Monthly Archives: May 2013

Understanding The Immigration Bill

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First of all, I am not at all sure it is possible to understand the immigration bill–when it was introduced, it was 844 pages long; it has now grown to 867 pages.

Last night, I was able to attend a presentation explaining the Immigration Bill at the Northborough Public Library. The presentation was put on by the Northborough Tea Party. The speaker was Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies for the Center for Immigration Studies.

Jessica Vaughan posted an article at the Center for Immigration Studies website on May 2 which explains the problems with the current immigration bill.

The article lists several problems with the current bill, these are only a few:

  • The bill allows the legalization of aliens who have been convicted of up to three misdemeanors on separate occasions, excluding “minor” traffic offenses. This provision will allow the legalization of those with multiple offenses for drunk driving, vehicular homicide, domestic violence, certain sex offenses, theft, identity theft, and other misdemeanors.
  • It requires immigration agencies to ignore convictions under state laws on alien smuggling, human trafficking, and harboring illegal aliens altogether.
  • It waives criminal offenses for anyone under 18 (as opposed to 16 under current law), no matter the seriousness of the offense, and even if the offender was tried as an adult. This provision will be most helpful to convicted gang members aged 16-18.
  • It eliminates all enhancements and punishments for aggravated felons that allow for these individuals to be barred from re-entry or punished if they do. It permits aggravated felons to be placed in “soft” detention such as group homes and electronic monitoring.
  • The bill forces the government to justify the detention of aliens charged with being deportable — and whose detention is mandatory by law due to the severity of the offense, such as aggravated felons — and guarantees aliens a hearing on the detention every 90 days.
  • For the first time in history, the Attorney General would be required by law to provide lawyers to certain aliens in deportation proceedings at taxpayer expense.
  • The bill provides sweeping new standards of judicial review for aliens denied benefits. It expands review into the federal district courts as well as circuit courts of appeal, and encourages class action suits against DHS.

We need immigration reform. However, we need immigration reform that works and borders that prevent further illegal aliens from entering the country. Until the border is secure, there really is no point in doing immigration reform–the number of illegal aliens involved would simply overwhelm the social welfare systems of America and collapse the current safety net.

One of the things that Ms. Vaughan pointed out was the fact that the immigration bill says that the citizens legalized in the immigration bill would be ineligible for federal assistance for ten years. However, it is the states who are in charge of government assistance and would determine someone’s eligibility–so that portion of the bill is simply nice words that mean nothing.

Yesterday The Hill reported the following:

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a central member of the Senate Gang of Eight, expressed disappointment Tuesday after senators rejected a proposal to strengthen the system for tracking visa holders entering and exiting the country.

The panel rejected a Republican amendment to require a biometric entry and exit system at ports of entry before granting permanent legal status to 11 million illegal immigrants.

In 1986, President Reagan and Congress promised America a bill that would solve the immigration problem once and for all. That bill would secure the border, enforce immigration laws, and wipe the slate clean so that those here illegally at that time could become citizens. At the present time, the border is not secure, the immigration laws were enforced between 2007 and 2009, but now we are back to our old ways, and many of those here illegally have no desire to become citizens so they have not.

We have two choices–we can believe Congress when they tell us that this time they really will enforce immigration laws and seal the border, or we can fight this bill with everything we have to make sure it does not become law. Frankly, I choose the latter.

We need immigration reform. That can be done slowly in sections so that Americans can read and understand the laws being considered, and so that Congress can understand both the problems we face if we continue our current immigration program and the need to pass a bill that will actually solve our current and future problems. I also strongly suggest that Congress actually take the time to read the bill. We need to find out what is in the bill before it is passed–not the other way around.

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If It Were Not Horrible It Would Be Funny

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I have already chosen the quote of the week, but I wonder if I can put the following quote up for next week’s Quote of the Week.

Scott Johnson posted a story at Power Line yesterday about some of the recent revelations about Benghazi. Included in that story was the following quote:

“They’ve tried to point a finger at people more senior than where we found the decisions were made,” Pickering said of Clinton’s critics. On the other hand, according to Pickering, they also found it unnecessary to chat with her because she had already accepted “the full responsibility.”

Let me get this straight–the Accountability Review Board (ARB), led by former U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen, did not feel it was necessary to interview Secretary of State Hillary Clinton because she had already accepted “the full responsibility.” Therefore, it was not important to find out what she knew, when she knew it, or what decisions she was responsible for on the night of the attack on Benghazi or before that night. Wow! How many teenagers would welcome a deal like that?!

The article at Power Line reminds us of another aspect of the ARB:

How did the estimable men of the ARB miss Gregory Hicks in the information gathering phase of their work? The ARB harks back to Richard Nixon’s desired resolution of the controversy over production of the Watergate tapes: The Stennis Compromise. In lieu of producing the tapes, Nixon proposed, bring in some eminent but hearing-impaired older man to check out the tapes and report back. The Stennis Compromise was laughed out of consideration. Only Democrats can get away with something like that.

This is truly a sad chapter in American history.Enhanced by Zemanta

Quote Of The Week

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From George Will at the Washington Post on May 13:

Jay Carney, whose unenviable job is not to explain but to explain away what his employers say, calls the IRS’s behavior “inappropriate.” No, using the salad fork for the entree is inappropriate. Using the Internal Revenue Service for political purposes is a criminal offense.

It’s An Old Story But We Are Just Now Hearing It

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There is a lot of information coming out today about the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) targeting conservatives for excessive scrutiny.  On Saturday, I posted an article which included some of the extra questions conservative groups were asked when they applied for their tax exemption status (rightwinggranny.com).  The use of the IRS and other groups to target political opponents is not new–the Clintons turned it into an art form. The Obamas have also learned to use it frequently.

In May of 2012, I posted an article about Intimidation of one Romney donor (rightwinggranny.com). Frank VanderSloot, the CEO of Melaleuca Inc.was subjected to the same kind of scrutiny that normally be reserved for a political candidate. Today’s Daily Caller details some of what Mr. Vandersloot was subjected to.

Fox News posted a story today showing how the initial interest of the IRS into the Tea Party Movement was expanded:

The article at Fox explains:

The internal IG timeline shows a unit in the agency was looking at Tea Party and “patriot” groups dating back to early 2010. But it shows that list of criteria drastically expanding by the time a June 2011 briefing was held. It then included groups focused on government spending, government debt, taxes, and education on ways to “make America a better place to live.” It even flagged groups whose file included criticism of “how the country is being run.” 

By early 2012, the criteria were updated to include organizations involved in “limiting/expanding government,” education on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and social economic reform. 

I remember that when Barack Obama was elected, many people were complaining that we were about to enter Jimmy Carter’s second term. I don’t think that is right. I think Barack Obama has morphed into the third term of Richard Nixon.

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Sometimes Honesty Overrules Political Affiliation

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There are still some honest politicians left. Yes, you read that right. Evidently, Dennis Kucinich is one of them. It truly scares me that I am in agreement with Dennis Kucinich, but he was right on target on Fox News Sunday yesterday. Below are two videos of his statements on Benghazi and on the targeting of conservative political groups by the Internal Revenue Service:

It scares me that I am in agreement with a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat, but in this case, Dennis Kucinich is absolutely right!

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Another Twist In The Benghazi Saga

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Obviously there are some prominent members of the Democrat party who would like to be the party’s nominee for President in 2016. Hillary Clinton has been, up to this point, the seemingly favored candidate. Other people who might want to run would be Joe Biden, Evan Bayh, who served in the Senate until 2012, Andrew Cuomo, currently the governor of New York, and John Kerry, who has been there before. You have to wonder how the scandal surrounding Benghazi is impacting their actions and decisions.

On Friday, CNS News reported that John Kerry, currently Secretary of State, has stated the following regarding Benghazi, “I am absolutely determined that this issue will be answered, will be put to bed, and if there’s any culpability in any area that is appropriate to be handled in some way with some discipline, it will be appropriately handled. …The State Department will leave no stone unturned.”

John Kerry has dealt with the Clintons (and the Obamas) before. Both families are known for their ruthlessness in dealing with anyone who gets in the way of what they are trying to accomplish. Remember the Clintons and the White House Travel Office and Barack Obama somehow getting the sealed divorce records of his Congressional opponent released.

I don’t see how any intelligent person can believe that Hillary Clinton was simply an innocent bystander on the night that Benghazi was attacked and in the events that unfolded afterward. It will be interesting to watch the actions of the other possible Democrat contenders for the 2016 Presidential nominee as this scandal unfolds.

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Politicizing The Internal Revenue Service

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Politicizing the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is not a new or original idea. I am sure it has been done in the past in varying degrees, but the Obama Administration seems to have turned it into an art form. They have a slightly less obvious approach–not so much audits, but collecting information on political opponents.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article yesterday on some past abuses of the IRS by the Obama Administration.

The article at Power Line reports:

In August 2010, Austin Goolsbee, who directed Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board and later chaired his Council of Economic Advisers, gave a press briefing in which he discussed corporate income taxes. In that briefing, he suggested that he had access to confidential IRS data, and falsely accused the administration’s beta noire, Koch Industries, of not paying corporate income taxes.

The article goes on to give the exact quote. The obvious question asked in the Power Line article is, “How did an Obama Administration official obtain confidential IRS tax records?” It should also be noted here that the charges were false. The fact that the charges were false probably doesn’t matter–I am willing to bet that more people heard the false charges than heard that the charges were false.

The article at Power Line concludes:

UPDATE: Also, let’s not forget Obama’s joke, during the first days of his presidency, in a speech at Arizona State University:

I really thought this was much ado about nothing, but I do think we all learned an important lesson. I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets. . . . President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS.

At the time, most people thought he was kidding. But as Glenn Reynolds pointed out at the time, jokes about presidential abuse of power are not funny when they come from the president. With hindsight, more attention should have been paid.

Mary Katharine Ham posted an article at Hot Air yesterday showing exactly what questions organizations containing the words ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ were asked. The questions are quite revealing. The American Center for Law & Justice has handled lawsuits by a number of these organizations protesting their treatment, and the article at Hot Air lists specific questions their clients were asked:

IRS1

IRS2

IRS3

Please follow the link above to the Hot Air article to read further questions and compliance instructions. The blame for this has been put on some low-level IRS employees in Cincinnati. As someone who used to work for the government many years ago, I find it hard to believe that low-level employees would take this kind of initiative on their own. At any rate, I wondered why the questions asked didn’t include the political affiliation of the household pets of the boards of directors of the various organizations. It seems as if every other question was asked.

 

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It All Depends On How You Name Something

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There have been some negative comments lately from Democrats worried about how the implementation of ObamaCare will impact the 2014 mid-term elections. Historically, a President in his second term loses big in the mid-term elections, so the Democrats don’t want any additional difficulties. Recently a Democrat referred to ObamaCare as a ‘train wreck’ about to happen. That certainly does not improve the image of ObamaCare. Also, a lot of 26-year-olds are timing out of their parents’ health insurance and realizing that the IRS will be fining them if they do not pay the increased premiums ObamaCare requires from them. Keep in mind that increasing premiums on younger people is supposed to subsidize medical expenses for the elderly and for those with pre-existing health conditions.

Well, now it’s time for the goodwill tour for ObamaCare. Yesterday the Washington Examiner reported that as part of the Mother’s Day offensive for ObamaCare, President Obama has described ObamaCare as “largest health care tax cut for working families and small businesses in our history. “ Really. If you believe that, please call me about buying some waterfront property in Arizona–or maybe I could interest you in a bridge in New York.

The article reports:

His argument was a Hail-Mary effort to redesignate subsidies for individuals to purchase health insurance on government-run exchanges as a “tax cut.” But according to the Congressional Budget Office, these subsidies actually qualify as more than $1 trillion in “Exchange Subsidies and Related Spending.” (Emphasis mine.)

Far from being a historic tax cut, Obamacare actually qualifies as one of the largest tax increases in history. It contains roughly $1 trillion in taxes — on insurance plans, medical devices and investment income. And many of the taxes will end up falling on the middle class. The law’s individual mandate, which the Obama administration successful argued was a tax before the U.S. Supreme Court, is projected to hit nearly 5 million Americans with incomes less than $60,000 by 2016.

I understand that right now we have a lot of low-information voters who know more about American Idol than about what is going on in Washington. However, as these people begin to notice what is happening to their household budgets, maybe they will wake up and start paying attention. I can relate to the low-information voters–I used to be one. My excuse was not American Idol–my excuse was juggling family, work, etc. Either way, it’s time for America to wake up and begin to vote for people who will actually tell us the truth and practice fiscal restraint. I am sure that we have people in politics who are capable of that–I am just not sure how much power they have right now. We need to pay attention and vote accordingly.

 

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I’d Love To See The Guest List

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Yesterday Breitbart.com reported that the White House announced that it would hold a meeting to brief reporters on Benghazi. The meeting was initially referred to by Politico as ‘off-the-record,’ but the White House changed that to ‘deep background.’ I agree that the word deep is probably a good description, but background is not the word I would place after it.

Fourteen news organizations were invited to the closed-door meeting.

Politico reported yesterday:

The meeting was conducted on “deep background,” according to White House spokesman Josh Earnest, but sources told POLITICO that the existence of the meeting was “off the record.” The meeting began around 12:45 p.m. and postponed the daily, on-the-record White House press briefing until mid-afternoon.

The session was announced to reporters in the wake of an ABC News report showing that White House and State Dept. officials were involved in revising the now-discredited CIA talking points about the attack on Benghazi.

I would love to see which fourteen news organizations were invited to the meeting! Can you imagine what would have happened if Nixon had tried this with Watergate?

Breitbart.com tells us what to look for as a result of this meeting:

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said, “Deep background means that the info presented by the briefers can be used in reporting but the briefers can’t be quoted.” So expect a fair number of “White House sources” to appear in reportage for the next few days.

Four people died at Benghazi because they did not have adequate security, and when they asked for help they did not get it. Later the Obama Administration lied about what happened. Also, remember that the man who made the video that was not responsible for the attack is the only person in jail as a result of the attack. He is still in jail. It’s time to stop playing games and explain what happened.

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Unfortunately This Is Not A Surprise To Anyone Who Has Been Paying Attention

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The Associated Press is reporting today that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has apologized for targeting conservative groups during the 2012 election cycle to see if they were violating the rules of their non-profit status.

The article reports:

IRS agents singled out dozens of organizations for additional reviews because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their exemption applications, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups. In some cases, groups were asked for lists of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

I don’t like to accuse the Associated Press of bias, but the article makes a point of noting:

The agency — led at the time by a Bush administration appointee — blamed low-level employees, saying no high-level officials were aware.

The article reports that the excessive scrutiny on groups with the words ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ in their name began with ‘low-level’ employees in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. Really? Then what do you suppose motivated them?

The article further reports:

“Mistakes were made initially, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan rationale,” the IRS said in a statement. “We fixed the situation last year and have made significant progress in moving the centralized cases through our system.”

“I don’t think there’s any question we were unfairly targeted,” said Tom Zawistowski, who until recently was president of the Ohio Liberty Coalition, an alliance of tea party groups in the state.

Zawistowski’s group was among many conservative organizations that battled the IRS over what they saw as discriminatory treatment. The group first applied for nonprofit status in June 2009, and it was finally granted on Dec. 7, 2012, he said — one month after Election Day.

This entire story is further proof that Chicago-style politics has truly come to Washington.

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The Next Step

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Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal posted an editorial reporting that Congressman Frank Wolf of Virginia has written a letter to House Speaker John Boehner requesting the creation of a bipartisan committee to investigate what actually happened in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. CNS News reported yesterday that 143 House Republicans are now co-sponsoring a bill that would authorize a special committee to investigate Benghazi. So why don’t we have the committee?

The article at CNS News quotes the letter from Congressman Wolf to Speaker Boehner:

“Chairman Issa’s hearing yesterday was a positive step forward in the effort to investigate the administration for its apparent cover up of key information about the nature of the attack and its response,” Wolf told Boehner.  “I appreciate your leadership and that of the committees to advance the investigation to this point.

“However, the hearing also made clear that a thorough inquiry will require witnesses from across government–including the Defense Department, State Department, Intelligence Community, Justice Department and even the White House,” said Wolf. “Only a Select Committee would be able to bring the cross-jurisdictional expertise and subpoena authority to compel answers from these agencies.”

The hearings on Wednesday featured three whistleblowers who were willing to testify before the House committee. Ambassador Thomas Pickering and retired Admiral Mike Mullen, who chaired the State Department Accountability Review Board that conducted the administration’s internal investigation of the Benghazi attack, have refused to testify before the committee or even talk with the committee staff informally.  Unless a Select Committee is formed, the American public will never hear their side of the story.

The article in the Wall Street Journal concludes:

Mr. Boehner said on Thursday that the Administration should release its email communications on Benghazi, but it won’t do so unless they are subpoenaed. Frank Wolf, one of the House’s most senior Members, has it right. Benghazi’s explanation deserves the best effort elected officials can give it, and the right vehicle is a Select Committee with subpoena power and deposition authority.

It would be nice to live in a world where witnesses would come forward voluntarily, but right now we don’t live there. We need to take action to encourage witnesses to give their testimony publicly.

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Manufacturing A Phony Crisis

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In recent years we have had a number of very disturbing incidents involving guns. While those incidents are horrific, they are not an indication of where things are in relation to guns in the United States.

CBN News reported today that the Justice Department released a report on Tuesday showing that gun violence in the United States has decreased 39 percent since 1993.

The article reports:

Another report by the Pew Research Center found a drop of 49 percent. Both studies indicate non-fatal crimes involving guns were down by about 70 percent over that same period.

The article also reminds us:

“The public doesn’t get its feelings out of crime statistics,” Alfred Blumstein, an urban systems professor at Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University, noted. “The public gets its feelings from particularly notorious events, and what the press talks about.”

If we choose to watch the mainstream media, we need to remember that they have long since departed from the idea of reporting the news impartially.  The fact that gun violence has decreased rather than increased would be news for most Americans. The question remains as to whether or not they will ever hear that news.

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Where Do We Go From Here?

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I am sure that by now much of the testimony from the Benghazi hearings is up on YouTube. If not there, I am sure it is floating around the Internet somewhere.  If you were not able to watch any of the hearings, I strongly recommend finding them on the Internet and spending some time.

The Benghazi hearings told us much of what we already knew–before the attack there were incidents that should have resulted in increased security rather than decreased security, during the attack the help that was needed never arrived, and after the attack almost everything we were told by the Obama Administration was a lie.

So where are we and where do we go from here? We do actually need at least one more hearing. We need to know who ordered the Special Forces that wanted to go to help at Benghazi to stand down. We need to know who changed to talking points for the Sunday news shows for Susan Rice and why. We need to know why Susan Rice was sent out rather than Hillary Clinton (we probably can make some pretty good guesses on that one). We need to know what Chris Stevens was doing at the annex without adequate security on September 11.

Will we ever get answers to any of those questions? Not unless we demand them from our representatives. If we as Americans do not hold our politicians accountable, they will not be accountable. The ball is in our court.

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The Key To Benghazi

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There is one very significant piece of information about the attack on Benghazi and what happened during the night of September 11, 2012, that has not yet been revealed–“Who gave the order for the Special Forces that would have come to the rescue of those at the annex in Benghazi to stand down?”

The Blaze posted a story about that command today.

The article reports:

Gregory Hicks, the deputy chief of mission for the U.S. in Libya and the highest ranking official in the country at the time of the Benghazi attacks, testified before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday that Lt. Col. Gibson was “furious” after receiving a stand down order on the night of Sept. 11, 2012.

Hicks quoted Gibson as saying, “This is the first time in my career that a diplomat has more balls than somebody in the military.”

But who exactly is Lt. Col. Gibson, and is he the key to figuring out who specifically gave the stand down order on that fateful night? That’s what a lot of people will likely want to find out in the coming days.

…Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who traveled to Benghazi after the attack to investigate, got emotional during the Wednesday hearing after Hicks explained that Special Forces were prevented from responding to the terror attack as Americans were under siege. The attack claimed the lives of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, State Department official Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

Why were the Special Forces told to stand down? Some spokesmen have stated that they would not have been able to get to Benghazi on time. The battle lasted for more than nine hours, how did they know that they wouldn’t get there on time?

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The Current Cost Of Being A Whistleblower

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This article is based on two articles, one posted at Real Clear Politics today, and one posted at BuzzFeed Politics today. Both have to do with how the Obama Administration deals with people who do not tow the line in reporting events or testifying before Congress.

The article at BuzzFeed Politics deals with the testimony of Gregory Hicks, the former Deputy Chief of Mission in Libya, who was in Tripoli at the time of the Benghazi attack. Mr. Hicks testified today at the House Oversight Committee hearing on Benghazi that he was told not to meet with a congressman sent to investigate the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. Hicks said a State Department lawyer accompanied the delegation and attempted to be in every single meeting he was involved in. That doesn’t sound as if the State Department was looking for the truth–that sounds like the State Department was trying to protect itself from the truth.

Real Clear Politics reminds us of the history of whistleblowers in the Obama Administration:

ATF insiders who testified before Congress about Obama’s Fast and Furious gun-running nightmare faced systemic retaliation and harassment — both from government supervisors who openly declared witch hunts against them and from liberal media water-carriers.

Maverick journalist Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News faced White House retaliation of her own over her Fast and Furious investigations. Department of Justice spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler “was just yelling at me,” and White House spokesman Eric Schultz “literally screamed at me and cussed at me,” she told radio talk show host Laura Ingraham in 2011.

Former DOJ attorney J. Christian Adams, who blew the whistle on Attorney General Eric Holder’s rule of law-perverting, race-baiting reign, was basely smeared as a “liar” and perjurer by DOJ proxy and Washington Post tool E.J. Dionne — who ignored Adams’ stellar career record at DOJ and unassailable sworn testimony.

Gerald Walpin, former AmeriCorps inspector general, was pushed out of his job by the Obamas after exposing fraud and corruption perpetrated by Democratic mayor of Sacramento and Obama friend Kevin Johnson. The White House baselessly questioned the veteran watchdog’s mental health and never apologized for slandering him.

The article also reminds us of two California newspapers who were bullied and mistreated for articles unflattering to the Obama Administration. There were also threats against health insurance providers if they blamed rising premiums on Obamacare.

The Obama Administration does not play well with those who do not share their ideology. Real Clear Politics reminds us that the Obama Administration has already begun its smear campaigns against those who testified today. At this point I would not believe anything I read in the mainstream media–they have too much to lose if the actions of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are what they seem to be.

Benghazi is worse than Watergate–four people died, but somehow the press has not handled it the same way. Once Woodward and Bernstein grabbed the Watergate story, it was on the front page of every major newspaper in America every day. I am not sure the Benghazi hearings are even being reported.  Richard Nixon resigned more than two years after the Watergate burglary because he did not want to put the country through the impeachment process. We are less than a year away from Benghazi, and even if everything stated today is proved true, President Obama will not be impeached, nor will he resign. The only thing that can possibly be accomplished by the Benghazi hearings is that every American will know what actually happened and should hang his head in shame that four Americans were left behind to avoid a negative political situation.

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Mark Sanford Has Won The South Carolina Special Election

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Tonight the Washington Post is reporting that former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has been elected to the House of Representatives.

The article reports:

Mitt Romney won this district by 18 points last fall, but Sanford’s personal history made the seat competitive. Democrats poured money into the race while national Republicans abandoned their candidate, giving Colbert Busch a 5-to-1 advantage in outside spending.

If the American people can forgive Bill Clinton for his indiscretions, I guess they can forgive Mark Sanford for his. There are two things in this election that bode well for the Republicans in 2014–the amount of money poured into the coffers of Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch did not make a difference, and a seriously flawed candidate whose positions on issues are in line with the voters can win an election despite his flaws.

As the House of Representatives considers the immigration bill that the Senate will hand them in the near future, they would do well to keep this election in mind–issues won–money did not.

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Are The Benghazi Hearings Earthshaking?

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Tomorrow the hearings in the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will begin at 11:30 am. The witnesses will be:

Mr. Mark Thompson
Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Counterterrorism
Mr. Gregory Hicks
Foreign Service Officer and former Deputy Chief of Mission/Chargé d’Affairs in Libya
US Department of State
Mr. Eric Nordstrom
Diplomatic Security Officer and former Regional Security Officer in Libya
US Department of State

In true Washington form, a lot of the expected testimony has already been leaked out (can’t anyone in that city keep a secret?).

There is a lot of damaging information that has already come out, but most of it was not new to people who were willing to look past the mainstream media. The significant part of what is happening now is that much of the media that blindly supports President Obama has begun to cover the story. Sharyl Attkisson at CBS has been covering the story from the beginning and posted a story at CBS News yesterday which claimed that Special Forces were barred from going to help when Benghazi was attacked. The article includes excerpts from Gregory Hicks’ interview with congressional investigators on the House Oversight Committee in April. Please follow the link above to read the interview.

Benghazi was mishandled from the start. That area of Libya has a history of radical Islamist terrorists and the annex at Benghazi should have either been guarded like Fort Knox or shut down. Decreasing security before the September 11 attacks was foolish and dangerous. The goal of the Obama Administration may have been to give the perception that the war on terror ended with the killing of Osama Bin Ladan, but they were very foolish to let their guard down in Libya. Had the Special Forces been allowed to go into Benghazi, we might have saved Ambassador Stevens, but the ensuing news reports would have been a nightmare for the Obama Presidential Campaign. That fact may have been a major part of their calculations in how they responded to the incident, altering the talking points, and lying about the some of the details. .

So what happens next? I don’t know. I don’t want to see President Obama destroyed by this. He is guilty of lying, incompetence, and a bunch of other things, but impeachment would be a serious mistake on the part of the Republicans. Even if it were deserved, it would never pass the Senate, and even if it did pass it would give America Joe Biden as President. Either way, there is no happy outcome. The good that could come out of this is that Congress will continue to hold the President’s feet to the fire when he is lying and will begin to limit some of his more unconstitutional actions. It would also be nice to see the American press begin to cover this President objectively, but I really don’t believe in unicorns.

 

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Counting The Real Cost Of The Immigration Bill

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I suppose it is necessary to begin this article by saying that I support legal immigration. I think we should make it easy for educated, hard-working people to enter this country without jumping through hoops and spending excessive time and money. However, we have nothing to gain by welcoming people who will be a burden because they do not have the skills to hold down a job and support themselves. At that point immigration becomes another load on an economy that is struggling to move ahead.

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line posted an article today detailing the cost of the immigration bill currently under consideration.

The article at Power Line reports:

The Heritage Foundation has released its long awaited study of the cost to American taxpayers of legalizing the current population of illegal immigrants. The study, available here, estimates the cost at $6.3 trillion, at a minimum.

…The bottom line is that current illegal immigrants would receive around $9.4 trillion in government benefits and services over the course of their lifetimes, and would pay about $3.1 trillion in taxes. Hence, a net fiscal deficit of $6.3 trillion.

The numbers used in the calculation include such things as Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, public housing, public education, and community services such as police and firemen.

Again, I strongly encourage changing the legal immigration system to make it easier for hard-working people who want to work to come to America. I just don’t want to open the gates wide for people who will only add to the financial burden of the country.

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The Big Picture In Syria

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Michael Ledeen is a a “Freedom Scholar” at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He is a reliable source of information on what is going on in the Middle East. Mr. Ledeen has the ability to step away from the obvious and see the big picture. Today he posted an article at the PJ Media website on the Israeli bombing of Syria.

Mr. Ledeen reminds us that the bombing of Syria by Israel was not really about Israel–it was about Iran and Russia. He also points out that the success of the attack was embarrassing to the Russians as they have supplied antiaircraft systems to both Iran and Syria and Israel seemed to have no problem getting past those systems.

The article at PJ Media reports:

The primary Israeli targets seem to have been Iranian missiles shipped from Iran to Syria, reportedly pending transfer to Hezbollah. They are capable of carrying chemical warheads, which may explain President Obama’s quick support for Israel.

The attacks came after more than a month of diplomatic activity:

–On Thursday, April 25th, the United States announced that we had evidence that the Syrians had used chemical weapons. That announcement was not merely the result of internal American deliberations; it came after several meetings with allies following claims of chemical attacks from the Syrian opposition in late March.

The article at PJ Media gives the timeline of the diplomatic activity regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria, but it also deals with the larger picture.

The article notes:

These discussions were undoubtedly about the “big picture” as well as the specific question of chemical weapons. I cannot imagine the Israelis not sharing their view of Iran’s regional strategy, which they believe includes a contingency plan (named after Quds Force commander Qasem Suleimani) for the occupation of Syria if Assad were to lose control.

…Syria’s centrality in Iranian strategy was voiced by Mehdi Taaib, who heads Khamenei’s think tank. He recently stated that “Syria is the 35th district of Iran and it has greater strategic importance for Iran than Khuzestan [an Arab-populated district inside Iran].”

Iran’s strategy includes domination of Iraq, which they could use as an operational base if Syria falls.

SIDEBAR: You may have noticed that casualties in Iraq are now running at roughly half those in Syria, as the Iranians apply the same methods they used unsuccessfully against us: foment civil war by the use of terror and religiously inspired mass movements.

We have been engaged in a proxy war with Iran for a number of years. It really is time to go after the root of the problem rather than continually fighting small wars that have no end in countries surrounding Iran.

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Something Is Very Wrong Here

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NBC Connecticut is reporting today that three recipients of the Medal of Honor will present the Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s highest civilian award, the Citizen Honors Medal posthumously to the six educators that were killed trying to protect their students in Newtown. Connecticut on December 14th. I think that is wonderful–they are being awarded this medal because they were killed trying to protect their students.

However, there is another group of shooting victims that is being denied the honor they have earned. The Department of Defense is refusing to award the Purple Heart to those soldiers killed on the attack at Fort Hood, Texas.

On April 2, Military.com reported:

A position paper, delivered by the Pentagon to congressional staff members Friday, says giving the award, for injuries sustained in combat, to those injured at Fort Hood could “irrevocably alter the fundamental character of this time-honored decoration.”

If you are attacked at your base and people are killed, isn’t that combat? Admittedly it is unplanned combat, but isn’t a lot of combat unplanned?

The article at Military.com further reports:

Thirteen people were killed and 32 injured in the November 2009 shootings on the base. Maj. Nidal Hasan, the alleged shooter, awaits a military trial on premeditated murder and attempted murder charges.

Fort Hood was a terrorist act–it was not ‘workplace violence.’ Maj. Hasan yelled “Allahu Akbar” as he fired. We are at war–this was an attack by the enemy. We need to acknowledge that and make sure that all the victims of that attack receive the honor and benefits they are entitled to. Meanwhile, we do not hesitate to honor civilians in equally awful situations. Both groups should receive medals in a timely fashion.

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The Extra Zero That Changed The Bill

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There has been a lot of talk recently about the immigration bill that Congress will be considering in the near future. There is one school of thought that says it is a political bill–not designed to pass, but designed to make House Republicans lose the 2014 election. Based on some recent changes to the original bill, that seems to be very likely.

Yesterday Byron York at the Washington Examiner reported that there has been a change in the original bill that significantly changes the cost.

The article reports:

The bill establishes a “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Trust Fund” to cover the various costs of reform.  It directs that when the bill is enacted, $6.5 billion will be transferred from the Treasury to the trust fund.  And then the bill specifies money to be appropriated for the start-up costs of the process to legalize the estimated 11 million immigrants currently in the country illegally.

The original bill said this: “On the later of the date of the enactment of this Act or October 1, 2013, $100,000,000 is hereby appropriated from the general fund of the Treasury, to remain available until September 30, 2015, to the Department [of Homeland Security] to pay for one-time and startup costs necessary to implement this act.”

The substitute bill reads differently: “On the later of the date of the enactment of this Act or October 1, 2013, $1,000,000,000 is hereby appropriated from the general fund of the Treasury, to remain available until September 30, 2015, to the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of State to pay for one-time and startup costs necessary to implement this Act.”

Wow. We went from $100,000,000 to $1,000,000,000, and the bill hasn’t even passed yet. Imagine where it could go if it were passed!

The article in the Washington Examiner includes an update:

UPDATE: After this item was posted, a Gang of Eight spokesman emailed to say that, “The initial $100 million number listed for startup was incorrect; $1 billion is needed to ramp up operations to handle 11 million applicants and other new visa programs.  The money will be refunded to the Treasury from fines collected, so it is deficit neutral over the next few years.”

Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any better.

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