Immigration/Amnesty

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News/Politics 7-31-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Revolt?

From TheWashingtonPost  “Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), an influential tea party leader, will meet with a group of House Republicans Wednesday to urge them to oppose House Speaker John A. Boehner’s plan to stem the flow of migrant children at the U.S.-Mexico border, according to several House members who plan to attend the 7 p.m. gathering at Cruz’s office.

Cruz’s huddle is the latest example of the combative freshman senator wading into House affairs and serving as an informal whip against the leadership’s immigration position. It is also a direct shot at Boehner’s effort to pass his legislative package, hours before the bill is scheduled to come to the House floor on Thursday.

On Friday, the House adjourns for a five-week recess, leaving Boehner little time to cobble together the votes necessary to pass his proposal. “I think there is sufficient support in the House,” Boehner (R-Ohio) said after a meeting of the House Republican Conference on Tuesday. But he added, “We have a little more work to do.””

The other side too?

From TheHill  “Democratic senators facing tough reelections want to put the brakes on President Obama’s plan to reform the nation’s immigration enforcement system through executive action.

Two of the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbents, Sens. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.), say Obama should not act unilaterally to reduce deportations, arguing it’s Congress’s job to change the law.

Slowing or halting deportations of otherwise law-abiding residents who came to the country illegally could produce a backlash in red states where Obama has low approval numbers. Furthermore, the crisis at the southern U.S. border complicates any move to ease deportation laws.”

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2. LANGUAGE WARNING!!!!

Lois seems to really hate conservatives, which is surprising since the IRS is so non-partisan and all. 🙄

From TheBlaze  “New emails uncovered by the House Ways and Means Committee indicate that former IRS employee Lois Lerner has a strong dislike of some conservatives, and at one point called them “&%@&%@%$” in an email exchange.

The committee released an email Lerner received in November 2012 complaining about the “whacko wing of the GOP.” The person mocked conservatives for believing there are “too many foreigners sucking the teat” and that it is “time to hunker down, buy ammo and food, and prepare for the end.” The person added that the “right wing radio shows are scary to listen to.””

“Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said this exchange shows the has a “deep animus towards conservatives,” which may have explained her efforts to target conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

“This email shows that Ms. Lerner’s mistreatment of conservative groups was driven by her personal hostility toward conservatives,” Camp wrote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. ”This new evidence clearly demonstrates why Ms. Lerner not only targeted conservatives, but denied such groups their rights to due process and equal protection under the law.””

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3. The House has voted to proceed with a lawsuit against the President.

From TheWashingtonPost  “House Republicans voted to proceed with a lawsuit against President Obama on Wednesday, saying that his executive actions are so extreme that they violate the Constitution.

The nearly party-line vote — all Democrats voted against it, and all but five Republicans voted for it — further agitated an already polarized climate on Capitol Hill as both parties used the pending suit to try to rally support ahead of the November elections.

Halfway across the continent, Obama almost gloated at the prospect of being sued.

“They’re going to sue me for taking executive actions to help people. So they’re mad I’m doing my job,” Obama said in an economics speech in Kansas City, Mo. “And by the way, I’ve told them I’d be happy to do it with you. The only reason I’m doing it on my own is because you’re not doing anything,” he said of Congress.”

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4. 840 million and counting.

From NationalJournal  “The Obama administration has spent roughly $840 million on HealthCare.gov, including more than $150 million just in cost overruns for the version that failed so badly when it launched last year.

The Government Accountability Office says cost overruns went hand-in-hand with the management failures that led to the disastrous launch of HealthCare.gov and the 36 state insurance exchanges it serves.

 GAO’s report, prepared for a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Thursday, details a long series of management, oversight, and contracting problems that plagued the entire process, from risky contracting practices in 2011 through the botched launch last October.”

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5. Someone call Mikey Weinstein. He’s gonna wanna know about this. I’m sure he’ll attack it with the same ferocity he would if it were done for Christians. 🙄

From FoxNews  “The brigade commander sent an email to military personnel at the facility last month – just before the start of Ramadan – advising them to show respect to Muslim colleagues.”

“This is a period of great personal restraint and commitment in addition to renewed focus on worship,” Brigade Commander Col. Kevin Glasz wrote. “I’d like to encourage you to learn just a little more about this religion, but more importantly, I’m asking you to be considerate and do not consume food or drink in front of our Muslim colleagues; it is a simple, yet respectful action.”

“The brigade commander also provided a link to a website about Islam, and specifically Ramadan.”

““I respect the intention behind this email, but note that there is no similar call honoring other faiths,” one Marine told me. “There is no similar invitation for non-Jewish colleagues to refrain from eating leavened products during Passover, or non-Christian colleagues to refrain from eating meat during Lent.””

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News/Politics 7-28-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Good thing we have all these extra jobs lying around. Oh, wait……

From TheWeeklyStandard  “The Obama administration is preparing to effectively “nullify” the immigration laws of the United States through an executive action, says one Republican senator. As Time reported Thursday, President Obama appears prepared to provide millions of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. work authorization via executive orders:

When President Obama issues executive orders on immigration in coming weeks, pro-reform activists are expecting something dramatic: temporary relief from deportation and work authorization for perhaps several million undocumented immigrants. If the activists are right, the sweeping move would upend a contentious policy fight and carry broad political consequences.”

“It has now been extensively reported that these executive actions will likely expand his Deferred Action program (DACA) to apply to an additional 5–6 million adult illegal immigrants. The existing DACA program has been widely misunderstood. The executive action did not, as The Hill writes today, only result in ‘deferred deportations for young undocumented immigrants.’ Illegal immigrants in the interior of the U.S. have already, as a practical matter, been immune from enforcement under this Administration. DACA applies to individuals up to 30 years of age and provides actual amnesty papers, photo ID, and work permits to illegal immigrants—who can then take any job in America.”

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2. Well then, let’s not disappoint them. After all, his ignoring US laws and continued scandals certainly provide good enough reason.

From TheCSMonitor  ” President Obama will go ahead with a “very significant” executive action on immigration after the summer – a move that may well trigger impeachment proceedings against him, senior Obama adviser Dan Pfeiffer told reporters at a Monitor breakfast Friday.

“The president acting on immigration reform will certainly up the likelihood that [Republicans] would contemplate impeachment at some point,” said Mr. Pfeiffer, who has been at the Obama White House since its inception.”

“This is a fundraising exercise for Democrats,” said Boehner spokesman Michael Steel in an e-mail response to Pfeiffer’s impeachment comments. “It is telling, and sad, that a senior White House official is focused on political games, rather than helping these kids and securing the border.”

In 2012, Obama signed a memo authorizing deferred action on the deportation of certain children of illegal immigrants – the so-called “DREAMers.” Republicans cite it as an example of executive overreach and say it has encouraged the influx of unaccompanied minors from Central America. Tea party favorite Sen. Ted Cruz (R) of Texas has urged his colleagues to reject emergency funding for the current border crisis unless the Obama administration rolls back the deferred action.”

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3. So it’s fine and dandy for them to march in depraved gay pride celebrations, but not VBS?

From FoxNews  “Bible Baptist Church in Carthage, Missouri is a small country church bursting with American pride. Old Glory is posted in the sanctuary. And every morning at summer youth camp, the teenagers pledge allegiance and sing the national anthem.”

“So it was not that big of a surprise when the church decided to honor the military during their annual Vacation Bible School. The theme was “God’s Rescue Squad.” And each day of the week, the church invited local “rescue squads” to visit with the boys and girls.”

“But our story picks up with what happened on Thursday. That was the day when the church was supposed to honor the National Guard. They had invited troops from the nearby armory to drop by with one of their Humvees.”

“But the National Guard did not visit Bible Baptist Church on Thursday night, and the reason why has caused great anger and frustration among church members. “We were told it was against military policy for National Guard troops to participate in Vacation Bible School,” Pastor Hogan said. “They said if the National Guard had assets on church property it would look like the National Guard is sponsoring the Baptist religion.””

So it’s OK if they’re endorsing homosexuality, but heaven forbid someone might think they’re endorsing Baptists. We can’t have that, now can we? 🙄

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4. Hmmmmm….. Younger, less educated, less informed…… Sounds like Democrats.

From HotAir  “First, the reassuring news: Americans’ pro-Israel sentiments remain near an all-time high, according to Pew’s latest numbers, and CNN measures public support for Israel’s recent actions against Hamas at a robust (57/43).  Gallup’s latest nationwide survey, however, shows a much closer split on the righteousness of Israel’s defensive military campaign — although only a fractional minority is willing to defend Hamas’ terror campaign:

“According to Gallup’s internals, self-identifying Republicans are the primary reason Israel’s actions attract plurality support in this poll.  GOP-leaners back Israel’s actions by a whopping 44-point margin; the numbers turn upside-down among independents (-10), and especially Democrats (-16).  The cohorts least likely to label Israel’s attacks against Hamas as “justified” are young people (-26), non-whites (-24), women (-11), and people with a high school education or less (-11) — namely, the Democratic coalition.  On a not-unrelated note, Americans who are under-informed about the issue tend to break heavily against Israel, whereas those who say they’re following developments at least “somewhat closely” back our democratic ally:”

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5. I think he has a bright future. He’s perfectly qualified to lead Obama’s IRS.

From PoliceOne  “A police chief in Wisconsin pleaded no contest Friday to a charge that he signed a local tea party leader up on gay dating, pornography and federal health care websites.

Prosecutors charged Town of Campbell Police Chief Tim Kelemen earlier this month with one misdemeanor count of unlawful use of a computerized communication system. The La Crosse Tribune reported Kelemen entered the plea in a deal that calls for the charge to be dismissed in two years if he doesn’t commit any new crimes, continues counseling and completes 40 hours of community service.

The charge stems from a feud between Kelemen and tea party leader Greg Luce. It began last fall when the tea party began holding protests on an interstate overpass in Campbell. Concerned the protests were distracting drivers, Kelemen persuaded the town board to ban signs on the bridge.

Kelemen told investigators Luce urged tea party supporters across the U.S. to bombard his department with harassing phone calls and threats in retaliation for the ordinance.”

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6. The Reverse Crusade.

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by

News/Politics 7-18-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Interesting. It’s a small sample, but it appears to blow the President and Democrats line about fleeing violence out of the water. They blame his policies and lack of border enforcement.

From FoxNews  “A new intelligence assessment concludes that misperceptions about U.S. immigration policy – and not Central American violence – are fueling the surge of thousands of children illegally crossing the Mexican border.

The 10-page July 7 report was issued by the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), which according to the Justice Department website is led by the DEA and incorporates Homeland Security. Its focus is on the collection and distribution of tactical intelligence, information which can immediately be acted on by law enforcement.

“Of the 230 migrants interviewed, 219 cited the primary reason for migrating to the United States was the perception of U.S. immigration laws granting free passes or permisos to UAC (unaccompanied children) and adult females OTMs (other than Mexicans) traveling with minors,” the report said.”

“The intelligence assessment, which is unclassified but not meant to go beyond law enforcement, also cited data from the United Nations office on Drugs and Crime Statistics saying despite an explosion in the number of illegal minors, crime data for Central America actually showed a dip in violence.”

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2. Anti-gun folks won’t like this. More guns = less crime.

From HotAir  “Via Bob Owens at Bearing Arms, a leftover from yesterday that shouldn’t be missed. Detroit PD chief James Craig has spent the past six months encouraging locals to arm themselves, an unusual — and politically perilous — position for a big city police officer to take. No regrets.

Detroit has experienced 37 percent fewer robberies in 2014 than during the same period last year, 22 percent fewer break-ins of businesses and homes, and 30 percent fewer carjackings. Craig attributed the drop to better police work and criminals being reluctant to prey on citizens who may be carrying guns.

“Criminals are getting the message that good Detroiters are armed and will use that weapon,” said Craig, who has repeatedly said he believes armed citizens deter crime. “I don’t want to take away from the good work our investigators are doing, but I think part of the drop in crime, and robberies in particular, is because criminals are thinking twice that citizens could be armed.

“I can’t say what specific percentage is caused by this, but there’s no question in my mind it has had an effect,” Craig said.”

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3. The White House is bribing insurance companies to try and delay the damage before mid-terms.

From Forbes  “Want to know what’s happening with Obamacare? Good luck finding out. The White House recently adopted a new approach for updating Americans on the country’s most consequential law. I call it the “needle in a haystack” method: Bury the announcement in hundreds of pages of regulations and hope no one finds it.

The White House tried a test run several weeks ago. Hidden in the midst of a 436 page regulatory update, and written in pure bureaucratese, the Department of Health and Human Services asked that insurance companies limit the looming premium increases for 2015 health plans. But don’t worry, HHS hinted: we’ll bail you out on the taxpayer’s dime if you lose money.

No wonder there wasn’t a press release. The White House is playing politics with Americans’ health care—and they’re bribing health insurance companies to play along.

The administration’s intention is clear: Salvage the 2014 midterm elections. Typically, insurance companies release their premium rates between summer and early fall—i.e., right before voters cast their ballots in November. If premiums skyrocket—which looks increasingly likely—then voters won’t look too kindly on Senators and Representatives who voted for Obamacare and created this problem.”

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4. Looks like those ObamaCare navigators were a waste of money.

From TheWeeklyStandard  “During the open enrollment period for the state and federal health care exchanges, each staff member and volunteer worked with an average of 1.8 people per day, according to a survey of assister programs released by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser calculated the number of people receiving aid between October 1, 2013 and the end of April, 2014:

More than 4,400 Assister Programs, employing more than 28,000 full-time-equivalent staff and volunteers, helped an estimated 10.6 million people during the first Open Enrollment period.

If you do the math, 28,000 individuals assisting 10.6 million people over 210 days breaks down to 1.8 people per day per service representative. While the individualized guidance was time consuming, the study revealed that the assister programs should have been able to help more people in the span of a full workday. The questionnaire answers indicated that 64 percent of the programs spent an average of 1-2 hours with each person, 18 percent took 2-3 hours, and just five percent exceeded three hours.”

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5. The VA is saying they need 17 billion to stop mistreating veterans.

From HotAir  “In which the agency that’s been giving millions in bonuses to people for causing and lying about the untimely deaths of veterans asks for the GDPs of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Anguilla, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Equatorial Guinea combined from taxpayers to stop doing that. Super:

The Department of Veterans Affairs needs $17.6 billion in additional funds over the next three years to meet patients’ needs and fix the troubled agency’s problems, its acting director said Wednesday.

Testifying for the first time on Capitol Hill, interim VA Secretary Sloan Gibson told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that the money would help VA medical centers decrease appointment waiting times and hire more doctors.

You perhaps won’t be surprised to find this request is a-ok with Democrats while Republicans wonder how more money is going to solve this problem when the increasing backlog and problems at the Veterans Administration correlated with a rapidly increasing budget. And, in the case of the aforementioned bonuses, more money actually caused the problems.”

And that’s on top of the money already in current reform packages.

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6. How to renounce America, and still be called a patriot, at least by other hypocrites.

From NationalJournal  “This story is about a gilded class of people and corporations enriched by the new American economy while the rest of its citizens pay the tab. The protagonists could be any number of institutional elites, but this column happens to be about a Democratic senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, and his daughter, Heather Bresch, the chief executive of Mylan, a giant maker of generic drugs based outside Pittsburgh.

Her company’s profits come largely from Medicaid and Medicare, which means her nest is feathered by U.S. taxpayers. On Monday, Bresch announced that Mylan will renounce its United States citizenship and instead become incorporated in the Netherlands – leaving this country, in part, to pay less in taxes.

This is the sort of story that makes blood boil in populists – voters from the Elizabeth Warren wing of the Democratic Party to libertarians who follow Rand Paul and including tea party conservatives. These disillusioned souls, growing in numbers, hate hypocrites who condemn the U.S. political system while gaming it.

Populists can’t be happy with how this story was told by Andrew Ross Sorkin of the New York Times. Under the headline “Reluctantly, Patriot Flees Homeland for Greener Tax Pastures,” Sorkin cast Bresch as a helpless victim of a system that has made her wealthy and her father powerful.”

Oh the poor things… 🙄

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by

News/Politics 7-14-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. We finally have some judges requiring under-oath testimony from the IRS. They’re not as easy to ignore, impede, and lie to as Congress is.

From FoxNews   “A federal judge has ordered the IRS to explain “under oath” how the agency lost a trove of emails from the official at the heart of the Tea Party targeting scandal. 

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan gave the tax agency 30 days to file a declaration by an “appropriate official” to address the computer issues with ex-official Lois Lerner. 

The decision came Thursday as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, which along with GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill has questioned how the IRS lost the emails and, in some cases, had no apparent way to retrieve them.”

And a second.

Also from FoxNews  “A second federal judge has now ordered the IRS to explain under oath how the agency lost emails from former division director Lois Lerner, the woman at the heart of the Tea Party targeting scandal. 

U.S. District Court Judge Reggie Walton told Obama administration lawyers on Friday he wants to see an affidavit explaining what happened with Lerner’s hard drive. The IRS claims her computer suffered a crash in 2011 that wiped her email records at the time clean. 

But at a hearing examining a lawsuit against the IRS by conservative group True the Vote, Walton said he wants to know what happened to Lerner’s hard drive, which allegedly was recycled. He asked for an affidavit from those involved in handling the crashed drive. 

Among other things, he said he wanted to know the serial number, if any, assigned to the hard drive and if that number is known, “why the computer hard drive cannot be identified and preserved.””

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2. This is getting interesting too.

From TheHill  “A conservative election-watching organization has filed a motion for a restraining order against the Mississippi Republican Party, declaring it has evidence of tampering in runoff records.

True the Vote, which filed the motion with the Jackson Division of the U.S. District Court on Wednesday, claims it has “dozens of full detailed affidavit reports” detailing incidences of vote tampering. The alleged misconduct includes “destruction of  voters’ absentee ballot applications and mandatory envelopes, illegal alteration of poll books, cross-over and double voting, absentee ballots marked ‘Accepted’ but unopened.”

“Defendant county commissioners have continued to violate federal law by preventing access to election records. Now, we think we know why,” True the Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht said in a statement. 

“If the affidavits we now have regarding the destruction of election documents and other similarly stunning findings are true, then no Mississippian, no American, can trust the results of this election.”

The McDaniel camp is getting in on it too, with allegations of their own.

From NortheastMiss.DailyJournal  “State Sen. Chris McDaniel, still refusing to give up his challenge to incumbent U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran, said Friday via e-mail his campaign had found 8,300 questionable ballots across the state from the June 24 Republican primary runoff.

He said many of those “were unquestionably cast by voters ineligible to participate in the June 24th runoff election” that McDaniel lost to Cochran

McDaniel promised a Wednesday news conference “to discuss the evidence we have documented and our next steps.”
McDaniel has said before he intends to file a legal challenge to the June 24 election where Cochran defeated him by 194,932 votes to 187,265 votes.

This past week the McDaniel campaign sent supporters into each county to look for possible voter irregularities. The Cochran campaign, which has had representatives in each courthouse to observe the actions of the McDaniel campaign, has said only a few hundred irregularities were found.”

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3. The next scandal?

From TheDailyMail  “House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chair Rep. Darrell Issa sent his latest subpoena to the Obama administration on Friday, demanding testimony from the director of a controversial White House office reportedly tasked with political work on taxpayers’ dime.

David Simas, the director of the White House Office of Political Strategy and Outreach, has refused to testify voluntarily but will be required to answer questions in a July 16 hearing on Capitol Hill.

President Barack Obama closed the White House Office of Political Affairs in 2011, just days before an Office of Special Counsel report warned that it risked ‘transforming from an official government office into a partisan political operation.’

But the president reopened the office six months ago under a new name as Democrats began to gear up for a contentious midterm election fight.”

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4. Looks like the plan may be backfiring.

From The WashingtonPost  “Until now, the politics of immigration have been seen as a no-lose proposition for President Obama and the Democrats. If they could get a comprehensive overhaul passed, they would win. And if Republicans blocked it, the GOP would further alienate crucial Hispanic and moderate voters.

But with the current crisis on the Southwest border, where authorities have apprehended tens of thousands of unaccompanied Central American children since October, that calculus may be shifting.

Republicans and even some Democrats have accused Obama of being insufficiently engaged in a calamity that many say he should have seen coming.”

“The emergency has also renewed questions about the administration’s competence, reminiscent of those raised during the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, last year’s botched rollout of the health-care law and more recent revelations of mismanagement that jeopardized care of patients at veterans hospitals. “

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by

News/Politics 7-10-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Lots to talk about today.

1. There’s no reason for this. It serves no other purpose but to insult.

From TheDailyMail  “The rebels, who are members of the Islamic State terror group, were filmed attacking centuries-old graves in the north-west city of Mosul in Ninevah province.

Donning balaclavas and black coats, they swung sledgehammers into the tombs, causing pieces of dust and stone to fly through the air.”

“One of the devastated tombstones belonged to the Prophet Jonah (Younis in Arabic) and was revered by Muslims and Christians alike, according to Iraqi authorities.”

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2. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I have no interest whatsoever in anything aiding pedophiles, but this sets a very dangerous precedent, even for non-Catholics. Imagine the effect this could have on people seeking spiritual guidance that they think is, and should be, protected conversations.

From HotAir  “Many observers misunderstood the Hobby Lobby dispute and others like it as a First Amendment case, but it wasn’t. It primarily related to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), with an indirect reference to the constitutional freedom of religious expression. A case in Louisiana may be the real McCoy, though. The Louisiana Supreme Court has ruled that a priest must testify in a case about what he heard in a confessional — an order that would result in automatic excommunication and damnation, according to the doctrine and canon law of the Catholic Church:

The state high court’s decision, rendered in May of this year, demands that a hearing be held in 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge, where the suit originated, to determine whether or not a confession was made. It reverses an earlier decision by the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeals dismissing the original lawsuit filed against Bayhi and the diocese. The case stems from a claim by parents of a minor that their daughter confessed to Bayhi during the sacrament of reconciliation that she engaged in inappropriate sexual behavior with grown man who also attended their church. Court documents indicate the child was 12 years old at the time of the alleged sexual abuse.”

“This case gets complicated for a couple of reasons. While the common perception has been that priests cannot be forced to testify about confessions in the US because of ministerial privilege and the First Amendment, that privilege gets defined by each state separately. In Louisiana, the privilege attaches to the person offering the confession and not the priest. Once the penitent has revealed what was said — or perhaps more to the specific point in this case, alleges to have revealed what was said — the state can subpoena the priest to confirm or deny the testimony. In that sense, it’s akin to the lawyer-client privilege, which can be broken by the client.

On the other hand, lawyers don’t face eternal disbarment for testifying once a client has waived the privilege. Priests do, and face automatic expulsion from the Catholic Church for complying. There is nothing in church doctrine that requires a penitent to keep quiet about what transpires in the confessional, but the canon law is clear on this point. Can. 983 states that “The sacramental seal is inviolable; therefore it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason.” The punishment for breaking the seal is explicitly noted in Can. 1388: “A confessor who directly violates the sacramental seal incurs a latae sententiae [by the commission of the act] excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See; one who does so only indirectly is to be punished according to the gravity of the delict.”

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3. Thoughts?

Also from HotAir  “Turns out the American public thinks Jesus is a pro-life liberal. Who knew?

The latest research from YouGov shows that on social issues in particular Americans tend to have more liberal attitudes than imagine say Jesus would have. 48% of the public supports legal abortion, compared to only 20% who say Jesus would support it, the biggest divide between public opinion and expectations of what Jesus would think. Only on one issue, the death penalty, do the public stake out a more conservative position, with 58% in favor of the death penalty for murderers compared to 34% who say that Jesus would support it. The smallest difference in attitude is on universal healthcare. 56% of Americans support universal healthcare and 55% of Americans say that Jesus would support it too…

Comparing Protestants and Catholics we see that Jesus’ imagined position amongst Protestants is more conservative than amongst Catholics. A third of Catholics say that Jesus would support gay marriage, compared to only 20% of Protestants. Most Catholics also say that Jesus would support universal healthcare and stricter gun laws, while in each case less than half of Protestants agree.

Abortion and gay marriage were the only issues tested in which more people thought Jesus would take the traditional conservative position than the liberal one. When asked if he’d support or oppose legal abortion, a clear majority of 20/52 overall said the latter:”

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4. Now we’re starting to see what they’ve been hiding. Well….. the stuff they haven’t already destroyed anyway.

Nope. No scandal here. 🙄

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Just as the IRS tea party targeting scandal was erupting, Lois G. Lerner warned colleagues to “be cautious” about what information they put in emails because it could end up being turned over to Congress, according to an email message released Wednesday.

The 2013 email exchange between Ms. Lerner and fellow employees at the Internal Revenue Service also says that instant message conversations were probably never stored and weren’t checked during open-records requests — even though they also fell under the law requiring electronic records to be stored.”

“I was cautioning folks about email and how we have had several occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails — so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails,” Ms. Lerner wrote in an April 9, 2013, message.

She went on to ask whether the instant message communications were stored automatically. When a tech staffer said no but the records could be stored if employees copied them, she replied, “Perfect.”

Yes, perfect…. for criminals trying to hide their actions.

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5. Ray Nagin has gotten ten years in prison for taking bribes and corruption.

From NBCNews  “Former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin was sentenced Wednesday to 120 months in prison. U.S. District Judge Helen Berrigan also ordered Nagin to pay $84,000 in restitution. “What Ray Nagin did was sell his office over and over again,” lead prosecutor Matt Coman said after the sentencing. “The damage that C. Ray Nagin inflicted on this community … is incalculable.” He will report to a minimum security prison in September.

Nagin, 58, was convicted on Feb. 12 of accepting more than $500,000 worth of bribes and free trips from contractors in exchange for helping them clinch millions of dollars in city work when he was mayor of New Orleans, both pre- and post-Hurricane Katrina. He was found guilty of 20 out of 21 counts in the indictment. Nagin, a Democrat who was mayor for two terms from 2002 to 2010, denied he took any bribes.”

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6. Why worry about doing your job, when there’s more important things to do. Like pander to outraged libs.

From TheHill  “Senate Democrats will offer legislation Wednesday morning to reverse last week’s Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Supreme Court ruling on contraception coverage, though the measure has no chance of passing the House.

The measure from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) seeks to stop corporations from refusing federal healthcare coverage mandates on religious grounds.

Murray is spearheading the effort by Senate Democrats to turn the tables on Republican supporters of the ruling ahead of the midterm elections.

The Democrats, aware that the House would never defy the court’s ruling but confident the public sides with them, want to draw the GOP into a political fight over birth control in order to energize women voters.”

They can’t run on their pathetic record, so they’ll drag out the old “war on women” horse for another beating. How original… 🙄

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7. Not surprising. They don’t want people to see what’s going on in these facilities.

From TheBlaze  “Department of Homeland Security officials are stonewalling lawmakers who try to make unannounced visits to immigrant detention facilities throughout the country and are closing off public roads along the U.S.-Mexico border in an effort to keep journalists from reporting on the growing illegal immigration crisis, federal law enforcement officials told TheBlaze.

The officials said senior supervisors have made scheduling visits ahead of time mandatory at detention facilities, turned back officials from unannounced visits, and that Border Patrol agents have been forced to clean up facilities and transfer illegal aliens from unauthorized holding cells before they are inspected by lawmakers. Reporters have also been stopped by DHS officials from traveling along public access roads near the Rio Grande, where most of illegal immigrant children and groups are crossing into the U.S.

The media crackdown along the Rio Grande happened shortly after TheBlaze visited the region last month and traveled  along some of the more secluded roads along the river’s edge. TheBlaze witnessed dozens of illegal immigrants turning themselves in to Border Patrol agents after making the  crossing into the United States and interviewed many of them before they were taken away.”

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8. Meanwhile, the pushback from the communities they’re dumping the illegals in continues.

From WatchDogWire  “The current crisis on the southern border, involving tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, has now become a concern for Michiganders who live in a rural community with less than 3000 people.

Wolverine Human Services, a social services agency which typically helps needy Michigan children, is in the process of securing a contract and negotiating with the Office of Refugee Resettlement to bring between 60- 120 male illegal immigrants, between the ages of 12-17, to the small city of Vassar without any input from residents of the community.

About 100 concerned citizens, some bearing signs, gathered outside the Vassar City Hall last night to let public officials know what they think.”

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9. Liberal academia hate competing views that go against their dogma. So it’s not surprising that they would push abortion while calling a good alternative a bad thing in order to scare people away from it.

From CampusReform  “The University of Chicago (UC) has published an “abortion guide” on its website providing information on abortion— including how to obtain one on campus.

The website—titled “abguide”—is a comprehensive guide detailing how to pay for abortion, where to find an abortion provider in the area, and what to expect from an abortion. While the site touts “options counseling,” it warns against crisis pregnancy centers, saying they could “lead to suicide” or “post-abortion stress disorder.”

UC’s abortion guide is based on principles outlined by the Asian Communities for Reproductive Justice, an organization that claims the fight for women’s reproductive justice through youth organizing, environmental justice, and workers rights. The group affirms their cause stems from the civil rights movement of the 1960’s.”

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by

News/Politics 7-8-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Most transparent administration evah!

From NationalReview  “Health and Human Services officials will allow reporters to visit a military facility housing some of the immigrant children who have arrived at the southern border in recent weeks, but only if the media promises not to record anything, not to ask any questions during the tour, and not to talk to any of the staff members or children.

“This violates the First Amendment,” Representative Jim Bridenstine (R., Okla.), who represents the congressional district containing the housing facility at Fort Sill, said of the HHS invitation to the media.  “This is not transparent. HHS is trying to muzzle the media and hide the human tragedy that has resulted directly from the administration’s failure to enforce the law.”

HHS attached seven rules “in order to protect the safety and privacy of the children” for the media who come to the tour, according to an HHS invitation released by Bridenstine’s office:”

Oh. I see.

It’s for the children. 🙄

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2. This is why I don’t believe amnesty groups or the Chamber of Commerce when they say the visa program for foreign workers needs to be expanded. It doesn’t.

From TheAP  “The dream didn’t last long. Parker claims she was laid off one year later after she trained her replacement, a newly arrived worker from India. Now she has joined a federal lawsuit alleging the global staffing firm that ran Harley-Davidson’s tech support discriminated against American workers — in part by replacing them with temporary workers from South Asia.

The firm, India-based Infosys Ltd., denies wrongdoing and contends, as many companies do, that it has faced a shortage of talent and specialized skill sets in the U.S. Like other firms, Infosys wants Congress to allow even more of these temporary workers.

But amid calls for expanding the nation’s so-called H-1B visa program, there is growing pushback from Americans who argue the program has been hijacked by staffing companies that import cheaper, lower-level workers to replace more expensive U.S. employees — or keep them from getting hired in the first place.

“It’s getting pretty frustrating when you can’t compete on salary for a skilled job,” said Rich Hajinlian, a veteran computer programmer from the Boston area. “You hear references all the time that these big companies … can’t find skilled workers. I am a skilled worker.”

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3. The Hobby Lobby case continues to anger liberals, even the dissenters to the opinion.

From HotAir  “After the Hobby Lobby decision, a number of people pointed to a reference to the so-called “accommodation” for religious-oriented organizations in the HHS contraception mandate to conclude that the Supreme Court’s decision would be limited to the for-profit sector, and only to certain methods of contraception. A series of orders the next day showed the latter was not true, and a decision late yesterday suggests the former isn’t, either. An emergency injunction on behalf of Wheaton College sparked the ire of three Supreme Court justices, who issued an angry dissent to the unsigned order that temporarily sets aside the “accommodation”:

Today, the Supreme Court granted Wheaton College an injunction pending appeal against enforcement of the contraception mandate, even though Wheaton was eligible for the accommodation HHS has provided for religious non-profits.  Specifically the Court ordered:

If the applicant informs the Secretary of Health and Human Services in writing that it is a non-profit organization that holds itself out as religious and has religious objections to providing coverage for contraceptive services, the respondents are enjoined from enforcing against the applicant the challenged provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and related regulations pending final disposition of appellate review. To meet the condition for injunction pending appeal, the applicant need not use the form prescribed by the Government, EBSA Form 700, and need not send copies to health insurance issuers or third-party administrators.

This prompted three of the four dissenters in Hobby Lobby to issue a statement scolding the rest of the court for ignoring what they claim had been decided on Monday:”

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4. ISIS is set to destroy some biblical history.

From YahooNews  “No trace ever has been found of the Garden of Eden, said to have lain near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates, but one of the great prizes the excavators did discover was Senaccherib’s capital, Nineveh, which the biblical prophet Nahum called “the city of blood, full of lies, full of plunder, never without victims!”

Last month, a new marauder descended on Nineveh and the nearby city of Mosul. He, too, came down like the wolf on the fold, but his cohorts brandished Kalashnikovs from pickup trucks, not shining spears; their banners were the black flags of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham.

Soon afterward the minions of the self-appointed caliph of the freshly self-declared Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, paid a visit to the Mosul Museum. It has been closed for years for restoration, ever since it was looted along with many of Iraq’s other institutions in the wake of the culturally oblivious American-led invasion of 2003. But the Mosul Museum was on the verge of reopening, at last, and the full collection had been stored there.

“These groups of terrorists—their arrival was a brutal shock, with no warning,” Iraqi National Museum Director Qais Hussein Rashid told me when he visited Paris last week with a mission pleading for international help. “We were not able to take preventive measures.””

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5. But the President said ObamaCare would shorten ER waits because folks would have a regular doctor. Guess that promise had an expiration date too.

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6. And since the other ObamaCare shoe (the employer mandate) is about to drop, the President is trying to pre-empt the sticker shock.

From HotAir  “And well they might. Insurers got a close look at the profiles of the enrollees in the individual health-insurance market this spring, and they turned out to be sicker than projected, as the “young invincibles” took a pass on ObamaCare in 2014. That means that premiums will go up in the fall in order to cover the added expense of the higher-risk enrollments — and that has the Obama administration spin team working extra hard this summer to cover their rear ends just before the midterms:

Most state health insurance rates for 2015 are scheduled to be approved by early fall, and most are likely to rise, timing that couldn’t be worse for Democrats already on defense in the midterms.

The White House and its allies know they’ve been beaten in every previous round of Obamacare messaging, never more devastatingly than in 2010. And they know the results this November could hinge in large part on whether that happens again.

So they’re trying to avoid — or at least, get ahead of — any September surprise.

This assumes that the problems with ObamaCare only have to do with messaging. That’s only true to the extent that the previous messaging from the administration has been proven either entirely wrong or flat-out lies. “You can keep your plan” ended up as the Lie of the Year for 2013 when millions of people who already had insurance got kicked out of their existing plans for 2014, and forced to pay more for less coverage in many instances. Barack Obama had promised that his reforms would lower premiums by $2500 a year for a family of four, but premiums have skyrocketed since the passage of ObamaCare, and they’ll do the same again in September.”

Messaging isn’t the problem. Your product sucks, and is too expensive. That’s the problem.

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by

News/Politics 7-2-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Hobby Lobby hobbyhorse, and why liberals should get off of theirs.

From BloombergView  “After reading the Twitter reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Hobby Lobby case, I began researching a post on what women could do now that corporations have exactly the same rights people do, including playing power forward for the Miami Heat, and now that contraception has been outlawed throughout these great United States. Then I read the decision and, to my surprise, found that it didn’t quite say any of that.

So what does it say? The court found that owners of closely held corporations have the same rights as sole proprietors under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. They cannot be forced to violate their religious beliefs unless the government can genuinely find no other way to achieve a compelling public purpose.

But that sounds so boring compared to War on Women! And so that’s the narrative the Internet chose. Here’s a representative tweet from my feed this morning:

So let’s all deny women birth control & get closer to harass them when they’re going in for repro health services. BECAUSE FREEDOM.

Logically, this is incoherent, unless you actually believe that it is impossible to buy birth control without a side payment from your employer. (If you are under this tragic misimpression, then be of good cheer! Generic birth control pills are available from the drugstore for about $25 a month.)“

Or Wal-Mart has them for $9. But I guess mentioning Wal-Mart to a liberal would upset them too, so they would just climb back on their hobbyhorses again.

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2. The Supreme Court decision is already causing consequences for some other cases.

From HotAir  “Late yesterday, the first fruits of the Hobby Lobby decision fell into the lap of EWTN, the Catholic satellite television station which has fought the HHS mandate into the appellate court. Today would have been the first day that EWTN would have to start paying ruinous fines for refusing to provide free contraception and sterilization in its health insurance coverage. Fortunately, the Eleventh Circuit granted a stay not long after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby:

In a resounding victory for religious freedom, today EWTN was granted last minute relief from the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, one day before the world’s largest religious media network would be forced to violate its deeply help religious convictions or pay crippling fines to the IRS on July 1.

After the district judge recently issued a disappointing ruling against the global Catholic media network, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty filed an emergency appeal to the Eleventh Circuit. Pending that ruling, the Becket Fund urged the Supreme Court and the Eleventh Circuit to step in to protect EWTN from being forced to provide contraceptives and potentially life-terminating drugs and devices that violate its Catholic teachings. Thanks to the Eleventh Circuit’s decision today to grant temporary emergency relief to the Catholic network, EWTN can now freely practice what it preaches while it pursues its claims in court.

“On the same day as the Hobby Lobby decision, the Eleventh Circuit protected religious ministries challenging the same government mandate,” said Lori Windham, Senior Counsel at the Becket Fund. “It’s time for the government to stop fighting ministries like EWTN and the Little Sisters of the Poor, and start respecting religious freedom.”

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3. So how’s the ObamaCare website working out now that they fixed the problems?

Oh wait, no, they didn’t. 🙄

From FoxNews  “The Obama administration is struggling to resolve data discrepancies that could jeopardize coverage for millions who sought health insurance on the federal exchange HealthCare.gov, according to a watchdog report on the still-rocky implementation of ObamaCare. 

Though the system’s troubles have faded from the headlines since the problem-plagued launch last October, a report from the health department inspector general provided the first independent look at widespread issues the government is having effectively fact-checking the information applicants are putting in the system. 

According to the report, the administration was unable to resolve 2.6 million so-called “inconsistencies” out of a total of 2.9 million such problems from October through December 2013. “

So much for that magic 7 million number huh?

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4. Once again, the Obama admin seeks to silence potential whistleblowers with threats.

Also From FoxNews  “A government-contracted security force threatened to arrest doctors and nurses if they divulged any information about the contagion threat at a refugee camp housing illegal alien children at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, sources say.

In spite of the threat, several former camp workers broke their confidentiality agreements and shared exclusive details with me about the dangerous conditions at the camp. They said taxpayers deserve to know about the contagious diseases and the risks the children pose to Americans. I have agreed to not to disclose their identities because they fear retaliation and prosecution.

“There were several of us who wanted to talk about the camps, but the agents made it clear we would be arrested,” a psychiatric counselor told me. “We were under orders not to say anything.”

The sources said workers were guarded by a security force from the Baptist Family & Children’s Services, which the Department of Health and Human Services hired to run the Lackland Camp.”

Wait a minute…. Baptists have a security force?

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5. Yesterday I posted a video about allegations of vote buying against the Cochran campaign in Mississippi. Here’s a very detailed breakdown of the evidence so far.

From RedState  “An audio interview has surfaced in which the interviewee claims that he was to be paid by the Cochran camp to grease voters in the Mississippi GOP Senate runoff election. The audio interview, which coincides with a separate audio recording and batch of evidence produced by the newly launched GotNews.com, a project by Charles C. Johnson, alleges that the Cochran campaign conspired with a Mississippi Reverend to buy the votes of African American voters, who happen to be democrats.

Before I get into the weeds of what is in the audio interview and transcript, which are both below, let me set up the stage a bit. What is alleged to have occurred is illegal and very serious business. Under Mississippi law the alleged crimes could lead to Thad Cochran being removed from the Senate. Everything that follows comes from sources either on the ground in Mississippi, or those working closely with them.”

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by

News/Politics 6-30-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Pass the popcorn. this is getting interesting.

From Time  “Attorney General Eric Holder must appoint a special prosecutor to investigate IRS targeting of conservative groups or expect to face impeachment proceedings, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on the chamber floor Thursday.

“When an Attorney General mocks the rule of law, when an Attorney General corrupts the Department of Justice by conducting a nakedly partisan investigation to cover up political wrongdoing that conduct by any reasonable measure constitutes high crimes and misdemeanors,” said Cruz. “Attorney General Eric Holder has the opportunity to do the right thing. He could appoint a special prosecutor with meaningful independence who is not a major Obama donor.”

The donor Cruz is referring to is Justice Department prosecutor Barbara Bosserman, who has given $6,750 to the Democratic Party and President Obama over the past ten years, according to the Washington Post. Bosserman has been chosen to lead the Justice Department probe into the IRS.

Cruz and other conservatives are dismayed that the Justice Department has yet to indict anyone 13 months after the IRS admitted that it targeted nonprofit political advocacy groups with the terms “tea party” or “patriot” in their names from 2010 to 2012.”

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2. A decision is expected today in the Hobby Lobby case against the contraceptive mandate. But it will it really solve anything either way?

From NationalJournal  “The justices are set to rule any day now in a challenge to the birth-control mandate, and any decision against the policy would have ripple effects far beyond the two companies that filed this lawsuit. Just how far, however, depends on how broadly the Court rules—and it has plenty of options.

No matter what happens, the Court won’t strike down the entire mandate. The two companies that brought their challenge to the Supreme Court—Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties—haven’t asked the justices to ax the entire policy.

The most sweeping option is a broad First Amendment proclamation that all corporations have a fundamental right to exercise religion, in this case by refusing to cover birth control in their employees’ health care plans. This outcome would be almost a sequel to the Citizens United case on campaign finance laws and free speech. It would probably open the door for any company to challenge a slew of state or federal regulations, and would allow any corporation to avoid the contraception mandate—potentially affecting millions of women.

But a sweeping First Amendment ruling might not be the most likely option, based on the questions Justice Anthony Kennedy asked during oral arguments and Chief Justice John Roberts’s general preference for narrower decisions. The Court could easily go smaller if it sides with Hobby Lobby.”

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3. In other ObamaCare news….

From TheLATimes  “rustration and legal challenges over the network of doctors and hospitals for Obamacare patients have marred an otherwise successful rollout of the federal healthcare law in California.

Limiting the number of medical providers was part of an effort by insurers to hold down premiums. But confusion over the new plans has led to unforeseen medical bills for some patients and prompted a state investigation.

More complaints are surfacing as patients start to use their new coverage bought through Covered California, the state’s health insurance exchange.

“I thought I had done everything right, and it’s been awful,” said Jean Buchanan, 56. The Fullerton resident found herself stuck with an $8,000 bill for cancer treatment after receiving conflicting information on whether it was covered. “How am I going to come up with that much money?”

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4. So as I suspected, it was all for show. That’s why he walked around free and giving interviews to the press for 2 years after the attack. The trial should be a real dog and pony show.

From FoxNews  “Despite President Obama’s promise to stay focused on hunting down those responsible for the 2012 Benghazi attack — and despite a recent arrest touted as a major takedown — sources say little has been done to nab the other suspects. 

According to multiple sources on the ground, including some with direct knowledge of the operations to identify and hunt the Benghazi suspects, intelligence that could have been acted upon at times has been ignored or put on hold. Further, they say, the recent capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala — now on a ship bound for the U.S., expected to arrive this weekend — was an easy one.  “He was low-hanging fruit,” one source told Fox News. “We could have picked him up months and months ago and there was no change, or urgency to do this now.” 

“According to sources, the United States has a “target list” that initially contained about 10 suspects identified within days of the attack and eventually grew to more than 20 as American Special Forces conducted surveillance in and around Benghazi. 

The four groups on the “target list” include Ansar al-Sharia, with the top target being the “Emir of Ansar al Sharia,” Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu. He was a prisoner at Guantánamo Bay for more than five years and at the time was classified by analysts at the prison as “a probable member of Al Qaeda.” Despite this significant threat to American security and allies, bin Qumu was released as part of an amnesty for militants in 2008. Sources told Fox News that intelligence has shown his involvement in the attacks, and actionable intelligence has for some reason been ignored. “

The suspect arrested was at the very bottom of the list.

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5. Interesting. It seems that despite claims by Democrats, RINO’s, and the Chamber of Commerce, we have all the workers we need. And amnesty is hurting American’s  chances of getting jobs.

From NationalReview  “According to a major new report from the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), net employment growth in the United States since 2000 has gone entirely to immigrants, legal and illegal. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, CIS scholars Steven A. Camarota and Karen Zeigler found that there were 127,000 fewer working-age natives holding a job in the first quarter of 2014 than in 2000, while the number of immigrants with a job was 5.7 million above the 2000 level.”

“Other significant findings include: Because the native-born population grew significantly, but the number working actually fell, there were 17 million more working-age natives not working in the first quarter of 2014 than in 2000.

The share of natives working or looking for work, referred to as labor force participation, shows the same decline as the employment rate. In fact, labor force participation has continued to decline for working-age natives even after the jobs recovery began in 2010.

Immigrants have made gains across the labor market, including lower-skilled jobs such as maintenance, construction, and food service; middle-skilled jobs like office support and health care support; and high­er-skilled jobs, including management, computers, and health care practitioners.

The supply of potential workers is enormous: 8.7 million native college graduates are not working, as are 17 million with some college, and 25.3 million with no more than a high school education.”

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by

News/Politics 6-25-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. In testimony before Congress the National Archives head says the IRS did not follow the law.

More here from FoxNews  “Archivist of the U.S. David Ferriero, speaking before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, made clear that federal agencies are supposed to report whenever their records are destroyed or even accidentally deleted. But he said that after emails from embattled IRS official Lois Lerner vanished after a computer failure in 2011, nobody told the National Archives.  “They did not follow the law,” Ferriero said. 

The testimony comes as lawmakers dig for answers as to how Lerner’s emails disappeared and why they only found out about it earlier this month. Lerner herself twice has refused to answer questions before Congress, leaving lawmakers seeking answers from other officials who interacted with her or were involved in reviewing her documents. 

Also on the witness panel was White House attorney Jennifer O’Connor, whom Chairman Darrell Issa compelled to testify via subpoena. 

Republican lawmakers, though, struggled to get answers from O’Connor, who previously worked at the IRS, about the emails. She said she only found out the “week before last” that emails were gone. “

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2. The IRS has admitted their guilt in releasing private taxpayer information to the a gay rights group fighting Prop 8.

From TheFreeBeacon   “The IRS has agreed to pay $50,000 in damages to the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) for unlawfully releasing its private information to a gay rights group that is a political rival, the Daily Signal has learned.

NOM expressed relief at the settlement agreement.

“Congress made the disclosure of confidential tax return information a serious matter for a reason,” NOM chairman John D. Eastman told The Daily Signal. “We’re delighted that the IRS has now been held accountable for the illegal disclosure of our list of major donors from our tax return.”

In 2012, the Human Rights Campaign posted on its website private information from the National Organization for Marriage that revealed private information including the identities and contact information for its donors. Then information was then published by multiple media outlets, according to the Daily Signal.”

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 3. This was obvious from his snarky testimony. He clearly acted like a partisan Democrat. Just another flunky who bought his position.

From PJMedia  “IRS Commissioner John Koskinen looks like he got the job atop the taxman agency the old fashioned way: He bought it.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, Koskinen has donated about $100,000 to Democrat candidates and committees since his first donation in 1979. His donor recipients include Gary Hart, the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic nominee in each presidential campaign since 1980 (which would even include Walter Mondale, who stood no chance of beating President Ronald Reagan in 1984), the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and Hillary Clinton’s and Barack Obama’s campaigns. He most recently donated $2,500 to Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) in 2013.”

“He has given no money to Republicans. The taxman is a partisan Democrat.”

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4. The number of veterans that we know died awaiting care has grown greatly.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The problems at Veterans Affairs extend well beyond long wait lists, with a report Tuesday showing the department is plagued with poor care that has cost up to 1,000 veterans their lives and left taxpayers on the hook for nearly $1 billion in malpractice settlements since the beginning of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Some of the problems detailed in the report by Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma are downright ghoulish. They include the case of a former security chief at a New York Veterans Affairs medical center whom the FBI arrested on charges of plotting to kidnap, rape and murder women and children.

The VA has come under fire in recent months over reports that dozens of veterans died while stuck on secret waiting lists at a VA facility in Phoenix. Since then, an inspector general’s investigation has found widespread misuse of secret wait lists in a number of facilities. The department’s secretary has resigned.

But Mr. Coburn’s report, titled “Friendly Fire: Death, Delay and Dismay at the VA,” argues that problems go back well before the Phoenix scandal and run deeper than bogus wait lists and scheduling practices designed to help managers show that they are meeting performance goals.”

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5. The White House and ICE continue to release illegal immigrants into the US. Not surprisingly, they refuse to say how many.

From YahooNews  “The Obama administration has released into the U.S. an untold number of immigrant families caught traveling illegally from Central America in recent months — and although the government knows how many it’s released, it won’t say publicly.

Senior U.S. officials directly familiar with the issue, including at the Homeland Security Department and White House, have so far dodged the answer on at least seven occasions over two weeks, alternately saying that they did not know the figure or didn’t have it immediately at hand. “We will get back to you,” the Homeland Security deputy secretary said Friday.

The figure is widely believed to exceed 40,000 since October. It’s believed to be slightly below the roughly 52,000 children caught traveling illegally from Central America over the same period, an extraordinary increase since last year that is driving a humanitarian crisis at the border.

Despite promises to the contrary, this is how it looks when the image-conscious Obama administration doesn’t want to reveal politically sensitive information that could influence an important policy debate. The mystery figure is significant because the number of families caught crossing from Central America represents a large share of new immigration cases that will further strain the overwhelmed U.S. immigration courts system. It also affects federal enforcement strategy, such as where to deploy the border patrol, and political calculations about whether Congress or the White House will relax American immigration laws or regulations before upcoming congressional elections in November.”

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6. And now we know that the Obama admin ignored warnings about the ISIS offensive in Iraq.

From TheDailyBeast  “For months before the fall of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, Washington and London were getting detailed warnings about jihadist plans to exploit Sunni resentment toward Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and launch an ambitious takeover of northern and western Iraq.

Kurdish military sources say the strategy of the ultra-radical Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) was telegraphed long in advance. The Kurds, who have their own autonomous region in northern Iraq and their own armed forces, monitored developing ties between the jihadists and tribal leaders as well as growing contacts with former Iraqi military officers.

The prime minister of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, Nechirvan Barzani, says he warned Baghdad and the United States months ago about the threat ISIS posed to Iraq and the group’s plan to launch an insurgency across Iraq. The Kurds even offered to participate in a joint military operation with Baghdad against the jihadists.

Washington didn’t respond—a claim that will fuel Republican charges that the Obama administration has been dangerously disengaged from the Middle East. Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki dismissed the warnings, saying everything was under control.”

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by

News/Politics 6-23-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The Democrats in Congress are trying an end around on local abortion restrictions.

From LifeNews  “Few Americans are aware that a “Gosnell Prerogative Act” has been introduced in Congress.  This bill would permit the grisliest abortion providers—like the now-convicted murderer, Kermit Gosnell—to set the standard of care for abortion.

Unsurprisingly, this bill is not actually called the “Gosnell Prerogative Act”—instead, S.1696 is deceptively titled the “Women’s Health Protection Act.”  However, it is difficult to imagine a bill less protective of women and their unborn children.

In spite of court interference, we have made great strides in the enactment and defense of state legislation that regulates and limits abortions since Roe v. Wade, with approximately 160 laws enacted across the country between 2011 and 2013 alone.

Now, imagine the laws in 32 states requiring varying degrees of informed consent prior to an abortion invalidated overnight.  Twenty laws prohibiting partial-birth abortion – gone.  Twenty-nine state laws requiring abortion clinics to meet some degree of safety standards—gone.  Other abortion bans, admitting privileges requirements, regulations on abortion-inducing drugs, ultrasound requirements, and limitations on the use of public funds and facilities for abortions and abortion training–all gone. Imagine the vast majority of pro-life laws wiped out with the enactment of a single piece of federal legislation.  That is the purpose behind S. 1696.”

Must protect their Precious, and the blood money it gives them. Disgusting.

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2. This one’s not shocking. More govt. waste, fraud, and abuse.

From TheTrib  “A new federal report says the government program that funds school lunches for low-income families nationwide misspent about $996 million, or 8 percent of its budget, last fiscal year.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has made several steps in recent years to prevent ineligible families from receiving free and reduced prices in the lunch line, but more can be done, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office report.

Wyoming recently tightened the way it enrolls students for these benefits to increase the system’s accuracy, said Tamra Jackson, nutrition supervisor for the Wyoming Department of Education. The state requested $14 million in federal funds to reimburse free or reduced-price lunches for roughly 34,000 students during the 2012-13 school year. “

A billion dollars is no big deal, right? After all, it’s for the children. 🙄

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3. Further proof that the IRS scandal originated in the White House.

From TheDailyCaller  “An IRS official whose emails were “lost” visited the White House frequently during the agency’s targeting of conservatives and met with a top assistant to President Obama who exchanged confidential information on conservative groups with the IRS.

The IRS recently claimed that it lost emails from Nikole Flax, who served as chief of staff to former IRS commissioner Steven Miller. Flax was one of seven IRS employees including ex-official Lois Lerner whose emails to and from White House officials and other Obama administration agencies were purportedly deleted and could not be handed over to congressional investigators.

Flax held personal meetings with a top assistant to President Obama and also colluded with Lerner to prosecute conservative activists.

Flax made 31 visits to the White House between July 12, 2010 and May 8, 2013, according to White House visitor logs. Flax’s visits started in the early days of the IRS targeting program and ended just two days before the IRS scandal broke on May 10, 2013.”

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4. The good news in ObamaCare only applies to the poor. Everybody else just gets to pay for it.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “To hear administration officials and their supporters in the press tell it, this is a great time for Obamacare. People who signed up for coverage are actually paying for it; more insurance companies are joining exchanges; some consumers have more choices than originally envisioned. “The news surrounding the Affordable Care Act has been so good this week, it’s almost hard to know where to start,” wrote MSNBC‘s Steve Benen in a recent post headlined “Everything’s Coming Up Aces for the ACA.”

Not so fast. Yes, Obamacare is a big help for those now receiving something substantial from the government — large subsidies for the lowest-income Americans who purchase coverage on the exchanges, free health care for people eligible for the expanded Medicaid program.

But for millions of other Americans, it’s a different story. In fact, one respected analyst worries that Obamacare, while helping some, is actually “creating a chronically uninsured class” of those ineligible for its taxpayer-paid assistance.

Of the much-discussed eight million Americans who have signed up for Obamacare, the “vast majority … are receiving financial assistance,” according to a Department of Health and Human Services report released this week. What that means is this: Of the eight million, about 85 percent, or 6.8 million, actually paid for coverage. Of those, about 87 percent, or 5.9 million, receive taxpayer-paid subsidies to help them pay.”

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5. The blame game has started over the White House created crisis at the southern border.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Central American governments are beginning to feel heat from Washington, which is increasingly blaming leaders in El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala for failing their own citizens — forcing many to flee to the U.S., banking on uncertain promises or rumors of legal status.

Democrats urged those governments to “tell the truth” to their people, even as Vice President Joseph R. Biden prepares for a Friday meeting in Guatemala with representatives of the three nations.

That follows what one participant described as a “very testy” meeting Wednesday between Hispanics in Congress and ambassadors for the three nations, who exchanged blame for what all sides say is a humanitarian nightmare.

“I do not see the countries of Central America stepping up to take responsibility for the danger, dysfunction, death and despair in their own cities and towns,” Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, Illinois Democrat, said Thursday.

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6. Democrats can pretend they had nothing to do with it. But they orchestrated it, and knew it was coming. This, from January, proves they were preparing for it.

From TheConservativeWife  “On January 29, 2014, the Federal Government posted an ad on their BizOpps website seeking escorts for unaccompanied illegal alien children. If this doesn’t prove that the entire mess with all the illegals flooding our country was planned by this administration, nothing ever will. Here is the entire document that lays out the “requirements” to become such an escort:

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a component of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has a continuing and mission critical responsibility for accepting custody of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) from U.S. Border Patrol and other Federal agencies and transporting these juveniles to Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) shelters located throughout the continental United States. ICE is seeking the services of a responsible vendor that shares the philosophy of treating all UAC with dignity and respect, while adhering to standard operating procedures and policies that allow for an effective, efficient, and incident free transport. The Contractor shall provide unarmed escort staff, including management, supervision, manpower, training, certifications, licenses, drug testing, equipment, and supplies necessary to provide on-demand escort services for non-criminal/non-delinquent unaccompanied alien children ages infant to 17 years of age, seven (7) days a week, 365 days a year. Transport will be required for either category of UAC or individual juveniles, to include both male and female juveniles. There will be approximately 65,000 UAC in total: “

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