Tag Archives: The Washington Times

An Interesting Twist In The Guantanamo Story

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Yesterday, Townhall.com posted an article stating the following:

Testifying in front of the House Appropriations Subcommittee Wednesday, Attorney General Loretta Lynch reiterated that transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay Prison to the United States is against the law. From the Washington Times:

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Wednesday that federal law flatly prevents President Obama from sending of the the detainees from Guantanamo Bay to U.S. territory, hurting his ability to follow through on his new closure plan.

“That is the state of the law,” she said, pointing to the most recent defense policy law passed late last year, which cleared Congress on a bipartisan vote and which Mr. Obama himself signed into law.

Lynch also pointed this out during testimony in November of last year.

“With respect to individuals being transferred to the United States, the law currently does not allow that,” Lynch testified in front of the House Judiciary Committee. “Certainly it is the position of the Department of Justice that we would follow the law of the land in regard on that issue.”

Now you do have to be aware of the weasel words in that statement. The weasel words are, “With respect to individuals being transferred to the United States, the law currently does not allow that.” I suspect President Obama will attempt an executive order to supersede that law or find another way to get around it. I seriously doubt he will be stopped from moving Guantanamo prisoners here.

However, so far the Republicans do not plan on making the transfer of terrorists to America totally easy. The article reports:

Speaker Paul Ryan immediately pushed back on the proposal, reminding President Obama about bipartisan legislation recently passed in the House and Senate banning detainees from being transferred. Today, Ryan threatened the White House with a lawsuit should President Obama proceed unilaterally.

Really? A lawsuit? Really? How is that any different than a strongly worded letter or an idle threat? If President Obama attempts to bring terrorists into America, he needs to be impeached. End of story. He will have broken his Oath of Office and needs to be removed.

 

Taking A Stand

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The Washington Times reported today that Franklin Graham has left the Republican Party. He left the party after the omnibus spending bill was passed. The bill continues the government funding of Planned Parenthood and was passed with both Republican and Democratic votes.

The article reports:

“This is an example of why I have resigned from the Republican Party and declared myself Independent. I have no hope in the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, or Tea Party to do what is best for America,” Mr. Graham said in a Facebook post. 

“Seeing and hearing Planned Parenthood talk nonchalantly about selling baby parts from aborted fetuses with utter disregard for human life is reminiscent of Joseph Mengele and the Nazi concentration camps!” Mr. Graham continued. “That should’ve been all that was needed to turn off the faucet for their funding.”

I totally understand his decision. I have remained in the Republican party in the hope that at some point they will return to the pro-life stand stated in their platform. I don’t see the possibility of having a strong voice in Washington without being associated with either the Republican or Democratic parties. That is unfortunate and has gotten us into the mess we are in, but I believe it is where we are. I hope Reverend Graham will continue to speak out for the principles that made America great.

Celebrating The Labor Force On Labor Day

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Yesterday The Washington Times posted an article about America‘s shrinking labor force. Although the unemployment rate is reported at 5.1 percent, that does not take into account the number of Americans who have given up looking for work.

The article reports:

The “unemployment rate” most often cited in the news media is U-3. But U-3 ignores everyone who hasn’t actively looked for work within the previous four weeks. So if you can’t find a job and give up looking, you don’t count as “unemployed” in the U-3 rate.

If we calculated the illiteracy rate that way, we wouldn’t count someone as illiterate unless he had attended a reading class in the past four weeks. In other words, the U-3 figure is fake, because it ignores whether the labor force participation rate has dropped.

According to Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the Labor Department, if America today had as high of a labor force participation rate as we had in 2006, then “last year’s average unemployment rate would have been 11.4 percent instead of 6.2 percent.”

So the U-3 measure of unemployment creates the illusion that the economy is serving American workers roughly twice as well as it really is, when you consider all the persons who’ve given up looking for jobs.

Today’s labor force participation rate is 62.6 percent, a 38-year low. That depressed number wipes out all the gains in employment made during the Reagan era, a time when women by the tens of millions moved into the workforce.

Today, more women are on food stamps than have full-time jobs.

If the economy is doing so well, why are more women on food stamps than have full-time jobs?

The article goes on to explain that before the housing bubble burst, the American economy grew at a rate of about 3.1 percent a year. Since President Obama has been in office, the growth has been slightly over 2 percent. Slow growth is expected to continue due to President Obama’s policies–ObamaCare and excessive Environmental Protection Agency regulations on energy production are expected to have a serious negative impact on economic growth.

The article concludes:

Even worse: That idea of a “new normal” 2.1 to 2.2 percent annual growth rate may be overly optimistic. We have yet to see the effect of many recent and proposed anti-growth policies — for example, Obamacare, which is being phased in over a period of years, and the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed plan, not yet final, to make the price of electricity “skyrocket.” If anti-growth policies push the economic growth rate down to around 1.6 percent a year, that’s like cutting the size of the 2063 economy in half. Long before that, government finances will collapse.

Welcome to Greece.

Elections matter. Unless we change those making policy in Washington, D.C., we will become Greece.

I’m Obviously In The Wrong Business

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There is an article posted on Allen West’s website today about more protests is Ferguson, Missouri.

The article reports:

According to the Washington Times, the “Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE) has been paying protesters $5,000 a month to demonstrate in Ferguson. Last week, hired protesters who haven’t been paid held a sit-in at MORE’s offices and posted a demand letter online. Hired protesters with the Black Lives Matter movement have started a #CutTheCheck hashtag and held a sit-in at the offices for the successor group to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in Missouri after the group allegedly stopped paying them.”

Evidently MORE is the current version of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now). Since its heyday, ACORN has filed for bankruptcy.

The article further reports:

FrontPage reported. MORE and other groups supporting the Black Lives Matter movement have received millions of dollars from billionaire financier George Soros. The group Millennial Activists United posted a letter on their blog demanding MORE “cut the checks” to demonstrators.

I wonder how many people who supported the Black Lives Matter knew that it was funded by George Soros. I wonder if that would have made a difference.

Black lives do matter, but the fact that the movement is being funded by George Soros should give us all pause.

The Government Doesn’t Even Follow Its Own Laws

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The Washington Times is reporting today that the Department of Homeland Security had broken a judge’s order halting the administration’s new deportation amnesty.

The article reports:

The stunning admission, filed just before midnight in Texas, where the case is being heard, is the latest misstep for the administration’s lawyers, who are facing possible sanctions by Judge Hanen for their continued problems in arguing the case.

The Justice Department lawyers said Homeland Security, which is the defendant in the case, told them Wednesday that an immigration agency had approved about 2,000 applications for three-year work permits, which was part of Mr. Obama’s new amnesty, even after Judge Hanen issued his Feb. 16 injunction halting the entire program.

I really have nothing to add to this story other than to say that it is a disgrace. The Obama Administration has shown so little regard for the Constitution and the laws governing America, I guess this really should not be a surprise. However, it is extremely sad that the people charged with upholding our laws have chosen to break them.

Sometimes You Just Have To Keep Digging To Find The Truth

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Yesterday the Washington Times reported that the Internal Revenue Service‘s Inspector General is conducting a criminal investigation into the disappearance of Lois Lerner’s emails.

The article reports:

Investigators have already scoured 744 backup tapes and gleaned 32,774 unique emails, but just two weeks ago they found an additional 424 tapes that could contain even more Lerner emails, Deputy Inspector General Timothy P. Camus told the House Oversight Committee in a rare late-night hearing meant to look into the status of the investigation.

“There is potential criminal activity,” Mr. Camus said.

Unfortunately, the Inspector General is still having problems getting the information he needs to pursue the case.

The article reports:

Rep. Gerald Connolly, Virginia Democrat, said Mr. George is refusing to turn documents over to him, prompting a heated reply.

“You’re not entitled to certain documents,” Mr. George said.

“Oh really? We’ll see about that, won’t we,” Mr. Connolly replied, saying that he questioned whether Mr. George could be trusted if he’s refusing to provide documents, yet is in charge of an investigation into whether the IRS stonewalled document requests.

The hearing was the latest chapter in the complex investigation into the IRS’s targeting of tea party groups for special scrutiny.

Several congressional committees are still probing the matter, and both the inspector general and the Justice Department are conducting criminal investigations.

I wouldn’t hold my breath for the results of the Justice Department investigation.

 

Upholding The U.S. Constitution, One Judge At A Time

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There have been two stories in the Washington Times recently regarding President Obama’s amnesty policy. The first appeared on December 7, and dealt with the fact that the case brought by the states regarding President Obama’s deportation amnesty have will be judged by Judge Andrew S. Hanen, a Bush appointee who issued a scorching rebuke to the Department of Homeland Security last year, accusing it of refusing to follow border security laws.

The second story, posted today, states:

A federal judge has found parts of President Obama’s new deportation amnesty to be unconstitutional, issuing a scathing memo Tuesday accusing him of usurping Congress’s power to make laws, and dismantling most of the White House’s legal reasoning for circumventing Congress.

Judge Arthur J. Schwab, sitting in the western district of Pennsylvania, said presidents do have powers to use discretion in deciding how to enforce the law, but said Mr. Obama’s new policy goes well beyond that, setting up a full system for granting legal protections to broad groups of individuals. He said Mr. Obama writing laws — a power that’s reserved for Congress, not the president.

The article explains that the memo does not invalidate the President’s policy, but it is a warning shot to the amnesty cases making their way through the courts. The President does have the power to use an executive order to clarify a law–he does not have the power to use an executive order to make law. That is one of the areas where the executive order on amnesty will be challenged.