We are the subjects of a ruling class: a federal leviathan grown so large and centralized and authoritarian and uncontrollable that it no longer operates with the consent of the government. It exists to feed itself. And it would appear that it simply can not be satiated.
Hat tips: @AnitaMonCrief and Mark Levin.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
SOMEONE PINCH ME: I agree with Bernie Sanders
...There are millions of young people who graduate high school and want to go out and start their careers and make some money and move up the ladder. There are others who have dropped out of high school. We cannot turn our backs on those young people. They need jobs as well. If young people — young high school graduates, for example — are unable to find entry-level jobs, how will they ever be able to develop the skills, the experience, and the confidence they need to break into the job market? And if they don't get those skills — if they don't get those jobs and that income — there is a very strong possibility they may end up in antisocial or self-destructive activities...
...At a time when poverty in this country remains at an almost 50-year high, and when unemployment among young people is extremely high, I worry deeply that we are creating a permanent underclass — a large number of people who are poorly educated and who have limited or no job skills. This is an issue we must address and must address now. Either we make a serious effort to find jobs for our young people now or we are going to pay later in terms of increased crime and the cost of incarceration.
Now, why is this issue of youth unemployment relevant to the debate we are having on immigration reform? The answer is obvious to anyone who has read the bill. This immigration reform legislation increases youth unemployment by bringing into this country, through the J-1 program and the H-2B program, hundreds of thousands of low-skilled, entry-level workers who are taking the jobs young Americans need...
...At a time when youth unemployment in this country is over 16 percent and the teen unemployment rate is over 25 percent, many of the jobs that used to be done by young Americans are now being performed by temporary guest workers.
Right now, what we are talking about is hundreds of thousands of foreign workers coming into this country not to do great scientific work, not as great entrepreneurs to start businesses, not as Ph.D. engineers, but as waiters and waitresses, kitchen help, lifeguards, front desk workers at hotels and resorts, ski instructors, cooks, chefs, chambermaids, landscapers, parking lot attendants, cashiers, security guards, and many other entry-level jobs. …
The J-1 program for foreign college students is supposed to be used as a cultural exchange program — a program to bring young people into this country to learn about our customs and to support international cooperation and understanding. That is why it is administered by the State Department. But instead of doing that, this J-1 program has morphed into a low-wage jobs program to allow corporations such as McDonald's, Dunkin Donuts, Disney World, Hershey's, and many other major resorts around the country to replace American workers with cheap labor from overseas. Each and every year companies from all over this country are hiring more than 100,000 foreign college students in low-wage jobs through the J-1 summer work travel program...
...Unlike other guest worker programs, the J-1 program does not even require businesses to recruit or advertise for American workers. What they can do is pay minimum wage. They don't have to advertise for American workers. And guess what. For the foreign worker, they do not have to pay Social Security tax, they don't have to pay Medicare tax, and they don't have to pay unemployment tax. So, essentially, we are creating a situation where it is absolutely advantageous for an employer to hire a foreign worker rather than an American worker.
I'll reiterate: "Amnesty will destroy America."
Via the all-new BadBlue Report.
Afghanistan: Another Spectacular Administration Foreign Policy Success
• US, Taliban to start talks on ending Afghan war - AP, June 18, 2013
The Taliban and the U.S. said Tuesday they will hold talks on finding a political solution to ending nearly 12 years of war in Afghanistan, as the international coalition formally handed over control of the country's security to the Afghan army and police... The Taliban met a key U.S. demand by pledging not to use Afghanistan as a base to threaten other countries...
• Afghanistan: Taliban 'Admit' US Troop Attack - Sky News, June 19, 2013
The Taliban has said it was behind an attack that killed four US troops in Afghanistan, just hours after Washington announced planned talks with the insurgents...
• Afghan leader backs away from Taliban talks - AP, June 19, 2013
Afghanistan's president said Wednesday he will not pursue peace talks with the Taliban unless the United States steps out of the negotiations... Hamid Karzai's strong response and the Taliban attack deflated hopes for long-stalled talks aimed at ending nearly 12 years of war in Afghanistan...
• Karzai, angry about Taliban's Qatar office, suspends peace, security talks - CNN, June 19, 2013
Afghan President Hamid Karzai lashed out Wednesday at the United States over the opening of a Taliban office in Qatar, pulling out of security talks with U.S. officials and refusing to take part in peace talks with the Taliban that he said would only benefit "foreigners' strategies and goals."
Comforting.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Amnesty Will Destroy America [Denninger]
Marco Rubio has repeatedly claimed he "wants more" from the Amnesty Bill now moving through Congress.
Yes, folks, it's an amnesty bill. Let's cut the crap and call it what it is, because only through calling something what it is can we debate it.
"Legalization" of those who are here illegally today is amnesty. I don't care whether it leads to citizenship now or later, the fact of the matter is that it rewards criminal activity by allowing those who stole from Americans and their resources to keep what they stole and remain here in America.
There is no restitution. There is no penalty of consequence. There is nothing except benefit for them and a gigantic magnet pulling even more illegal immigrants to America.
America is a nation of immigrants. I'm the offspring of immigrants and odds are you are too. Unless you're 100% native American, you are a son or daughter of immigrants, directly or a few generations removed. Even if you can trace your heritage to the original colonists, you are the product of immigration.But your parents, grandparents or other ancestors probably came here legally -- unless you're Hispanic. Then the odds are that your parents, grandparents or perhaps even you personally came here illegally.
Everyone wants to talk about "compassion" for the millions who are here already. But that's exactly identical to apologizing for bank robbers after you disarmed the guards and allowed millions of people to rob banks. After the fact you now want "compassion" for those who took the money?
And let's not kid ourselves -- that's exactly what happened. These people have come here, they have consumed our resources, they have suckled at the teat of government. They don't pay taxes and by and large they don't cover their own costs. They have children who go to our schools, get free or reduced-price food that they rest of us pay for, they evade the taxation that pay for those schools, they show up in our hospitals with no money and no medical insurance, they drive on our roads with no insurance and when they wreck and injure or kill us by doing so our insurance bills go up to cover the uninsured motorist -- them.
The correct way to deal with this problem is to demand that every single one of these people either leave or pay back twice what they got. You dropped a kid into our schools for the last five years? The per-pupil cost in your district is $8,000? Cough up $80,000 (twice the $40k cost) as the fine for forcing us to support your child's education through your crime, plus double the cost of any other social benefits you've received, pay all of your back taxes for every penny of under-the-table "wages" you've earned and then go to the back of the line and apply for residency.
Of course none of these folks have $80,000. If they did they wouldn't have come here illegally in the first place.
And that's the problem, in a nutshell. They came here because they could "get" rather than earn. That's theft and fraud and until we call things what they are we cannot make progress.
The Libertarians want to argue that there should be "free movement of human capital." Fine -- I'm good with it when, and only when, there is utterly no means to access any taxpayer service for those who cross borders in this fashion and anyone who tries it is immediately charged and prosecuted for felony grand theft. But not one second before.
The Democrats want to argue that this is about compassion? Fine -- see above. Put a stop the magnet games and handouts and I'm ok with it.
In the early 1900s when millions of people came through Ellis Island there was no welfare system. You either worked hard and earned a living, assimilating into our culture, learning English and strove to become educated or you starved. Yes, there were groups that provided help but it was voluntary; Churches and other groups, most faith-based, did indeed provide help to those who couldn't help themselves and that's fine. But there was no Section 8 housing, no WIC, no Food Stamps and no free medical care.
You worked or you starved.
Now there is such a system and it is not only abused it is why these people come in the first place. Jose the roofer shoots a nail through his foot and you get the bill for that accident because Jose has no medical insurance or money and his "employer" isn't paying workman's comp insurance either because he's working illegally. Then Jose goes home and screws his wife or girlfriend, she gets pregnant and you get the bill for the prenatal care and birth because he has no money and neither does she, and they both access that care under EMTALA when things get ugly.
Try that crap as a US Citizen in Mexico. Go there on "vacation" and try to work. Forget it -- you'll go to jail. Get hurt and want the Mexican hospitals to treat you for free. Forget it -- you'll die. Think I'm kidding? I'm not -- I'm a diver and there are myriad warnings about exactly that risk if I choose not to carry dive insurance for recompression treatment. If I get bent in Cozumel I better either have a policy that will cover it outside the United States that the recompression chamber will accept or the ability to pay in cash before I get treated or I will be left crippled or even be allowed to die in agony -- literally.
This crap must stop and no bill that fails to put a 100% hard stop to it can be supported. What we have now is theft and fraud against the American people and ratifying that will simply bring more theft and fraud. We proved this the last time around when the promise was made to secure the border and stop the infiltration of people coming here for the benefits rather than to provide labor and advance our economy. We were told the flood of illegals would cease; it instead accelerated.
I want a strong, vibrant economy that is open to all who wish to come here and contribute on the same terms as Americans. That means assimilating into America -- becoming Americans. It means an end to groups like "La Raza." If you wish to be an American there is no hyphenation in your identity and there is no subgroup to which you belong -- you choose to speak English because that is the language of the nation, you choose to live under the political and legal system of our country, you integrate into our society and you cut the crap about being "special", "different" or having a right to get a pass on the laws and customs that the rest of us all live under and with. Period.
If your first act was to break the law by setting foot on our soil in an act of furtive evasion of said law and you then accessed our vast resources under the table you must (1) admit your sin and theft of that which did not belong to you, (2) make full penance for every dime of cost you imposed on us at a penalty rate in recognition and admission that what you did was wrong and (3) go stand at the back of the line behind all those who did neither of those things.
Marco Rubio refuses to face this because he's "afraid" of Hispanic reaction, as are others. But he's pandering to the wrong constituency. The people he's pandering to and afraid of are not citizens and cannot vote -- at least not without committing even more felonies. Hispanic people who are here legally and are citizens are broadly (and rightly!)*****ed off that there are millions of others who look like them that (1) damage their relationship with the rest of America by association and (2) are cutting in front of the line of their friends and family members who wish to come to America legally, willfully bearing the costs of citizenship to obtain the benefits.
The Democrats simply want to pander for votes and think they can turn the 20+ million illegals here into a new voting block by finding ways to give those who came here unlawfully the franchise.
That sort of thinking is exactly identical to giving bank robbers a controlling vote on whether bank robbery ought to be illegal.
Anyone with an ounce of common sense would discern that such a vote would destroy banking overnight.
The Democrats lack that common sense.
Does anyone on the other side of the aisle possess it?
Karl Denninger writes at Market Ticker.
Monday, June 17, 2013
YO, KARL ROVE: The 1986 Amnesty Bill Turned California Into the Closest Thing America Has to a Third World Country
"What pragmatic assessment leads to thinking that the Simpson-Mazzoli 1986 amnesty program did anything bad? Anything at all?"
Let's see how many bad things came from that 1986 Amnesty. California is America's number one immigration state and the state most impacted by the IRCA (the 1986 Reagan Amnesty).
1. California once had the best public schools in America. Now they compete with Mississippi for the bottom. Sometimes they "win".
2. California once had the most affordable and best middle-class housing in America. Now it ranks at the bottom.
3. California once paid the highest real wages to workers of any state in the union. Now wages (adjusted for the local cost of living) are rock bottom.
4. California once had income inequality somewhat below the national average. Now it's far above the national average.
5. California once offered mobility to its people. Gridlock is now the norm.
6. California was once a place where Americans from every state could go looking for a better life. Now its a chamber of horrors that even illegal aliens flee.
The Los Angeles Times published a great story about how Amnesty and mass immigration wrecked the once great state of California.
U.S. immigrants' stories often are about reinvention and newfound prosperity, about leaving behind poverty and limitations... But that is not Magdaleno's story.
Both Magdaleno and Anzaldo are illegal immigrants, settled for years in an immigrant enclave. Magdaleno has the same number of children as her parents, who were peasant farmers in Mexico. Like her parents, she is living in poverty and struggling to provide for her family.
"It's not sweet," said her 36-year-old sister, Alejandra. "It's very sad. The life for girls back there in Mexico is the same as the one Angela has now. They marry and have children, and that's their lives."
Neither Magdaleno nor her husband speaks English, though she has been in the United States 22 years and he 28. Even her teenage daughters speak mostly Spanish; their English vocabulary is limited."
"As Angela was having children, her siblings were undergoing a transformation of a different kind. They were slowly leaving Los Angeles.
Her sister Alejandra was the first to leave. In Los Angeles, she and her husband were barely able to make ends meet. As in Mexico, "there was little work and it's poorly paid," she said.
Eight years ago, she and her family moved to Kentucky, where a friend said there was more work and were fewer Mexican immigrants bidding down the wages for unskilled jobs.
In Kentucky, Alejandra picked tobacco. The work was hard and she didn't know the language. But soon, life improved. Over the years, she invited her siblings to join her. One sister married a man who managed a Golden Corral, a chain of all-you-can-eat buffets. Soon several Magdaleno siblings were working in Golden Corrals. Their husbands found work installing windows and as farm-labor contractors. They went to night school to learn English because few people in Lexington speak Spanish.
Today, the Magdalenos in Lexington earn more than they did in Los Angeles, in a city where the cost of living is lower. Kentucky is now their promised land, and they talk about California the way they used to talk about Mexico.
"What we weren't able to do in many years in California," Alejandra said, "we've done quickly here.
"We're in a state where there's nothing but Americans. The police control the streets. It's clean, no gangs. California now resembles Mexico -- everyone thinks like in Mexico. California's broken."
If illegal aliens can recognize that mass immigration has "broken" California, it should be possible for you to make the same intellectual leap.
Hat tip: BadBlue News.
"If they pass an immigration bill that even remotely resembles this one, we can say goodbye to the GOP"
Nothing better illustrates the divide between the Republican establishment and the base than this issue. Health care, taxes, abortion, gay marriage, all are small change compared to immigration. The GOP leadership's failure to understand this is practically inexplicable.
I still maintain that the GOP leadership has a very small constituency - these people could not win an election without the GOP rank and file and the independents who have basically walked away from the Party due to the leadership's continued bungling and missteps. That is another story - how the GOP leadership has caused so many people in the Party to leave in disgust. Although that started with Bush's out of control spending, it really got rolling with Bush's amnesty plan.
Bush's approval rating went to 13% when he got behind amnesty. Rank and file Republicans, who are so much more conservative than the leadership, see this issue as a matter of right and wrong, and they clearly viewed Bush as wrong. And, as a direct result of this issue more than anything else, they stayed home in 2006, and again in 2008.These people simply never learn - it is maddening.
In fact, Bush basically lost any ability to run the country after pushing amnesty. He literally tore apart the party. Many people forget that the country was on a path to a permanent conservative majority in 2000. Bush more or less single-handedly changed the direction of the nation with bone-headed move after bone-headed move - starting with his inexplicable failure to rein in spending. I mean, wasn't the guy a Republican? Aren't we for limited government?
You can read Rove's book in order to gain a good understanding of the foregoing. Karl "Deficits Don't Matter" Rove blames Republicans in Congress, but that is a very thin excuse indeed since Bush did nothing about it and enthusiastically joined in the spending spree. In fact, his book proves how completely disconnected both Rove and Bush were from any notion of conservative values. Bush was given a great trust by the American people, and he blew it in the worst way. But his spending pales in comparison to his destruction of the conservative majority by pressing ahead with amnesty.
But it was also Bush's inability or unwillingness to respond to Democratic media critics, leaving it to those of us who knew the Democrats were more than able to use their powerful control of the media, as well as their ability then and now to set the nation's agenda. This ineptitude destroyed Bush's Presidency and his party. I've never forgiven Bush, and never will forgive him, for the foregoing - I could care less that he is supposedly a decent man. After all the guy more or less set us on a path to what we have today. The election of Obama is more than anything else the result of Bush and Rove's arrogance, blindness, and - call it what it is - stupidity.
You get the feeling in Rove's book that he was so rattled by the Plame scandal that he ran from Washington with his tail between his legs. The fact that he came back into the spotlight says a whole lot about the man's lack of character. And Rove is still - still - hard at work destroying the Republican party - by going after the Tea Party. Rove thereby demonstrates that he is incapable of learning from his mistakes. And Bush's silence since the Obama election is an indication that he has no problem with the direction of the country. To think I voted for the man - we would have been better off had Gore or Kerry won, and maintained control of Congress.
But, back to immigration. What this issue says is that the Republican leadership has again shown it has no ability to think strategically - it remains bound to the old rules of politics, and acts like the past couple of decades have never happened. It has no real adherence to a consistent policy, no passion for the issues, and it doesn't understand its own constituency.
More than that, the Republican leadership doesn't have a constituency - there is no large group of rank and file Republicans out there supporting the leadership's policies. The leadership may have access to money but informed voters can't be bought as easily as uninformed voters - as both Romney and Karl Rove learned in the last election. But Rove should have known better - he had seen the same thing in 2006. How deaf, dump and blind can one person be? And how troubling is it that the monied elite still fund Rove's repeatedly failed agenda?
In fact, the rank and file is far more conservative than the leadership, which for some reason doesn't understand its own - it is living in the past when Republcans were comfortable as a minority party where it was expected to make some noise and then give in to the Democrats.
The GOP leadership has time and again shown that it is incapable of running the party - it is frightening indeed that the nation's last hope is with these people. This is not the place to recite the litany of horribles committed by the leadership (I could start with the Boehner's absolutely disastrous record as House leader), but if they pass an immigration bill that even remotely resembles this one, we can say goodbye to the GOP.And with the GOP gone, the Democrats will have free rein and will ultimately destroy this nation. As I've written before, the Democrats are quite comfortable with poverty, since it means all the votes - there is no bottom for the Democrats since they don't care - prosperity is not even remotely on the agenda (look what they have done in places like Detroit, D.C., California, etc.).
It is too depressing to think about - but I'll say this again - if the GOP passes this bill, they will lose the rank and file completely. Not only will the GOP never win another national election they will lose control of Congress - permanently until the country is torn apart.
I could go on, but what's the point? The Senate will do what it will do, and it doesn't appear that the fact that the people in the party and those independents supporting the (supposed) goals of the party makes not one whit of difference to the blind, arrogant despicable people at the top. And no amount of spending will put the party back together again.
Note: This article is an amalgam of several excellent comments related to Heather Mac Donald's article "The Real Risks of Amnesty. Related reading: Politico lets the cat out of the bag: immigration "reform" would give Democrats a permanent majority
Friday, June 14, 2013
GEE, MARCO: What's in this Amnesty Bill for Us, the American People?
Can John Boehner step away from his bottle of Maker's Mark to tell us? Can John McCain peel himself away from the front of a camera to let us know? Can Karl Rove put the white board down, stop checking his E*Trade account for seven minutes, and explain? Can Paul Ryan take a break from PX-9 for a day and write a white paper explaining how this 1000-page monstrosity -- that, just like Obamacare, not a single person has read -- will benefit we, the people?
• It's not to drive down unemployment, because legalizing millions of mostly low-skilled workers will drive wages down, starting with the lowest wage-earners and rippling upward.
• It's not to improve border security, because they've already informed us they won't enforce the border as a pre-condition to passing the bill -- and they certainly don't enforce border security today.
• It's not to begin addressing the deficit, because illegal aliens are net "takers", on average receiving thousands of dollars more government benefits than they pay into the system.• It's not to reinforce American traditions and values, because there are no enforceable language and education requirements in the bill that prevent the Balkanization of our society.
• It's not to enforce the rule of law or drive down crime, because illegals today can commit multiple misdemeanors and even felonies without fear of deportation or imprisonment.
• It's not to drive down dependency on government, because most illegals in the country today utilize food stamps, free health care, and other benefits subsidized by you and I.
Here's the straight truth: You and I, my friends, are second-class citizens. We pay for this government. We pay for this federal leviathan. We put our blood, sweat and tears into taking care of ourselves, our families, our churches, our charities, and our friends, sending 30, 40, 50, 60 cents of every dollar to the government for the privilege.
Some of us work two, three and even four jobs to send our kids to college. Some of us work 60, 70, 80, 90 hours a week to make a better life for ourselves. Some of us risk everything -- everything we possess -- to start a business.
But it is the illegal alien who is noble and virtuous. Not us. The illegal alien.
And Washington doesn't care. There's not a single redeeming aspect of this bill for us. Not one. It won't create jobs, it will destroy jobs. It won't help address the deficit, it will explode the deficit. It won't help national security, it will erode our security. It won't reinforce the use of the English language and teach our history, tradition and values, it will instead encourage multiculturalism and Balkanization. It won't drive down crime, it will encourage lawbreaking. It won't reduce government dependency, it will accelerate that addiction.
What's in this bill for us? Not a thing. This bill is for the ruling class, the Beltway elite, and it is designed to accelerate the fundamental transformation of America into something more malevolent, corrupt and tyrannical. For that is the way of the Statists who today treat us as subjects and not free men and women. These non-representatives do not have our best interests in mind and they are no longer operating with the consent of the governed.
Hat tips: BadBlue News Service and Mark Levin.
PERFECT: Obama's Total National Surveillance Dragnet Excludes......... Wait For It......... Mosques
Homeland Insecurity: The White House assures that tracking our every phone call and keystroke is to stop terrorists, and yet it won't snoop in mosques, where the terrorists are.
That's right, the government's sweeping surveillance of our most private communications excludes the jihad factories where homegrown terrorists are radicalized.
Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee.
Who makes up this body, and how do they decide requests? Nobody knows; the names of the chairman, members and staff are kept secret.
We do know the panel was set up under pressure from Islamist groups who complained about FBI stings at mosques. Just months before the panel's formation, the Council on American-Islamic Relations teamed up with the ACLU to sue the FBI for allegedly violating the civil rights of Muslims in Los Angeles by hiring an undercover agent to infiltrate and monitor mosques there.
Before mosques were excluded from the otherwise wide domestic spy net the administration has cast, the FBI launched dozens of successful sting operations against homegrown jihadists — inside mosques — and disrupted dozens of plots against the homeland.
If only they were allowed to continue, perhaps the many victims of the Boston Marathon bombings would not have lost their lives and limbs. The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15 attacks, and it did not check out the radical Boston mosque where the Muslim bombers worshipped.
The bureau didn't even contact mosque leaders for help in identifying their images after those images were captured on closed-circuit TV cameras and cellphones.
One of the Muslim bombers made extremist outbursts during worship, yet because the mosque wasn't monitored, red flags didn't go off inside the FBI about his increasing radicalization before the attacks.
This is particularly disturbing in light of recent independent surveys of American mosques, which reveal some 80% of them preach violent jihad or distribute violent literature to worshippers.
What other five-alarm jihadists are counterterrorism officials missing right now, thanks to restrictions on monitoring the one area they should be monitoring?
Hat tip: BadBlue Conservative News. Follow IBD on Twitter at @IBDinvestors
Thursday, June 13, 2013
MUST-READ: Mark Levin Smashes GOP Establishment on Comprehensive Democrat Importation Reform
So John Boehner says passing immigration reform is his number one priority. Not the economy. Not national security. Not the deficit. No. Immigration reform is his number one priority...
Congress has money for everything, it's got money for Obamaphones, everything. It's raining money in Washington. Seven of the wealthiest counties in the U.S. surround the District of Columbia, but they don't have money to secure the border.
What are we going to do with these 11 million people, they ask? What are we going to about these 11 million people?
First of all, as a result of over three decades of your incompetence, these people are here. That's number one.
Number two, our great president of the United States refuses to enforce the law.
Number three, our great Congress of the United States refuses to fund border security.
Number four, our great Supreme Court just undermined every state's ability to protect its own citizens.
Now what are we going to do about it? They create these messes and somehow you and I have to fix them?
Let me be as clear as I know how about this: Washington is incapable of reforming itself. Every single day behind this microphone, every single damn day, we're talking about what these people are doing to you and me. The NSA doesn't exist in a vacuum: the Congress is in control of that. The IRS doesn't exist in a vacuum; Congess is in control of that. The EPA, all the rest of it. All the rest of it, yet this is the number one priority of the Speaker of the House.
And look at this Kelly Ayotte, "Tea Party" candidate, slobbering all over herself, supporting this thousand-page bill she doesn't even understand. And I can go on and on, and I will go on and on. I've had it. I'll ask the question I've been asking for months:
What the hell does the Republican Party stand for? What does the Republican Party stand for today? Limited government? When? Where? How? Border security? National security? No. If you're not for border security, you're not for national security. So they're not for national security. So what are they for? Cutting spending? Where? When? How? Even when they controlled the whole damn government, did they control spending?
They think you're so stupid, they really do. What they learn from the liberals are techniques to bamboozle you. So the Speaker of the House, who famously says endlessly, "we only control one-half of one-third of the government", now he's taking the bull by the horns. To expand the government, to create new bureaucrats, to spend more money. And to legalize illegals.
Please call your Senator and two other Senators now. Transcript: Biff Spackle.
Saturday, June 08, 2013
Checking back in with the survivors of the Boston Marathon bombings
When they met on April 15 on their way to the hospital, Roseann Sdoia and Marc Fucarile were both fighting for their lives.
"She kept me awake, telling me to focus on my fiancée and my kid," says Fucarile, who lost his right leg that day.
They're still turning to each other, like so many of their fellow survivors – whom PEOPLE photographed on May 30 at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Charlestown, Mass.
"Marc and his family will be in my life forever," says Sdoia, who also lost a leg. "The new friends I've made, they're all amazing. I'm thankful for them."
Mery Daniel shares that spirit. "I choose to focus on the positive," she says. "I'm happy to be alive."
Bless all of these folks and their families.
But seemingly lost among the series of scandals swirling around the Obama administration is the Marathon bombing:
Despite being warned -- repeatedly -- by foreign intelligence services that the Tsarnaev brothers were likely Jihadists bent on terror attacks in the U.S., the Holder Justice Department did nothing.
Perhaps that was related to the bizarre directives, beginning in 2009, to scrub all connections between Islamists and terrorism from law enforcement training material.
In October 2011, 57 Islamic groups wrote a letter to John O. Brennan, now CIA director, but then President Obama’s chief counterterrorism adviser. Citing news reports, the groups complained of “biased, false and highly offensive training materials about Muslims and Islam” inside the federal government’s instructional halls...
...The White House issued an edict to scrub all law enforcement, intelligence and military teachings on Islam. The FBI ended up discarding pages of information that warned about the threat from the Brotherhood.
Consider for a moment: the myriad of scandals swirling around President Obama -- Fast and Furious, Benghazi, the IRS targeting of political opponents, the wiretaps of the Associated Press, the James Rosen debacle, and many, many more -- all appear related to suppressing the American people. At the same time, illegal aliens and Islamists are welcomed with open arms by the administration.
There is something fundamentally broken in America.
Hat tip: BadBlue Fame: Real-Time Entertainment News.
Friday, June 07, 2013
Miss World Pageant forced to cancel the bikini competition to avoid offending Militant Quakers
• Pageant will be held on tourist island of Bali in September
• Contestants will not wear bikinis in case they offend Indonesia's Muslims
Miss World is synonymous with scantily clad women strutting their stuff on stage. But this year the pageant will be significantly more subdued, after organisers announced that they are scrapping the traditional bikini round in a bid to avoid offending the Muslim hosts.
The contest, which will crown a global beauty queen chosen from 137 participants, will take place in September on the island of Bali in Indonesia. The area plays host to millions of foreign tourists every year, and is known for its idyllic beaches where Western visitors are frequently to be seen sporting skimpy swimwear.
However, Indonesia is a predominantly Islamic country, with more than 200million Muslims living in the South-East Asian nation... The country's top Islamic body, the Indonesian Ulema Council, has called for the Miss World pageant to be cancelled. And in a nod to conservative public opinion, organisers have decided that the contestants will not wear bikinis during the 'beach fashion' round of the event...
...Instead, they will cover up with garments such as sarongs which avoid revealing the body shape...
As an aside, I'm stunned that I got to this before the intrepid Robert Stacy McCain, who has a knack for knocking out the finest Rule 5 posts on the planet, having coined the damn term.
Hat tip: BadBlue News.
Tuesday, June 04, 2013
Monday, June 03, 2013
THE PERFECT "MODERATE REPUBLICAN" CANDIDATE: Christie Raising Money From Soros, Emanuel, Other Far Left Backers
Chris Christie Pulling In Money From Top Democratic Donors
Gov. Chris Christie is cashing in donations from top Democratic fundraisers and other traditionally liberal donors across the country, even nabbing the support of a handful of rainmakers aligned with President Obama and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a Star-Ledger review of state and federal records shows.
The checks are flying into the Republican governor’s war chest from all sorts of unlikely places — the hedge fund run by liberal billionaire George Soros, for example, and the politically progressive halls of the University of California, Berkeley.
The nascent support from Democratic donors is an early sign of Christie’s fundraising prowess in a potential run for the White House in 2016, experts and Democratic donors said, and dovetails with recent polls showing him gaining popularity nationally among Democrats and independents.
Christie’s partnership with New Jersey Democratic leaders and his warm relationship with Obama after Hurricane Sandy could be enticing donors who don’t often give to GOP candidates, even if they are closer ideologically to Democrat Barbara Buono, Christie’s lesser-known challenger, political scientists and Democratic fundraisers say.
Here’s just a sample of what Christie is pulling in:
• Five executives at Soros Fund Management have chipped in a combined $19,000 to the governor’s re-election campaign, state records show. The donor roll includes Soros’ protégé and chief investment officer, Scott Bessent, who tends to fund liberal Democrats, and Sender Cohen, a partner at the hedge fund who more often favors Republicans.
•John Doerr, a top Democratic fundraiser and venture capitalist in California, sent Christie the maximum $3,800 donation for the Republican primary this year. So did his wife. Federal records show the couple has given more than $1.2 million to national Democrats since 1997.
•Tim Mullen, a Chicago investor who gave more than $100,000 to Emanuel’s campaign for mayor in 2011 and bundled from $200,000 to $500,000 for Obama in 2008, has also sent Christie a maximum donation, as has his wife Alice. Mullen was already a Christie donor in 2009, state records show.
This ought to pose an interesting dilemma for the old, doddering, decrepit Republican establishment. Because choosing to align themselves with a Soros-backed, Obama-hugging, anti-Second Amendment, pro-illegal immigration, pro-Islamist "moderate" like Christie might be a bridge too far, even for these neo-Statist, cowardly, ruling elites.
Hat tip: BadBlue News Service
Saturday, June 01, 2013
"That, dear friend, is about the end of any nation.”

Coincidentally, 72,600,000 Americans, a record number, received Medicaid in 2012. That is more than the population of France and the United Kingdom.
This isn't going to end well for any of us. I only take comfort in the fact that the drones are going down with the ship along with the rest of us.
Friday, May 31, 2013
Thursday, May 30, 2013
DUDE: "Saudi policeman lashes amnesty applicants with belt"
A Saudi policeman was caught on camera using his belt to beat expatriates at an immigration department after they packed its offices to benefit from an amnesty announced by the Gulf Kingdom for illegal migrants.
Newspapers said a YouTube film showing the officer beating men and shoving women out of the department in the Western Red Sea port of Jeddah has triggered public furor across the country and prompted the suspension of the cop involved.
Saudi Minister of Interior Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, a brother of King Abdullah, ordered an investigation into the incident and the “immediate suspension of the officer” after seeing the film, Alsaudeh Arabic language daily said.
It quoted a department spokesman as saying the behavior of the officer is “unacceptable and unjustified.”
Wait just a second, Hoss: you mean to say that the Saudis don't have open borders? Or driver's licenses for illegals? Food stamps and welfare? Free health care?
Could someone please email John McCain and Lindsey Graham?
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
WELL, WELL, WELL: It turns out JFK was a big admirer of Hitler
You won’t read about this in the mainstream media, of course, but they recently found a diary our former president kept in the 1930s and 1940s wherein he expresses admiration for Hitler and the “Nordic races.” Here’s what he said while traveling through Germany in 1937:
The towns are all charming which shows that the Nordic races appear to be definitely superior to their Latin counterparts. The Germans are really too good — that’s why people conspire against them…
After the war Kennedy was still a Hitler fan:
Anyone who has visited these places can imagine how in a few years, Hitler will emerge from the hate that now surrounds him and come to be regarded as one of the most significant figures that ever lived… He was made of the stuff of legends.
Perhaps that explains the rumored long-lost chapter of Profiles in Courage.
Hat tip: BadBlue News.
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
Surprize, Surprize!!!! China Has Plans of the Latest US Weapons Systems [Trevor Loudon]
This is no joke folks. This puts millions of lives at risk. Maybe even US national survival. From Russia Today:
The designs for more than two dozen major weapons systems used by the United States military have fallen into the hands of the Chinese, US Department of Defense officials say.
Blueprints for the Pentagon’s most advanced weaponry, including the Black Hawk helicopter and the brand new Littoral Combat Ship used by the Navy, have all been compromised, the Defense Science Board claims in a new confidential report.
The Washington Post acknowledged late Monday that they have seen a copy of the report and confirmed that the Chinese now have the know-how to emulate some of the Pentagon’s most sophisticated programs.
“This is billions of dollars of combat advantage for China,” a senior military official not authorized to speak on the record told Post reporters. “They’ve just saved themselves 25 years of research and development.”
“It’s nuts,” the source said of the report.
Monday, May 27, 2013
England in Denial
How many ignored warnings does it take? That is one question that should hang over Britain after the horror of the daytime murder of a British soldier on the streets of south London. On Wednesday afternoon, Drummer Lee Rigby was killed in Woolwich by two men wielding large knives and shouting "Allahu akbar"—God is great.
slamists have been saying for years they would do this. They have planned to do it. And now they have done it.The attack itself is not surprising. What is surprising is that British society remains so utterly unwilling not just to deal with this threat, but even to admit its existence. Politicians have called the Woolwich killing "unforgivable" and "barbarous." But expressions of anger should not really be enough.
Attempts to attack military targets in Britain go back to before the millennium and even before, it is important to note, the war on terror. In 1998 Amer Mirza, a member of the now-banned extremist group al Muhajiroun, attempted to petrol-bomb British army barracks. In 2007, a cell of Muslim men was found guilty of plotting to kidnap and behead a British soldier in Birmingham. The plan had been to take the soldier to a lock-up garage and cut off his head "like a pig." They wanted to film this act on camera and send it around the world to cause maximum terror.
In 2009, al Muhajiroun protested at a homecoming parade in Luton for British troops returning from Afghanistan. Carrying banners saying "go to hell," "butchers" and "terrorists," the group was protected by British police officers from an increasingly irate crowd of locals. The resulting outrage toward the police gave rise to the deeply troubling English Defence League, a street protest movement that often turns violent.
Now comes the attack in Woolwich, which the perpetrators—as with the earlier cell—wished to be observed and even filmed. Reports suggest that they invited people to capture their actions on video. The perpetrators gave interviews, machetes in hand, to bystanders with cameras. This horrific scene is something that will stick in the memory.But it should also have been foreseen. Instead we entered the stage of denial. For there is already, in the reaction to events, more than a hint of what I have previously termed "Toulouse syndrome." The term is named after the attacks last year carried out by a jihadist called Mohammed Merah, who killed three French soldiers in a rampage that concluded with the murders of four French Jews at a school in Toulouse.
In the early stages of the attacks, when little was known, there was significant speculation that the culprit was a far-right extremist. At that stage everybody knew what they were going to say. But once the culprit turned out to be an Islamist, the gaze nearly fell away completely. "Nothing to see here, please move on" was the order of the day.
"Toulouse syndrome" also touched Boston last month. After the bombing at the marathon, media and politicians waited, hoping—some even said as much—that the attackers would be tea-party types. Then everybody would know what to say. But when it turned out to be Islamists?
So it is with the Woolwich killing, which British officials have lined up to denounce. Yes it is sickening. Of course it is barbaric. But what of it? Even all these years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2011, our societies remain unfit for purpose in facing up to—and facing down—Islamic extremism.
Too many still seek refuge in ignorance and denial that was so memorably displayed by U.S. officials after the Fort Hood shooting in 2009. A man who was a member of the American armed forces, Maj. Nidal Hasan, gunned down his colleagues while shouting "Allahu akbar." On that occasion the American government, like the French government before it and the British government this week, decided to focus on everything about the attack other than what really mattered: the motive. Fort Hood was put down to a case of workplace violence.
There will be many angles to the events in London that must be addressed in the coming days, and we can hope many will receive the appropriate level of public attention. Among them will be one particularly unpleasant irony.Most of the extremists who have repeatedly expressed their hatred of British soldiers are themselves supported by the British state. A prominent hate-preacher—Anjem Choudary, a leader of the disbanded al Muhajiroun—was even caught on video earlier this year extolling Britain's "jihad-seekers' allowance." As he explained to his followers, "The normal situation, really, is to take money from the kafir"—a slur for non-Muslims. "Allahu akbar. We take the money."
After the video showed up online, a BBC reporter asked Mr. Choudary to clarify how much he's taking—the press has long reported a sum of £25,000 ($37,770) per year. "It's irrelevant," Mr. Choudary replied.
This would not be the first time a country has paid both sides in a conflict. But if the reported figure is anywhere near accurate, it would surely be the first time in human history that a society has paid its opponents better than it pays its own. A British soldier can expect to start in the army on a salary of around £16,000 ($24,172).
The events in south London must cause a re-evaluation by British society of the insanity we have been permitting. The question is not how sad we feel. The only question should be what we do about it.
Mr. Murray is associate director of the Henry Jackson Society, a London-based think tank.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
MISTRESS OF DISASTER JAMIE GORELICK: Trust Me, I'm an Expert and Eric Holder's Attack on the AP is Perfectly Fine
Yes, Gorelick's just the one I'd turn to for counsel. Certainly the unhinged editors at The New York Times believe she's credible, which is why she appeared in print there defending the lawless behavior of Eric Holder's DOJ in the matter of its shotgun attack on the Associated Press.
Following the disclosure that the Justice Department obtained telephone records of Associated Press journalists, the AP and other news organizations have criticized the action as unwarranted interference with the ability of journalists to report on government operations.
As former Justice Department officials, we are worried that the criticism of the decision to subpoena telephone toll records of AP journalists in an important leak investigation sends the wrong message to officials who are responsible for our national security.
...the prosecutors were right to investigate this leak vigorously... But after eight months of intensive effort, it appears that they still could not identify the leaker.
It was only then — after pursuing “all reasonable alternative investigative steps,” as required by the department’s regulations — that investigators proposed obtaining logs of calls made and received for about 20 phone lines that the leaker might have used in conversations with AP journalists. They limited the request to the two months when the leak most likely occurred, and did not propose more intrusive steps.
...They were right to pursue the investigation with “alternative investigative steps” for eight months first. Ultimately, they were right to take it to the next stage when they still needed more to make a case against the leaker. If the Justice Department had not done so, it would have defaulted on its obligation to protect the American people.
As is always the case with the ludicrous Gorelick, she gets her analysis completely backwards. Both Democrats and Republicans have slammed Holder for his "unconstitutional" behavior:
...the DOJ failed to notify the AP of the subpoena issued for phone records before obtaining those documents... “The Code of Federal Regulations states that a news media organization [is] supposed to be notified of the subpoena, and they apparently were not notified of the subpoena. Therefore, that’s a big question that needs to be resolved because it looks like an effort by the government to sidestep a requirement,” [House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob] Goodlatte said.
He pointed out that former Attorney General Michael Mukasey believes the subpoena of “20 reporters over a two-month period of time … was too broad.”
“There is no judge — it’s a subpoena, not a warrant — that’s why it’s a big deal,” Goodlatte said before promising that his committee is “going to pursue this for sure.” ... In an interesting twist, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has ripped the Obama administration for the DOJ probe... “I have trouble defending what the Justice Department did. I don’t know who did it or why it was done, but it’s inexcusable. It’s an issue I feel very strongly about.”
And notice that Dame Disaster carefully ignored the other ongoing DOJ scandals that have made a mockery of the department under Perjurer General Eric Holder: the James Rosen wiretap debacle, Fast and Furious, the New Black Panther insanity, and many more. And, worse still, the very notion that Holder is investigating himself for some of these crimes.
That Gorelick would defend the indefensible is utterly bizarre, but not unexpected coming from the Countess of Catastrophe.
















