Tag Archives: United States Congress

This Really Does Not Sound Safe

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On Thursday, Fox News reported some changes President Obama made to the Visa Waiver Program.

The article reports:

The Obama administration on Thursday eased visa rules for certain European travelers who have visited terror hotspots in the Middle East and Africa, triggering a backlash from congressional lawmakers who sought the restrictions for security reasons. 

Moments after the announcement, two key Republicans declared the administration is “blatantly breaking the law” – a law that President Obama signed – by implementing the changes.

“This is not a difference of opinion over statutory interpretation, it is a clear contradiction of the law and the agreement we reached with the White House,” House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, and Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., author of the bill, said in a statement. 

The revised requirements announced Thursday pertain to changes passed by Congress in the Visa Waiver Program.

Lawmakers had sought new restrictions to tighten up the program – which allows visa-free travel for residents of eligible countries — in order to prevent Europeans who have joined ISIS from entering the United States. Under the newly passed Visa Waiver Improvement and Terrorist Travel Prevention Act of 2015, nationals of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Sudan as well as other travelers who have visited those countries since Mar. 1, 2011 now must apply for a visa in order to travel to the U.S.

So what is this about? The article explains:

The new restrictions had previously been criticized by the Iranian government which suggested the U.S. might be violating the nuclear deal by penalizing legitimate business travel to the country. 

At some point, the executive branch of our government needs to realize that one of the major supporters and sponsors of terrorism is Iran. To allow people who have visited Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Sudan visa-free travel to America is simply not smart. If this policy stands, we will see increased incidents of terrorism in America. This is not about business travel.

Attempting To Fight Corruption

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Hot Air posted an article yesterday about the House of Representatives’ move to impeach John Koskinen for his blocking the investigation into the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) practices regarding conservative groups.

An article at Townhall reports the charges:

Specifically, Commissioner Koskinen violated the public trust in the following ways:

-Failed to comply with a subpoena resulting in destruction of key evidence. Commissioner Koskinen failed to locate and preserve IRS records in accordance with a congressional subpoena and an internal preservation order. The IRS erased 422 backup tapes containing as many as 24,000 of Lois Lerner’s emails – key pieces of evidence that were destroyed on Koskinen’s watch.
-Failed to testify truthfully and provided false and misleading information. Commissioner Koskinen testified the IRS turned over all emails relevant to the congressional investigation, including all of Ms. Lerner’s emails. When the agency determined Ms. Lerner’s emails were missing, Commissioner Koskinen testified the emails were unrecoverable. These statements were false.
-Failed to notify Congress that key evidence was missing. The IRS knew Lois Lerner’s emails were missing in February 2014. In fact, they were not missing; the IRS destroyed the emails on March 4, 2014. The IRS did not notify Congress the emails were missing until June 2014 – four months later, and well after the White House and the Treasury Department were notified.

The article at Hot Air also reminds us that a federal judge has already threatened to hold Koskinen accountable for his obstruction of the investigation into the IRS.

The article at Hot Air reports:

According to the rules of play, the House can bring the charges with a simple majority vote. Easy enough this year. But the trial is held in the Senate and requires a two thirds vote to convict. (If this is treated as a partisan issue and all the Democrats abscond in their duty it would be impossible.) Also, Joe Biden gets to preside over the trial. Many seem to think that it would be John Roberts, but he would only preside in the case of impeaching the President. That’s a tough hill to climb. In all of US history there have been seven successful impeachments and all of them were judges. The only cabinet official to ever be impeached was William Belknap, Secretary of War under President Grant, but he wasn’t convicted. The only two Presidents to be impeached were not found guilty, as were the various Senators brought to stand before the wheel.

Politically this is a losing battle. Legally it is a necessary battle. What this process will do is eliminate any doubt as to which Senators put party loyalty over honesty. There is no way Koskinen would be acquitted in a fair trial, but Congress (and the Justice Department) are not really focused on doing what is right at this point.

No, The Videos Were Not Manipulated

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Yesterday The Blaze posted an article about the testimony of Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards before the House Oversight Committee hearing. Ms. Richards is quoted as saying, “I think everyone has agreed they were heavily edited.” The problem with that statement is that it is not true. The videos have been shown to be accurate by both supporters and foes of Planned Parenthood.

The article reports:

Alliance Defending Freedom hired tech firm Coalfire Systems to perform a forensic analysis of the undercover videos, in order to disprove claims they were “highly edited.” Planned Parenthood doctors discuss harvesting and selling aborted fetuses to researchers in the footage.

 “Coalfire’s analysis of the recorded media files contained on the flash drive indicates that the video recordings are authentic and show no evidence of manipulation or editing,” the report released Tuesday states.

The article further states:

An earlier analysis commissioned by Planned Parenthood also found the videos were not meaningfully edited, in spite of the brief cuts and skips. Planned Parenthood hired Fusion GPS — a Democratic opposition research firm — to perform the analysis.

“This analysis did not reveal widespread evidence of substantive video manipulation, but we did identify cuts, skips, missing tape, and changes in camera angle,” the report concludes. And the analysts “found no evidence that CMP inserted dialogue not spoken by Planned Parenthood staff.”

The videos are accurate. The question now is, “Do Americans want to continue sending taxpayer dollars to an organization that is selling aborted baby body parts?”

What kind of a nation are we going to be?

 

House Speaker John Boehner Is Resigning

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NBC News reported today that Speaker of the House John Boehner has announced that he will resign at the end of October. The announcement comes at a time when the battle between the conservative Republicans and the establishment Republicans is heating up in Washington and in some states.

Many Republican voters are disillusioned because they have voted Republican for the past two or three election cycles, and nothing has changed–we are still overspending, ObamaCare has not improved health care, in fact it has cost more and done less, and the treaty with Iran is going forward. So why did we bother to vote? A change in House leadership was needed last year, but did not happen–Boehner held on to his position.

The article reports:

An aide to Boehner said that the Ohio Republican had planned to serve only through the end of last year, but that the stunning primary loss of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor changed that calculation.

The defeat of Eric Cantor was an indication that the grass roots are not happy with the direction of the party. The establishment Republicans are no different than the Democrats in most policy areas, and the voters have figured this out. The Tea Party evolved out of that feeling, and despite reports to the contrary, has not gone away.

So where do we go from here? We can probably expect a government shutdown some time in the near future over the funding of Planned Parenthood. I don’t know how any American who has seen the undercover videos about the selling of aborted baby body parts can support the funding of Planned Parenthood, but evidently some do. The Republicans offered to give the money to community health centers that serve women, but the Democrats wouldn’t budge (possibly because of the large amount of money Planned Parenthood puts in their campaign coffers). I honestly do not know where the American public stands on Planned Parenthood, but if they support what is going on, we are in danger of losing our humanity.

Has Anyone In Washington Read The U.S Constitution?

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The question really should be, “Has anyone in Washington read the U.S. Constitution, and do they take their Oath of Office to uphold it seriously?” Currently, the obvious answer to both questions is “no.”

On Tuesday The New York Post posted an article about the Congressional maneuverings on the Iranian nuclear deal. First of all, I would like to note that many of our Congressmen and Congresswomen have been paid off by the Iranian lobby (rightwinggranny). The article in The New York Post points out how the approval process for the Iranian nuclear agreement is unconstitutional.

The article reports:

Under the Constitution, treaties require the support of two-thirds of the Senate. The deal with Iran is a treaty in every respect — a legally binding long-term agreement between sovereign powers, in which hundreds of billions of dollars will flow and billions of dollars in nuclear materiel will be destroyed.

Since this is a treaty and we have 100 senators, Obama should have been obliged to secure the backing of 67 senators, not 41.

But Obama knew he could never get his treaty through Congress. You see, the American people have given the Republican Party majorities in both the House and the Senate.

The very fact that the American people did so to put a brake on Obama’s outsized ambitions just wasn’t going to hold this guy back.

So where are we now? The Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, sometimes also known as “Corker-Cardin,” allows the Iran Nuclear Agreement to be treated like any other piece of ordinary legislation. In order to block the deal, the Senate would have to override a Presidential veto if the Senate voted the agreement down. Thus, rather than the two-thirds of the Senate needed to ratify the agreement (required for a treaty), you need two-thirds of the Senate to oppose it or it becomes law. The Republicans cannot filibuster the treaty because forty-two Democrats support it–they can block a filibuster. The Iranian lobby will get its money’s worth, and the treaty will pass. The U.S. Constitution and the American people are the losers in this deal. Iran will now receive millions of dollars to use to support terrorism around the world. Even if a Republican President is elected in 2016, and voids the agreement, the money will have gone to Iran, and the damage will have been done. No Senator who supports this treaty should be re-elected. The Republican leadership who did not use all of the legal tools at their disposal to fight this treaty should also be replaced. We need Senators and Representatives who have read the U.S. Constitution and who will be faithful to their Oath of Office to uphold the U.S. Constitution. At the current time, that is not what we have.

Stepping Back And Looking At The Big Picture

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There are a number of conservatives seriously alarmed at the rise of Donald Trump. Donald Trump has not consistently espoused conservative principles and probably does not qualify as a conservative in the minds of many of the conservative intellectuals. What Donald Trump represents is the anger of the conservatives at the miserable performance of the establishment Republicans in Washington. The conservatives believed what they were told–elect Republicans and things will change–the debt will decrease, ObamaCare will go away, and the Republicans will check the runaway executive orders of President Obama. Right. And I saw a flying pig last week.

Yesterday The Conservative Treehouse posted an open letter to Jonah Goldberg, a conservative who is concerned that the Donald Trump candidacy will destroy the Republican party.

The article reminds us:

Angered (by the tricks used to pass ObamaCare), we rallied to the next election (November 2010) and handed the usurping Democrats the single largest electoral defeat in the prior 100 years.  The House returned to Republican control, and one-half of the needed Senate seats reversed.  Within the next two election cycles (’12 and ’14) we again removed the Democrats from control of the Senate.

Within each of those three elections we were told Repealing Obamacare would be job #1.  It was not an optional part of our representative agreement to do otherwise.

We are still waiting.

The article points out:

We are not blind to the maneuverings of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and President Tom Donohue.  We are fully aware the repeal vote did not take place because the U.S. CoC demanded the retention of Obamacare.

Leader McConnell followed the legislative priority of Tom Donohue as opposed to the will of the people.   This was again exemplified with the passage of TPPA, another Republican construct which insured the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal could pass the Senate with 51 votes instead of 3/5ths.

We are not blind to the reality that when McConnell chooses to change the required voting threshold he is apt to do so.  Not coincidentally, the TPP trade deal is another legislative priority of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Again, the Republican party ignored the people who elected them.

The article cites the Iran deal:

Another bill, the Iran “agreement”, reportedly and conveniently not considered a “treaty”, again we are not blind.  Nor are we blind to Republican Bob Corker’s amendment (Corker/Cardin Amendment) changing ratification to a 67-vote-threshold for denial, as opposed to a customary 67 vote threshold for passage.  A profound difference.

The elected Republicans again ignored the wishes of the people who elected them.

The article lists examples of the establishment GOP working against the will of the voters. Please follow the link to the article to read the list. It is eye-opening.

The article concludes:

The last federal budget was passed in September of 2007, and EVERY FLIPPING INSUFFERABLE YEAR we have to go through the predictable fiasco of a Government Shutdown Standoff and/or a Debt Ceiling increase specifically because there is NO BUDGET!

That’s a strategy?

That’s the GOP strategy?  Essentially:  Lets plan for an annual battle against articulate Democrats and Presidential charm, using a creepy guy who cries and another old mumbling fool who dodders, knowing full well the MSM is on the side of the other guy to begin with?

THAT’S YOUR GOP STRATEGY?

Don’t tell me it’s not, because if it wasn’t there’d be something else being done – there isn’t.

And don’t think we don’t know the 2009 “stimulus” became embedded in the baseline of the federal spending, and absent of an actual budget it just gets spent and added to the deficit each year, every year.  Yet this is somehow smaller fiscal government?

….And you’re worried about what Donald Trump might do?

Seriously?

I truly believe that this article expresses the frustration of the conservatives in the Republican party. Right now there is very little difference between the establishment Republicans and the Democrats. If the establishment Republicans don’t wake up soon, there will be two political parties–the Democrats and the Conservatives. Donald Trump is not the problem–he may be a symptom, but he is not the problem.

What Difference Does It Make?

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As the media covers the fact that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has finally agreed to hand over her computer server to the Justice Department, let’s back up a minute and look at the history of Secretary Clinton and her server.

On March 30, Byron York posted a story at The Washington Examiner that included the following:

The subpoena story began on Sept. 20, 2012, nine days after the attacks. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, who was chairman of the House Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, sent a letter to then-Secretary of State Clinton asking for “all information … related to the attack on the consulate.” Chaffetz specifically asked for all analyses, whether classified or unclassified, on the security situation leading up to the Benghazi attack, plus, among other things, all analyses that either supported or contradicted UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s assertion that the attack was the spontaneous result of outrage over an anti-Muslim video. The short version of the letter was that Chaffetz demanded “all information” on Benghazi.

Just to be clear, the Chaffetz letter included standard language telling Clinton, “In complying with this request, you are required to produce all responsive documents that are in your possession, custody, or control, whether held by you or your past or present agents, employees, and representatives acting on your behalf.”

…The routine got old fast. Republicans (and Democrats, for that matter) couldn’t copy the documents and couldn’t use them at hearings. Chaffetz and Rep. Darrell Issa, then the chairman of the full Oversight and Government Reform Committee, became frustrated. In response to their protests, the State Department stressed that it had made all the relevant documents available, even if under restrictive conditions. State has “provided Congress with access to documents, comprising over 25,000 pages to date, including communications of senior Department officials regarding the security situation in Benghazi,” State official Thomas Gibbons wrote to Issa on March 29, 2013.

That did nothing to quiet Republican unhappiness. The problem came to a head on Aug. 1, 2013, when the committee issued a subpoena to the State Department. (It was officially directed to new Secretary of State John Kerry.)

Note that the date of the subpoena was August 1, 2013–more than two years ago.

Yesterday The New York Post posted a story that included the following:

Security experts warned Wednesday that the chances of recovering deleted information from Hillary Rodham Clinton’s home e-mail server are slim — unless she did a lousy scrubbing job.

“Being the fact that this is Hillary Clinton with significant resources and a reputation to uphold, I would say that those who are seeking out additional information on the servers … would have a very difficult time finding something,” Robert Siciliano, an online-security expert, told The Post.

When items are deleted they still leave a trace — or “bread crumbs,” as ­Siciliano put it — but a skilled person doing the deleting can ensure that fewer crumbs are left to recreate the missing documents.

Does anyone really believe that the Justice Department is going to uphold the law in regard to Secretary Clinton? This case will be a litmus case to see if President Obama actually supports the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton. I suspect the President Obama does not want Hillary Clinton to become President, but I also suspect he has seen the list of people who have opposed the Clintons in the past and faced severe consequences. Watching this unfold will be extremely educational to all of us.

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.

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.

Is This Even Legal?

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The National Review posted a story today about the nuclear deal with Iran. In the story, Fred Fleitz, the author, reports on two aspects of the deal with Iran that were not going to be made public (or available to Congress or other nations).

The article reports:

Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) and Congressmen Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.) issued a press release yesterday on a startling discovery they made during a July 17 meeting with International Atomic Energy Agency officials in Vienna: There are two secret side deals to the nuclear agreement with Iran that will not be shared with other nations, with Congress, or with the U.S. public. One of these side deals concerns inspection of the Parchin military base, where Iran reportedly has conducted explosive testing related to nuclear-warhead development. The Iranian government has refused to allow the IAEA to visit this site. Over the last several years, Iran has taken steps to clean up evidence of weapons-related activity at Parchin. 

The other side deal relates to the possible military dimensions (PMDs) of Iran’s nuclear program. Evidently the PMD issue is not resolved. In 2013, Iran agreed to answer International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) questions about work in weapons-related areas, but has not actually answered the questions.

This is a copy of part of the press release issued by Senator Cotton and Congressman Pompeo:

According to the IAEA, the Iran agreement negotiators, including the Obama administration, agreed that the IAEA and Iran would forge separate arrangements to govern the inspection of the Parchin military complex — one of the most secretive military facilities in Iran — and how Iran would satisfy the IAEA’s outstanding questions regarding past weaponization work. Both arrangements will not be vetted by any organization other than Iran and the IAEA, and will not be released even to the nations that negotiated the JCPOA [Iran nuclear agreement]. This means that the secret arrangements have not been released for public scrutiny and have not been submitted to Congress as part of its legislatively mandated review of the Iran deal. 

Do we need any more reasons to reject this treaty?

 

 

This Is Just Ugly

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Yesterday CBS News reported that the deal with Iran negotiated by America, Russia, France, China, the United Kingdom and Germany will be voted on by the United Nations Security Council on Monday. Since five of the countries who negotiated the treaty with Iran are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, it is fairly certain the agreement will be adopted.

The article reports:

CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk says the resolution will make the Iran nuclear deal international law, but will delay its official implementation for 90 days, to allow for the U.S. Congress’ consideration.

Falk explained that while Congress cannot block the implementation of the deal, if the legislative body votes against it and has enough votes to override a promised veto from President Obama, it is not clear what would happen next.

Whether Congress approves the treaty or not, it goes into effect internationally. Whatever happened to America? First of all, even if Congress votes against the treaty, the treaty goes into effect worldwide. So where is American sovereignty? Second of all, why do we need Congress if the Senate’s role to advise and consent to treaties has been taken out of the equation.

The article concludes:

If U.S. lawmakers were to decide after Monday’s vote that they wanted changes to the terms of the agreement, it would essentially be too late, because it would require the Security Council to propose a new resolution — and there would likely be little appetite for such deliberations among the other negotiating partners.

The chairman of the Senate’s foreign relations committee, Bob Corker, on Thursday wrote a letter to President Obama saying, “We urge you to postpone the vote at the United Nations until after Congress considers this agreement.”

But the chief U.S. negotiator in the Iran talks, Wendy Sherman, rejected that idea Thursday.

She told reporters: “It would have been a little difficult when all of the (countries negotiating with Iran) wanted to go to the United Nations to get an endorsement of this, since it is a product of the United Nations process, for us to say, ‘Well, excuse me, the world, you should wait for the United States Congress.'”

Sherman said the council resolution allows the “time and space” for a congressional review before the measure actually takes effect.

America has become internationally irrelevant.

This Would Be So Much Easier If We Would Just Get Back To Basics

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Andrew McCarthy posted an article at the National Review today about the recently announced nuclear treaty with Iran. Yes, it is a treaty.

This is the lead paragraph from the article:

It is time to end the Kabuki theater. The Corker Bill and its ballyhooed 60-day review process that undermines the Constitution is a sideshow. If you scrutinize President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, you find that the president ignores the existence of the Corker process. So should Congress.

So what does the U.S. Constitution say about treaties?

“The President… shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur….

ARTICLE II, SECTION 2, CLAUSE 2

The deal with Iran is a treaty. It needs to be treated as such.

The article further reports:

Obama’s Iran deal also ignores the existence of Congress itself – at least, of the United States Congress. As I’ve previously detailed (piggy-backing on characteristically perceptive analysis by AEI’s Fred Kagan), the deal does expressly defer to the Iranian Congress, conceding that key Iranian duties are merely provisional until the jihadist regime’s parliament, the Majlis, has an opportunity to review them as required by Iran’s sharia constitution. The United States Constitution, however, is a nullity in the eyes and actions of this imperial White House.

There is no way America should ever defer to any other constitution, much less one subject to Sharia Law.

Let’s get back to the guidelines set forth in the U.S. Constitution, which is supposed to be the ‘supreme law of the land’ in America. It is time we got acquainted with what it says and got back to following it.

Please read the entire article. It contains a few very good suggestions on how Congress can limit the damage that will be caused by the current nuclear deal with Iran. The question is whether or not Congress will have the backbone to stand up for America.

The Government Is Now Controlling Your Water

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This was posted on YouTube yesterday. This law was not passed by Congress–it came from the unelected officials at the Environmental Protection Agency. It is time for Congress to assume its proper role of legislating–not ceding that role to the members of the Executive Branch.

The House Of Representatives Gets It Right

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The Hill posted a story today about a bi-partisan group in the House of Representatives who have sponsored a bill stating that all trade deals would have to be made publicly available for 60 days before they could be approved using fast-track authority.

The article reports:

“Today it [trade promotion authority (TPA)] has become more of a blank check for the executive and turned Congress into little more than a rubber stamp,” Kaptur said. “This legislation calls for an end to this dangerous and irresponsible approach and replaces it with sunlight in the form of public access and accountability.”

The House is expected to vote on fast-track as early as Thursday, and opponents have argued that the administration is not providing enough transparency on the deals it is negotiating. 

Members of Congress have only been allowed to review text of the emerging Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal in a classified setting. 

Congress has a role to play in reviewing trade deals and treaties. The U.S. Constitution includes that review in its list of Congressional duties. It really is time those in power in Washington began to follow the U.S. Constitution.

One Law For Me, One Law For Thee

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On Thursday the National Review posted an article about members of Congress’s fraudulent application to the District of Columbia’s health exchange. This application facilitated Congress’s “exemption” from ObamaCare, allowing lawmakers and staffers to keep their employer subsidies.

The article reports:

The application said Congress employed just 45 people. Names were faked; one employee was listed as “First Last,” another simply as “Congress.” To Small Business Committee chairman David Vitter, who has fought for years against the Obamacare exemption, it was clear that someone in Congress had falsified the document in order to make lawmakers and their staff eligible for taxpayer subsidies provided under the exchange for small-business employees.

This is infuriating. The Small Business Committee chairman David Vitter needed a green light from the committee to subpoena the unredacted application from the District of Columbia health exchange. Five Republicans voted against that subpoena, as well as all of the Democrats on the Committee. The five Republicans were Rand Paul, Mike Enzi, James Risch, Kelly Ayotte, and Deb Fischer. In essence all of the Democrats on the Committee, as well as the five Republicans, were supporting ObamaCare fraud.

The article concludes:

 “I think it makes sense to find out what happened,” says Yuval Levin, the editor of National Affairs, a noted conservative health-care voice and a National Review contributor. “It would be pretty interesting to see whose name is on the forms,” he says. “It has to go beyond mid-level staffers.”

I am amazed and dismayed at the lack of integrity in our elected officials. The American voters can do better than this.

 

 

Breaking Faith With America’s Military

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Fox News posted a story today about the treatment of the shooting victims of the Fort Hood terrorism attack. The Obama Administration has acknowledged that the people hurt and killed in the attack were victims of terrorism. The Obama Administration has also awarded Purple Hearts to the victims. However, the Obama Administration has also denied benefits for the injuries suffered in the attack.

The article reports:

The 2015 defense budget — known as the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA — included language that meant Fort Hood victims were eligible for the Purple Heart honor because the attack was inspired by a foreign terrorist group, and not workplace violence, as the Defense Department initially labeled it.

 Manning (Shawn Manning), who was seriously injured in the 2009 attack) submitted new paperwork so the Army would recognize his injuries were sustained in the line of duty. But his appeal was rejected by a physical evaluation board, apparently based on a narrow interpretation of the law.

“Section 571 of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act addresses both the awarding of the Purple Heart to service members killed or wounded in attacks inspired or motivated by foreign terrorist organizations and the Defense of Freedom Medal for those members and civilians killed or wounded during the Fort Hood attack on 5 November 20009,” the April 6 letter states.

“Nowhere in the act, however, does it offer combat benefits for service members permanently disabled in attacks inspired or motivated by foreign terrorist organizations. Although subsequent legislation and guidance may change, currently, the Board has no authority to award V1/V3 (service related) designation to soldiers disabled during the Fort Hood attack. “

Manning said, “it’s a great thing to finally be recognized, to stand up there and say, ‘Hey your sacrifice did mean something.’”

But he said the board’s decision means, on a practical level, his family will lose back pay, and $800 a month in benefits, adding he believes other Fort Hood survivors will face the same treatment. “I think you know it’s a huge let-down. I hope that’s not what the Army had intended to do.”

The people who were injured at Fort Hood were where they were as part of their military service. To deny them the full benefits that are paid to soldiers wounded in combat is a disgrace. Congress needs to correct this situation very quickly. This is another example of the Obama Administration breaking faith with the American military.

 

Has Anyone In The Obama Administration Actually Read The United States Constitution?

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Article II, Section 2, of the United States Constitution states:

He (the President) shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;

Breitbart.com reported yesterday:

Wednesday on PBS “NewsHour,” Secretary of State John Kerry articulated the administration’s new position on Sen. Bob Corker’s (R-TN) bill demanding Congress get a vote on the merits of President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, in light of prominent Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) supporting the bill this week.

Making it clear the bill can not “interfere” with the president’s deal, Kerry said “if it’s changed and adjusted and reflects the respect for the Constitution and the president’s prerogatives,” then Congress can vote.

Kerry said “The president is absolutely correct in making sure that what Congress does, does not assault presidential authority and the Constitution and doesn’t destroy his ability to be able to negotiate this final deal. That’s critical. And the president has said, if the bill is what it is today, written the same way it is today, then he’d veto it.”

So let me get this straight–if Congress passes a law to make sure its constitutional rights are protected, President Obama will veto it. The Constitution states clearly that two-thirds of the Senate must concur with a treaty in order for it to take effect. Has the President (or the current Secretary of State) read the Constitution?

The Congressional Oath Of Office

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According to about.com the current Congressional Oath of Office reads as follows:

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.

On Friday, The Blaze reported that several Democrats in Congress have created a pamphlet that encourages illegal aliens to carry a ‘do not deport me card.’

This is the card:

Screen Shot 2015-03-27 at 2.04.14 PM

I don’t care what card they carry, they are illegal. I am the first to admit that this needs to be sorted out–illegal aliens need to be given a way to stay in America if they have been here forever or have children born here. HOWEVER, if an illegal alien is given the right to stay, he or she should be denied any federal or state benefits (social security, welfare, etc.) and should permanently be denied the right to vote. Frankly, I think if a law was passed that anyone who came here illegally would be permanently denied the right to vote, our southern border would soon be secured.

With all due respect, I believe that Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and the other Democrats who created this pamphlet have violated their Oath of Office.

On Friday, CNS News reported the following:

Unaccompanied children crossing the southern border into the United States still number in the thousands, probably the tens of thousands, even though the percentages are lower, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told Congress on Thursday.

This is not a good situation for anyone. These children are easy prey to human traffickers or other law breakers. There is no guarantee that these children will make here safely when they leave their home countries, and often there is no one to take care of them when they arrive in America. America cannot successfully take good care of these children. Also, what happens to these children when they grow up? Do they live in the shadows or become hard working citizens? Why is Mexico letting these children into their country and through their northern border when coming into Mexico as an illegal alien usually has serious negative consequences?

My bottom line is simple. Congressmen who do not secure our borders are not fulfilling their Oath of Office. They need to find another line of work.

 

One Answer To Federal Government Overreach

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According to the IJReview, the Arizona House of Representatives passed a bill last Wednesday that had only two provisions.

The article lists the provisions:

  1. Prohibits this state or any of its political subdivisions from using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer or cooperate with a policy directive issued by the U.S. DOJ to law enforcement agencies in this state that has not been affirmed by a vote of Congress and signed into law as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.
  2. Prohibits this state or any of its political subdivisions from using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer or cooperate with an executive order issued by the President of the U.S. that has not been affirmed by a vote of Congress and signed into law as prescribed by the U.S. Constitution.

Simply stated, unless Congress passes the law, Arizona is not going to follow it. That is the way our government is supposed to work. Thank you, Arizona.

 

She Obviously Just Got To Congress And Doesn’t Know How It Works

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The Daily Signal posted an article yesterday about legislation introduced by freshman Congresswomen Gwen Graham, D-Florida. The bill is called Travel Perks Elimination Act.

The article reports:

“Nine months ago, I pledged I would work to end wasteful Congressional perks. Today, I’m following through on that promise,” Graham said. “It’s a common sense idea that Republicans and Democrats can both agree on: members of Congress shouldn’t be able to charge taxpayers for first-class airfare or long-term personal car leases.”

According to her statement, the legislation would also ban the use of taxpayer funds for personal car leases, some of which are “as high as $825 a month.”

It is very obvious that she is new to Congress. It is also very obvious that she has the right idea.

The article further reports:

Rep. Rod Blum, R-Iowa, is the cosponsor of the bill.

“This is not a partisan issue,” Blum said in a statement. “Members of Congress don’t need taxpayer funded perks like first class travel and long term car leases to do their job. America’s founders never intended for public servants to live a life of luxury paid for by everyday Americans. That’s why I’ve made it a high priority to back legislation which reforms Congress and ensures good stewardship of U.S. taxpayer dollars.”

Romina Boccia, the Grover M. Hermann fellow in federal budgetary affairs at The Heritage Foundation, supports the measure as an appropriate way to reduce government waste.

Note to those people in Congress who say they have no place they can cut the budget–this might be a place to start.

This Is Just Strange

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The Washington Examiner posted a story today with the following quote from Secretary of State John Kerry:

“We’ve been clear from the beginning we’re not negotiating a legally binding plan. We’re negotiating a plan that will have a capacity for enforcement,” he (John Kerry) told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“We don’t even have diplomatic relations with Iran right now.”

I have a few questions. Legally binding for whom? If it is not legally binding for Iran, why are we bothering to negotiate? If it is not legally binding for us, why is Iran bothering to negotiate? Why in the world is everyone wasting time on something that is not legally binding?

The article reminds us:

Kerry, who was visibly irritated by what he called misconceptions by lawmakers about the ongoing talks, was criticizing an open letter to Iran’s leaders signed by 47 Republican senators. The letter has angered Democrats, but appears not to have slowed bipartisan efforts to force congressional approval of a deal, in spite of stiff opposition by the Obama administration.

As he spoke, committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., who did not sign the letter but is a sponsor of legislation to require approval of any deal, cut him off.

Corker later noted that as a senator, Kerry had demanded congressional approval of a proposed agreement with Iraq on the status of U.S. troops there.

It is amazing how John Kerry’s opinions change according to the position he holds.

Rewriting History

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Gateway Pundit posted an article yesterday about the 65th anniversary of the march in Selma, Alabama.

The article reminds us:

On this day in 1965, state police under the command of the Democrat Governor, George Wallace, attacked African-Americans who were demonstrating for voting rights in Selma, Alabama. The rampaging Democrats used billy clubs and tear gas and dogs in their “Bloody Sunday” assault.

A Republican-appointed federal judge, Frank Johnson, soon ruled in favor of the demonstrators, enabling them to complete their march two weeks later.

Meanwhile, the Daily Caller reported yesterday:

A civil rights leader refused to march across the historic bridge in Selma during the 50th anniversary celebration Saturday because former President George W. Bush was also marching.

Diane Nash, described as a lieutenant to Martin Luther King Jr., said she did not wish to march across the bridge in Alabama because she said Bush represented violence — something she claimed was at odds with the Selma legacy.

History has been rewritten to erase the role the political parties played in the civil rights movement–the Southern Democrats opposed civil rights laws and the northern Republicans supported them. It is a shame Ms. Nash decided not to march instead of taking a stand for unity.

 

President Obama Seems To Be The Only One Missing The Point

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Yesterday Western Journalism posted an article about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s speech before Congress. The irony in the article is that many of the gulf state Arab leaders agree with Prime Minister Netanyahu–not President Obama on how to deal with the Middle East. It also occurs to me that since Prime Minister Netanyahu lives in the Middle East, he might know more about how things work than someone who does not live there.

The article reports:

Tzvi Yechezkieli, the Arab affairs expert of Channel 10, said that many Arab commentators supported the content of Netanyahu’s speech. He cited a commentator on Al-Arabiya TV, who had said that he could have written a large part of the speech.

Yechezkieli said that the Arab countries are convinced that Obama will not safeguard their security interests in the current negotiations with Iran and will not protect them against Iranian aggression.

Evidently Israel is not the only country in the region worried about Iranian aggression.

The article quotes the Saudi Daily Al-Jazirah columnist Dr. Ahmad Al-Faraj:

“I will conclude by saying the following: Since Obama is the godfather of the prefabricated revolutions in the Arab world, and since he is the ally of political Islam, [which is] the caring mother of [all] the terrorist organizations, and since he is working to sign an agreement with Iran that will come at the expense of the U.S.’s longtime allies in the Gulf, I am very glad of Netanyahu’s firm stance and [his decision] to speak against the nuclear agreement at the American Congress despite the Obama administration’s anger and fury. I believe that Netanyahu’s conduct will serve our interests, the people of the Gulf, much more than the foolish behavior of one of the worst American presidents. Do you agree with me?”

President Obama has behaved like a petulant child during the run-up to the speech, the speech, and after the speech. It would be nice to have a President who looked past himself and was watching out for the interests of America and our American allies in the Middle East.

 

Avoiding Working With The People Who Actually Understand The Threat

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Fox News posted an article today stating that the United States is withholding the details of the nuclear negotiations with Iran from Israel. Since Israel is the country most threatened by an Iranian nuclear weapon and since Israel is the country with the best intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program, this approach makes very little sense.

The article reports:

In extraordinary admissions that reflect increasingly strained ties between the U.S. and Israel, the White House and State Department said they were not sharing everything from the negotiations with the Israelis and complained that Israeli officials had misrepresented what they had been told in the past. Meanwhile, senior U.S. officials privately blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself for “changing the dynamic” of previously robust information-sharing by politicizing it.

The comments came as a late March deadline to forge the outline of an Iran nuclear deal looms. Netanyahu has angered the White House by his open opposition to a deal he believes threatens Israel’s existence, and by accepting a Republican invitation to address Congress about Iran in early March without consulting the White House, a breach of diplomatic protocol.

The article further reports:

Netanyahu has insisted that Iran, whose top officials have sworn to obliterate Israel, should not be allowed to enrich any uranium. The U.S. and its partners say that stance is untenable because Iran would never accept it.

As the talks have progressed, Netanyahu’s opposition to an agreement has increased over what he believes to be extreme concessions made to Iran that would leave it as a threshold nuclear weapons power and a direct threat to Israel’s existence.

The White House and State Department maintained that the U.S. will not leave Israel threatened. They also insisted that Israel has not been completely cut out of the loop and that overall security cooperation with the Jewish state remains strong.

If Iran will not accept the prohibition of enriching uranium, doesn’t anyone think there might be a reason for that? Have we not learned from what happened with North Korea (which incidentally has played a very large role in Iran’s nuclear program and nuclear talks)? Any treaty that comes out of the current negotiations with Iran is not worth the paper it is written on. President Obama heralding a treaty with Iran is very much along the lines of Neville Chamberlain declaring, “Peace for our time” after the 1938 Munich Agreement. We know how that turned out.

Where Is Winston Churchill?

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On Tuesday, High Frontier posted an article about recent comments by U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice.

The article quotes Ambassador Rice:

“[W]hat’s missing here in Washington is a sense of perspective. Yes, there’s a lot going on. Still, while the dangers we face may be more numerous and varied, they are not of the existential nature we confronted during World War II or the Cold War.” ~ Ambassador Susan Rice, National Security Advisor

 I think someone needs to tell Ms. Rice that Iran is not only building nuclear weapons, but the missiles to transport them with.

The article reports:

In my opinion, Iran, its surrogate terrorists, Shia allies and even Sunni adversaries are in fact—and contrary to Ambassador Rice’s assertion—an existential threat to America, indeed to all of Western Civilization . . . just as were our enemies during World War II and the Cold War. (By the way, some believe that our policies in dealing with Russia’s creeping invasion of Ukraine could indeed lead to another Cold War – potentially a Hot War.)

Consider that just last week, Iran launched successfully its fourth satellite, reportedly weighing 110 pounds, in an orbit tilted at 55.5-degrees with the equator and at an altitude varying between 139 and 285 miles above the earth. Last week’s launch occurred during national ceremonies marking the 36th anniversary of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and employed a 72-foot-tall Safir rocket based on the Shahab 3 booster—Iran’s most advanced ballistic missile.

 As I have previously written, Iranian satellites, successfully launched in 2009, 2011 and 2012, demonstrated Iran’s capability to launch satellites carrying up to 4400 pounds into orbits that approach the United States from the South at altitudes just right for bathing the entire nation in an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).  Consequently, our electric power grid could collapse indefinitely, and within a year without electricity up to 90-percent of all Americans could perish from the consequent starvation, chaos, and societal collapse.

Isn’t this an existential threat????  You bet!

Today, we have little or no defense against this threat—and no apparent program to provide one.

Meanwhile, our diplomats are seeking an agreement with Iran that does little or nothing to prevent it from gaining a nuclear weapon as a satellite payload to send the “Great Satan” America back to the 18th century without the agrarian society that then enabled a much smaller population to prosper. Most would perish today.

Meanwhile, the debate in Washington is focused on whether sanctions should or should not be used to strengthen the leverage of our negotiators—who as best as I can tell are only seeking to delay (by a few months) Iran in obtaining nuclear weapons.   

It will be interesting, and no doubt sobering, to hear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s views when he addresses a Joint Session of Congress in March. He is very concerned about Iran’s existential threat to the “Little Satan” Israel – we seem oblivious to Iran’s existential threat to the “Great Satan” America.

Clearly, a negotiated outcome that permits Iran to obtain so quickly nuclear weapons that can be deployed on existing and tested ballistic missile launchers is not in Israel’s interest—or ours.

This is the true picture of where we are. President Obama is no friend of Israel and does not want Prime Minister Netanyahu to explain the danger that we face. The White House is trying to undermine what he says before he says it. If there were a way to block the visit, they would.

Expect to see an agreement with Iran in the near future (President Obama needs it for his legacy). The agreement will give Iran everything it wants. Sanctions coming from Congress will be blocked, and somehow the treaty signed will not need Congressional approval (unconstitutional move, but what’s new?). Until Congress develops a spine and begins to limit President Obama, this sort of executive overreach will continue. Unfortunately, in this case, it represents a danger to America.