Monthly Archives: August 2015

When Government Gets Involved…

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On a recent trip to a local restaurant where you order at the counter, my husband noticed the addition of about five or six order kiosks. They were sort of cute, and looked as if they might be fun to operate. I didn’t really think anything about it under I read an editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal.

The editorial is entitled, “Another Minimum Wage Backfire.” President Obama has supported raising the minimum wage, and a number of states have raised it on their own. Now we are beginning to see the impact of raising the minimum wage.

The editorial reports:

Last week the Wendy’s Company did a public service on its second-quarter earnings call by explaining how mandated wage hikes will lead to fewer jobs for the low-skill workers that progressives claim to be helping.

First, CFO Todd Penegor talked about the pressure to pay higher wages and said that “we continue to look at initiatives and how we work to offset any impacts of future wage inflation through technology initiatives, whether that’s customer self-order kiosks, whether that’s automating more in the back of the house in the restaurant. And you’ll see a lot more coming on that front later this year from us.”

Translated loosely, that says that Wendy’s is a business who does business to make a profit. The company will do whatever it has to do to keep making a profit and keep its stockholders happy. If people lose their jobs because of federal regulations, that is unfortunate, but the blame should be on the federal regulators–not the company.

I would like to note here that the reason the unions like higher wages is that they feel that if the minimum wage is higher, unions can ask for higher wages when they bargain. However, an increased minimum wage will have a strong impact on the food industry because that is the industry where many teenagers get their first jobs as busboys, kitchen workers, etc. More of these jobs will be replaced by machines, and less teenagers will have the experience of having a first job. An increased minimum wage will also cause an increase in prices in many of the restaurants that are still inexpensive enough to bring the whole family.

Raising the minimum wage is another idea that although it it well meaning, does not consider the law of unintended consequences. Very few people are supporting families on minimum wage jobs, generally these jobs are entry level jobs for people just entering the job market. Raising the minimum wage does not accomplish anything–it simply takes away the opportunity for teenagers to begin a working career.

It’s Not Only A War On Coal

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On Sunday, Stephen Moore posted and article at the Washington Times about President Obama’s war on coal. Oddly enough, it’s not really about coal. Somehow in recent years, the environmental movement has been taken over by an extreme element more closely related to communism than environmentalism. These are the people who want total government control of even the puddles that form on your lawn in the Spring.

The article at the Washington Times noted some very interesting facts about the war on coal:

In fact, almost all of the states that are politically liberal and vote unfailingly Democratic are low coal use states. Washington, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut are also in the top 10 states least reliant on coal. Only conservative Idaho is a red state with low coal consumption.

Meanwhile, the heavy coal using states bleed red. West Virginia, Kentucky and Wyoming are all states that get about 90 percent of their electric power from coal. Missouri, Utah, Indiana and North Dakota also get 75 percent of their electricity from coal.

Here is the information in chart form:

So what is the war on coal about?

The article reports:

But the pain from the new EPA rules won’t be evenly distributed across America. Far from it. The coal producing states like West Virginia and Wyoming will see massive job losses and increases in electric utility costs. The nationwide costs will be about $100 billion a year eventually or a reduction in GDP by about one-half percentage point, the Heritage Foundation finds. But for heavily impacted states — Republican areas in the Midwest, South and mountain states — the costs will reach about $1,200 a year to average families. Mr. Obama’s policies that have had such a crushing effect on middle-income family finances are about to get a whole lot worse.

The liberal coastal states will feel only modest effects because they don’t use much coal.

Would Barbara Boxer of California and Sheldon Whitehouse from Rhode Island, two of the biggest cheerleaders for the new regulations, be so euphoric if their voters were paying these massive costs for their green agenda? But the east and west coast green snobs can live with raising costs and unemployment in “fly over country.”

It’s time to label the Obama green policies what they truly are: steep taxes on red state America. By the way, many purple states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia also get hammered by Mr. Obama’s climate change agenda.

The article concludes:

I did the rough calculations. For every reduction in BTUs burned from coal in the United States, China and India alone will burn 10 to 12 more BTUs. Even if the United States cut coal use to zero over the next 20 years, global emissions from coal will rise sharply. So the Obama plan is all pain no gain. It would be like trying to reduce unwanted pregnancies in the Third World by having Americans use more birth control. Stupid.

But back to the Obama assault on red and purple states. Let’s hope the voters get the message that Mr. Obama’s green energy policies are directed at their jobs and their paychecks. Most people in blue states and the workers around the rest of the world won’t feel a thing. This is fair?

It’s time to get back to a time when Congress passed the laws and our elected officials took responsibility for the laws they passed.

Throw The Bums Out

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Conservatives who have repeatedly voted Repubican with the expectation of change in Washington are getting impatient. We have a few Representatives in Washington who actually represent the Conservative view, but unfortunately they are few and far between. The latest Washington elite trick to avoid being negatively impacted by the laws they pass was recently exposed in a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The link above is to the letters written by various House of Representative members stating that they had only forty-five staff members.

CNS News posted an article yesterday explaining exactly what this is about.

The article explains:

In October 2013, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued a final rule that provides an “employer contribution” covering about three-quarters of the premiums of congressional employees enrolled in the small business exchange starting Jan. 1, 2014.

The OPM rule “allowed at least 12,359 congressional employees and their spouses and dependents to obtain health insurance through the Small Business Exchange…These 12,359 participants represent an astonishing 86% of the Small Business Exchange’s total enrollment,” the appeal states.

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit last October on behalf of Kirby Vining, a D.C. resident since 1986, who objected to the expenditure of municipal funds to insure congressional employees in an exchange that was established specifically for small employers in the District.

“Congress authored the law [ACA], and is going to rather questionable lengths to avoid compliance with the law it drafted,” Vining said.

Laws for thee, but not for me. Representative David Vitter has attempted to shed light on this practice, but his efforts were blocked. The story was posted at rightwinggranny.com in May of this year. Every Congressman who claimed to have forty-five staff members and actually does not should be sent packing immediately.

The “Get Out of Jail Free” Cards In The Iran Deal

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Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal posted an opinion piece by Hooman Bakhtiar about the Iranian nuclear deal. Mr. Bakhtiar is an Iranian-American writer in Washington, D.C.

The article begins:

Congress is debating whether the nuclear agreement between Iran and the great powers goes far enough to curb Tehran’s illicit activities. But equally deserving of scrutiny are the nefarious characters whose names would be removed under the deal from Western sanctions lists.

Consider Anis Naccache, the Lebanese hitman who attempted to assassinate my great uncle Shapour Bakhtiar, Iran’s last prime minister under the shah. On a sweltering July day in 1980, a hit squad of five Lebanese, Iranian and Palestinian assassins led by Mr. Naccache approached a building in the Paris suburb of Neuilly. They posed as journalists, ostensibly to interview Bakhtiar, who had arrived in Paris a year earlier to launch a political campaign against the Islamic Republic before Ayatollah Khomeini’s nascent regime could entrench itself.

The article goes on to detain some of Mr. Naccache’s other terrorist activities–he was a lieutenant of Carlos the Jackal, he lead a hostage taking of 11 OPEC oil ministers in Vienna. In the failed assassination attempt of Shapour Bakhtiar, Mr. Naccache killed a police officer posted in the building and an elderly French woman who lived in the building. He was convicted of murder and received a life sentence. Mr. Naccache was released by the French in 1990 after the ‘coincidental’ release of 16 French hostages held by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The saga continues:

In 2008 the European Union determined that Mr. Naccache was linked to Iran’s nuclear-proliferation activities—identifying his association with the same Bazargani Tejarat Tavanmand Saccal firm in its designation. Brussels added him to a sanctions list due to his alleged role in Iran’s nuclear program, not his terrorist past.

Now Mr. Naccache is set to be removed from the EU sanctions list under the nuclear deal. Joining him will be numerous other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders responsible for the deaths of many Iranian dissidents, U.S. servicemen in Iraq and civilians in Syria and elsewhere.

In their determination to cut a nuclear deal with Tehran, Washington and Brussels are rubbing salt into the wounds of the victims of Iranian terror. It is unclear how much, if any, due diligence has been conducted on the names that the mullahs insisted be removed from sanctions lists. An EU spokeswoman declined to comment on the delisting beyond confirming Mr. Naccache’s alleged illicit nuclear activities as the basis of the designation and his association with Bazargani Tejarat Tavanmand Saccal.

This is the deal President Obama is asking Congress to approve.

At Least There Is Some Check On Releasing Prisoners From Guantanamo

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Ed Morrissey at Hot Air posted a story today about the continuing push by President Obama to release all of the prisoners from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. It is quite possible that the recent ‘normalization’ of America‘s relationship to Cuba might be related to this desire in some way. However, here at home, there seems to be another roadblock in the President’s way (thank goodness).

In January of this year, NewsMax ran a story about the recidivism rate of former Guantanamo prisoners. They compared the numbers the government has released with their information. Any resemblance between the two sets of numbers was purely coincidental.

These are the government figures:

fleitz.jpg

This is what the article says about those numbers:

Republican claims of a 30 percent recidivism rate are based on combining the figures in green on all detainees confirmed or suspected of re-engaging in terrorism.

I believe the actual recidivism rate is probably 30 percent or higher because of the time and difficulty in determining whether released Gitmo detainees have returned to terrorism.

Further complicating this determination are very strict definitions set by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to define what “confirmed” and “suspected of” reengaging in terrorist activities mean. Among other things, these definitions require evidence of direct involvement in terrorist activities and exclude communications with terrorist groups or engaging in anti-U.S. propaganda.

Meanwhile, President Obama is dealing with a familiar problem regarding the release of the prisoners.

Ed Morrissey reports:

Carter (Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter) also said that not every detainee in Guantanamo can be freed. “[W]e have to be very clear – there are people in Guantanamo Bay who cannot and should not be released because they will return to the terrorist fight,” he said. “And therefore we need a place where we can detain them in the long term. We have been forbidden to create such a place in U.S. territory.”

This is the problem that President Obama ran into with the last Secretary of Defense. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. There has been speculation that our involvement with Cuba will involve the turning over of Guantanamo to Cuba. It will be interesting to see how that will be handled between now and the time that President Obama leaves office. A first-term President is not likely to want a resume that includes the release of prisoners that were later to be found killing Americans.

The Twenty-Eight Pages

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Yesterday The New York Post posted an article about a lawsuit that is moving forward   against the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The lawsuit is asking that the twenty-eight pages of the 9/11 Commission Report that have remained classified be revealed.

It is generally understood that the twenty-eight pages have to do with the role of Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 attacks.

The article reports:

During a July 30 court hearing, lawyers for 9/11 victims’ families and insurers revealed that the staffers’ most serious allegations against the Saudis were stricken from the final draft of the 9/11 Commission report as well.

“They were removed at the 11th hour by the senior staff,” plaintiffs’ attorney Sean Carter of Cozen O’Connor said, explaining that the decision was a “political matter.”

Carter said that the staff investigators “felt they had documented a direct link between the Saudi government and the Sept. 11 plot based on the explosive material they had uncovered concerning the activities of Fahad al-Thumairy and Omar al-Bayoumi.”

Thumairy was employed at the time as a Saudi religious cleric and diplomat in Los Angeles, while Bayoumi was employed by the Saudi Arabian civil aviation authority in San Diego.

The suit charges that two of the Saudi hijackers, who first entered the United States in Los Angeles before traveling to Washington to attack the Pentagon, were funded through the Saudi embassy and consulate — and that they were handled primarily by Saudi “agent” Bayoumi while staying in San Diego.

It would be very nice to have these pages unclassified so that the public could draw its own conclusions about the events on September 11, 2001. This might also be a good time to mention that our alliance with Saudi Arabia is based on two things. First of all, the Saudis have helped keep the American dollar as the exchange medium in the trading of oil. That is one of the reasons the American dollar has not fallen under the weight of the debt incurred by overspending. The second basis for the alliance is America’s dependence on foreign oil. If you are uncomfortable with the alliance with a country that does not allow the building of Christian churches and does not allow women any sort of equality, then you need to support the development of America’s natural gas and oil resources.

It is quite possible that Saudi Arabia played a major role in the events of 9/11, but until America becomes energy independent, we will continue our alliance with the Saudis. That is the price of dependency.

Following The Money On Climate Change

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On July 30, The Insurance Journal posted an article about the climate change industry. Yes, you read that right. Climate change has become an industry.

This is a chart taken from the article:

Source: Climate Change Business Journal

The article reports:

On Monday the final version of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Clean Power Plan, national air pollution regulation aimed at curbing carbon emissions from power plants, is scheduled to be released.

Ferrier believes the plan may eventually prove to be a driver of further growth in the industry. That is if the plan withstands any legal challenges from states, industries and entities opposed to it.

“I think the EPA’s Clean Power Plan has a lot more teeth to it than many other attempts of the past,” Ferrier said. “I think we’ll see more (growth) out of that.”

Following this more climate change policy could come out of the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in December, also called COP21 or CMP11.

“I think we’ll see the U.S. and China possibly make more comprehensive commitments rather than at past meetings, where they let the European leadership of the group make commitments while they sat on the sidelines,” Ferrier said.

Policy, or the anticipation of new policy, has been one of the biggest drivers of the industry, the report shows.

I suppose we need to give the Obama Administration credit for growing the economy at least in one area. The fact that his policies are causing Americans to lower their standard of living and taking away our freedoms and national sovereignty does not seem to bother the President.

Is Death An Excuse For Missing Work?

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Is death an excuse for missing work? I don’t mean a death in the family–I mean your own death. Well, not in New York City. The New York Post reported that that Medicaid-eligibility specialist Geoffrey Toliver was fired after not showing up for his hearing where he was to be accused of going AWOL because he had not shown up for his job since November 2013. Toliver died at age 65 on Dec. 8, 2014.

 

The article reports:

“How do you fire a man who is already dead? He deserves better. The agency itself should have known,” said Ted Willbright, who added that he considered Toliver as a brother.

“Some people he worked with were very supportive, so how did HRA the organization not know? He’s dead, and they’re saying he abandoned his job. He didn’t abandon his job, his job abandoned him. He was a good man. Truly, truly a good man.”

HRA officials said they sought to remove Toliver from his $38,000-a-year job after they couldn’t reach him for well over a year.

They marked the start of his absence as Nov. 12, 2013, and said calls and certified letters mailed to his home were never answered.

“We did everything we could to contact him and his family,” said HRA spokesman David Neustadt. “This employee was not paid when he wasn’t working, but we left his job open in case he recovered.”

He said that now that the agency knows of his “unfortunate death,” it would take no further action.

What would be the appropriate further action to take against a dead man?

How Media Bias Works

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Many people who follow news sources other than the mainstream media have been appalled by the recent Planned Parenthood videos. The videos are edited, but it has been acknowledged that the unedited versions confirm that Planned Parenthood is selling aborted baby body parts. So why hasn’t there been outrage? Have we become that calloused? Well, maybe, maybe not. It seems that people who depend on the mainstream media for their news sources may not be aware of the videos.

On Wednesday, The Daily Signal posted an article about a CNN interview about an abortion poll taken in America.

The article reports:

A May 2015 Gallup poll asked, “Should abortion be legal?” Here’s how the numbers broke down:

Twenty-nine percent said abortion should be legal under any circumstances.

Fifty-one percent said abortion should be legal only under certain circumstances.

Nineteen percent said abortion should be illegal in all circumstances.

Here’s what Camerota (CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota) said:

“That’s 80 percent of respondents who believe abortion should be kept legal.” (She added together the 29 percent who said abortion should be legal in any circumstance and 51 percent who said it should be allowed only in certain circumstances.)

Here’s what Camerota could have said:

“That’s 70 percent of Americans who believe there should be limits on abortion.” (Adding together the 51 percent who said it should be legal only in certain circumstances and the 19 percent who said it should not be legal under any circumstances.)

Those who identify as pro-choice are more inclined to report the poll the way CNN did, and those who identify as pro-life are likely to use the latter number—the point being, in this particular poll and many others, you can “interpret the data” to get the spin you want.

The article further noted that CNN had omitted the answers to the following poll question:

“Have you seen or heard recent news about videos that supposedly show Planned Parenthood employees discussing the sale of aborted fetus tissue, or not?”

Here were the responses:

Only 27 percent said they had heard a lot.

Only 21 percent said they had heard a little.

But 53 percent of respondents said they had not heard about the story at all.

I wonder how different the other answers in the poll about fetal tissue research and defunding Planned Parenthood would have been if the 74 percent of people who had heard or seen little to nothing had indeed seen the videos.

This is how media bias works.

I Never Thought Of Toxic Waste Spills As Ironic, But…

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Steven Hayward posted an article at Power Line today about the massive spill of toxic mine tailings into the Animas River in Colorado. The EPA estimates over 1 million gallons of mining waste was dumped into the river. This sounds like an obvious example of a careless big corporation only interested in profits–only it isn’t.

The article reports:

The wastewater released contains heavy metals including lead, arsenic, cadmium, and aluminum, Ostrander said. The EPA is preparing a plan to sample private water wells along the Animas River valley to test for contamination, including mercury contamination, he said. . .

By Friday morning, the plume of orange had made its way downstream and was eight miles from the northern border of New Mexico, the EPA said in an emailed statement.

I’m sure the EPA will be very quick to fine the guilty party, or will they?

The article reports:

The EPA says it was using heavy machinery to investigate pollutants at the Gold King Mine on Wednesday morning when it accidentally released an estimated 1 million gallons of mining waste into a creek.

Whoops.

A Very Interesting Take On The Republican Debate

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DaTechGuyBlog posted a really good commentary on the Republican debate and the interaction between Donald Trump and  Megyn Kelly. I happen to know DaTechGuy, and I can tell you from personal experience that he is a total gentleman who treats women very well and would never describe them in the way attributed to Donald Trump. However, he brings out a very interesting point in his article.

The article begins with a quote from “Inherit the Wind“::

Henry Drummond: “Madam, you may vote, but at a price. You lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat.”

The point is simple–if you want to be equal, you need to expect to be treated equally.

In terms of the questioning of Donald Trump, DaTechGuy reminds us:

Anyone who knows me knows that I tend to be polite. I was brought up by people born in the 1920’s. I hold a door for a woman and I tip my fedora to them. I don’t believe in talking about women in the crass way that our culture does today. It’s not what I do, it’s not what I’ve taught my sons an I don’t approve of it.

That being said, I was extremely offended by the questions concerning tweets to Rosie O’Donnell by Megyn Kelly,

The question itself was one of several that had no place on that stage (Showing that the real difference between Fox & the rest of the MSM is not that they are easier on the GOP but are just as hard on Democrats).

The article points out:

As soon as the debate was over every single network was hitting Donald Trump for these remarks and it didn’t stop when the morning came. It was all about how Donald Trump was acting like a misogynist, who women were going to be offended etc etc etc.

That has been the these on every network since last night and the light of day hasn’t made a single change in the argument.

The problem with this argument is three-fold:

1.  Trump’s statement concerning Rosie O’Donnell was not decorous, but it was highly accurate.

2.  The Primary qualification for almost every women on these panels is physical attractiveness

3.  When Megyn Kelly went after Trump this way he reacted the same way he does when anyone attacks him, he punches back.

This is the danger of equality.

The July Employment Numbers

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This is the chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

BureauofLaborStatisticsJuly2015

So what does this mean? Breitbart.com posted a story about the numbers today.

The article reports:

July’s labor force participation rate however remained the the same as June at 62.6 percent. Before last month the labor force participation rate had not been that low since October 1977, when the participation rate was 62.4 percent.

The BLS reports that the civilian labor force did experience a slight uptick from 157,037,000 in June to 157,106,000 in July after the month of June saw it drop by 432,000.

While the labor participation rate remains at the lowest its been since the late 1970s, the BLS highlighted that the unemployment rate remained at 5.3 percent and nonfarm payroll jobs increased by 215,000.

The labor participation rate is a concern. The unemployment rate does not take the labor participation rate into consideration–it is based only on the number of people actually looking for work that are unemployed. The current labor participation rate is not indicative of a healthy economy.

 

Showing My Cynicism

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The Hill is reporting today that New York Senator Charles Schumer will not support President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. Sorry about my cynicism, but I suspect that decision was made after a careful calculation that the treaty would be approved without his vote. I also expect that if enough Democrats refuse to support the treaty and Senator Schumer‘s vote is needed, he will somehow have a change of heart. Nevertheless, The Hill is reporting that he will not support the treaty.

Meanwhile, Fox News reported yesterday:

The shadowy Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani recently visited Moscow to meet with senior Russian leaders, according to two Western intelligence sources, despite a travel ban and U.N. Security Council resolutions barring him from leaving Iran. 

On July 24, one week before Secretary of State John Kerry testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee and faced questions about the newly struck nuclear deal, Soleimani arrived in Moscow for meetings with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and President Vladimir Putin. It was not immediately clear what the Iranian leader discussed, but the revelation comes as the United Nations and European Union arms embargo against Iran is slated to be lifted in five years as part of the comprehensive nuclear agreement announced July 14 from Vienna. 

No Senator who takes his Oath of Office seriously can honestly vote for the Iranian treaty. However, I suspect it will pass. Democrats tend to stick together, even when it involves jumping off a cliff.

The First Republican Debates

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I feel obligated to share a few thoughts on the Republican debates last night. Obviously, the star of the first debate was Carly Fiorina. She obviously has the education, business experience and acumen, and leadership experience to be President. The other person in the early debate who came across very well was Bobby Jindal. Governor Jindal also has the educational background and leadership ability to be President.

The second debate was a little more convoluted. At this point I should mention that I listened to both debates rather than watching them due to cable television issues in the community where I live. The second debate sounded more like the World Wrestling Federation than Republicans, but it was instructive. After a question was asked about the ‘war on women,’ I was glad to see Lindsey Graham comment that the ‘war on women’ is happening in the Middle East in the country that President Obama is trying to make a treaty with–not in the Republican party. The concept of a ‘war on women’ has no place in a Republican debate–it is a Democrat party talking point and Democrat party fiction. I was also left with the impression that Chris Christie is definitely from New Jersey. Having spent my teenage years there, his concept of discussion was somewhat familiar. Recently I had a friend in North Carolina who had been dealing with a New Yorker ask me how to tell if a New Yorker was angry–it seemed as if they were always talking very fast and very loud.

The Republican party can do better in the coming debates. The problem was not with the candidates–I felt that the problem was in the questions. We don’t need to see candidates attack each other–we need candidates that state their positions and contrast those positions with those of the Democrat party. The voters will choose the person who expresses their ideas clearly and is most aligned with their views. I also suspect that the participants in the next major Republican debate will be slightly different.

Where The Money Will Go In The Iranian Nuclear Deal

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Today’s Wall Street Journal posted an article about what the lifting of the economic sanctions will mean to Iran. One of the problems with lifting the sanctions is that despite claims to the contrary, much of the money will find its way to terrorist activities around the world.

The article reports:

Take the deal’s financial windfall for Iran’s terrorist and military activities, which even Mr. Obama conceded Wednesday would benefit. The inflow from sanctions relief could approach $150 billion within 16 months. The President says most of the money will go to improve Iran’s economy, but this misjudges the regime’s priorities and how its economy works.

Consider the Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, which is the regime’s military and ideological spine and controls an estimated 20% of the Iranian economy. This includes perhaps half of all government-owned companies, such as construction firm Khatam Al-Anbia, which is involved in building everything from city metros to oil pipelines; the Telecommunication Company of Iran, where an IRGC-controlled company has a 51% stake; and thousands of smaller front companies.

“To do business in Iran, foreign companies need an Iranian partner, which for large-scale projects often means firms controlled by the IRGC,” Reuters’s Pariza Hafezi and Louis Charbonneaureported in July. That means the Revolutionary Guards will benefit from the one-time windfall when Iranian oil profits now held in escrow are released, and going forward as foreign companies race to get into the Iran market.

The 700 Club this morning posted the following:

IranianSanctionsRelief

The Iranian nuclear deal will put American soldiers at greater risk. It will also put Israel in greater danger. It will also begin a nuclear arms race among Middle Eastern countries. This is not a deal that Congress should approve.

Devaluing American Citizenship

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There used to be value in being an American. You were respected if you traveled overseas, you got to vote in American elections, you could volunteer to hold appointed of elected office, and generally you got through customs in the Western Hemisphere pretty easily. Well, I guess things are changing very fast.

CBS News Los Angeles reported on Tuesday that Huntington Park, California, has appointed two illegal aliens (the article calls them undocumented immigrants, but they are illegal aliens) to the health and education commission and the parks and recreation commission. Councilman Jhonny Pineda explained that the two new appointees will not be paid (it would be illegal to pay them) and that both are young men who Pineda says have a long history of volunteering for the city and the undocumented community.

I have a question. If these two men have been volunteering and being an asset to the community, why isn’t there some sort of way the city can help them become citizens? I am not talking amnesty for everyone who is here illegally, but I am wondering if specific cases where people have been an asset to a specific community can be looked and helped through the process of becoming a citizen.

The article reports:

City Mayor Karina Macias threw her support behind the appointments.

The appointments won’t be official until processed by the council and Medina and Zatarain pass a LifeScan background check.

Pineda says the move is historic, and would make Huntington Park the first city to have undocumented immigrants on city commissions.

I guess this is another example of illegal aliens doing jobs Americans won’t do.

Charity Begins At Home

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Charity begins at home. I wonder sometimes how the Internal Revenue Service feels about that, but that is the conventional wisdom. Exhibiting their usual talent for taking things to the legal limit, the Clinton family obvious believes that charity should begin at home.

The Washington Free Beacon posted a story today about Hillary Clinton’s tax returns for 2014.

The article reports:

The Clintons earned more than $28 million in 2014 and claimed around $3 million in income as charitable tax deductions, according to tax returns released by Hillary Clinton’s campaign last Friday. The campaign emphasized Clinton’s charitable giving in a press statement, saying that it “represented 10.8 percent” of her income in 2014. But roughly half of that money—$1.8 million—appears to have been channeled to the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

According to the tax returns, the Clintons gave $3 million in 2014 to the Clinton Family Foundation, a small private foundation that the family uses as a pass-through to other charities. Records show the CFF disbursed $3.7 million in 2014, including $1.8 million to the Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

Just for kicks, let’s look at how the Foundation spends its money. The Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation evidently funds a good deal of the travel expenses the Clintons generate. It must be nice to have a Foundation that helps with the expenses of your Presidential campaign.

The article further reports:

Americans for Tax Reform slammed Clinton on Tuesday for forming an “Article 4 trust,” which the group said appears to be a method to avoid paying estate taxes—a tax Clinton has supported.

“Clinton has consistently voted for the Death Tax throughout her time in public office and forcefully condemned attempts to lower it,” ATF said in a statement. “But when it comes to her own finances, it is a different story. The newly released tax returns buttress earlier reports outlining the ways Clinton uses financial planning strategies that shield her Death Tax liability.”

Another example of taxes for thee, but not for me.

This Doesn’t Seem Very Peaceful To Me

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CNN is reporting today that Iranian warships briefly pointed the weapons on its deck at a U.S. military helicopter and coalition warship two weeks ago in the Gulf of Aden. First of all–this story is listed under CNN Politics. This is not politics–this is national security–which until recent years was apolitical. One of the problems with the current politicians in Washington is that they are perfectly willing to sacrifice the good of America for the good of their political party. Term limits are needed, but that is another article.

The article at CNN reports:

In a statement released early Wednesday afternoon, the U.S. Navy characterized the interaction as “unsafe and unprofessional.”

The U.S. Navy took photos of the incident but has not publicly released them. The incident was observed by the USS Farragut, which had launched the U.S. helicopter.

The official said it’s been several weeks since there have been any serious encounters with Iranian military ships, although on two recent occasions, U.S. Navy ships did sound their horns to warn Iranian ships they were too close, and those ships moved to a farther distance.

The U.S. Navy said its forces are routinely approached by Iranian warships as they operate in the region, with the majority of all interactions by the Iranians conducted “in a safe and professional manner.”

“Unsafe and unprofessional!” What does it take for America to stand up and say that this is unacceptable? I am not in a hurry to go to war with anyone, but it seems to me that if we do not stand up to this sort of bullying at some point, it is only going to get worse. Obviously, the time to stand up to this bully is before he is equipped with nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, our current leadership in the White House does not seem to understand that.

Some Perspective From The Federalist Website

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The Federalist posted the following statistics:

AbortionStatisticsThe article also included the following statement by The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops:

It has long been troubling to many Americans that the nation’s largest abortion network, performing over a third of all abortions, receives over half a billion taxpayer dollars a year. This concern has rightly grown in recent years.

The most recent revelations about Planned Parenthood’s willingness to traffic in fetal tissue from abortions, and to alter abortion methods not for any reason related to women’s health but to obtain more “intact” organs, is the latest demonstration of a callousness toward women and their unborn children that is shocking to many Americans.

The Catholic Church comes to this issue from a perspective rooted in experience. Catholic charitable agencies and pregnancy help centers have helped countless pregnant women find life-affirming alternatives to abortion. Our hospitals and other health facilities are second to none in providing quality health care for women.

We support the legislative proposal to reallocate federal funding, so that women can obtain their health care from providers that do not promote abortion. It is my sincere hope that you will be able to help advance this goal by supporting S. 1881.

The Senate did not vote to defund Planned Parenthood, but I suspect that the issue will come up again. It is time for the government to stop funding a group whose founder wanted to eliminate all ‘inferior human beings’ and create a race of thoroughbreds. Somehow that idea sounds vaguely familiar, and it didn’t end well the last time it was tried.

 

 

Sometimes When A Law Is Passed We Don’t Immediately See The Consequences

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In 1965 something major happened. Almost all of us missed its significance. We are now dealing with the consequences of the event.

John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today about LEGAL immigration and the turn it has taken since 1965.

The article includes the following chart:

ImmigrationChartThe staff of the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration explains the history and significance of this chart:

Each year, millions of visas are issued to temporary workers, foreign students, refugees, asylees, and permanent immigrants for admission into the United States. The lion’s share of these visas are for lesser-skilled and lower-paid workers and their dependents who, because they are here on work-authorized visas, are added directly to the same labor pool occupied by current unemployed jobseekers. Expressly because they are admitted into the U.S. on legal immigrant visas, most will be able to draw a wide range of taxpayer-funded benefits, and corporations will be allowed to directly substitute these workers for Americans. Improved border security would have no effect on the continued arrival of these new foreign workers, refugees, and permanent immigrants—because they are all invited here by the federal government.

The most significant of all immigration documents issued by the U.S. is, by far, the “green card.” When a foreign citizen is issued a green card it guarantees them the following benefits inside the United States: lifetime work authorization, access to federal welfare, access to Social Security and Medicare, the ability to obtain citizenship and voting privileges, and the immigration of their family members and elderly relatives.

Some of our politicians see this as a way to fund Social Security, but they fail to notice the extra load it puts on the Social Security and Medicare programs.

The changes made in 1965 have not been good for the American economy. The 1965 immigration legislation for which Ted Kennedy was largely responsible has created problems for American workers:

Legislation enacted in 1965, among other factors, substantially increased low-skilled immigration. Since 1970, the foreign-born population in the United States has increased more than four-fold—to a record 42.1 million today. The foreign-born share of the population has risen from fewer than 1 in 21 in 1970, to presently approaching 1 in 7.

As the supply of available labor has increased, so too has downward pressure on wages. Georgetown and Hebrew University economics professor Eric Gould has observed that “the last four decades have witnessed a dramatic change in the wage and employment structure in the United States… The overall evidence suggests that the manufacturing and immigration trends have hollowed-out the overall demand for middle-skilled workers in all sectors, while increasing the supply of workers in lower skilled jobs. Both phenomena are producing downward pressure on the relative wages of workers at the low end of the income distribution.”

We need sensible immigration policies that will bring people to America who want to be here, who want to assimilate, and who want to work. Our current immigration policies do not do that. Again, I would like to point out that I am talking about legal immigration. Illegal immigration is a separate problem for many additional reasons–national security being one of the major ones.

 

 

Follow The Money

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The filibuster in the Senate yesterday prevented the defunding of Planned Parenthood. I am heartbroken that after videos showed that Planned Parenthood is selling aborted baby body parts, we couldn’t even cut off their federal funding. I wonder how people can be aware of what is happening to these unborn children and support the organization.

I looked up some of the political contributions Planned Parenthood makes. The information can be found at opensecrets.org. This is what I found:

PlannedParenthoodDonationsIt gets even more interesting:

PlannedParenthoodDonations2

This is how politicians can ignore the dismembering of babies and avoid a vote to defund Planned Parenthood. The Democrats who voted in support of Planed Parenthood are bought and paid for. The Republicans are not. The funding of Planned Parenthood by the federal government allows them to have the money to pour into political campaigns. This is a vicious cycle, and it needs to be stopped.

 

 

Fast And Furious Shows Up Again

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Yesterday Katie Pavlich posted an article at Townhall.com about the shooting in Texas at a Mohammed cartoon contest. Nadir Soofi and Elton Simpson were the two gunmen who carried out the attack, after driving from Phoenix, Arizona, to Garland, Texas.

The article reports:

It turns out Soofi purchased his gun under the Holder Justice Department’s Operation Fast and Furious back in 2010. As a reminder, Operation Fast and Furious was a program that ran from 2009-2010 in which federal agents purposely allowed the sale of thousands of weapons, including handguns, AK-47s and .50-caliber rifles, to known drug cartels. Agents deliberately allowed weapons to be trafficked and lost in Mexico.

On Saturday, The Los Angeles Times reported some of the details of the gun purchase:

Five years before he was shot to death in the failed terrorist attack in Garland, Texas, Nadir Soofi walked into a suburban Phoenix gun shop to buy a 9-millimeter pistol.

At the time, Lone Wolf Trading Co. was known among gun smugglers for selling illegal firearms. And with Soofi’s history of misdemeanor drug and assault charges, there was a chance his purchase might raise red flags in the federal screening process.

Inside the store, he fudged some facts on the form required of would-be gun buyers.

What Soofi could not have known was that Lone Wolf was at the center of a federal sting operation known as Fast and Furious, targeting Mexican drug lords and traffickers. The idea of the secret program was to allow Lone Wolf to sell illegal weapons to criminals and straw purchasers, and track the guns back to large smuggling networks and drug cartels.

Instead, federal agents lost track of the weapons and the operation became a fiasco, particularly after several of the missing guns were linked to shootings in Mexico and the 2010 killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona.

Soofi’s attempt to buy a gun caught the attention of authorities, who slapped a seven-day hold on the transaction, according to his Feb. 24, 2010, firearms transaction record, which was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. Then, for reasons that remain unclear, the hold was lifted after 24 hours, and Soofi got the 9-millimeter.

As the owner of a small pizzeria, the Dallas-born Soofi, son of a Pakistani American engineer and American nurse, would not have been the primary focus of federal authorities, who back then were looking for smugglers and drug lords.

He is now.

The Fast and Furious Program has fallen out of the national spotlight. However, the consequences of the poor judgement exercised in the conception of that program is still with us. It is ironic that a poorly conceived program to capture drug lords would be used by terrorists to push forward their agenda.

 

Documents We Had Not Even Considered

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As the Senate prepares to vote on the Iran nuclear deal, there is more information that has come to light. Other than the two secret side agreements made between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it seems that there may be some pertinent information about Iran in the documents and computer drives taken when Osama bin Laden was killed.

Next week’s issue of The Weekly Standard includes an article by Stephen Hayes and William Kristol about the need to understand Iran’s past behavior in order to predict its future behavior.

The article states:

Here’s an important instance. We have been told by six current or former intelligence officials that the collection of documents captured in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound includes explosive information on Iran’s relationship with al Qaeda over the past two decades, including details of Iran’s support for al Qaeda’s attacks on Americans. Some of these officials believe this information alone could derail the deal. We haven’t seen it. But the American people should see it all before Congress votes on the deal in September.

“There are letters about Iran’s role, influence, and acknowledgment of enabling al Qaeda operatives to pass through Iran as long as al Qaeda did their dirty work against the Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan,” Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, tells The Weekly Standard. “What Congress should demand is to see all the UBL [Osama bin Laden] documents related to Iran and all the documents related to intentions of AQ into the future—they are very telling.”

This really does nothing to convince me that American can do business with Iran. The leaders of Iran have made it clear since 1978 that their goal is to destroy Israel and America and re-establish a caliphate which they will rule. The have been very open about this goal. I don’t understand why President Obama is not listening.

The article concludes:

Highly credible senior intelligence officials who have seen the bin Laden documents say that the collection includes important information about al Qaeda and Iran. The White House has consistently blocked the release of that information. It will take concerted action by the leadership of Congress—in particular, Speaker of the House John Boehner, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee Richard Burr along with Chairman Nunes—to wring this information out of the administration.

Not to demand these documents—not to insist on having access to them despite all the administration’s protestations and obfuscations, not to allow the American people to understand the whole truth about the Iranian regime with which the administration has negotiated this agreement—would be an abdication of responsibility on the part of Congress that history would judge harshly.   

Americans and their Senators and Representatives need to be informed about what Iran has been up to in the past and what it is planning for the future.

This Isn’t Anything New

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From the time of the Iranian revolution in 1978, the goal of Iran has been to restore the Islamic caliphate that vanished with the end of the Turkish Empire. We need to remember that the caliphate existed about a hundred years ago–it is not ancient history. Therefore, the book that has been published by Iran on how to outsmart the United States and destroy Israel should not come as a surprise to anyone. What should come as a surprise is why would the United States negotiate with a country whose goal is to destroy one of our allies and eventually destroy us.

Meanwhile, yesterday The New York Post posted a story about a book called “Palestine,” published by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This charming masterpiece is described in the article:

Khamenei makes his position clear from the start: Israel has no right to exist as a state.

He uses three words. One is “nabudi” which means “annihilation.” The other is “imha” which means “fading out,” and, finally, there is “zaval” meaning “effacement.”

Khamenei claims that his strategy for the destruction of Israel is not based on anti-Semitism, which he describes as a European phenomenon. His position is instead based on “well-established Islamic principles.”

One such principle is that a land that falls under Muslim rule, even briefly, can never again be ceded to non-Muslims. What matters in Islam is ownership of a land’s government, even if the majority of inhabitants are non-Muslims.

Khomeinists are not alone in this belief.

Dozens of maps circulate in the Muslim world showing the extent of Muslim territories lost to the Infidel that must be recovered.

There is a tenet in Islam that says all land controlled by Muslims at any time must be regained to form the caliphate. That tenet has a lot to do with Iran’s desire to have a nuclear bomb.

The article also reminds us that Khamenei plans to eliminate Israel through making life so unpleasant there that the Jews leave and the land goes to the Arabs as a result of demographics.

The article concludes:

Khamenei boasts about the success of his plans to make life impossible for Israelis through terror attacks from Lebanon and Gaza. His latest scheme is to recruit “fighters” in the West Bank to set up Hezbollah-style units.

“We have intervened in anti-Israel matters, and it brought victory in the 33-day war by Hezbollah against Israel in 2006 and in the 22-day war between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip,” he boasts.

Khamenei describes Israel as “a cancerous tumor” whose elimination would mean that “the West’s hegemony and threats will be discredited” in the Middle East. In its place, he boasts, “the hegemony of Iran will be promoted.”

Khamenei’s book also deals with the Holocaust which he regards either as “a propaganda ploy” or a disputed claim. “If there was such a thing,” he writes, “we don’t know why it happened and how.”

This is what Iran’s leaders are preaching to their people and their allies in the Middle East. Do we really want to give succor?

In looking at the nuclear agreement with Iran, one has to consider the Islamic principle of taqiyya, loosely explained as “lying for the sake of Islam.” Taqiyya allows Muslims to issue two statements on any one issue–one to Muslims and one to non-Muslims. I have no doubt that what Iran is telling America about the nuclear deal is very different from what is being told to the Iranians. I pray that the Senate has the courage to turn down the nuclear deal with Iran.