Monthly Archives: January 2016

Taxpayers Are Waking Up

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No one denies that we need a social safety net. The discussion centers on the size and the use of that safety net. It is meant to be a safety net–not a career choice. Many states, including North Carolina, are beginning to revise their safety nets in order to encourage people to work, to abstain from drugs, and to become productive members of society rather than constantly depending on the safety net.

On Saturday, the News & Observer posted an article detailing coming changes in the North Carolina food stamp laws. Food stamp recipients in North Carolina will soon be required to either work, volunteer, or take classes for at least 20 hours a week.

This is a chart showing the number of Americans on food stamps:

https://www.rightwinggranny.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/food-stamps-yearly-do-not-hotlink.jpg

The number has almost doubled since President Obama took office.

The article at the News & Observer continues:

That federal requirement (work, school, or volunteering) – which applies to adults under 50 who don’t have children – was suspended in 2008 as the recession hit and unemployment rates rose. But the exemption ended Jan. 1 for 23 mostly urban counties across the state, including Wake, Durham and Mecklenburg.

While the 77 other counties are seeing a slower economic recovery and could continue the federal exemption, the state legislature acted last year to restore the work and education requirement statewide starting July 1.

The change affects 115,000 North Carolinians who will have to document work, volunteer or education activities or lose their food stamp benefits. Recipients can still get up to three months of benefits without meeting the requirement.

Opponents of the change claim that it will rip away the safety net. There are some of us who feel that the change will simply sort out the people who genuinely need food stamps and those who are happy to take advantage of ‘the system.’

In April of last year, I posted a story about what happened in Maine when people who received food stamps were required to either work or volunteer.

The story included the results of that action:

A Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) spokesman tells the Associated Press that 12,000 non-disabled adults were in Maine’s SNAP program before Jan. 1 – a number that dropped to 2,680 by the end of March.

More than 9,000 Maine residents have been removed from the state’s food stamp program since Republican Gov. Paul LePage‘s administration began enforcing work and volunteer requirements.

The goal of a safety net is to help people who need help. Changing the rules will allow North Carolina to continue to help those in need while providing some relief to the taxpayers of the State who also have needs.

Coming To A Neighborhood Near You

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Paul Mirengoff posted an article at Power Line today about the Gosar Amendment.

This is a Press Release from Congressman Paul Gosar from June 2015 regarding the Gosar Amendment:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Congressman Paul A. Gosar, D.D.S. (AZ-04) released the following statement after his amendment preventing the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) from implementing the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation passed the House by a vote of 229-193 and was attached to the Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2016:

“As the president reaches the end of his second term, he has made it clear that his top priorities during his waning days are furthering his far-left political agenda by forcing big government programs on the American people.  His new AFFH regulation is one of the most far-reaching attempts yet to punish communities that don’t submit to the president’s liberal ideology. American citizens and communities should be free to choose where they would like to live and not be subject to federal neighborhood engineering at the behest of an overreaching federal government.

“Furthermore, HUD officials shouldn’t be holding hostage grant monies aimed at community improvement based on its unrealistic utopian ideas of what every community should resemble. Local zoning decisions have traditionally been, and should always be, made by local communities, not bureaucrats in Washington DC. I am extremely pleased to see the House put a stop to this attempt by the Obama Administration to control a fundamental aspect of the American dream.”

Additional:

Congressman Gosar’s amendment is endorsed by Americans for Limited Government, Freedom Works, Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Taxpayers for Common Sense and Eagle Forum.

Americans for Limited Government supported the Gosar amendment stating, “Housing discrimination based on race has been illegal since the 1960s, and people should be allowed to choose for themselves where they live without D.C. bureaucrats nationalizing zoning decisions for political reasons.”

An amendment to this same appropriations bill blocking funds from going to this misguided rule successfully passed in the 113th Congress. More information on that amendment can be found HERE. Congressman Gosar appeared on Fox Business Network to discuss the issue.

In addition, Congressman Gosar’s bill, the Local Zoning and Property Rights Protection Act, H.R. 1995, rejects this overreaching rule is currently cosponsored by 20 members in the House.  

The AFFH regulation will increase local taxes, depress property values, and cause further harm to impoverished communities that are actually in need of these funds. According to reports, in 2012, this rule would have negatively impacted more than 1,200 municipalities throughout the country, costing these communities to forfeit millions that are meant help the neediest families. 

A trial run of the AFFH rule already took place in New York state. The rule was a failure and a local county was initially forced to forego $12 million in funds that would have benefited the community due to the impractical and unrealistic requirements associated with misguided agency regulation. The county had intended to use a large portion of these block grant funds to establish public housing for individuals in need.

Unfortunately, Paul Ryan abandoned the Gosar Amendment during the negotiations over the Omnibus spending bill.

Power Line explains how to fight the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation:

What, then, is the next move against AFFH. Stanley Kurtz, who has led the charge against it from the beginning ( and before) urges a nationwide campaign to insist that local governments turn down money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Only those localities that accept HUD money are subject to the AFFH rule. Thus, by turning that money down, they preserve their right to exercise the traditional role of local governments. In other words, citizens remain free, through their elected officials, to make most the important decisions about how they will live (though the feds still can be expected to attack that right through Fair Housing suits). Otherwise, they cede that right to the feds.

This is another illustration of the fact that government money does not come without strings. We also need to remember that the government has no money other than the money they take from the American people.

As Americans we are used to being able to choose where we will live. The AFFH will begin to take that right away from us. This needs to be an issue in the coming election–both in Congress and the presidential election. Paul Ryan gave our right to choose where we live away, we need a Speaker of the House that will take it back.

The Federal Bureau Of Investigation Is Attempting To Do Its Job

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Fox News is reporting today that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is expanding the probe into Hillary Clinton’s emails to see whether the possible “intersection” of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business may have violated public corruption laws.

The article reports:

“The agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed,” one source said.

The development follows press reports over the past year about the potential overlap of State Department and Clinton Foundation work, and questions over whether donors benefited from their contacts inside the administration.

The Clinton Foundation is a public charity, known as a 501(c)(3). It had grants and contributions in excess of $144 million in 2013, the most current available data.  

The article notes that there is pressure building inside the FBI to pursue this aspect of the case.

The article further reports:

One of the three sources said some FBI agents felt Petraeus was given a slap on the wrist for sharing highly classified information with his mistress and biographer Paula Broadwell, as well as lying to FBI agents about his actions. Petraeus pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in March 2015 after a two-plus-year federal investigation in which Attorney General Eric Holder initially declined to prosecute. 

In the Petraeus case, the exposure of classified information was assessed to be limited.

By contrast, in the Clinton case, the number of classified emails has risen to at least 1,340. A 2015 appeal by the State Department to challenge the “Top Secret” classification of at least two emails failed and, as Fox News first reported, is now considered a settled matter. 

…Separately, a former high-ranking State Department official emphasized to Fox News that Clinton’s deliberate non-use of her government email address may be increasingly “significant.” 

“It is virtually automatic when one comes on board at the State Department to be assigned an email address,” the source said.

“It would have taken an affirmative act not to have one assigned … and it would also mean it was all planned out before she took office. This certainly raises questions about the so-called legal advice she claimed to have received from inside the State Department that what she was doing was proper.”

There are a lot of loose threads in this story. If Hillary Clinton is held accountable for her actions, how does that impact the Democratic presidential race? President Obama will ultimately determine whether the Justice Department blocks further investigation or action by the FBI in this matter. Does President Obama want Hillary Clinton out of the race so that Joe Biden can step in? Is that even possible with candidate registration dates in the primary elections? Does President Obama want Bernie Sanders to run as President on the Democratic ticket? In a perfect world, Hillary Clinton would probably be in jail for the way she handled classified information and for the corruption in the Clinton Foundation, but we do not live in a perfect world. This investigation is something we need to be aware of–whether the FBI expands its investigation or is forced to shut it down will be an indication of how corrupt our government has become.

 

The Direct Impact Of Campaign Money On Decisions That Affect All Americans

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The Keystone Pipeline has been studied, found to be harmless to the environment, and rejected. The political forces behind the rejection of the Keystone Pipeline have very little to do with the pipeline itself–they have to do with campaign money flowing into Democratic campaign coffers. The unions support the Keystone Pipeline–it will produce jobs and move America toward energy independence, which is also a national security issue. The environmentalists oppose the pipeline because it involves carbon-based fuel, and they still believe that we can run our economy on the flapping of butterfly wings. Both of these groups are important contributors to Democratic campaigns. That is the reason deliberation on the pipeline took so long before it was finally turned down.

TransCanada, the people who would build the pipeline, are not impressed by America’s political decisions. The Wall Street Journal reported today that TransCanada is bringing an international arbitration case against the U.S. for not treating the Canadian company the way it would an American company, as it is obliged to do under the North American Free Trade Agreement.

The article reports:

That was the story last week out of Kenya, where U.S. Ambassador Robert Godec told Kenya’s energy minister that Washington would help Nairobi raise $18 billion to finance its PowerAfrika project. The pipeline would stretch from Kenya’s Rift Valley to Lamu on the coast. “Kenya needs $18 billion worth of financing,” Mr. Godec said, according to a dispatch in Oilprice.com, “so one of the questions we are discussing is how we can work together with the private sector and governments to raise that sum, to find ways to make certain that this financing becomes available.”

Has Mr. Godec checked with Secretary of State John Kerry, or, perhaps more important, anti-oil Democratic financier Tom Steyer? Kenya and Northeast Africa could certainly use the investment and jobs that would come from the oil project. Then again, so could the United States. What’s with the double standard on pipelines?

The article mentions that TransCanada is asking $15 billion on costs and damages. Multiple reviews of the Keystone Pipeline showed that it would not harm the environment, but President Obama rejected the pipeline anyway. TransCanada has also filed a suit in U.S. federal court alleging that President Obama’s decision to block Keystone exceeded his constitutional authority.

Get out the popcorn, this is going to be entertaining. The article also notes that American taxpayers need to keep an eye on government spending to make sure they are not funding the Kenyan project while being denied their own project.

The decision was delayed in order to postpone the political consequences as long as possible. At some point President Obama decided that the environmentalists were a more important ally than the unions. There was no rational excuse for the decision to block the Keystone Pipeline–it was a political decision driven by money.

The Economy By The Numbers

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On Friday, Investor’s Business Daily posted their analysis of the recent jobs report. The report was more positive than some recent reports, but there were still a few problems.

The article reports:

The alternative measure used by the Department of Labor based on the household survey, showed job growth was even swifter, with a gain of 485,000. Best of all, nearly half a million Americans on net entered the labor force, helping reverse for now a horrid slide in labor market participation.

The participation rate now stands at 62.6%, up from 62.4% in September. But we’re still way behind the pre-recession high of 66.2% in 2007. A record 94 million Americans over the age of 16 are not working or looking for work.

Average wages were down a notch to $25.24 — bad news on a number of fronts. Real median wages have now been flat for almost a decade. It looks like a lot of those new jobs in December were at McDonald’s or Wal-Mart. About 37,000 came in bars and restaurants. The painful pattern of this recovery is that the jobs gained don’t pay as much as the jobs that have disappeared.

The article also address the falling oil prices:

Low oil prices are normally good news for the economy, but their relentless decline of late is a symptom of weak global demand from producers. The likelihood of any growth-oriented policy changes in Washington on regulations, taxes, ObamaCare or trade promotion seem remote in the near term. And the Fed is warning of three or four more interest-rate hikes later in the year.

Also on Friday, Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner for president, proposed a 45% tariff on Chinese goods and services. It’s hard to be bullish in such an environment.

We need some serious changes in economic policies in order to grow the economy. Hopefully the election in November will bring those changes.

A Circumstantial Smoking Gun

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The Internet has gone a bit crazy (as it sometimes does) about new Hillary Clinton emails released that show her instructing someone to remove the classified header and footing from a classified document and then send it over a regular fax machine. That is a serious offense that would send an ordinary citizen to jail. Therein lies the problem–Hillary Clinton is not an ordinary citizen. That is not a problem for Hillary–that is a problem for America. Somehow we have forgotten the concept of equal justice under the law.

Ed Morrissey posted the details of the story at Hot Air yesterday. The article includes a picture of the email in question. I recommend going to Hot Air and reading the entire article, but here are some highlights:

Has the State Department released a smoking gun in the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal? In a thread from June 2011, Hillary exchanges e-mails with Jake Sullivan, then her deputy chief of staff and now her campaign foreign-policy adviser, in which she impatiently waits for a set of talking points. When Sullivan tells her that the source is having trouble with the secure fax, Hillary then orders Sullivan to have the data stripped of its markings and sent through a non-secure channel.

I don’t even have the words to tell you how much of a ‘no-no’ that is when dealing with classified information. The relevant criminal (yes, I said criminal) statutes are posted in the article at Hot Air.

There is an update to the article at Hot Air that concludes:

Update: There are a few people wondering whether the “TPs” (talking points”) in question in this thread were classified in the first place. There are a couple points to remember in that context:

  • Unclassified material doesn’t need to be transmitted by secure fax; if the material wasn’t classified, Sullivan would have had them faxed normally.
  • Ordering aides to remove headers to facilitate the transmission over unsecured means strongly suggests that the information was not On top of that, removing headers to avoid transmission security would be a violation of 18 USC 793 anyway, which does not require material to be classified — only sensitive to national security.
  • State did leave this document unclassified, but that’s because there isn’t any discussion of what the talking points cover. They redacted the subject headers with B5 and B6 exemptions, invoked to note that the FOIA demand doesn’t cover the material (in their opinion).

Ordering the headings stripped, and Sullivan’s apparent reluctance to work around the secure fax system, makes it all but certain that the material was classified at some level — and Hillary knew it.

I am sharing this information because it is something voters need to be aware of. Do I think this will amount to anything? No. I have become somewhat cynical about enforcing any laws regarding the Clintons. Unless the FBI decides to go against the obvious political biases of the Justice Department, this is not going anywhere. If there is someone in the FBI who has enough ethics and backbone to pursue this, we might see something, but I doubt it. General Patraeus was charged and convicted of a much lesser infraction and was dealt with. He obviously was not part of the in crowd and did not know where enough of the bodies were buried. The Clintons know where all the bodies are buried and probably helped bury a few of them.

 

National Security And The Refugee Program

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On January 8th, Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX), along with Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) and other Members of the Homeland Security Committee, held a press conference about the arrest of two Iraqi refugees. The video of the press conference is posted at YouTube.

This is the press conference:

This is the story as reported on News 25 in Texas:

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) wants the Senate to take up the American Security Against Foreign Enemies (SAFE) Act of 2015.

McCaul’s push for the SAFE Act was included in a statement responding to two Iraqi-born refugees being arrested by U.S.officials on terror-related charges.

“While I commend the FBI for their hard work, these arrests heighten my concern that our refugee program is susceptible to exploitation by terrorists,” Chairman McCaul said.

The House passed the legislation in November with a bipartisan majority.

It requires comprehensive background checks of every refugee from Iraq or Syria before they can come into the U.S.

The FBI would have to certify the background investigation of each person.

In addition, the Secretary of Homeland Security, along with the FBI Director and the Director of National Intelligence, would have to certify to Congress that each refugee is not a security risk.

This is the Congressional oath of office:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

It’s time for the members of Congress to live up to their oath.

Sometimes You Just Wonder

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Jihad Watch posted a story today about the shooting of a policeman in Philadelphia.

I quote:

Edward Archer said he shot Philadelphia Police Officer Jesse Hartnett because “police bend laws that are contrary to the teachings of the Quran.” But Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney wants you to know that the shooting had “nothing to do with being a Muslim or following the Islamic faith.” I called this earlier today, writing here at Jihad Watch: “Not to worry. Obama and the Mayor of Philadelphia will find some way to explain that this has nothing to do with Islam.” And here we are.

CBS News reports the following:

During a police press conference Friday afternoon, Mayor Jim Kenney stated that he believes the shooting of a Philadelphia police officer has “nothing to do with being a Muslim,” despite the suspect claiming he did it in the name of Islam.

Mayor Kenney said, “In no way shape or form does anyone in this room believe that Islam or the teaching of Islam has anything to do with what you’ve seen on the screen.”

Philadelphia Police Officer Jesse Hartnett was shot several times late Thursday.

Authorities say the suspect gave a full confession to the shooting.

Commissioner Richard Ross said, “According to him, police bend laws that are contrary to the teachings of the Quran.”

Mayor Kenney said of the shooting, “It is abhorrent. It is terrible and it does not represent the religion or any of its teachings.”

We have reached the level of political correctness where we do not accept the confession of a killer because his confession does not fit the political narrative. This is insane.

Just for the record, Islamic law is incompatible with American Law. Islamic Law is Sharia Law, and democracy is not part of that law. The shooter was correct when he commented that police bend laws that are contrary to the teachings of the Quran. They don’t remove the hands of thieves, they don’t stone women adulterers, and they don’t arrest people for not being modestly dressed. In the shooter’s mind, the police are consistently breaking what he considers the ultimate law–Sharia Law. The shooting had everything to do with Islam. It is unfortunate that the people charged with protecting us do not see the danger.

 

The Internal Revenue Service Backs Down

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The Wall Street Journal posted an article yesterday about a proposed change to charitable donation reporting to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The IRS had proposed a change to the law that would have given charities the ‘option’ of filing detailed reports on everyone who donates more than $250 to the charity. The detailed reports were going to be ‘voluntary’ (at least until the IRS was able to put them into law). The information reported would have included Social Security numbers. The Wall Street Journal is now reporting that the IRS has withdrawn the proposal.

The article reports:

Amazingly enough, in this case the IRS appears to have listened to concerns from the taxpayers who pay their salaries. On Thursday the IRS said it is withdrawing its proposal after receiving “a substantial number of public comments.” Many of the comments “questioned the need for donee reporting, and many comments expressed significant concerns about donee organizations collecting and maintaining taxpayer identification numbers for purposes of the specific-use information return,” said the IRS. The legitimate anger of average citizens was amplified by stalwart IRS watchdogs like Rep.Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) on Capitol Hill.

One year after Republicans took control of the Congress, and one year before President Obama leaves the White House, the pendulum is beginning to swing against IRS abuse of taxpayers. Coming on the heels of other reforms in the year-end tax and spending bills—including a ban on new IRS rules limiting political activity—Thursday’s news is reason to cheer.

Now if we could just get rid of the IRS, we would have something.

The infoplease website reminds us:

In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system. The amendment gave Congress legal authority to tax income and resulted in a revenue law that taxed incomes of both individuals and corporations. In fiscal year 1918, annual internal revenue collections for the first time passed the billion-dollar mark, rising to $5.4 billion by 1920. With the advent of World War II, employment increased, as did tax collections—to $7.3 billion. The withholding tax on wages was introduced in 1943 and was instrumental in increasing the number of taxpayers to 60 million and tax collections to $43 billion by 1945.

It is interesting to me that the American government was able to fulfill its Constitutional duties prior to 1913 without the billions of dollars they now collect and spend. What are they doing now that has changed that? Do we need to go back to a government that follows the instructions and limitations of our Constitution? I think that would be a really good idea.

 

Speaking Out After A Tragedy

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Last night at CNN’s “Guns in America” townhall, Kimberly Corban asked the following:

“As a survivor of rape, and now a mother to two small children — you know, it seems like being able to purchase a firearm of my choosing, and being able to carry that wherever my — me and my family are — it seems like my basic responsibility as a parent at this point,”

“I have been unspeakably victimized once already, and I refuse to let that happen again to myself or my kids. So why can’t your administration see that these restrictions that you’re putting to make it harder for me to own a gun, or harder for me to take that where I need to be is actually just making my kids and I less safe?”

The quote comes from a Washington Post article posted today. Ms. Corban was raped while a student at the University of Northern Colorado. Someone broke into her apartment and sexually assaulted her. After the attack, she realized how important it is for women to have access to guns to protect themselves.

This is part of the President’s response included in the article:

“I just want to repeat that there’s nothing that we’ve proposed that would make it harder for you to purchase a firearm.” And: “You have to be pretty well trained in order to fire a weapon against somebody who is assaulting you and catches you by surprise.” And: “There’s always the possibility that that firearm in a home leads to a tragic accident.” And: “All I’m focused on is making sure that a terrible crime like yours that was committed is not made easier because somebody can go on the Internet and just buy whatever weapon they want without us finding out whether they’re a criminal or not.”

Just for the record, you cannot go on the Internet and just buy any weapon–even on the Internet, weapons are sold by dealers who have to do a background check before the weapon is delivered to your home.

Ms. Corban’s statement at the end of the article summarizes the way most Americans feel about the Second Amendment:

“I actually typically try not to disclose that (exactly what weapon she carries) just for safety’s sake,” she said. “I do have a small concealed carry and I have other firearms which I choose to keep in my home.” To the president’s point that weapons can bring tragedy in homes, like hers, with small children, she said her guns are “completely secure.”

“You don’t have to carry a firearm,” she said. “I’m not telling you that you need to. I just want you to respect my right to do that myself.”

With all this talk about limiting the sale of guns, has anyone come up with an idea to keep criminals from obtaining guns? Please call me when you have a solution to that problem.

The Truth Eventually Comes Out

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The Weekly Standard website posted a preview of a January 18th article about the attack  on Benghazi. The article is about the movie 13 Hours, which will appear in theaters on January 15th. The movie was directed by Michael Bay. The movie opens with the quote, “This is a true story.” The movie then details the story of the attack on Benghazi as told largely through the eyes of CIA contractor Jack Silva, played brilliantly by a bearded and newly bemuscled John Krasinski, best known for his role as the affable and sarcastic Jim Halpert on The Office, and four other CIA contractors—Mark “Oz” Geist, John “Tig” Tiegen, Kris “Tanto” Paronto, and “Boon.”

Please follow the link above to read the entire article. The media has not reported the full story of Benghazi, and Michael Bay has decided to tell that story.

The article includes many of the details of the attack as well as a few conclusions:

The film documents the contractors’ concerns about security before the assault on September 11, 2012, making clear that the attack was not an isolated incident but the culmination of a long series of hostilities directed at Western targets. Even before the events of that day, viewers are led to understand the difficulty of distinguishing friend from foe. The February 17th Martyrs Brigade, a Libyan militia the State Department engaged and ostensibly the good guys, is filled with shady characters, some of whom seem to know well in advance the plans of the jihadists who attack the diplomatic compound and the CIA annex. Hours before the attack begins, members of the local police force are observed conducting surveillance on the compound. Throughout the hours of fighting at both sites, when the Americans trying to repel the attacks see large groups of dark-skinned, heavily armed men show up to the battle, they cannot determine whether the new arrivals are there to help them or kill them.

…Two dominant themes emerge from the film: 1) In the chaos of post-Qaddafi Libya it was impossible to distinguish between good guys and bad guys. And, for that reason and others, 2) the U.S. government isn’t very effective in its efforts to create order out of the inevitable instability that results from removing dictators.

The article concludes:

Whatever its impact, 13 Hours is a powerful film that is well worth seeing. From beginning to end, it forcefully rejects the sanitized, no-fault version of Benghazi. In scene after powerful scene, it assigns blame: to policymakers in Washington who naïvely overestimated our ability to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys in post-Qaddafi Libya; to Washington bureaucrats who paid little attention to repeated warnings about the security of U.S. facilities in Benghazi; to CIA officials more concerned with career advancement and positive performance reviews than saving lives.

But perhaps the strongest indictment made by 13 Hours is an unspoken one. The film itself is an implicit but devastating critique of the American media that refused to report this story in this way, an establishment media that left to Hollywood the responsibility of telling these important truths.

The days of the mainstream media smothering the truth and filtering information have been numbered since the inception of alternative media. Now it looks as if there are some in Hollywood who also see the need to tell the truth.

What In The World Is Happening In Our Schools?

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This is not an article about Common Core. This is an article about common sense. Fox News posted an article today about an incident in a high school in Maine. In today’s world, students are encouraged to do community service. I think that is a really good thing, but there do need to be some parameters around what qualifies as community service.

The article reports:

A public high school in Maine was caught red-handed trying to recruit students to work on Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign as a “community service opportunity” – without the knowledge or consent of parents.

…Students at Marshwood High School in South Berwick received an email from the Clinton campaign – urging them to sign up for positions as unpaid “fellows”.

“Hillary for New Hampshire is looking for smart, energetic winter fellows who are committed to winning the New Hampshire primary for Hillary Clinton,” read the email from a campaign staffer. “Everyone working on the campaign now started off as a fellow at some point so it is a great way of getting a different skill set whilst helping an important cause.”

Tim and Elita Galvin were furious that their teenage son had received the solicitation – calling it “disingenuous and sneaky.”

“My son didn’t appreciate being targeted by anybody via his school email for a political campaign,” Mrs. Galvin told me. “I’ll be honest – he’s not a fan of Hillary Clinton to begin with. He’s done his homework and he doesn’t like her.”

If the students had received emails from all of the political campaigns and were asked to choose one, that might be a good lesson in civics. However, this seems to be another example of Hillary Clinton ignoring obvious rules–evidently the school staff person who forwarded the email did not “additional information regarding this community service opportunity.”

I have not objection to schools encouraging civic involvement–they just need to be balanced in their approach.

Sometimes A Little Obstruction Is A Good Thing

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On December 29th, Reuters issued a special report entitled, “Pentagon Thwarts Obama’s Efforts to Close Guantanamo.”

The article reports:

Negotiating prisoner releases with the Pentagon was like “punching a pillow,” said James Dobbins, the State Department special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2013 to 2014. Defense Department officials “would come to a meeting, they would not make a counter-argument,” he said. “And then nothing would happen.”

Pentagon delays, he said, resulted in four Afghan detainees spending an additional four years in Guantanamo after being approved for transfer.

In other cases, the transfers of six prisoners to Uruguay, five to Kazakhstan, one to Mauritania and one to Britain were delayed for months or years by Pentagon resistance or inaction, officials said.

To slow prisoner transfers, Pentagon officials have refused to provide photographs, complete medical records and other basic documentation to foreign governments willing to take detainees, administration officials said. They have made it increasingly difficult for foreign delegations to visit Guantanamo, limited the time foreign officials can interview detainees and barred delegations from spending the night at Guantanamo.

Partly as a result of the Pentagon’s maneuvers, it is increasingly doubtful that Obama will fulfill a pledge he made in the 2008 presidential election: to close the detention center at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Obama criticized President George W. Bush for having set up the prison for foreigners seized in the “War on Terror” after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., and then keeping them there for years without trial.

When Obama took office, the prison held 242 detainees, down from a peak of about 680 in 2003. Today, with little more than a year remaining in his presidency, it still holds 107 detainees.

The tone of the article blames the Pentagon for slowing down the release of prisoners and interfering with President Obama’s plans to shut down Guantanamo. It doesn’t mention the security risks or the fact that many of the prisoners released from Guantanamo have returned to the battlefield.

An editorial posted yesterday at Investor’s Business Daily tells the other side of the story.

The editorial at Investor’s  Business Daily reminds us:.

But the prisoner transfer process has been deliberately slowed by career military officials concerned that their subversive commander-in-chief is sacrificing national security for politics.

They worry that release of al-Qaida and Taliban detainees will endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan and elsewhere — a valid concern, seeing how Obama’s own intelligence czar recently confirmed that 1 in 3 Gitmo transfers have returned to the battlefield.

The editorial at Investor’s Business Daily concludes that they delays have helped protect Americans:

Such delays have resulted in the poor little al-Qaida terrorists spending additional “months or years” at Club Gitmo “after being approved for transfer.”

Yes, how terrible. They’ll have to stay there longer and be “tortured” by satellite TV, state-of-the-art treadmills, elliptical trainers, soccer fields, porn-on-demand, private kitchens, prayer mats, prayer beads, prayer oils, full-menu halal (Islamicly correct) meals, imams and Islamic librarians.

Instead of repudiating these military leaders for going against the president’s plan, we should be honoring these patriotic obstructionists as national treasures.

When Obama took office, Gitmo held 242 detainees. Only 107 remain, but they’re the worst of the worst. They need to stay put, and the patriots in the Pentagon should continue to use any bureaucratic trick they can come up with to block their transfer.

“You’re detaining them to prevent a future threat,” as Lietzau says. “They are the enemy. If you were captured in war, of course you wouldn’t release that person — they’re still the enemy, they still want to fight you, they still want to kill you. I know of American lives that have been lost because of detainees that we have released. You detain them until the end of hostilities.”

Or at least until this terrorist-sympathizer leaves the Oval Office.

The President has a Constitutional duty to protect Americans. Closing Guantanamo and releasing dangerous prisoners does not comply.

A Few Random Thoughts About President Obama’s Executive Action Regarding Gun Ownership

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The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

It might be a good idea to remember that the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution are referred to as “The Bill of Rights.” They were included in the U.S. Constitution to allay the fears many of the signers of the U.S. Constitution had of a growing, intrusive government. These amendments were added to protect the rights of individuals against a powerful central government.

The U.S. Constitution also delineates a government that includes checks and balances. There are three separate branches of government and a separation of powers between those three branches. The U.S. Constitution lays out the responsibilities of each branch in order of the importance the Founding Fathers ascribed to them–the Legislative Branch is first, the Executive Branch is second, and the Judicial Branch (intended to be the weakest of the three) is third. The Legislative Branch is expected to create and pass laws, the President is expected to enforce existing laws, and the Judicial Branch (the Supreme Court) was set up to have original Jurisdiction in all cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party. In all the other Cases the Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction.

The President does not have the ability to write or rewrite law. His job is to enforce the law. Congress gets to write the law.

Putting the problems with the U.S. Constitution aside, there are a few other problems with this executive order. First of all, doctors are expected to contact the FBI about patients they identify as mentally ill. That sounds harmless enough, but what standards will be used to determine mental illness? Remember that ObamaCare has a provision allowing doctors to question patients about gun ownership. Are doctors going to be asked to report anyone who owns a gun as mentally ill? What about people who don’t believe that man-made global warming is a reality? Are doctors going to be asked to consider those people to be mentally ill?

Larry Pittman, a North Carolina State Legislator, posted a statement on Facebook today about President Obama’s executive action.

His statement included the following:

There are many reasons to be upset about Obama’s executive order today. One of the things that particularly struck me was the part about doctors contacting the FBI about patients they would identify as mentally ill. This is a follow-up to Obamacare’s provision for doctors to question patients about gun ownership.

This is pretty scary because, as Rush Limbaugh was saying today, this is the way taken by the Chinese Communist government to eliminate opposition to the government by having people who disagree with them declared mentally ill so they could be put away somewhere. It is also akin to Hitler’s ploy of having children inform against their parents. When a President who hates the Second Amendment, who has been trying to weaken and eliminate it all along, finally comes right out and employs the tactics of past tyrants, I find it hard to believe he does not have in mind the same purpose as they did. Disarm the people, and you no longer have to serve the people. You can control the people. People who don’t think that is what he intends need to get their heads out of the sand.

I shudder to think how this will be used against our patriotic veterans. Will they be targeted by this mental illness ploy because they might have PTSD?

All we need is for anti-gun doctors to start telling the FBI to come get anyone who owns a gun because we are mentally ill.

…I know there will be lawsuits to try to counteract what Obama has just done; but I’m pretty shaky about how that might go, despite past court victories for the Second Amendment. Too bad our Governor will not call an emergency session of our General Assembly to have us vote to declare this latest unconstitutional act of Obama null and void in North Carolina. I would vote to do so in a heart beat.

There is also this business about not being able to sell a gun without having a federal license to sell guns. What if you want to sell a gun to your grown son or daughter? It is a draconian requirement that you could not do so without government interference. Folks, I try not to be alarmist; but I think we really have reason to worry about what is going to come of this latest “Obamination.”

There are some serious problems with President Obama’s executive action on guns. There is a logical reason he was not able to get Congress to pass a law doing what his executive action did–it would  have been a bad law.

 

 

The Danger Ahead

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There is a price to be paid for not carefully vetting anyone who wants to come to America to live. I understand that refugees need a safe place, but Americans also need a safe place. Ideally, we need to find a place in the Middle East where refugees from the wars there can safely live until peace breaks out. Knowing the Middle East, that may take a while, but I believe eventually everyone will get tired of fighting and someone will win. Meanwhile, Muslim refugees are flooding Europe and soon to be flooding America. So what are the consequences of this flood of people who have never been part of western civilization?

The U.K. Daily Mail  posted an article today that illustrates the consequences of the invasion of Europe by Muslim refugees.

The article reports:

An 18-year-old victim of the sex attacks in Cologne has described being surrounded by a group of 30 ‘angry’ men who groped her and her friends then stole their belongings as they fled.

The teenager, named only as Michelle, appeared on German TV to recount the harrowing ordeal she endured during the city’s New Year’s Eve celebrations last week.

Police say the wave of attacks – which has so far seen 90 women report being assaulted – were perpetrated by groups of ‘Arab or North African‘ men in the city centre.

Michelle’s shocking testimony comes as the city’s own council today admitted its town centre was now a ‘no-go area’ for women, while it has emerged similar attacks occurred the same night across Hamburg and Stuttgart.

Alarmingly, police in Dusseldorf fear the attacks may be linked to a known criminal gang comprising 2,000 North African men who use sexual assault as a means of distraction.

And while German media and authorities stand accused of covering up previous incidents to avoid stoking tensions, there are fears the upcoming carnival celebrations in Cologne will see a repeat of the brazen attacks.

Please follow the link above to read the entire story. It is chilling.

There are a few things to note here. The city council of Cologne is admitting that its town center is now a ‘no-go area’ for women. Is that acceptable? There were about thirty men involved in the attack on Michelle and her friends. These men are obviously bullies and cowards–they attacked as a mob so that they totally outnumbered their victims.

Western countries should not have ‘no-go zones’–for women or for men. There are places in America where Americans have been arrested for preaching Christianity because Muslims were offended and began to throw rocks. (rightwinggranny.com) Western countries generally practice law and order. If immigrants to those countries are not willing to abide by the law, they need to be sent back to where they came from. They are creating the same lawlessness in the countries they have sought refuge in that they fled in their home countries. Let them be lawless in the lawless countries they fled.

Fool Me Once…

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Breitbart.com posted an article yesterday about President Obama’s new executive order regarding guns. The title of the article is “3 Reasons Obama’s Claim to Support the 2nd Amendment Doesn’t Ring True.” The article reminds us of three past statements from the President that have proved to be lies even as they were being made.

The President stated in his speech yesterday:

Now, I want to be absolutely clear at the start — and I’ve said this over and over again, this also becomes routine, there is a ritual about this whole thing that I have to do — I believe in the Second Amendment. It’s there written on the paper. It guarantees a right to bear arms. No matter how many times people try to twist my words around — I taught constitutional law, I know a little about this — I get it. But I also believe that we can find ways to reduce gun violence consistent with the Second Amendment.

The article states:

Not a very convincing performance. Is there any other Amendment to the Constitution the president would downplay in this way? Saying, “It’s there written on the paper” would be an odd, dismissive comment from someone announcing plans to tighten up the 1st or 5th Amendment.

If the tone struck you as vaguely familiar, that suggests you’ve been paying attention. President Obama has often promised that he understood people’s concerns about a particular issue, only to reveal later it was all about getting his way.

President Obama stated repeatedly, “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.”

The article reminds us:

As it turns out, that was not true. In fact, it was always impossible based on the design of the law. When the president was called on the falsehood, he tried to move the goalposts. In November 2013, he said, “what we said was you can keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law passed.”

That’s not what he said.

The article states:

It wasn’t the only politically expedient lie the president told about Obamacare. He also said explicitly that calling the public option a “trojan-horse” for single-payer healthcare was an “illegitimate” claim made by his opponents who were “not telling the truth.”

Unfortunately for the president, not all of his friends in Congress and the media were as disciplined. A number of them revealed the public option was a sneaky strategy for getting what the party really wanted: single-payer healthcare. Some who abetted the president’s lies at the time have since admitted that was the desired goal all along. The president tried to fool the American people, just as he had with the “keep your plan” promise. He almost got away with it.

The third reason has to do with President Obama’s stand on homosexual marriage.

The article reminds us:

Before he became president, Obama told Pastor Rick Warren, “I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman.”

…(David) Axelrod writes that he knew Obama was in favor of same-sex marriages during the first presidential campaign, even as Obama publicly said he only supported civil unions, not full marriages. Axelrod also admits to counseling Obama to conceal that position for political reasons. “Opposition to gay marriage was particularly strong in the black church, and as he ran for higher office, he grudgingly accepted the counsel of more pragmatic folks like me, and modified his position to support civil unions rather than marriage, which he would term a ‘sacred union,’” Axelrod writes.

How many times are we supposed to believe a President who seems to have a problem telling the truth on major issues?

This Could Get Very Ugly Very Fast

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The American Thinker posted a story today about a court filing on the last day of 2015 that could have a significant impact on the presidential campaign.

The article reports:

Federal prosecutors in Florida intentionally kept underage victims of billionaire perv Jeffrey Epstein in the dark about his plea deal, newly unsealed court papers reveal.

The documents also show prosecutors wanted to keep the extent of Epstein’s alleged sex crimes away from a judge reviewing the deal.

“I will include our standard language regarding resolving all criminal liability and I will mention ‘co-conspirators,’ but I would prefer not to highlight for the judge all of the other crimes and all of the other persons that we could charge,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Marie Villafana wrote to one Epstein lawyer in September 2007.

Another email shows she agreed to stop sending notifications about the non-prosecution deal to 34 underage girls Epstein allegedly sexually preyed upon after his lawyers complained.

The feds say they struck the deal in return for Epstein pleading to state charges involving a single victim. 

…This plea involved the slap on the wrist sentence of 13 months — and he got to spend his waking hours at his Palm Beach mansion. That is, he only had to check into his “jail” eight hours a day.

The Palm Beach Daily News is taking another look at this story. On January 1st, they reported the following:

Two underage victims of Palm Beach billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have filed court papers asking to depose top federal officials who were involved in inking the secret deal that saved Epstein from serious federal charges.

FBI agents, current and former federal prosecutors, and Alexander Acosta, the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, are named in the motion filed by attorneys Brad Edwards and Paul Cassell on behalf of Jane Doe No. 1 and Jane Doe No. 2. The girls were 14 and 13, respectively, at the time of the sex abuse.

The victims filed the motion, in part, because of a new argument Assistant U.S. Attorney Dexter Lee made during a routine status check hearing in November.

Lee said the girls aren’t really victims because they procured other minor girls for Epstein and received money for it so they’re not protected under the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act.

“Apparently, the government believes that because Epstein pressured some of his young victims into performing sexual acts, those victims themselves were complicit in Epstein’s crimes and, therefore, are barred from seeking relief under the CVRA,” the motion says. “There has never been any public document (or other private document that we have seen) in this or any related case that has ‘accused’ Epstein’s young victims of committing ‘the crime’ that Epstein committed.”

It is very obvious that Epstein’s punishment does not fit the crime. The question is, “Why?” Because Bill Clinton was (or is) a close friend of Epstein, there is a fairly strong possibility that if this case and sentence are seriously investigated, Bill Clinton could be implicated. Stay tuned. Despite the fact that most of the media is ignoring this story, it may not go away, and it may have serious consequences.

One Good Thing Came Out Of That Awful Spending Bill

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The omnibus spending bill passed at the end of last year was a nightmare–it continued to fund Planned Parenthood and did nothing to end ObamaCare. It spent much more than we needed to spend, and generally was not an economically sound bill. Well, there was one good thing in that bill–the restriction on shipping American oil overseas was lifted. This will help our balance of trade and will bring income to American oil. Unfortunately, this move comes as the price of oil may spike due to unrest in the Middle East. That will mean more money for oil producers, but a burden on American consumers. However, I don’t think the exporting of oil will be responsible for the price increase–oil is a worldwide commodity–our exporting it should not have little impact on the price we pay here.

Yesterday The Daily Caller reported:

The first crude oil shipment exported from the United States, after a 40 year ban, left from Corpus Christi, Texas last Thursday.

NuStar Energy and ConocoPhillips loaded a vessel with light crude oil pumped from the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas at NuStar’s North Beach Terminal at Port Corpus Christi. The crude is to be sold to the international trading company Vitol.

…The original crude oil export ban was put into effect during the 1970’s in the midst of the Arab Oil Embargo, which triggered gas rationing and fuel spikes at the pump for the American driver.

Increasing our domestic fuel production, increasing our exports, and cutting government spending would result in a stronger economy and less unemployment for Americans. Lifting the export ban was a good idea.

 

A Double Standard Abounds

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For whatever reason, the Obama Administration seems to want to be Iran‘s best friend. The Administration is willing to disregard totally any human rights violations in Iran and dismiss any aggressive military action by Iran in an instant. This represents a major shift in America‘s Middle East Policy. The results are interesting. Saudi Arabia and Israel are beginning to form an alliance with other Middle Eastern countries that fear a nuclear Iran. The countries in the Middle East are much more aware of Iran’s military aspirations than the Obama Administration seems to be.

Tensions in the Middle East increased this past weekend as Saudi Arabia executed forty-seven people. Those executed included Shia cleric and political activist Nimr al-Nimr. The execution resulted in protests in Shiite countries in the Middle East and the burning of the Saudi embassy in Iran. The thing to remember here is that any protest in Iran that is allowed to proceed was sponsored by the government. Iranian citizens who don’t show up to approved protests can face unpleasant consequences.

CNN reported today:

Hillary Clinton said Sunday Saudi Arabia’s recent execution of 47 people, including Shia Muslim cleric Nimr al-Nimr raises “serious questions” that the U.S. needs to ask the country’s government.

“Clearly this raises serious questions that we have to raise directly with the Saudi government,” Clinton said in response to a Derry town hall question about how she would handle the situation as president.

“We have governments we work with on a number of issues whose policies and values are antithetical to ours, to be just blunt about it. And yet who also have certain interests with us that we are involved in,” she said.

Clinton said she joined other leaders in “statements of concern” about the executions, specifically calling out the Obama administration, European governments and human rights groups.

Our alliance with Saudi Arabia has been somewhat prickly. There are still twenty-eight pages of the 9/11 report that are classified, and many who have seen the report but are not allowed to discuss the content of those pages have implied that they do relate to our relationship with Saudi Arabia. The hijackers on 9/11 were from Saudi Arabia.

When we form alliances with non-western countries, we always run the risk of supporting behavior that is contrary to our basic beliefs. Iran throws homosexuals off of buildings, Saudi Arabia refused to allow women to drive, and building Christian churches is not permitted in either Iran or Saudi Arabia.

As much as I feel that Saudi Arabia’s human rights record is deplorable and I feel that they are funding a large part of radical Islam, I do not consider it wise to shift our alliance from Saudi Arabia to Iran. Iran has been directly targeting Americans for decades. Saudi Arabia has simply turned a blind eye to the Wahabi Islam that has grown up within its borders.

In his first inaugural address, Thomas Jefferson stated the following:

“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations: entangling alliances with none.”

When I first encountered that statement, I totally disagreed. Now I see the wisdom of it. However, I would amend it to recommend that we form necessary alliances only with people who share our values. I don’t know how well that would work in today’s world, but obviously what we are currently doing is not working very well.

 

A Law Went Quietly Into Effect January 1

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The American Spectator posted an article today about a law that quietly went into effect on January 1, 2016.

The article reports:

One of the worst of Obamacare’s ill-conceived provisions went quietly into effect on January 1. The employer mandate, previously inflicted only on businesses with 100 or more employees, will now be imposed on those with as few as 50. This mandate will prevent countless small employers from hiring workers they would otherwise have hired and incentivize many others to replace full-time employees with part-timers. It is such an obvious job killer that the Obama administration delayed enforcement until after the 2014 midterms, the liberal Urban Institute has called for its repeal, and it has even been obliquely criticized by Hillary Clinton.

The employer mandate requires all businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to provide health coverage to at least 95 percent of these employees as well as any dependents they may have under age 26 — or pay crippling fines. But not all small employers can afford to offer insurance. Those which lack the resources to do so will avoid the mandate by assuring that the number of full-time workers they employ remains below 50. And, because Obamacare has arbitrarily redefined “full-time” to mean 30 or more hours per week, the employer mandate effectively caps both the number of workers many businesses can hire and how many hours they will work.

As someone who spent most of my working career working for small businesses, I can state from personal experience that small companies are very aware of government regulations and how to avoid them. One way to get around this rule is to keep the size of a company under 50 employees–this impacts unemployment–companies that might want to hire additional people will not hire them because they want to avoid coming under the employer mandate. The other way to get around this is to use contract workers that are self-employed and do not receive any company benefits, but there are very strict rules governing contract workers, and they are not practical for every business. Either way, the employer mandate is going to have a chilling impact on hiring. The labor force participation rate has been dropping consistently during the Obama Administration. The employer mandate will cause it to drop further. Bringing companies of more than 50 employees under the employer mandate will not be a good thing for the economy.

The article further reports:

Ironically, considering that the question came from an obvious audience plant, Mrs. Clinton got it wrong on the Family and Medical Leave Act. FMLA eligibility isn’t based on full time or part time status. And she also seems unaware that an employee can work fewer than 40 hours per week and still be considered full-time in the brave new world of Obamacare. But the most telling part of her answer was her use of the word “believe.” Playing off the questioner’s placement of the FMLA issue in the realm of “discrimination,” she implied that employers who are simply following federal law are in reality just crooks who want to deny benefits to their workers.

She was clearly waiting for that question and the opportunity to suggest that, as President, she would work to fix the “unfortunate incentives” created by Obamacare. However, considering that Hillarycare included an employer mandate, and that it was an integral part of the health care reform plan she offered the last time she ran for President, it’s extremely unlikely that she would follow the eminently sensible policy recommended by the authors of the Urban Institute report: “In summary, eliminating the employer mandate would eliminate labor market distortions in law, lessen opposition to the law from employers, and have little effect on coverage.”

Is there anyone in the Obama Administration that understands basic economics and business?

Can The Second Amendment Be Overturned By Executive Action?

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ABC News is reporting today on President Obama’s plan to use an executive order to begin to limit gun rights among Americans.

The article reports:

President Obama plans to announce executive actions he will take on gun control on Tuesday, a source told ABC News.

Obama had announced during his weekly address Friday that he planned to discuss gun control options with Attorney General Loretta Lynch after he returned from his Hawaiian vacation, which ended today.

“A few months ago, I directed my team at the White House to look into any new actions I can take to help reduce gun violence,” he said in the address. “And on Monday, I’ll meet with our Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, to discuss our options.”

The White House had previously announced the Justice Department was examining unilateral action the president could take on gun control, and would be making recommendation.

Gun sales during the Obama Administration have skyrocketed. Gun sales in America have increased since the San Bernardino shootings.

The thing we need to remember here is that a lack of guns by law-abiding Americans does not make us safer. The move for better background checks is the beginning of the effort to register guns. Historically that has been the move that preceded gun confiscation. Note also that most of the shootings involving multiple victims have occurred in ‘gun free’ zones. The shooters knew that the people they attacked would not be armed and they would not meet immediate resistance.

Keep in mind as you hear this debate that there is a Second Amendment that upholds the right of private citizens to own guns. Law-abiding citizens owning guns makes us safer–it does not put us in danger. Hopefully Congress will stand up for the U.S. Constitution in this debate.

Aren’t We Tired Of These People Yet?

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On Thursday, Townhall.com posted an article about speaking fees collected by Bill Clinton during the time that Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State. You have to hand it to Bill and Hillary, regardless of what in the world goes on in their marriage, they know how to wash each other’s hands financially. She had amazing profits on cattle futures while he was leading Arkansas, and he had amazing speaking fees while she was Secretary of State. Wow. What an incredible coincidence.

This is the chart from the article that tells it all?

Note the last sentence before the numbers. Company representatives say the speeches were unrelated to any lobbying efforts. Sure they were.

A recent Wall Street Journal article reports:

Mr. Clinton also had a large payday from Oracle Corp.: a total of $500,000 for two talks given or approved while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state. He gave one in October 2012 as the company was urging the State Department to increase the number of skilled-worker visas being issued, lobbying reports show.

Oracle, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Microsoft Corp., whose co-founder Bill Gates has suggested eliminating the visa cap altogether, paid Mr. Clinton a total of more than $1.1 million for speeches during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure.

Mrs. Clinton has long supported increasing skilled-worker visas, known as H-1B visas, as did her husband when he was president. The issue has remained mired in the broader congressional debate about immigration.

In 2009, the Biotechnology Industry Organization lobbied the State Department to get diplomats to oppose rules against genetically modified foods. In December, Mrs. Clinton sent a cable to diplomats telling them to “pay particular attention” to countries considering biotech regulation and to push an “active biotech agenda” that would “protect the interests of U.S. farmers and exporters,” according to a copy released by WikiLeaks.

Five months later, the biotechnology group paid Mr. Clinton $175,000 to appear at its convention. After Mrs. Clinton left the State Department, she also spoke at the trade group’s convention, earning $335,000.

Seriously, haven’t we had enough of Clinton scandals? Do we really want to go through this with a President Clinton again?

Would You Buy A Used Car From These People?

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The Wall Street Journal printed an editorial today about the ongoing relationship between President Obama and Iran. President Obama has two things he wants to leave as a legacy–one is ObamaCare and the other is a nuclear deal with Iran that lasts at least until he is out of office. ObamaCare will collapse under its own weight within three years, so that leaves the deal with Iran. In the negotiations with Iran, America has pretty much negotiated with itself–making concession after concession until Iran had no choice but accept the deal. So where are we now?

The editorial reports:

The U.S. and United Nations both say Iran is already violating U.N. resolutions that bar Iran from testing ballistic missiles. Iran has conducted two ballistic-missile tests since the nuclear deal was signed in July, most recently in November. The missiles seem capable of delivering nuclear weapons with relatively small design changes.

The White House initially downplayed the missile tests, but this week it did an odd flip-flop on whether to impose new sanctions in response. On Wednesday it informed Congress that it would target a handful of Iranian companies and individuals responsible for the ballistic-missile program. Then it later said it would delay announcing the sanctions, which are barely a diplomatic rebuke in any case, much less a serious response to an arms-control violation.

So how did Iran respond? Last week Iran fired several rockets that landed within 1500 yards of the aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman. This incident occurred in the Strait of Hormuz. In October, the Iranians arrested Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American businessman. He is being held without charges. The Iranians have held Washington Post reporter Jason-Rezaian for more than 500 days.

The editorial further reports:

The sages now blaming hard-liners for Iran’s nastiness are the same folks who told us that the nuclear accord would empower the “moderates” in Iran by showing America’s peaceful intentions. When will this crowd figure out that Iran’s rulers don’t want better relations with the U.S.? They want to become the dominant power in the Middle East while driving the U.S. out of the region.

Make no mistake–the religious leaders of Iran want a world-wide caliphate with Iran in charge. They need to get America and Israel out of the way in order to do this. The Islamic concept of ‘taqiyya’ is loosely defined as deceit or dissimulation toward infidels. The Iranians have used it masterfully in dealing with President Obama.

The editorial reminds us:

Under the nuclear accord, Iran will soon receive $100 billion in unfrozen assets as well as the ability to court investors who are already streaming to Tehran. Sanctioning a few names is feckless by comparison, and Iran is denouncing even this meager action as a U.S. violation of the nuclear deal. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani responded to the sanctions reports on Thursday by ordering his defense minister to accelerate Iran’s missile program. Your move, Mr. Obama.

Do we really want to do this?