Monthly Archives: July 2014

What Israel Is Up Against

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This is a video posted on YouTube of a Palestinian pushing a bread wagon that actually disguises a rocket launcher:

 

The Blaze posted an article today featuring the video and also reporting on some of the current events in the Middle East.

The article reports:

Israeli officials have repeatedly decried Hamas for using Palestinian civilians as “human shields.” Just last week, the Hamas Interior Ministry ordered Palestinians to stay in their homes even if they are warned by the IDF to vacate before their neighborhood is bombed.

Israel is working toward a military victory. Hamas is seeking a propaganda victory by using civilians as human shields and then accusing Israel of killing civilians.

Some Charity Has A Purpose

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Today’s Daily Caller posted a story about the relationship between Bill Gates and Common Core. Common Core is the federal takeover of education heavily funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates. The Foundation has spent over $200 million in an effort to push the Common Core Standards Initiative in the last couple years.

The article explains one possible motive for the expenditure:

On the Microsoft Web site, a webpage dated April 22, 2014 entitled “Tech Essentials for Testing Success” describes in considerable detail how schools using computer-based, Common Core-aligned tests will now need to spend a bunch of money — on Microsoft products.

“Ready or not,” Microsoft warns, “testing for the State Standards is about to become a reality for schools in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and four US territories. That means a switch to online testing beginning the spring of 2015.”

Later on comes the sales pitch:

For many schools, time is running out. In a report issued by Smarter Balanced in 2012, it found that 56.1 percent of K–12 schools reporting were still running on aging Windows XP, which had an end of service (EOS) date of April 8, 2014. In the face of this looming cutoff of support, it’s recommended by IT professionals to migrate to the new Windows as soon as possible.

Microsoft additionally advises schools to upgrade “all units” “to a minimum of 1 GB of internal memory” and to make sure their screens and processors are up to snuff. (Wouldn’t you know it: in some cases, “Power Macs are not supported.”) Schools might also need to outlay tax dollars on Internet connections and hardware such as headphones.

Notice that “Power Macs are not supported.” If the government were not involved in this, they would be charging Microsoft with monopoly. As usual, if you want to know what Common Core is about, follow the money.

When Congress Doesn’t Follow Its Own Laws

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Townhall.com posted an article today about the crisis America is experiencing on our southern border.

The article reminds us:

Wouldn’t $3.7 Billion better be used to build a concrete wall across the border of the United States? The fence that the American people were promised when President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act of 2006 saying “This bill will help protect the American people. This bill will make our borders more secure. It is an important step toward immigration reform.”

The Fence Act passed the Senate 80-19 and approved $1.2 billion to be used to build a physical barrier more then 700 miles along the Mexico-United States border.

Theoretically Congress solved the southern border problem in 2006, promising to build a fence that would stop the flood of illegals. Somehow Congress never actually got around to acting on the law it passed.

The article further reports:

In a press conference on Wednesday night, President Obama refused to acknowledge the fact that his “Dream Act,” as well as his 2012 Executive Order of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is what motivated this surge of illegal children. The President continued his normal pass the blame policy, putting the blame on the Republican lead House of Representatives for the problem because they have not passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill.

America is quite capable of closing the southern border. However, there is one thing about this current crisis that I don’t understand. Mexico has very strict laws about who they let into their country. Mexico does not have illegal aliens–they put them in jail or send them home. How is it that all these unaccompanied children are getting into and through Mexico?

Have You Seen Penelope?

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This article is posted as a public service to the people of Park Slope in Brooklyn, New York. The New York Post reported the following today:

A hairy Mexican red rump tarantula named Penelope is on the loose in Park Slope, and her owner is frantically trying to find her before she pops out her tiny, creepy spawn.

“I know she looks crazy scary but she’s mostly harmless,” the owner says on a missing-pet sign, which includes a photo, posted in South Slope.

“She’s pregnant, so I’m hoping to find her before she has her babies. She’s mostly active at night and she tends to hide in dark corners,” it notes.

“She shouldn’t bite but sometimes she jumps,” it adds.

It has never occurred to me to be concerned about my neighbors’ choice of pets, but maybe it is something I should consider.

This is Penelope’s missing poster:

It would probably be a really good idea to call the owner quickly if you spot this animal.

Further Information On The Internal Revenue Service Court Appearance

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Yesterday the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) appeared in Federal Court to explain why Lois Lerner’s emails are missing (see rightwinggranny.com). Fox News reported on the results of that hearing.

The article reports:

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

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

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

The IRS first acknowledged it lost the emails in a letter to senators last month.

It was revealed during that hearing that a Treasury Department inspector general is looking into the matter.

The article reports:

The lawyer representing the IRS, Geoffrey Klimas, argued that any further discovery in this case might impede the IG‘s investigation. 

Sullivan seemed leery of that argument and also asked that the IRS official speak to that subject in the explanation the agency submits. 

Further, Sullivan ordered that the IRS official explain how Lerner’s files may be recovered through “other sources.”

It is interesting to me that the lawyer representing the IRS would cite the IG’s investigation as a reason to stop the discovery aspect of this case from proceeding. This excuse has been used before by the Obama Administration to block investigations of misdeeds by the Administration.

 

One Consequence Of Our Open Border

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Fox News is reporting today that MS-13 gang members are said to be crossing into America from Mexico along with the minor children that are coming in unaccompanied.

The article reports:

“They’re now using the Nogales processing center as a recruitment hub for new members to come in. They’re trying to recruit other teenage boys that are sharing cells with them and they’re using the phones that the Red Cross has set up. They’re supposed to be using those to call back home or to call family members in the United States. They’re also using those as a way to communicate with gang members already in U.S. cities,” she said.

Pavlich said the Border Patrol‘s hands are tied because they cannot separate the gang members from other children. She said according to her sources, these MS-13 members are scheduled for placement somewhere in the United States, adding that I.C.E policy has been to release illegal immigrants with a notice to appear at a hearing at a later date.

Our current government seems to have some difficulty understanding what the U.S. Constitution requires of them:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It seems to me that protecting the border would be part of providing for the common defense.

The President’s Oath of Office states:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

The M-13 gangs are a threat to the security of the United States. Is anyone in Washington paying attention?

So Why Are Americans Forced To Show Identification?

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Breitbart.com is reporting today that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is allowing illegal aliens to fly on commercial airlines without valid identification.

The article reports:

“The aliens who are getting released on their own recognizance are being allowed to board and travel commercial airliners by simply showing their Notice to Appear forms,” NBPC’s Local 2455 Spokesman, Hector Garza, told Breitbart Texas.

The article also includes the following statement:

“The National Border Patrol Council adamantly opposes the decision of DHS to release the illegal aliens who have been transported from the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sector to other locations for processing. The lack of consequences has furthered this crisis and will only continue to do so. The fact that TSA is accepting the I-862 (Notice to Appear) as a form of identification and allowing illegal aliens to travel commercially shows just how little regard the federal government has for its own immigration laws.”

My reaction to that statement is that the government also has little regard for the safety of American airlines passengers.

The article also includes a quote from a 2012 United Nations (UN) report:

“Central Americans are not the only ones being smuggled through Mexico to the United States. Irregular migrants from the Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Somalia, and Ethiopia), as well as South Asia (Bangladesh, Nepal, India), China, and other African and Asian states are being smuggled through Central America.”

The article also includes a quote from the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations. They wrote on Somalia:

“Its porous borders mean that individuals can enter without visas, and once inside the country, enjoy an almost complete lack of law enforcement. Somalia has long served as a passageway from Africa to the Middle East based on its coastal location on the Horn of Africa, just a boat ride away from Yemen. These aspects make Somalia a desirable haven for transnational terrorists, something Al-Qaeda has tried to capitalize on before, and is trying again now.”

How many innocent Americans have to die as a result of our porous southern border before Washington decides to do something about the flood of illegal immigrants coming into the country?

The Media May Have Missed This

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Tom Fitton at Judicial Watch is reporting that Judicial Watch is continuing its efforts to hold Lois Lerner and the Internal Revenue Service accountable for their attack on conservative political groups.

I received an email from Judicial Watch today that included the following information:

The IRS will have to appear in federal court today after a federal judge ordered the agency to appear in response to our request that the IRS be required to explain to the court, to Judicial Watch and to you and the American people — what happened to Lois Lerner’s emails that they recently told Congress were “lost” but failed to notify Judicial Watch or the court about it.

U.S. District Court
Civil Docket for Case #:1:13-cv-01559-EGS


Date:        Thursday, July 10
Time:        11 a.m. ET
Location:  Courtroom 24A
U.S. District Court
333 Constitution Ave., N.W.
Washington, D.C.

These emails could be critical to getting to the bottom of the IRS scandal where Tea Party and other conservative group applications were illegally delayed by the IRS.  In addition, Lois Lerner had communicated with Department of Justice officials to see if it was possible to prosecute these groups!

You may remember, it was a Judicial Watch lawsuit that first uncovered “smoking gun” evidence that broke wide open this scandal.  And once again, Judicial Watch is causing action that is bringing the IRS before a court of law to explain their actions. 

Judicial Watch is doing the job Congress seems to have forgotten how to do.

 

The Stakes In Israel Just Got Higher

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Yesterday the Jerusalem Post reported that one target of the recent Hamas rocket attack was Dimona, the site of an Israeli nuclear reactor. The Iron Dome stopped one of three rockets aimed at the facility. The two other rockets landed in open areas nearby. This is the furthest north that rocket attacks from Gaza have reached. Speculation is that during the time that President Morsi was in charge in Egypt, better rockets were smuggled into Gaza through tunnels in the Sinai peninsula. During Morsi’s presidency, the Sinai was not policed by Egypt for smuggling activity.

The Iron Dome has done a good job of protecting Israel, but at some time in the near future, Israel will have to fight back. Unfortunately, many of the rocket launchers in Gaza are located on the rooftops of civilian homes. The idea is to give the Palestinians a propaganda victory when those rocket launchers are destroyed and ‘innocent’ civilians are killed.

ISIS Continues Its Reign Of Terror In Iraq

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Yesterday the U.K. Mail Online reported that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has attacked and destroyed several centuries-old graves in the northwest city of Mosul in Ninevah. Among the graves destroyed was the grave of the Old Testament prophet Jonah. Jonah was revered by both Christians and Muslims, but ISIS believes that giving special reverence to tombs and relics is against Islam.

The article also reports:

…more than 50 bodies have been discovered by Iraqi authorities in an agricultural area outside the city of Hillah, just south of Baghdad, today.

Military spokesman Brigadier General Saad Maan Ibrahim said most of the 53 bodies were found blindfolded with their hands bound and several gunshot wounds.

The grisly discovery in Hillah, a predominantly Shiite city around 60 miles south of Baghdad, has raised concerns over a possible sectarian killing amid the battle against a Sunni insurgency.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has accused the Kurds in northern Iraq of harboring extremists. Meanwhile, the Kurds are working hard to protect their area of Iraq from ISIS.

ISIS is acting in a way very similar to the way the Taliban acted when they took over Afghanistan.

What is happening in Iraq is partially the result of the fact that American forces were withdrawn. Had American forces remained, we would have been able to exert enough pressure on al-Maliki to prevent his purging his military from Sunnis and putting his cronies in their places. One of the reasons the Iraqi army fled was that it was not the trained Iraqi army that we had assembled–it was a bunch of political hacks put in place by al-Maliki.

I am not optimistic about what is happening in Iraq. Even with American help, the country is going to disintegrate. The civil war between the Shiites and the Sunnis will continue and various terrorist groups in the Middle East will take advantage of that fact. It would be a mistake for America to get involved in Iraq again. However, we should support the Kurds and provide relief for the refugees who have fled to the Kurdish areas.

 

 

 

 

ObamaCare Can’t Even Follow Its Own Rules

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Yesterday Investors.com posted an article about some of the basic problems in the administration of ObamaCare.

The article reports:

In a section titled “Other Issues,” an inspector general report released last week found that the HealthCare.gov marketplace couldn’t show it had been reconciling its monthly enrollment numbers with insurance companies.

That’s despite the fact that the law specifically calls for this reconciliation, and the fact that, as the IG report notes, “the federal marketplace obtained the services of a contractor to reconcile enrollment information.”

Obama administration officials “stated that the system to support reconciliations had yet to be developed.”

But as the IG makes clear, without this monthly reconciliation, the government “cannot effectively monitor the current enrollment status of applicants, such as … termination of plans.”

The article also reports:

Aetna says that out of 720,000 sign-ups, only about 580,000 were paid up by May 20, a payment rate of only 80.6%.

It’s also unknown how many have failed to keep up with their payments after making the initial one — the law gives consumers a three-month grace period before insurers can cancel their coverage. But the number could be significant.

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 43% of those buying ObamaCare plans say they are having difficulty paying premiums, with 14% finding it “very difficult.”

That’s despite the fact that 87% of those who bought one of these plans through HealthCare.gov got taxpayer subsidies.

It is becoming obvious that ObamaCare is a disaster. We need to elect people in November who will practice free market principles–not crony capitalism–in healthcare policies. We are in danger of having the best healthcare system in the world destroyed. The American voter will be responsible for whether or not that happens,.

Israel Under Attack And Fighting Back

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Late last night The Jerusalem Post reported that Tel Aviv and Jerusalem were under rocket attack from Gaza. Jerusalem has opened its public bomb shelters. The Iron Dome has been effective in stopping many of the rockets, but the attacks on Tel Aviv and Jerusalem represent an increase in the Gazan rockets’ range.

The article reports:

Iron Dome intercepted 23 rockets, shooting down rockets over Ashdod, Ashkelon and Gaza border communities.

The army began calling up the 40,000 reserve soldiers the cabinet approved for Operation Protective Edge, launched the previous night to stop the rocket fire from Gaza. IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz asked for the 40,000 soldiers in order to replace conscripted forces in the West Bank, thereby enabling their deployment to the Gaza border.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon brought the request to the cabinet, and the ministers approved it. By Tuesday afternoon, the IDF had begun issuing reserve notices.

Following high-level security deliberations on Tuesday morning, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu decided to expand the military operation in the Gaza Strip, including beginning preparations for a ground offensive. No time limit was put on the operation, but senior political officials said it could be “for a long time.”

The objective, according to the officials, is to return quiet to the South, but the equation that “quiet would be met with quiet” was no longer the operative principle.

Hamas became part of the Palestinian government recently. What is happening now is one result of that partnership. The truly disturbing fact in what is currently happening in Israel is that Hamas has obtained better rockets with a longer range. Peace in the Middle East will not be possible until the rockets stop flying. It is a credit to Israel that Gaza has not been totally destroyed–Israel’s first response has been to use the Iron Dome to protect itself rather than to obliterate the country launching the rockets. I don’t know how much longer we can expect Israel to be patient–if America were under rocket attack from another country, I don’t think that country would last long.

 

 

The Price Of Gun Control

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Theoretically, gun control makes sense. In a perfect world (which we obviously do not live in), if you got rid of guns, you would end gun violence. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, and gun control does not end gun violence. Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, but it also has one of the highest rates of gun violence. July 4th weekend is known as a particularly bad weekend to be in Chicago.

Western Journalism posted a story yesterday about a shooting incident in Chicago this past weekend,

The article reports:

According to the Chicago Tribune, Denzel Mickiel placed a cup on the roof of a car that belonged to a female partygoer. When she removed the cup, he reportedly became irate and began screaming at her.

A short time later, reports indicate Mickiel returned with a gun and began shooting at the woman and those with her. One of her friends, however, happened to be a soldier and concealed carry permit holder.

Assistant State’s Attorney Mary Hain claims the serviceman took cover, drew his weapon, and returned fire. After firing twice, hitting Mickiel with both shots, the group was able to escape.

Two additional individuals continued firing on the four victims as they sped away in two separate vehicles. One young woman in the group was hit, reports indicate, and sustained injuries to her arm and back.

Mickiel was taken to a nearby hospital, where he was listed in critical condition. Still hospitalized Sunday, a judge ruled he be charged with attempted murder and held on $950,000 bail. The remaining two shooters have yet to be identified.

We need to have good people with guns. If they are among us, they can protect people before the police have time to get there. Thank God for that soldier. It would have been too late when the police arrived.

Losing The Concept Of Law

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One of the problems with the Obama Administration is that the President seems to think he has the right to follow some laws and ignore others. Unfortunately, this idea seems to be working its way through the country.

Yesterday the Washington Times reported that a federal appeals court has ruled that Arizona must issue driver’s licenses to ‘dreamers.’ Dreamers are the young illegal immigrants that President Obama has given tentative permission to be in the country. The ‘dreamers’ are in a difficult position–they were brought here as young children and have lived their lives in America–but they are still illegal immigrants–and we are giving them driver’s licenses. This really sets a bad precedent.

We need to remember that illegal immigrants are not American citizens–they are not entitled to the protections of the U.S. Constitution granted to American citizens. I would not have a problem with setting up a reasonable process to allow dreamers to become citizens, but issuing driver’s licenses to illegals is a really bad idea.

The article reports:

The ruling could bolster Mr. Obama’s desire later this summer to claim executive powers to carve out even more illegal immigrants from the danger of deportation.

The judges said Congress has given the executive branch “broad discretion” to decide whether illegal immigrants are able to live and work in the U.S., and the judges said Arizona was interfering with that ability.

The ruling once again puts Arizona in the center of the immigration debate — a role that the state had played for years but which it seemed to be shedding in recent months as Texas rose to the front — overwhelmed by a new wave of illegal immigrant families and unaccompanied children from Central America.

The Tenth Amendment states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The federal appeals court is taking away the right of Arizona to decide to follow the law and not issue driver’s licenses to people who are here illegally.  Not only is that is a state matter–not a federal matter–it is in conflict with existing federal law.

 

A Multi-Faceted Approach To Censorship

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The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today about a group, Mayday PAC, headed by Lawrence Lessig, supposedly formed to ‘take the money out of politics.’ While I admire their noble objective, sometimes it pays to look at the past actions of people supporting a point of view.

Last week Mayday PAC raised $5 million to elect politicians who will pledge to reduce the influence of money in the American political process. That sounds as if they are doing exactly what they are opposing.

The article gives us some basic facts about the group and its objectives:

Lessig pitched wealthy donors in the tech community last week on the utility of restricting corporate political speech, saying their political agenda would be much easier to advance if opposing forces were restricted from influencing the political process.

“We have no protection for network neutrality because of the enormous influence of cable companies’ money in the political system,” he told TechCrunch. “If NN is your issue, then this is why you should see that politic$ is your issue too.”

…Lessig has been explicit about the ideological nature of his campaign finance reform position. Liberal political ideas would prevail, he insists, but for the ability of their detractors to spend money opposing those ideas.

Lessig took a similar tack with respect to climate energy policy. Environmentalists, Lessig said in 2012, spent “hundreds of millions of dollars … to get global warming legislation, and they got nothing.”

“If money didn’t buy results in Washington,” he said, environmentalists would have been able to achieve their goals by injecting substantially less money into the political process.

The article explains some of the ties between Lessig and Democrat organizations and operatives. The bottom line here is simple–most Democrats who are campaigning to ‘take the money out of politics’ do not include union money in that statement. The anger is there because with the Citizens United decision, the playing field of big money has been leveled–generally speaking corporations donate to Republicans and unions donate to Democrats. It used to be that all the big money in politics went to Democrats and came from unions.  A website called Open Secrets tracks campaign donations. Just for the record, there is still more money going to Democrats than Republicans.

When you read the article at the Free Beacon, you discover that the reason for wanting to ‘take the money out of politics’ is to censor the opposing viewpoint. That is not what American is or should be about. The push to ‘take the money out of politics’ is more dangerous than any amount of money in politics. Censorship under any name is wrong and has no place in America.

Funding The Left Through Saving The Planet

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Yesterday John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article about President Obama’s commitment to clean up the environment.

The article includes two charts that show why the President’s environment policies will not have an impact on CO2 emissions worldwide:

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So why is the environment such a high priority for President Obama? As usual, follow the money.

The article explains:

First, the Left has made an enormous investment in promoting misinformation about global warming. You can’t get through elementary school in the U.S. without being hectored about your family’s carbon footprint. (“I will never live in a house bigger than John Edwards’,” my then-third-grade daughter wrote in response to a question about what she, personally, intended to do to change the Earth’s climate.) Those millions of misinformed people are now voters, and Obama is secure in the knowledge that the newspapers and television networks haven’t done anything to educate them.

Second, to the Obama administration, the fact that “green” energy cannot survive without government subsidies and mandates isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. It allows the Democrats to slide billions of dollars to their cronies, like Tom Steyer, the left-wing billionaire who is now the number one financial supporter of the Democratic Party. Steyer made his first fortune by developing coal projects, and is making his second fortune as a Democratic Party crony, developing uneconomic but heavily subsidized “green” energy projects. So the war on coal and other sources of CO2, while it can’t have any impact at all on the climate, has turned into a funding mechanism for the Democratic Party.

Next time someone produces a dictionary and is looking for a definition of the word “cynic,” all he needs is a picture of Barack Obama.

It really isn’t about the environment.

More Rules For Thee But Not For Me

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Breitbart.com reported yesterday that there are some questions as to the amount of money Elizabeth Warren spent to set up the “Consumer Financial Protection Bureau” as a federal watchdog to prevent financial institutions from abusing U.S. consumers.

The article reports:

The Office of Inspector General of the United States Federal Reserve (OIG) was requested by the House Financial Services Oversight and Investigations Committee on January 29, 2014, to evaluate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) headquarters renovation costs that rose from $55 million to at least $215.8 million.

…According to a 2012 Independent Performance Audit, the legislation uniquely guaranteed the CFPB an automatic percentage of the Federal Reserve System’s operating expenses and that “funding is not subject to the traditional formulation and review of the Congressional appropriations process.” In addition, “Receipt of funds from the Federal Reserve authorizes the agency’s budget spending authority.”

The article explains why this spending is a problem for Ms. Warren:

The OIG found that the “Scope and Justification for Estimates” for the “$55 million and $95 million budget amounts for the renovation for fiscal year FY 2012 [beginning October 1, 20011] and FY 2013 [beginning October 1, 2012], respectively, were published in the CFPB’s public budget documents.” The OIG also found that “Approvals through decision memorandums were obtained for these amounts.” But the OIG reported that “CFPB was unable to locate any documentation of the decision to fully renovate the building.”

It therefore appears that although Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the responsible party at the CFPB who approved the “decision to renovate,” the design, and the cost “Scope and Justification for Estimates,” all documents regarding her decisions have vanished.

More missing paperwork from the Obama Administration. Someone needs to open a Lost and Found for these people. Ms. Warren was supposed to be protecting consumers from overzealous corporations, meanwhile she was exploiting the taxpayers to create her own luxurious offices. This sort of expense can be added to the list of places the federal budget could easily be cut.

 

It’s Not A Matter Of Intelligence

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On Wednesday, the Center for Security Policy posted an article about the recent offensive in Iraq by State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) terrorists.

The article states:

Some former intelligence officers are blaming this failure on a lack of human intelligence sources in Iraq and an over-reliance on technical intelligence collection.

Congressman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, disagrees. He says the Iraq crisis is a policy and not an intelligence failure.

Rogers says the signs were there about the ISIS threat and the deteriorating situation in Iraq but Obama officials ignored them. He contends that “It was very clear to me years ago that ISIS was pooling up in a dangerous way — building training camps, drawing in jihadists from around the world. We saw all of that happening.”

 What happened in Iraq was to a large extent the result of the failure of America to leave troops there after we declared the war in Iraq. The troops would not have been as much of a military force as a limiting force against the retribution of the Shiite government against the Sunnis who had previously been in power.

The author of the article, Fred Fleitz writes:

 I believe the crisis in Iraq is a major U.S. policy failure due to the Obama administration’s failure to leave a small troop presence behind after the 2011 troop withdrawal and the repeated tendency by Obama officials to discount and downplay the continuing threat from radical Islamist groups. We saw this in September 2012 when Obama officials claimed the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was the result of an anti-Muslim video and not an attack by radical Islamists.

The intelligence oversight committees should review classified analysis on Iraq, Syria, and ISIS produced over the last year to determine whether intelligence agencies failed to provide adequate warning of the ISIS threat. I believe such an inquiry will find that U.S. intelligence analysts provided the Obama administration with excellent analysis about ISIS and the deteriorating situation in Iraq but Obama officials ignored it.

 President Obama’s Middle East policy has been a failure. It is time for him to either listen to the people giving him good advice or find people who will give him good advice.

Politicizing Justice In The War On Terror

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In case you haven’t noticed, we are still fighting a war on terror. Young girls are being kidnapped, terrorists in the Middle East are killing Christians, and Islamist terrorists seem generally to be running amok. In the midst of this, we are getting ready to try one of the suspects in the attack on the American outpost in Benghazi.

Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review today about the indictment of Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the suspect arrested in connection with the attack in Benghazi. It seems that the indictment the Justice Department has created does not make sense when viewed in the context of who Ahmed Abu Khatallah is and what he did.

The article reports:

In big criminal cases — and there are none bigger than those involving terrorist attacks — indictments tend toward book length, written in a narrative style designed to cut through the legalese and explain what happened. See, if the prosecutor is ethically convinced that there is sufficient evidence to convict an accused terrorist, his duty is to plead the case as expansively as necessary to get that evidence admitted.

In terrorism cases, that has always meant fully describing the nature of the terrorist enterprise. Look at the Justice Department’s jihadist cases from the Nineties (see e.g., here). They explain the history of the international jihadist network; the different terrorist organizations and state sponsors it encompasses; the identity, status, and roles of the players; plus all of the different plots and attacks that knit the network together.

The idea is to frame the case in a way that completely and coherently relates it — making it easier for judges to admit controversial evidence and jurors to grasp the willfulness of the accused. That is why the most critical decision made by the prosecutor drafting a terrorism indictment is Count One — i.e., the first statutory offense alleged.

…It seems, however, that the Khatallah prosecution is following a different strategy.

Khatallah has been identified by the State Department as a “senior leader” of Ansar al-Sharia, one of the al-Qaeda-tied franchises in Libya. Yet there is no mention of Ansar al-Sharia in the indictment, much less of al-Qaeda or the Islamic-supremacist ideology that ties jihadist affiliates together. In fact, the indictment does not even accuse Khatallah of being a terrorist.

…In other words, the Justice Department is not alleging that Khatallah himself was a terrorist. It is saying that there were some elusive “terrorists” hanging around Benghazi, and Khatallah conspired to help the “terrorists” by contributing personnel — mainly, himself — to their machinations, knowing that these just might include preparation for a lethal attack on a U.S. facility.

Oh, and the duration of this conspiracy? It is alleged to have lasted about one day — i.e., from approximately sometime on September 11, 2012, to sometime after midnight September 12.

One day. In fact, maybe it was just a few hours.

…Instead, the indictment is written to portray a sudden, spontaneous eruption of violence, without much planning or warning, in which Khatallah — who knows . . . perhaps inspired by a video — abruptly joined a disgruntled group of protesters that turned out to include some shady terrorists motivated by . . . well, who can really say? All we know is the violence started without warning and, before you could scramble a fighter-jet or fuel up Air Force One for a Vegas campaign junket, it was all over.

There are a lot of downsides to giving enemy-combatant terrorists all the majesty of American due process. But at least it used to mean that, by the end, you’d have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Now, it’s starting to look like what you get on the Sunday shows.

It’s time for Eric Holder to go back to Chicago.

Texas Isn’t Turning Blue

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Breitbart.com posted an article today about the Democrats plan to turn Texas blue by bringing in a large number of Hispanic voters. It doesn’t seem to be going the way they planned.

The article points out:

“The popular thinking is that the change in the American population portends bad news for a Republican Party that’s still heavily dependent on support from those older, whiter voters,” Bump states. “Our thinking: What better place to track how that evolution might occur than Texas.”

The report compares the 2000 and 2012 presidential election results and compares them to Hispanic population density in Texas. It concludes that while there was a close link between the density of a county’s Hispanic population and its support for Democrat candidates, the voting pattern for that county did not change as the county became less white and more Hispanic.

Most voters are aware of their immediate surroundings. Texas has experienced fantastic economic growth under Governor Rick Perry. Hispanics living in Texas have shared in that growth. The Hispanic population has not embraced Democrat principles–they are acting as intelligent voters.

The article concludes:

The Post (Washington Post) article states “On average, support for the Democratic candidate dropped 10 percent by county between Gore and Kerry. It increased 5 percent between Bush and Obama, and then dropped another 13 percent between 2008 and 2012. Between 2000 and 2012, cities and the border areas voted consistently more Democratic. But the central, emptier part of the state got a lot more red.”

The vague trends led the Post to conclude, “All we can do is look at how the state evolves over time. Over the past 10 years, the population shift was subtle and the voting change barely noticeable. In 2000, Al Gore won 24 of the state’s counties. In 2012, Obama did better. He won 25.”

The Obama-encouraged wave of Hispanic immigrants may not create a Democrat party majority for the foreseeable future. The people coming here may have other ideas.

Irony At Its Best

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On July 1, the U.K. Telegraph posted the story of Hessy Taft, the baby the Nazis used in their propaganda to epitomize the perfect Aryan child. What the Nazis did not know was that Hessy was Jewish. Ms. Taft is now Professor Taft and teaches chemistry in New York.

The article explains what happened:

In 1935, with the city rife with anti-semitic attacks, Pauline Levinsons took her six-month-old daughter Hessy to a well-known Berlin photographer to have her baby photograph taken.

A few months later, she was horrified to find her daughter’s picture on the front cover of Sonne ins Hause, a major Nazi family magazine.

Terrified the family would be exposed as Jews, she rushed to the photographer, Hans Ballin. He told her he knew the family was Jewish, and had deliberately submitted the photograph to a contest to find the most beautiful Aryan baby.

“I wanted to make the Nazis ridiculous,” the photographer told her.

He succeeded: the picture won the contest, and was believed to have been chosen personally by the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels.

…Her photograph appeared on widely available Nazi postcards, where she was recognised by an aunt in distant Memel, now part of Lithuania. But the Nazis never discovered Prof Taft’s true identity.

Mrs. Taft recently submitted her photograph to Yad Vashem.