The Rukus Is Political

Thomas.gov is the website that lists the activities of Congress, lists the bills passed, and bills proposed. A little research on the site will lead you to the Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act. H. R. 3525 which became Public Law No: 107-173. on 5/14/2002.

This is a section from that law:

(Sec. 306) Prohibits the admission of an alien from a country designated to be a state sponsor of international terrorism (as defined by this Act) unless the Secretary has determined that such individual does not pose a risk or security threat to the United States.

It is not compassionate to open your front door to someone who might want to harm your family, neither it is compassionate to open you border to someone who does not want to assimilate into your culture but only wants to destroy it. ISIS has already stated that it has placed operatives among the refugee population. How are we supposed to determine which refugees are those operatives? One of the government exhibits from the Holy Land Foundation Trial is ” An Explanatory Memorandum: From the Archives of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” (Government Exhibit 003-0085 3:04-CR-240-G in U.S. v Holy Land Foundation, et al.) This document explains the Muslim Brotherhood plan for converting America to a Sharia state through Civilization Jihad. This document needs to be read by all Americans. The danger is real. Our media is not reporting on the danger. By the time many of us wake up, it may be too late.

 

How To Solve A Problem

The first step in solving any problem is identifying the problem. Once you have identified a problem, it can be broken down into small parts and easily solved. That is exactly what needs to happen with the current state of the American military and our treatment of our soldiers and veterans.

On Saturday The Daily Signal posted an article about the steps President Trump is taking to rebuild our military.

The article reports:

On Friday, President Donald Trump signed an exceptionally important executive order initiating both the beginning of the rebuilding of the U.S. armed forces and the fulfillment of a campaign promise.

Because he signed this order on the same day he signed the order on immigration it hasn’t yet gotten the attention it deserves. That’s a shame.

The order, titled “Rebuilding the U.S. Armed Forces,” has not yet been officially posted to the White House website. But a draft of the order, accompanied by news reports, gives us enough details to be able to assess it.

The order directs Secretary of Defense James Mattis to conduct a 30-day review of the readiness of the armed forces to assess their ability to conduct the fight against the Islamic State, or ISIS, and other forms of radical Islamic terrorism, as well as near peer competitors and regional adversaries.

The article includes some disturbing information:

The Heritage 2017 Index of U.S. Military Strength assessed our overall military capability as “marginal, trending towards weak” because of many years of budget cuts and overuse. Our assessment found that the U.S. Army today is the smallest it has been since the start of World War II; the Navy is the smallest it has been since World War I; and the Air Force suffers from crippling shortages of pilots and maintenance personnel. For example, the average age of the Air Force’s planes is 27 years old.

The evaluation and rebuilding of our military could and should have been done through Congress, but unfortunately Congress has chosen not to make military preparedness a priority. Hopefully President Trump will be able to lead Congress to a place where they understand the necessity of a strong American military.

An Obvious Solution That Should Have Been Implemented Years Ago

Reuters is reporting today that President Trump and Saudi King Salman have agreed to support safe zones in Syria and Yemen.

The article reports:

The White House statement said the two leaders also agreed on the need to address “Iran‘s destabilizing regional activities.” SPA confirmed the report but made no specific mention of Iran.

Both countries share views about Iranian policies in the region, the Saudi source said, suggesting Trump agreed with Riyadh’s suspicion of what it sees as Tehran‘s growing influence in the Arab world. Iran denies it meddles in Arab countries.

The White House statement said the two also discussed what it called an invitation from the king for Trump “to lead a Middle East effort to defeat terrorism and to help build a new future, economically and socially,” for Saudi Arabia and the region.

The two also discussed the Muslim Brotherhood, the senior Saudi source said, adding in a reference to the late al Qaeda leader, “it was mentioned that Osama bin Laden was recruited at an early stage” by the organization.

This is the right solution to the refugee problem, but it is not a perfect solution. There is no perfect solution. The Islamic culture in the Middle East is one of violence and cruelty. Western civilization does not condone pedophilia, the subjugation of women, or honor killing. These are things that have been happening in the Arab countries in the Middle East for a long time.  I wonder what will be necessary to keep the safe zones safe. One of the ideas in setting up safe zones is that when the violence ends, people can go back to their home countries and rebuild. I am not convinced that the violence will end. Iran’s goal is to set up a world-wide caliphate with Shiite Muslims ruling. Saudi Arabia is Sunni Muslim and will never agree to that. Isis is largely composed of Saddam Hussein‘s old political allies, also Sunni  Muslim–a group known for its violence and cruelty. The battle between the Sunnis and Shiites has waged for a long time, and I am not optimistic about it ever ending. I am also concerned that the dictators in control in the areas the refugees are fleeing have killed any potential leaders they saw as a threat to their power.

This is a better solution than sending the refugees to places where the culture is totally alien to what they are used to. Europe has experienced a wave of crimes against women because of the number of Middle Eastern migrants that have entered the continent. Germany, in particular, has had to change the rules for public swimming pools, music festivals, and other celebrations. Things that are acceptable in Muslim cultures are simply not acceptable in western culture. That is something we need to consider when we discuss how to help the refugees from the Middle East.

 

The Double Standard Is Amazing!

Breitbart is reporting today that in 2011 President Obama’s State Department had imposed a freeze over the processing of Iraqi refugees for six months. The halt was the result of the discovery of two al-Qaida members admitted as refugees from Iraq who were living in Bowling Green, Kentucky and who had admitted to targeting U.S. troops in Iraq.

Somehow I don’t remember any uproar from the media when the freeze was put in place.

The article reports:

Trump’s executive order halts visas for 90 days for “immigrants and non-immigrants” from Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Iran, and Iraq. The executive order further suspended the entry of all refugees for 120 days, indefinitely blocks Syrian refugees from entering and lowers the ceiling to 50,000 for refugees allowed to enter the U.S. during Fiscal Year 2017.

In response to the order, protests have taken place outside major U.S. airports while immigration lawyers from groups financed by billionaire George Soros, a champion of open border policies, were signatories to a lawsuit filed Saturday to block the order.

In response to the lawsuit, U.S. District Judge Ann Donnelly issued an emergency order that temporarily blocks U.S. authorities from deporting those from the nations listed in Trump’s executive order.

I would like to remind everyone what has happened in Europe as a result of the large number of Muslim refugees from the Middle East and from some parts of Africa. Terrorism is certainly a current concern, but we also have the example of the impact on a country when a large number of Middle Eastern refugees are admitted. Germany is reeling under the crime wave the migrants have brought with them.

The Gatestone Institute reminds us:

Gatestone Institute first reported Germany‘s migrant rape crisis in September 2015, when Merkel opened up the German border to tens of thousands of migrants stranded in Hungary. A follow-up report was published in March 2016, in the aftermath of mass attacks against German women by mobs of migrants in Cologne, Hamburg and other German cities.

Germany’s migrant rape crisis has now spread to cities and towns in all 16 of Germany’s federal states. Germany is effectively under siege; public spaces are becoming increasingly perilous. Police have warned about a potential breakdown of public order this summer, when young male migrants are likely to see women lightly dressed.

During the month of July 2016, hundreds of German women and children were sexually assaulted by migrants (see Appendix below). The youngest victim was nine; the oldest, 79. Attacks occurred at beaches, bike trails, cemeteries, discotheques, grocery stores, music festivals, parking garages, playgrounds, schools, shopping malls, taxis, public transportation (buses, trams, intercity express trains and subways), public parks, public squares, public swimming pools and public restrooms. Predators are lurking everywhere; safety nowhere.

Dozens of women and children have been assaulted by migrants at summer festivals and public swimming pools — staples of ordinary German life.

If we are going to take in large numbers of refugees, we need to make sure that they are willing to abide by western cultural standards regarding the treatment of women. You would not knowingly open the door of your home to a man whose culture would not respect your wife. Why would you open the gates to your country to men who do not understand proper respect for women?

Looking For The Truth

The Gateway Pundit reported yesterday that the House Oversight Committee has sent a request to FBI Director James Comey for Datto Company’s secure cloud storage, Datto Company holds Hillary Clinton’s server contents.

This is a copy of the letter:

The real problem here is the lack of security on Hillary Clinton’s private server.

The article at The Gateway Pundit quotes an article from the U.K. Daily Mail from June 2016:

A Daily Mail Online investigation has found that a second firm – hired to store a back-up of Clinton’s secret server – was so lax in its security employees failed to change passwords frequently and left computers logged in, unattended for extended periods and its own clients stumbled upon other clients data.

Datto Inc, the company in question, was hired to store Hilary’s emails by Platte River, the mom-and-pop company contracted to maintain her ‘homebrew’ email system.

Speaking exclusively to Daily Mail Online on condition of anonymity, one former employee at Datto, said the company was woefully exposed to being hacked.

‘If you’re talking about high-level data security, at the political, presidential level, the security level of data [at Datto] hired by Platte River, was nowhere near something that could have been protected from a good hacker that knows how to spread out their points at which to infiltrate,’ he said.

Mishandling secret information is a serious offense. I don’t want to see Hillary Clinton go to jail (although anyone else would be in jail by now), but I do want some acknowledgement of the fact that she committed serious crimes in the area of failing to protect classified information.

The Fight For America

Yesterday The Washington Free Beacon posted a story about the efforts of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) to prevent Congress from naming the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as a terrorist organization. In order to understand what is going on here, you have to go back to the Holy Land Foundation Trial where CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator.  During the execution of a search warrant on Ismail Elbarasse’s home in Annandale, Virginia, in 2004, the FBI discovered “An Explanatory Memorandum: On the General Strategic Goal for the Group in North America.”  This document was the blueprint of the Muslim Brotherhood’s plan for ‘civilization jihad,’ the taking over of the American government through infiltration and the use of our legal system against us. The information in this document is absolute justification for declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. Obviously CAIR, because of its association with the Muslim Brotherhood, does not want the bill designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization to get through Congress, so they have begun their campaign against it. Understand that the Muslim Brotherhood (and thus, CAIR) have an almost unlimited supply of money (our dollars spent on Middle Eastern oil) to attempt to work their will.

The story at The Washington Free Beacon reports:

In its efforts to block the bill and smear Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), the senator spearheading the designation effort, CAIR recently claimed that the bill “was written by a disgraced former FBI agent who has made a career out of bashing Muslims and Islam,” according to a CAIR press release.

CAIR officials claimed that this purported revelation stains the reputations of Cruz and former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R., Minn.), who helped draft the original bill.

“The fact that Senator Cruz’s current legislation has its origins in the conspiracy theories of a notorious Islamophobe serves to prove that the bill is designed as the basis for an anti-Muslim witch hunt, not as a legitimate defense of national security,” CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw said earlier this week.

The Free Beacon can now disclose that CAIR’s claims are false and that John Guandolo, the former FBI agent named by CAIR as the bill’s primary architect, played no role in crafting the legislation, according to sources with direct knowledge of the situation

“In response to the false claims of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) claiming that former FBI Agent John Guandolo was responsible for drafting my 2014 bill calling for the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, I can state absolutely that Mr. Guandolo had nothing to do with the drafting of the bill, nor did anyone from my office seek his input,” Bachmann exclusively told the Free Beacon.

“Unable to address the findings of the bill, CAIR is engaged in a transparent attempt to attack this effort through smears and guilt by association,” Bachmann said.

This bill needs to be passed. The Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist group with designs on America. They objected to the 9/11 attack, but only because they thought it was done too soon. Their method is stealth infiltration of government agencies, and unfortunately, they have been very successful at that. If the MB is designated as a terrorist organization, we may be able to remove a number of their operatives from our government. That would be a really good thing.

The article concludes:

David Reaboi, a national security expert and political warfare consultant, told the Free Beacon that CAIR’s main drive is to stop the Muslim Brotherhood from being designated as a terror group.

“As the debate on the Brotherhood heats up, Americans shouldn’t be surprised to see those who’ve argued for decades that Hamas isn’t a terrorist group are also adamant that the Muslim Brotherhood isn’t one either,” Reaboi said.

“Designating the Muslim Brotherhood could do more to dismantle the infrastructure of Islamic terrorism in this country than any other single move by the Trump administration,” he said. “The Muslim Brothers have been involved in some way in nearly every U.S. material support for terror prosecution in the last several decades. That’s one reason why the Brotherhood’s allies in America have worked tirelessly to fight the government’s ability to stop those who give support to terrorist groups, too.”

 

It Really Is Time To Investigate Voter Fraud

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about one researchers findings on voter fraud.

The article reports:

A study by political scientist Jesse Richman from Old Dominion University in Virginia found that 6.4 percent of the 20 million noncitizens who reside in the United States voted in November’s presidential election.

Obviously we have no idea who they voted for, but we can make a fairly educated guess.

Mr. Richman explains the other conclusions drawn from his research:

He then extrapolated these results into support for each presidential candidate, estimating that Clinton would have received 81 percent support from noncitizens, therefore receiving an extra 834,000 votes.

The number of 834,000 is significant enough to have tipped some of the closest races in Clinton’s favor, including New Hampshire, Nevada, and Maine, all of which Clinton won by margins of under 3 percent.

It would also have reduced Clinton’s margin of victory in the popular vote, which she won by 2.8 million by dominating cosmopolitan centers such as New York and California.

Most countries with free elections have voter ID requirements. It’s time we joined the club!

This Might Wake Some People Up

Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about a new policy being introduced by President Donald Trump. The policy is part of President Trump’s efforts to get immigration under control and the make people  aware of the actions of some Illegal aliens.

The article reports:

President Trump plans to publish a weekly list of crimes committed by illegal immigrants in the Big Apple and all other sanctuary cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

The list will inform citizens and others about “public safety threats associated with sanctuary” cities, according to an executive order Trump signed Wednesday.

“The [Homeland Security] Secretary shall utilize the Declined Detainer Outcome Report or its equivalent and, on a weekly basis, make public a comprehensive list of criminal actions committed by aliens and any jurisdiction that ignored or otherwise failed to honor any detainers with respect to such aliens,” the order said.

…The list includes serious crimes such as felony assault, rape, murder and terrorism as well as gun smuggling and witness tampering.

Americans who came here illegally have already broken our laws. Those that behave in ways that are a threat to an ordered society or a threat to American citizens should be deported immediately. The list will help make Americans more aware of how much of our crime rate in some cities is attributable to non-existent borders.

This Is The Map. Why Are They Protesting?

The map below is taken from The Dakota Access Pipeline Facts page:

The website states:

The Dakota Access Pipeline does not cross land owned by the Standing Rock Sioux.

Voter ID Would Solve This Problem

Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial today about the charge by Donald Trump that non-citizens voted in the last presidential election.

The article lists a few examples:

  • Election officials in a Kansas discovered that about a dozen newly sworn citizens had already voted in multiple elections when they offered to register them in 2015.
  • An investigation into a 1996 California House race in which Loretta Sanchez defeated incumbent Rep. Bob Dornan found 624 invalid votes by noncitizens in a race where Sanchez won by fewer than 1,000 votes.
  • A September report from the Public Interest Legal Foundation found more than 1,000 noncitizens on Virginia‘s voter rolls, many of whom had cast votes in previous elections.
  • A district-court administrator estimated that up to 3% of the 30,000 people called for jury duty from voter-registration rolls over a two-year period were not U.S. citizens.

The article also quotes John Fund and Hans von Spakovsky, who have both tracked voter fraud extensively,. They made the following statement, “we don’t know how big of a problem voter fraud really is because no systematic effort has ever been made to investigate it.”

The only way to know how much of a problem voter fraud is would be to investigate it and to purge voter rolls of illegal or deceased voters.

I believe President Obama encouraged illegals to vote. Here are some quotes from an interview President Obama did with the Latin-oriented YouTube channel mitu, millennial actress Gina Rodriguez asked Obama:

“Many of the millennials, Dreamers, undocumented citizens – and I call them citizens because they contribute to this country – are fearful of voting. So if I vote, will Immigration know where I live? Will they come for my family and deport us?”

Obama responded: “Not true, and the reason is, first of all, when you vote, you are a citizen yourself. And there is not a situation where the voting rolls somehow are transferred over and people start investigating, etc. The sanctity of the vote is strictly confidential.”

The video of that interview can be found here.

 

 

The Explanation You Might Not Have Heard

Hot Air posted an article today about the resignations and firings at the State Department. The article explains that State Department Under Secretary for Management Patrick Kennedy had planned to stay on during the Trump Administration, but then suddenly resigned. So what happened?

Rex Tillerson visited the State Department on Wednesday and met with the people there. The Washington Post reported that the Trump Administration was looking to replace the State Department’s undersecretary for management, Patrick Kennedy. Then suddenly Kennedy and three of his top officials resigned.

The article at Hot Air sheds light on a possible explanation:

Patrick Kennedy was the person working behind the scenes to downgrade classified emails found on Hillary Clinton’s private server. When the first SECRET email turned up on Clinton’s server, Kennedy intervened three different times to ask the FBI to change its mind about the classification.

As it turned out, Kennedy’s attempt to fix the problem for Hillary didn’t matter. There were 110 email chains on her server that were classified (at the time they were sent not upgraded as the State Department repeatedly claimed) so reclassifying one email would not have helped much.

In addition to his role as fixer for Clinton at the State Department, Kennedy was ultimately responsible for decisions regarding security at the Benghazi consulate. The review board did not find Kennedy responsible for the decision to cut security, but chargé d’affaires Gregory Hicks testified he believed Kennedy should have been held at least partly responsible.

The article quotes a Politico report stating that Patrick Kennedy disputed the classification of some of Hillary Clinton’s emails at least three times.

The above may explain the sudden resignation of Patrick Kennedy. Actions have consequences, and he is one example of the swamp that needs to be drained. The State Department is not supposed to be political,. Obviously it was. It would be healthy for the country to see that change.

Here’s One Place We Can Cut The Federal Budget

Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about taxpayer dollars used to fund a meeting between American terrorists and Palestinian radicals. Sounds like a lovely group.

The meeting was held under the auspices of the “Freedom Behind Bars Workshop.” No, I am not making this up, and it is not a story from The Onion.

The article reports:

Should taxpayer dollars be used to fund meetings between American terrorists and Palestinian radicals? San Francisco State University, a public university notorious for sympathy to violent radicals, apparently thinks so. Last year, it sent Americans who served time in prison for crimes ranging from bombing the United States Senate to conspiracy to murder to meet with fellow former “political prisoners” at An-Najah University in the West Bank.

Described by Hamas as a “greenhouse for martyrs,” and by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy as a hub for the “terrorist recruitment, indoctrination and radicalization of students,” An-Najah entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with SFSU in December 2014. The “Freedom Behind Bars Workshop,” organized by Memorandum of Understanding architect and SFSU professor Rabab Abdulhadi, is the first known event facilitated by the memorandum.

Participants in the “Prisoner, Labor, and Academic Delegation” to An-Najah that culminated in the workshop included four self-described American “political prisoners” who met with self-described Palestinian “political prisoners” for the purpose of sharing “presentations about the marginalized histories of colonial repression, racism, and resistance in Palestine and the U.S.”

I have an idea. Let’s revoke the citizenship of all the people who consider themselves political prisoners in America and let them live in places like the West Bank.

The article goes on to list the American delegates to this wonderful meeting:

Delegation member Laura Whitehorn is a longtime communist radical, who, along with six members of a Weather Underground-initiated organization, was convicted of bombing the U.S. Senate, three military installations in the Washington D.C. area, and four sites in New York City, including the Israeli Aircraft Industries building, between 1983 and 1985….She was sentenced to 20 years in prison and served 14 years before being paroled in 1999.

...Claude Daniel Marks, was on the FBI‘s Ten Most-Wanted list for his role in a conspiracy to free Oscar Lopez, the Chicago leader of the Puerto Rican separatist group Fuerzas Armadas de Liberacion Nacional from the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth. The plot involved blowing up the maximum-security prison, landing a helicopter in the confusion, and freeing Lopez. Marks surrendered to the FBI in 1994 after nearly a decade living under an assumed identity. Under a plea bargain, he plead guilty to charges stemming from the aborted escape attempt and was sentenced to prison.

…An-Najah delegation member Manuel La Fontaine was convicted of the attempted murder of Silvano Campos in a Daly City, Calif., gang dispute. Seventeen-year-old William Tejada, who identified La Fontaine as the shooter, was later tortured and murdered by the Daly City Locos Gang for talking to the police about the shooting.

Meanwhile, former Black Panther Party member and delegation participant Henry (Hank) Jones was indicted in 2007 for the 1971 murder of police officer John V. Young at a San Francisco police station. He was released after a court rendered a decision stating the methods used to obtain information leading to his indictment were illegal.

Would you include any of these people in a meeting with Palestinian terrorists (or fund the meeting with tax dollars)?

The article concludes:

In a time when the radicalization of U.S. citizens has led to terrorist attacks, such as in San Bernardino and Orlando, connecting Americans with a history of violence and radicalism with a university that doubles as a haven for terrorism is a recipe for disaster.

Even worse, this is happening thanks to a public university that receives funds from both the state and federal governments. Taxpayers should not foot the bill for universities that want to connect violent American radicals to their counterparts in the Middle East. The Memorandum of Understanding must end.

Time to rethink some federal spending.

More Last-Minute Ugly

Breitbart reported yesterday that bureaucrats in the State Department brought in 500 refugees the day before President Trump was to order a temporary ban on refugees from certain countries.

The article quotes a Reuters article:

The temporary ban on refugees will be one of several executive orders on immigration President Trump will sign on Wednesday, Reuters reports. “Another order will block visas being issued to anyone from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, said the aides and experts, who asked not to be identified.”

Two hundred and twenty-six  of the 500 refugees resettled in the United States on Tuesday, or 44 percent, came from six of those seven countries, according to the State Department’s interactive website, as reported at 11:00 p.m. eastern on Tuesday: Syria (81), Iran (51), Iraq (46), Somalia (43), Sudan (4), and Yemen (1). No refugees from Libya were resettled in the United States on Tuesday.

From the beginning of FY 2016 on October 1, 2015 until January 24, 2017, a total of 115,879 refugees have been resettled in the United States, according to the State Department’s interactive website.

Fifty-two thousand and sixty-nine of those refugees, or 45 percent, came from those seven countries: Syria (17,341), Iraq (14,613), Somalia (12,914), Iran (5,278), Sudan (1,887), Yemen (32), and Libya (4).

I need to point out a few things about this temporary ban. It does not ban those religious minorities escaping persecution. They are an exception. The ban will be in place until more aggressive vetting is possible.

It is also noteworthy that the group most at risk in the Middle East and Africa right now is Christians. Unfortunately, a very small number of the refugees that have been brought to America are Christians. Christians would fit into the American culture much more easily than Muslims. It makes much more sense to set up a Muslim safe zone somewhere in the Middle East to encourage people to got back to their countries when the danger is past. If the danger does not pass, we need to ask ourselves what is wrong and how to fix it.

The city where I live had a very unfortunate experience with legal refugees a few years ago. In 2015, a Burmese refugee killed three children ages 1, 5, and 12, with a machete. We need to be very careful about who we let into the country. I don’t know if better vetting could have prevented this tragedy, but I do know that I would hate to see more incidents like this one.

 

This Should Have Been Done Long Ago

Yesterday The Daily Caller reported that the Trump Administration is dealing with the corruption and other problems that have plagued the Department of Veterans Affairs in recent years.

The article reports:

Days into Donald Trump’s administration, heads are finally beginning to roll at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Two notoriously corrupt employees in Puerto Rico were fired this week, indicating that more may be on the way.

One is the hospital’s CEO, DeWayne Hamlin, who offered an employee $305,000 to quit after she played a role in exposing his drug arrest.

“Mr. DeWayne Hamlin was removed from federal service effective January 20, 2017”–inauguration day–the VA said.

Currently Robert Snyder is currently Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

By order of the President of the United States, Mr. Snyder was appointed as the Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs effective January 20, 2017, pending the swearing in of the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Prior to this appointment, Mr. Snyder served as the Department’s Interim Chief of Staff, appointed by Secretary Robert A. McDonald on January 18, 2016.

The Daily Caller further reports:

Under former Secretary of Veterans Affairs Bob McDonald, the agency ignored years of evidence about shoddy work ethic, theft and whistleblower retaliation. The VA finally began a months-long investigative proceeding last year, after an outside agency, the Office of Special Counsel, prodded VA leadership.

…In December, Sen. Jeff Flake introduced a bill requiring the VA to stop hiring felons, and to fire the ones that already work there. The American Federation of Government Employees union has refused to say publicly whether it opposes the bill.

During the Obama administration, eleven sex offenders listed the Detroit VA hospital alone as their work address; some of them were fugitives wanted by local police, but the VA cited employee privacy.

Hiring felon is a difficult issue. As a society we need to give people the opportunity to succeed, but wisdom is required. I think putting sex offenders to work in a hospital lacks common sense. Felons need jobs where they are closely supervised and can learn to be an asset to the business that employs them. Putting them to work in situations were people are extremely vulnerable does not make sense.

Hopefully the Senate will quit fooling around and confirm President Trump’s nominations for his cabinet. It really is time to drain the swamp!

Leadership Matters

One America News is reporting today that President Trump has signed Executive Orders to streamline the permitting process and regulatory burden for domestic manufacturers. He is also signed orders to expedite environmental review and approval of high-priority infrastructure projects, to accelerate the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipeline projects and to decree that any pipelines intended for the United States should be built in the country.

These are things that need to be done. We need to maintain a balance between protecting the environment and allowing the American economy to grow. In March 2016, I posted an article that included the following quote:

If they were honest, the climate alarmists would admit that they are not working feverishly to hold down global temperatures — they would acknowledge that they are instead consumed with the goal of holding down capitalism and establishing a global welfare state.

Have doubts? Then listen to the words of former United Nations climate official Ottmar Edenhofer:

“One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with the environmental policy anymore, with problems such as deforestation or the ozone hole,” said Edenhofer, who co-chaired the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change working group on Mitigation of Climate Change from 2008 to 2015.

So what is the goal of environmental policy?

“We redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy,” said Edenhofer.

The American economy has struggled for the past eight years. We have not had a year of over 3 percent GDP growth since President Obama took office. Even if Congress had done what President Trump just did, President Obama would have vetoed it. Politics have blocked our economic growth for the last eight years. Results matter. It will be interesting to see how what President Trump did today impacts economic growth in America. It will also be interesting to see if the mainstream media is willing to give President Trump credit for the economic growth these Executive Orders generate.

Tacky, Tacky, Tacky

Yesterday the U.K. Daily Mail posted an article about some of former President Obama’s actions as he was leaving office. The actions are petty and in one case, dangerous to world peace.

The article reports:

Officials say the Obama administration in its waning hours defied Republican opposition and quietly released $221 million to the Palestinian Authority that GOP members of Congress had been blocking.

A State Department official and several congressional aides said the outgoing administration formally notified Congress it would spend the money Friday morning. 

The official said former Secretary of State John Kerry had informed some lawmakers of the move shortly before he left the State Department for the last time Thursday. 

The aides said written notification dated Jan. 20 was sent to Congress just hours before Donald Trump took the oath of office.

In addition to the $221 million for the Palestinians, the Obama administration also told Congress on Friday it was going ahead with the release of another $6 million in foreign affairs spending, including $4 million for climate change programs and $1.25 million for U.N. organizations, the congressional aides said. 

After these actions, it is difficult to view former President Obama as having any respect for the U.S. Constitution or the separation of powers included in that document. This was a slap in the fact to all Americans. Does anyone actually believe that the money given to the Palestinians will be used for anything other than terrorism against Israelis and Americans?

The disrespect shown to all Americans and to the American Constitution by former President Obama is breathtaking.

Elections Have Consequences

I need to state before I write this that most people would consider me pro-life. I don’t want to make abortion illegal–I believe there are times when abortion is necessary to save a woman’s life. I want the procedure to be available during those times. However, I don’t want abortion to be a million dollar industry not required to follow the same health regulations as hospitals. I also don’t want my taxpayer money used to pay for abortions and to facilitate the selling of aborted baby body parts. Well, I finally have an administration in Washington that represents my point of view.

The Hill is reporting today that President Trump has reinstated the so-called Mexico City policy, which bans foreign aid or federal funding for international nongovernmental organizations that provide or “promote” abortions.

The Mexico City policy was put in place in 1984 and rescinded by President Obama in 2009.

The article reports:

Republicans quickly praised the order as an advancement of “pro-life” policies that protect taxpayer funds.

“Life is a precious and sacred gift, and we must do all we can to protect it,” said Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), chairman of the House’s health subcommittee.

“I applaud President Trump for taking this important action and look forward to continuing to work together in advancing pro-life policies and protecting taxpayer dollars.”
Democrats denounced the order as reflecting a “dangerous obsession” with rolling back reproductive rights.
 
“President Trump’s reinstatement of the Global Gag Rule ignores decades of research, instead favoring ideological politics over women and families,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) in a statement.

I have never understood how killing your unborn child was a reproductive right. Science has shown us that life begins very early (some scientists believe at conception). What right do we have to terminate another life for our own convenience?

The article reminds us:

Trump’s ban could impact foreign organizations like the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPFF), which provides family planning services in more than 180 countries.
 
While organizations can choose to comply with the policy, and keep U.S. funding, IPPF chose to give up their federal funding when President George W. Bush reinstated the policy after he took office.
 
When Obama reinstated the policy in 2009, it came with a new focus on women’s reproductive health in poor countries.
 
The 2016 U.S. budget included $607.5 million in funding for reproductive health internationally, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.

Helping women in foreign countries kill their children is not a foreign policy I support. I am glad to see it changed.

Why It Is So Difficult To Drain The Swamp

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as ObamaCare, was signed into law on March 23, 2010. It was passed with only Democratic votes in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. In September 2009, The Tea Party organized a march on Washington and protests in other cities. The protestors were opposing the proposals for ObamaCare, increased federal spending, bigger government, and higher taxes. In 2010, the Republicans were elected to a majority in the House of Representatives and in 2014, the Republicans were elected to a small majority in the Senate. So why, after the elected Republicans promised smaller government, lower taxes, and less spending, did the government continue to grow? At the heart of the matter is the difference between process and policy. There is also the element of showmanship—the Republicans voted to repeal ObamaCare on a regular basis knowing that even if they had the votes to repeal it, they did not have the votes to override a Presidential veto that would surely occur.

So how does the process impact the policy? The following notes are taken from a Heritage Action Sentinel Brief explaining how Washington actually works.

The GOP Pledge to America included the following:

“We will end the practice of packaging unpopular bills with ‘must-pass’ legislation to circumvent the will of the American people. Instead, we will advance major legislation one issue at a time”

Well, that promise was quickly broken.

The Heritage Action Brief explains:

Congressmen may claim that they had no other choice but to vote on the package once Leadership made the decision. That is not true; it was not a fait accompli. As is custom, right before the House voted on the CR (Continuing Resolution), Leadership holds a procedural rule vote to consider every bill and set the terms of the debate. Any member who did not like the process whereby the subsequent provisions were to be considered has the opportunity to vote against the rule. This would prevent Leadership from packaging in unfavorable legislation, like the Ex-Im reauthorization or a myriad of other bad legislation.

Hiding Policy in Process. For more than a decade, GOP Leadership, when in control of the House, has promulgated the view that procedural “rule” votes are routine, party line votes that should be approved without a second thought. This has given them a relatively free license to bring bills to the floor not supported by conservatives, and they rely on Democrats for the necessary votes to pass them. The concept of “logrolling” bad bills into a crucial funding measure or, worse, a matter of foreign policy, is a compelling reason (one of many) for challenging a procedural rule. Not to mention, the American people voted this type of legislating out of office in 2010 when House Republicans adopted the Pledge of America, which precluded the packaging of unpopular legislation together.

Remember this the next time your Representative tells you they have no choice but to vote for more bad policy. Usually they only need to vote NO on the rule to change the process and allow better policy.

The longest serving congressman in history, former Michigan Representative John Dingell once said, “I’ll let you write the substance…you let me write the procedure, and I’ll [beat] you every time.” In other words, process is policy, and Congressmen who vote on auto-pilot on process fail to represent their constituents on a vast number of votes.

This is the swamp that needs to be drained. The best thing President Trump could do would be to give the conservatives in Congress the courage to stand up against the process status quo. It is time to make Congress more transparent and more responsive to the voters. We saw in this past election that the voters will speak up. It is time that our representatives started listening.

The Dangers Of Following Blindly

The New York Times posted an article on Friday about the women’s march that took place on Saturday. (Yes, a conservative website quoted The New York Times.)

The article reports:

To understand the march better, I stayed up through the nights this week, studying the funding, politics and talking points of the some 403 groups that are “partners” of the march. Is this a non-partisan “Women’s March”?

Roy Speckhardt, executive director of the American Humanist Association, a march “partner,” told me his organization was “nonpartisan” but has “many concerns about the incoming Trump administration that include what we see as a misogynist approach to women.” Nick Fish, national program director of the American Atheists, another march partner, told me, “This is not a ‘partisan’ event.” Dennis Wiley, pastor of Covenant Baptist United Church of Christ, another march “partner,” returned my call and said, “This is not a partisan march.”

Really? UnitedWomen.org, another partner, features videos with the hashtags #ImWithHer, #DemsInPhily and #ThanksObama. Following the money, I poured through documents of billionaire George Soros and his Open Society philanthropy, because I wondered: What is the link between one of Hillary Clinton’s largest donors and the “Women’s March”?

I wonder how many of the women marching took the time to investigate the money and planning behind the march.

The article further reports:

On the issues I care about as a Muslim, the “Women’s March,” unfortunately, has taken a stand on the side of partisan politics that has obfuscated the issues of Islamic extremism over the eight years of the Obama administration. “Women’s March” partners include the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which has not only deflected on issues of Islamic extremism post-9/11, but opposes Muslim reforms that would allow women to be prayer leaders and pray in the front of mosques, without wearing headscarves as symbols of chastity. Partners also include the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which wrongly designated Maajid Nawaz, a Muslim reformer, an “anti-Muslim extremist” in a biased report released before the election. The SPLC confirmed to me that Soros funded its “anti-Muslim extremists” report targeting Nawaz. (Ironically, CAIR also opposes abortions, but its leader still has a key speaking role.)

Well, the marchers and their pink hats have all gone home. What kind of an image did they project? You can find the pictures of some genuine weird on the internet, so I won’t share them. What I will share is the mess they left at the headquarters of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

I don’t mean to be sexist, but I thought women were neater than that. I am not a member of the DAR (I am not eligible–my ancestors got here too recently for that), but I am deeply offended by the mess these women left. Do they care about the environment? Is there anything they care about other than themselves?

Following The Networks

I understand that there are a lot of women marching in various places around the country to protest something. I think they are protesting the election of Donald Trump as President, but I am not totally sure why.

The Washington Examiner posted the following this morning:

During a Saturday morning interview on “Fox and Friends,” a member of the New Wave Feminists said her group was removed from the event without warning and never received an explanation from the Women’s March organizers. Instead they found out through media reports.

She said the organizers of the Women’s March, where over 200,000 thousand people are expected participate to send a message of women’s equality to newly inaugurated President Trump, have espoused “a very specific type of diversity, which does not include everyone.”

Evidently pro-life groups have been excluded from the march.

It gets even more interesting when you look to see who organized the march.

The Daily Caller reported the following this morning:

Linda Sarsour, one of the organizers behind Saturday’s Women’s March, being held in Washington, D.C., was recently spotted at a large Muslim convention in Chicago posing for pictures with an accused financier for Hamas, the terrorist group.

Sarsour, the head of the Arab American Association of New York and an Obama White House “Champion of Change,” was speaking at last month’s 15th annual convention of the Muslim American Society and Islamic Circle of North America.

While there, she posed for a picture with Salah Sarsour, a member of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee and former Hamas operative who was jailed in Israel in the 1990s because of his alleged work for the terrorist group.

Why would someone who supports limited rights for women organize a women’s march?

The Daily Caller further reports:

The event is expected to attract 500,000 people and will feature several high-profile progressive speakers. But it has been heavily criticized for excluding pro-life women’s groups. Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group which opposes abortions past 20 weeks, was asked to take part in the event.

Linda Sarsour has close ties to that organization, which was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terrorism case.

HLF was found to have funneled money to Hamas, which was designated a terrorist group in the 1990s.

Salah Sarsour has ties to that group.

Sarsour was implicated in Hamas activity in the West Bank in the 1990s, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

ADL cited a Nov. 2001 FBI memo detailing information provided by Sarsour’s brother, Jamil, to Israeli investigators in 1998.

I’m not sure the women participating in this march have any idea who they are traveling with.

Something That Needs To Be Reversed Quickly

A friend sent me an email with the link to the following story. It is a story from 2013 that illustrates some of the things that went on during the Obama Administration that were a danger to our national security.

A website called the Federation of American Scientists posted an article on March 18, 2013, about the removal of the nuclear Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile (TLAM/N) from our submarines.

The article explains:

The evidence comes not in the form of an explicit statement, but from what has been deleted from the U.S. Navy’s instruction Department of the Navy Nuclear Weapons Responsibilities and Authorities (SECNAVINST 8120.1A).

While the previous version of the instruction from 2010 included a whole sub-section describing TLAM/N responsibilities, the new version published on February 15, 2013, contains no mentioning of the TLAM/N at all and the previous sub-section has been deleted.

The U.S. Navy is finally out of the non-strategic nuclear weapons business. The stockpile has declined and a substantial number of TLAM/N warheads (W80-0) have already been dismantled. [Update 21 Mar: FY12 Pantex Performance Evaluation Report states (p.24): “All W80-0 warheads in the stockpile have been dismantled.”

Please follow the link above to read the entire article.

The email I received had been forwarded to me. Here are some of the observations of the original sender:

US Navy finally admits to NO LONGER having Nukes on Board Subs.

This is the Now Missing third Leg of the US Nuclear TRIAD.

Having NUKES on US Navy Atomic Subs was one of the USA’s strongest deterrents in preventing a Nuclear War.

Now that it’s gone (thank you Obama) we have a Major Flank NOT Protected (similar to our NO boarder protections).   

I pray God will keep us safe, especially from the fools (current administration) that have done away with our Nation’s Military Protections.

Hopefully the new administration will remedy this situation quickly.