From Floyd Reports:
U.S. Helps Radical Muslim Groups Get Taxpayer Dollars
ViewDiscussion.Last Updated: Tue, 08/31/2010 - 11:57am
In its fervent crusade to befriend Muslims, the White House will host special workshops this week to provide members of radical Islamic groups with direct access to U.S. government funding, assistance and resources.
While this may sound surreal, it’s reality in the Obama Administration, which has embarked on a never-ending mission to befriend the enemy. Previous efforts include secret meetings between Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and extremist Arab and Muslim groups to discuss national security matters and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s special order allowing the reentry of two radical Islamic academics whose terrorist ties have for years banned them from the U.S.
As contemptible as those moves may seem, the latest effort is even more outrageous. Various government agencies, including the departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture, Education and Health will participate in the White House seminars which were exposed by an independent nonprofit dedicated to monitoring the nation’s security.
The goal is to provide the leaders of groups associated with the parent organization of Hamas and Al Qaeda (Muslim Brotherhood) with tips on cutting through “red tape” when seeking U.S. government access or money. In all 20 national Muslim groups with ties to the global Islamist organization that preaches Jihad are scheduled to participate. Their mission is to obtain cash and other resources from Uncle Sam.
While the U.S. government has kept the event quiet, it was announced in a newsletter by a Saudi-funded group (Islamic Society of North America or ISNA) that was a co-conspirator in a federal terrorist funding case a few years ago. Featured in a Judicial Watch special report on Muslim charities that finance terrorism, ISNA is firmly committed to spreading the radical form of Islam, which is the driving force behind Jihad.
Now the Obama Administration is helping ISNA and its radical Islamic counterparts access American taxpayer resources as well as top government officials
A Nation In Distress
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Obama's DOJ Forces Bi-Lingual Ballots On Ohio
From The Washington Times and Floyd Reports:
EDITORIAL: Ohio battles bullies at Justice
Obama voting officials push ethnic grievances
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
-
The Washington Times
7:53 p.m., Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Voter Terry Penrod prepares to cast his absentee ballot at the Franklin County Veterans Memorial polling place Tuesday, September 30, 2008 in Columbus, Ohio. Voters in this crucial swing state began casting absentee ballots Tuesday, a day after the Ohio Supreme Court and two separate federal judges cleared the way for a disputed early voting law that allows new voters to register and cast an absentee ballot on the same day from Tuesday through Oct. 6. PrintEmailView 5Comment(s)Enlarge Text
ShrinkClick-2-Listen Social NetworksFacebookTwitterQuestion of the DayDoes Sarah Palin have enough starpower and appeal to influence midterm elections?
Yes, her actions and endorsements are closely watched by voters.
No, she is insignificant.
Too early to call
Undecided
Other
Login to Vote
View results
The Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Board of Elections today can stare down the increasingly rogue voting rights section of the U.S. Department of Justice, which continues to play ethnic politics nationwide. The state of Georgia recently forced the department to back off from its bullying tactics, and this Buckeye county should do the same.
Justice officials have threatened legal action against the county board unless it prints all its ballots in bilingual fashion. "With additional requirements for translators, community outreach, additional staffing and printing, the demand potentially would double the county's election costs," board member Rob Frost told Jennifer Rubin of the Weekly Standard. "The Justice attorneys said they were authorized to sue the county. ..."
The Justice Department's position is wrongheaded on several levels. First, the department bases its demand on Section 4(e) of the Voting Rights Act, which is meant to ensure ballot access for Puerto Rican natives who never learned English. Nothing in 4(e) requires that every ballot in a jurisdiction be printed in Spanish - but only that those Puerto Rican voters not be denied the right to vote due to an inability "to read, write, understand or interpret any matter in the English language." There's no reason to find the county noncompliant if most of its ballots are English-only, as long as its Spanish speakers have access to Spanish ballots upon request.
Second, as a purely practical matter, forcing Cuyahoga to print all its ballots in Spanish is overkill. According to Mr. Frost, Justice officials say only 6,334 people of Puerto Rican heritage in the county have limited English proficiency, and it's unclear how many of them are registered to vote. In a county of nearly a million registered voters, why burden all those ballots with Spanish when just one-half of 1 percent of voters need such special help?
The Cuyahoga board meets today at 2:30 p.m., with this dispute heading its agenda. It should take a cue from Georgia and tell the department to take a hike. Justice tried for more than a year to force the state to drop its requirement that people registering to vote verify citizenship. Faced with determined and legally correct insistence by Georgia officials that its law was perfectly allowable, Justice last month suddenly backed off. As columnist John Fund reported on Saturday, "no evidence existed that anyone had been barred from voting because they were incorrectly listed as a noncitizen."
The voting rights section at Justice is out of control. North Carolina voters now are suing because Justice refused to allow a black-majority town to adopt nonpartisan elections on the ground that the black voters would harm their own interests by choosing to do so. Pro-soldier watchdogs are fighting back against apparent Justice attempts to water down guarantees of military voting rights - attempts led by the same official, Rebecca Wertz, who has been pressuring Cuyahoga County. This is the same gang that bungled the now-infamous New Black Panther voter-intimidation case.
The lesson here is that the Obama Justice Department doesn't define the law; it politicizes it. If Cuyahoga fights back, courts should support the county.
© Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
EDITORIAL: Ohio battles bullies at Justice
Obama voting officials push ethnic grievances
By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
-
The Washington Times
7:53 p.m., Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Voter Terry Penrod prepares to cast his absentee ballot at the Franklin County Veterans Memorial polling place Tuesday, September 30, 2008 in Columbus, Ohio. Voters in this crucial swing state began casting absentee ballots Tuesday, a day after the Ohio Supreme Court and two separate federal judges cleared the way for a disputed early voting law that allows new voters to register and cast an absentee ballot on the same day from Tuesday through Oct. 6. PrintEmailView 5Comment(s)Enlarge Text
ShrinkClick-2-Listen Social NetworksFacebookTwitterQuestion of the DayDoes Sarah Palin have enough starpower and appeal to influence midterm elections?
Yes, her actions and endorsements are closely watched by voters.
No, she is insignificant.
Too early to call
Undecided
Other
Login to Vote
View results
The Cuyahoga County, Ohio, Board of Elections today can stare down the increasingly rogue voting rights section of the U.S. Department of Justice, which continues to play ethnic politics nationwide. The state of Georgia recently forced the department to back off from its bullying tactics, and this Buckeye county should do the same.
Justice officials have threatened legal action against the county board unless it prints all its ballots in bilingual fashion. "With additional requirements for translators, community outreach, additional staffing and printing, the demand potentially would double the county's election costs," board member Rob Frost told Jennifer Rubin of the Weekly Standard. "The Justice attorneys said they were authorized to sue the county. ..."
The Justice Department's position is wrongheaded on several levels. First, the department bases its demand on Section 4(e) of the Voting Rights Act, which is meant to ensure ballot access for Puerto Rican natives who never learned English. Nothing in 4(e) requires that every ballot in a jurisdiction be printed in Spanish - but only that those Puerto Rican voters not be denied the right to vote due to an inability "to read, write, understand or interpret any matter in the English language." There's no reason to find the county noncompliant if most of its ballots are English-only, as long as its Spanish speakers have access to Spanish ballots upon request.
Second, as a purely practical matter, forcing Cuyahoga to print all its ballots in Spanish is overkill. According to Mr. Frost, Justice officials say only 6,334 people of Puerto Rican heritage in the county have limited English proficiency, and it's unclear how many of them are registered to vote. In a county of nearly a million registered voters, why burden all those ballots with Spanish when just one-half of 1 percent of voters need such special help?
The Cuyahoga board meets today at 2:30 p.m., with this dispute heading its agenda. It should take a cue from Georgia and tell the department to take a hike. Justice tried for more than a year to force the state to drop its requirement that people registering to vote verify citizenship. Faced with determined and legally correct insistence by Georgia officials that its law was perfectly allowable, Justice last month suddenly backed off. As columnist John Fund reported on Saturday, "no evidence existed that anyone had been barred from voting because they were incorrectly listed as a noncitizen."
The voting rights section at Justice is out of control. North Carolina voters now are suing because Justice refused to allow a black-majority town to adopt nonpartisan elections on the ground that the black voters would harm their own interests by choosing to do so. Pro-soldier watchdogs are fighting back against apparent Justice attempts to water down guarantees of military voting rights - attempts led by the same official, Rebecca Wertz, who has been pressuring Cuyahoga County. This is the same gang that bungled the now-infamous New Black Panther voter-intimidation case.
The lesson here is that the Obama Justice Department doesn't define the law; it politicizes it. If Cuyahoga fights back, courts should support the county.
© Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC. Click here for reprint permission.
The Dangers Of Centralized Control
From Campaign For Liberty:
The Dangers of Centralized Control
By Pat McGeehan
Published 09/01/10
Printer-friendly version
Liberty can only be maintained when government is properly restrained. This concept is fairly simple. It has taken centuries, but government power has concentrated -- albeit slowly -- into the hands of a select few. And thus, it comes as no surprise that many Americans cannot conceive of the notion that our very own government can become destructive to the citizens it once existed to serve. The centralization of this power is growing at an exponential rate, and, as of now, will only become more "important." Thus, it is fitting that we examine the threats an environment like this creates.
When it comes to America, the federal government is of a different sort. After all, how often can people walk across the street and knock on their congressman's door to ask "Hey, why did you vote yes last week on that house resolution?" The hypothetical is laughable -- many Americans hardly recognize their representatives' name, let alone have access to their ear. But ignorance is not the focus of my point-centralized control is.
Stronger community reliance offsets the central authority and it serves as the best "check" on distant power. The federal government equals centralized control, and left unchecked its only service is to render liberty obsolete. Freedom is inversely proportional to the size of our central government, and can be expressed mathematically. When centralized government incrementally increases, liberty decreases. If freedom is the root of America, then conversely the federal government is the root of its oppression.
Centralized control provides this oppression a venue on a massive scale, so that when this nationalized entity acts (and it currently does at an exponential rate), it touches the lives of every American.
Alexis de Tocqueville, a renowned Frenchman who visited the United States in the 1830s, was astounded by not just the degree of freedom in our nation, but by the exceptionality of our Republic. He recognized this exceptionality quite readily and in his famed book Democracy in America, Tocqueville wrote of the character of centralized authority (alluding to the absence of it in America at the time):
It profits me but little, after all, that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquility of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life, and if it so monopolizes movement and life that when it languishes everything languishes around it, that when it sleeps everything must sleep, and that when it dies the state itself must perish.
Unchecked centralized control creates these conditions. The very disposition of centralized authority renders its force supreme, so when it uses said force its ripples are not of an isolated nature. And just as Jefferson calculated that "liberty yields and government gains ground", so too is there a more specific power movement towards the center; that is, a more consolidated federal government. This movement of centralized government began at a creeping pace, but over time-as previously mentioned, has continued to escalate.
Red flags about centralized control appeared prior to the adoption of the Constitution, and nearly prevented its ratification. In fact, the fear of an all-powerful central government led some revolutionary-era leaders to take the course of only the simple improvement of the Articles of Confederation, our Constitution's predecessor.
By this time though, several things had occurred which forced the hand of some of the more cautious leaders to act. One event in 1787 caused a major shift in attitude. Shays' Rebellion began as a small revolt and actually remained that way, but due to the weak and impotent response by the Confederation government, shockwaves of discourse were sent throughout the then-slightly unified states.
This period begins the age of our truly united yet still-sovereign states. Actually, our American ancestors referred to our country as "These States United" or they would say "The United States are"-notice the difference in the last phrase, using the verb "are" and not "is".
The diverse states relinquished finite powers to better unite their resources-mainly for their common defense-both foreign and domestic (Shays' Rebellion). However, it was widely assumed the individual state legislatures would retain nearly ALL affairs not explicitly stated in the new constitution. This view point can be seen quite clearly through the writings of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay over and over again throughout the Federalist Papers.
However, even this explicit assumption of enumerated powers was still not good enough. The anti-federalists pushed hard for a separate Bill of Rights and the 10th Amendment was securely in place:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The framework was brilliant and never has such a deliberate, yet delicate balance between local and central control existed within a written government document. The states have long served as the best check on the federal government, even more so than the separation of powers in Washington. After all, if a government has its own authority to interpret the extent of its very own powers -- i.e. the Supreme Court -- how can this entity long remain a limited government?
Though States' Rights are the subject of a different discussion and cannot be adequately examined here, the bottom line is this: the balance is gone. Today, the states are merely slaves to the master and the 10th Amendment has little more teeth than a new born puppy. The situation is sad, but we are not the first democratic civilization to endure the undoing of a federal structure.
In the study of relative free societies, it is typical to look at the unfolding of ancient Greece and Rome, two nations of democratic origins, both of which followed similar timelines with the same results, the degradation and collapse of liberty. Greece is regarded as the birthplace of democracy, for this was the cradle of western civilization. It was here where mathematics and science established their beginnings, along with the arts in philosophy, medicine, and commerce. When we think of Greece in the old, we think of architecture such as the Parthenon, the philosophies of Plato and Socrates, and the applied mathematics of Pythagorean.
Through logic, the Greeks assessed that decisions were largely a community-based function, and as such their towns or cities existed in a manner much like the early states in this country. Since local democracies give voice to everyone involved, individual worth was established which tends to give way to self-reliance and original thought. Thus a culture of freedom was nurtured and an environment enabling all of the aforementioned leaps in human thought was cultivated.
But what is less studied is the thirty year civil war between the Greek city states, effectively ending localized democratic institutions on the Greek peninsula. The Peloponnesian War brought to a close the era we commonly think of as classical Greece and opened up a totalitarian state under Phillip II and Alexander the Great.
Next let's look at Rome, a much more popular source of analogy.
The Roman State began as a republic, comprising elected officials in a Senate. While their structure was much less formalized on city-states, they none-the-less maintained a diverse group of decision-makers-that is until centralized control escalated, and by the time it was realized, Julius Caesar had already crossed the Rubicon River and defeated Pompey in the first Roman civil war -- thus ending any real sense of "Republicanism" and beginning the era of the Roman Empire.
What other free civilization began with more benign, decentralized control, withered a massive civil war, and began its course towards a more and more powerful consolidated authority?
It is not far-fetched for this state of bankrupt affairs could come to fruition in this country -- thinking otherwise is fully discarding the precious lessons of the past. Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson: "The natural order of things is for Liberty to yield and government to gain ground".
We must understand that no matter how well-intentioned our government leaders -- from the president on down to members of congress taken as a whole -- it is not their intentions that matter, for American freedom and our fundamental way of life are above any one leader or administration, no matter how popular. I cannot emphasize this point enough: without regard to the soundness of their purpose, to preserve freedom one must ignore intentions and instead center on the constitution. This is often extremely difficult to move past, and history is littered with dozens of societies that have fallen victim to good intentions, that is, the persuasion by our leaders that more progress can take place for the greater good if only they had their hands untied. But remember, the Constitution is intended to chain their hands, not free them. Through this concept, we are liberated -- without it, we can never hope to remain so.
It is not without hope, but rather due to it, that we move on. The Founders knew that no matter how direct they could write or how obvious their intent was conveyed, after all work was complete, the document known as the constitution, along with all the enumerated tools of restraint listed within, would only be what it is-a piece of paper. But they were not shortsighted and Jefferson (along with others) took this into account. I suspect this is why, in perhaps one of his better known statements, he wrote:
"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical ... It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."
This might be described as vigilance today. In other words, to keep what our ancestors gave, we must conquer our own apathy. Yes, it takes hard work and sometimes pure courage to preserve American freedom-but we owe this to them! We do not owe them the promise of an unfettered and unchanged constitutional document, but rather the promise of vigilant efforts against the foes of American freedom, both foreign and domestic. Just as they sacrificed, so must we. If you are one of the many Americans in our common country that cherishes freedom, we must strive to stay involved, to sometimes resist popular opinion, and, yes, even experience discomfort. After all, true liberty requires sacrifice.
Copyright © 2010 Campaign for Liberty
The Dangers of Centralized Control
By Pat McGeehan
Published 09/01/10
Printer-friendly version
Liberty can only be maintained when government is properly restrained. This concept is fairly simple. It has taken centuries, but government power has concentrated -- albeit slowly -- into the hands of a select few. And thus, it comes as no surprise that many Americans cannot conceive of the notion that our very own government can become destructive to the citizens it once existed to serve. The centralization of this power is growing at an exponential rate, and, as of now, will only become more "important." Thus, it is fitting that we examine the threats an environment like this creates.
When it comes to America, the federal government is of a different sort. After all, how often can people walk across the street and knock on their congressman's door to ask "Hey, why did you vote yes last week on that house resolution?" The hypothetical is laughable -- many Americans hardly recognize their representatives' name, let alone have access to their ear. But ignorance is not the focus of my point-centralized control is.
Stronger community reliance offsets the central authority and it serves as the best "check" on distant power. The federal government equals centralized control, and left unchecked its only service is to render liberty obsolete. Freedom is inversely proportional to the size of our central government, and can be expressed mathematically. When centralized government incrementally increases, liberty decreases. If freedom is the root of America, then conversely the federal government is the root of its oppression.
Centralized control provides this oppression a venue on a massive scale, so that when this nationalized entity acts (and it currently does at an exponential rate), it touches the lives of every American.
Alexis de Tocqueville, a renowned Frenchman who visited the United States in the 1830s, was astounded by not just the degree of freedom in our nation, but by the exceptionality of our Republic. He recognized this exceptionality quite readily and in his famed book Democracy in America, Tocqueville wrote of the character of centralized authority (alluding to the absence of it in America at the time):
It profits me but little, after all, that a vigilant authority always protects the tranquility of my pleasures and constantly averts all dangers from my path, without my care or concern, if this same authority is the absolute master of my liberty and my life, and if it so monopolizes movement and life that when it languishes everything languishes around it, that when it sleeps everything must sleep, and that when it dies the state itself must perish.
Unchecked centralized control creates these conditions. The very disposition of centralized authority renders its force supreme, so when it uses said force its ripples are not of an isolated nature. And just as Jefferson calculated that "liberty yields and government gains ground", so too is there a more specific power movement towards the center; that is, a more consolidated federal government. This movement of centralized government began at a creeping pace, but over time-as previously mentioned, has continued to escalate.
Red flags about centralized control appeared prior to the adoption of the Constitution, and nearly prevented its ratification. In fact, the fear of an all-powerful central government led some revolutionary-era leaders to take the course of only the simple improvement of the Articles of Confederation, our Constitution's predecessor.
By this time though, several things had occurred which forced the hand of some of the more cautious leaders to act. One event in 1787 caused a major shift in attitude. Shays' Rebellion began as a small revolt and actually remained that way, but due to the weak and impotent response by the Confederation government, shockwaves of discourse were sent throughout the then-slightly unified states.
This period begins the age of our truly united yet still-sovereign states. Actually, our American ancestors referred to our country as "These States United" or they would say "The United States are"-notice the difference in the last phrase, using the verb "are" and not "is".
The diverse states relinquished finite powers to better unite their resources-mainly for their common defense-both foreign and domestic (Shays' Rebellion). However, it was widely assumed the individual state legislatures would retain nearly ALL affairs not explicitly stated in the new constitution. This view point can be seen quite clearly through the writings of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay over and over again throughout the Federalist Papers.
However, even this explicit assumption of enumerated powers was still not good enough. The anti-federalists pushed hard for a separate Bill of Rights and the 10th Amendment was securely in place:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The framework was brilliant and never has such a deliberate, yet delicate balance between local and central control existed within a written government document. The states have long served as the best check on the federal government, even more so than the separation of powers in Washington. After all, if a government has its own authority to interpret the extent of its very own powers -- i.e. the Supreme Court -- how can this entity long remain a limited government?
Though States' Rights are the subject of a different discussion and cannot be adequately examined here, the bottom line is this: the balance is gone. Today, the states are merely slaves to the master and the 10th Amendment has little more teeth than a new born puppy. The situation is sad, but we are not the first democratic civilization to endure the undoing of a federal structure.
In the study of relative free societies, it is typical to look at the unfolding of ancient Greece and Rome, two nations of democratic origins, both of which followed similar timelines with the same results, the degradation and collapse of liberty. Greece is regarded as the birthplace of democracy, for this was the cradle of western civilization. It was here where mathematics and science established their beginnings, along with the arts in philosophy, medicine, and commerce. When we think of Greece in the old, we think of architecture such as the Parthenon, the philosophies of Plato and Socrates, and the applied mathematics of Pythagorean.
Through logic, the Greeks assessed that decisions were largely a community-based function, and as such their towns or cities existed in a manner much like the early states in this country. Since local democracies give voice to everyone involved, individual worth was established which tends to give way to self-reliance and original thought. Thus a culture of freedom was nurtured and an environment enabling all of the aforementioned leaps in human thought was cultivated.
But what is less studied is the thirty year civil war between the Greek city states, effectively ending localized democratic institutions on the Greek peninsula. The Peloponnesian War brought to a close the era we commonly think of as classical Greece and opened up a totalitarian state under Phillip II and Alexander the Great.
Next let's look at Rome, a much more popular source of analogy.
The Roman State began as a republic, comprising elected officials in a Senate. While their structure was much less formalized on city-states, they none-the-less maintained a diverse group of decision-makers-that is until centralized control escalated, and by the time it was realized, Julius Caesar had already crossed the Rubicon River and defeated Pompey in the first Roman civil war -- thus ending any real sense of "Republicanism" and beginning the era of the Roman Empire.
What other free civilization began with more benign, decentralized control, withered a massive civil war, and began its course towards a more and more powerful consolidated authority?
It is not far-fetched for this state of bankrupt affairs could come to fruition in this country -- thinking otherwise is fully discarding the precious lessons of the past. Remember the words of Thomas Jefferson: "The natural order of things is for Liberty to yield and government to gain ground".
We must understand that no matter how well-intentioned our government leaders -- from the president on down to members of congress taken as a whole -- it is not their intentions that matter, for American freedom and our fundamental way of life are above any one leader or administration, no matter how popular. I cannot emphasize this point enough: without regard to the soundness of their purpose, to preserve freedom one must ignore intentions and instead center on the constitution. This is often extremely difficult to move past, and history is littered with dozens of societies that have fallen victim to good intentions, that is, the persuasion by our leaders that more progress can take place for the greater good if only they had their hands untied. But remember, the Constitution is intended to chain their hands, not free them. Through this concept, we are liberated -- without it, we can never hope to remain so.
It is not without hope, but rather due to it, that we move on. The Founders knew that no matter how direct they could write or how obvious their intent was conveyed, after all work was complete, the document known as the constitution, along with all the enumerated tools of restraint listed within, would only be what it is-a piece of paper. But they were not shortsighted and Jefferson (along with others) took this into account. I suspect this is why, in perhaps one of his better known statements, he wrote:
"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical ... It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government."
This might be described as vigilance today. In other words, to keep what our ancestors gave, we must conquer our own apathy. Yes, it takes hard work and sometimes pure courage to preserve American freedom-but we owe this to them! We do not owe them the promise of an unfettered and unchanged constitutional document, but rather the promise of vigilant efforts against the foes of American freedom, both foreign and domestic. Just as they sacrificed, so must we. If you are one of the many Americans in our common country that cherishes freedom, we must strive to stay involved, to sometimes resist popular opinion, and, yes, even experience discomfort. After all, true liberty requires sacrifice.
Copyright © 2010 Campaign for Liberty
Lt. Gen. McInerney: Obama's Eligibility And Records Important Issue
From The Patriot Update and World Net Daily:
BORN IN THE USA?
General: Obama records 'critical' to 'our republic'
McInerney: Eligibility issue 'of such magnitude that its significance can scarcely be imagined'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: August 31, 2010
8:10 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
A retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general who commanded forces armed with nuclear weapons says the disclosure of Barack Obama's documentation proving his eligibility to be commander in chief is critical not just to the defense of an officer challenging the president's status, but to the preservation of the nation itself.
The vehement statements came in an affidavit from retired Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney, a Fox News military analyst, that was disclosed today by an organization generating support for Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin.
Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin
Lakin had invited his own court-martial because he is unable to follow orders under the chain of command with Obama at its head unless the president's eligibility is documented.
A hearing is scheduled in Lakin's court-martial case Thursday at which a ruling is expected on defense requests for the very evidence that McInerney is citing.
The general, who retired in 1994 after serving as vice commander in chief of USAF forces in Europe, commander of the 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing and assistant vice chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, among other positions, said the chain of command issue is critical, since officers are obligated both to follow orders and to disobey illegal orders.
See the movie Obama does not want you to see: Own the DVD that probes this unprecedented presidential-eligibility mystery!
"Officers in the United States military service are – and must be – trained that they owe their highest allegiance to the United States Constitution," he said in the affidavit.
(Story continues below)
"There can be no question that it is absolutely essential to good order and discipline in the military that there be no break in the unified chain of command, from the lowliest E-1 up to and including the commander in chief who is under the Constitution, the president of the United States. As military officers, we owe our ultimate loyalty not to superior officers or even to the president, but rather, to the Constitution."
He continued, explaining, "good order and disipline requires not blind obedience to all orders but instead requires officers to judge – sometimes under great adversity – whether an order is illegal."
"The president of the United States, as the commander in chief, is the source of all military authority," he said. "The Constitution requires the president to be a natural born citizen in order to be eligible to hold office. If he is ineligible under the Constitution to serve in that office that creates a break in the chain of command of such magnitude that its significance can scarcely be imagined."
Lakin is being supported by the American Patriot Foundation, which said the affidavit is for use in Lakin's trial, scheduled Oct. 13-15, as well as Thursday's hearing on the evidence to be allowed in the case.
The group said McInerney is the highest-ranking officer yet to lend public support to Lakin.
A recent poll showed that only about 4 in 10 Americans believe Obama's story of being born in Hawaii.
McInerney's affidavit "acknowledges widespread concerns over the president's constitutional eligibility and demands the president release his birth records or the court authorize discovery," the foundation said.
Lakin's defense counsel has asked for the president's school records as well as a deposition from the custodian of Obama's birth records that may exist in Hawaii.
The hearing is scheduled at 11 a.m. Thursday at Ft. Meade, Md., at the courthouse at 4432 Llewellyn Ave., inside the military base. The court is open to the public.
Lakin is a physician and in his 18th year of service in the Army. He posted a video asking for the court-martial to determine Obama's eligibility.
He is board certified in family medicine and occupational and environmental medicine. He has been recognized for his outstanding service as a flight surgeon for year-long tours in Honduras, Bosnia and Afghanistan. He was also awarded the Bronze Star for his service in Afghanistan and recognized in 2005 as one of the Army Medical Department's outstanding flight surgeons.
McInerney commanded forces equipped withi nuclear weapons.
"In my command capacity I was responsible that the personnel with access to these weapons had an unwavering and absolute confidence in the unified chain of command, because such confidence was absolutely essential – vital – in the event the use of those weapons were authorized," the general wrote.
"I cannot overstate how imperative it is to train such personnel to have confidence in the unified chain of command. Today, because of the widespread and legitimate concerns that the president is constitutionally ineligible to hold office, I fear what would happen should such a crisis occur today."
He said Lakin is acting "exactly" as "proper training dictates."
"It is my opinion that LTC Lakin's request for discovery relating to the president's birth records in Hawaii is absolutely essential to determining not merely his guilt or innocence but to reassuring all military personnel once and for all for this president whether his service as commander in chief is constitutionally proper.
"He is the one single person in the chain of command that the Constitution demands proof of natural born citizenship," he continued. "This determination is fundamental to our republic.
"According to the Constitution, the commander in chief must now, in the face of serious – and widely-held – concerns that he is ineligible, either voluntarily establish his eligibility by authorizing release of his birth records or this court must authorize their discovery. The invasion of his privacy in these records is utterly trivial compared to the issues at stake here," McInerney wrote.
Lakin is represented by military counsel and by Paul Rolf Jensen, a civilian attorney from California who has been provided to him by the American Patriot Foundation, a non-profit group incorporated in 2003 to foster appreciation and respect for the U.S. Constitution.
The foundation says the Army's opinion of Lakin was made clear in an evaluation just before Lakin raised the issue of eligibility.
From Col. Dale Block: "Dr. Lakin is an extremely talented, highly knowledgeable senior Army clinician ... he can always be counted on to provide me with expert advice. ... LTC Lakin is clearly one of the top clinicians in the Northern Regional Medical Command. He has superb clinical skills, rapport with patients and staff. ... Terry is the best choice for tough assignments. ... Already on the promotion list to colonel, he should be groomed for positions of greater responsibility."
But Lakin, the foundation says, has been compelled to act because he swore an oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution. Obama's eligibility to be president has been questioned, he argues, and Obama has refused all efforts to obtain documents that could determine his eligibility.
The controversy stems from the Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, which states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."
A number of challenges and lawsuits have been based on the constitutional requirement, some alleging Obama does not qualify because he was not born in Hawaii in 1961 as he claims. Others say he fails to qualify because he was a dual citizen of the U.S. and the United Kingdom when he was born, and the framers of the Constitution specifically excluded dual citizens from eligibility.
Complicating the issue is the fact that besides Obama's actual birth documentation, he has kept from the public documentation including his kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, Illinois State Bar Association records, baptism records and his adoption records.
Lakin declined to follow deployment orders after he tried through military channels to affirm the validity of orders under Obama's command and was rebuffed. He had been scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan again.
Lakin is not the first officer to raise questions. Others have included Army doctor Capt. Connie Rhodes and Army reservist Maj. Stefan Cook.
In at least one of the earlier disputes, the Army simply canceled the orders rather than allow the argument to come to a head.
Lakin's attorneys have said they now are demanding "discovery" of Obama's records, and that in such a dispute that information is critical. The multitude of civil cases that have been brought over the Obama eligibility dispute all have failed to reach that process because of federal judges who have ruled on issues generally involving "standing." The judges have concluded that damages from an ineligible president suffered by the plaintiffs would not be more for them than any other member of the public, so there is not a specific damage or danger.
Lakin's counsel, Jensen, has explained that the Lakin case is different, since his client is being processed on criminal charges over the issue – a status that puts him in imminent danger of specific and personal "damages."
The courts already have shown a weakness on the subject of Obama's records. The discovery-of-evidence issue previously was raised in court by attorney John Hemenway, who was threatened by a federal judge with sanctions for bringing a court challenge to Obama's presidency.
Hemenway is serving in emeritus status with the SafeguardOurConstitution website. Hemenway brought a previous court challenge, now on appeal, on behalf of a retired military officer, Gregory S. Hollister, who questioned Obama's eligibility.
The Hollister case ultimately was dismissed by Judge James Robertson, who notably ruled during the 2008 election campaign that the federal legal dispute had been "twittered" and, therefore, resolved.
Robertson sarcastically wrote: "The plaintiff says that he is a retired Air Force colonel who continues to owe fealty to his commander in chief (because he might possibly be recalled to duty) and who is tortured by uncertainty as to whether he would have to obey orders from Barack Obama because it has not been proven – to the colonel's satisfaction – that Mr. Obama is a native-born American citizen, qualified under the Constitution to be president.
"The issue of the president's citizenship was raised, vetted, blogged, texted, twittered and otherwise massaged by America's vigilant citizenry during Mr. Obama's two-year campaign for the presidency, but this plaintiff wants it resolved by a court," Robertson wrote.
Then the judge suggested sanctions against Hemenway for bringing the case. Hemenway responded that the process then would provide him with a right to a discovery hearing to see documentation regarding the judge's statements – not supported by any evidence introduced into the case – that Obama was properly "vetted."
Hemenway warned at the time, "If the court persists in pressing Rule 11 procedures against Hemenway, then Hemenway should be allowed all of the discovery pertinent to the procedures as court precedents have permitted in the past.
"The court has referred to a number of facts outside of the record of this particular case and, therefore, the undersigned is particularly entitled to a hearing to get the truth of those matters into the record. This may require the court to authorize some discovery," Hemenway said.
The court ultimately backed off its threat of sanctions.
In a separate case, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threatened sanctions against attorney Mario Apuzzo. The court quickly backed off, however, when Apuzzo noted that under the rules of court procedure, being subjected to sanctions and penalties would give him the right to discovery in the case, possibly including Obama's birth certificate.
The Constitution requires a president to be a "natural born citizen," and, while the term is not defined in the Constitution, many legal analysts believe at the time it was written it meant a person born in the U.S. of two U.S. citizen parents. Critics say Obama clearly does not qualify under that definition, since he has admitted in his book his father never was a U.S. citizen. Some legal challenges have argued he wasn't even born in Hawaii.
Tim Adams, a former senior elections clerk for Honolulu, has said there "definitely" are problems with Obama's Hawaii birth story.
"As of the time I was in Hawaii working in the elections office we had many people who were asking about the eligibility of Senator Obama to be president. I was told at the time there is no long-form birth record, which would have been the case if President Obama was born in [a] hospital in Honolulu. There is no such form in Hawaii," he said.
Lakin had posted a YouTube video challenging the Army to charge him over the issue.
As WND reported, Lakin posted the video of his challenge to Obama to document his eligibility March 30.
In his latest video, Lakin said the issue of evidence is important:
Note: A legal-defense fund has been set up for Lt. Col. Terry Lakin.
BORN IN THE USA?
General: Obama records 'critical' to 'our republic'
McInerney: Eligibility issue 'of such magnitude that its significance can scarcely be imagined'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: August 31, 2010
8:10 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily
A retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general who commanded forces armed with nuclear weapons says the disclosure of Barack Obama's documentation proving his eligibility to be commander in chief is critical not just to the defense of an officer challenging the president's status, but to the preservation of the nation itself.
The vehement statements came in an affidavit from retired Lt. Gen. Thomas G. McInerney, a Fox News military analyst, that was disclosed today by an organization generating support for Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin.
Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin
Lakin had invited his own court-martial because he is unable to follow orders under the chain of command with Obama at its head unless the president's eligibility is documented.
A hearing is scheduled in Lakin's court-martial case Thursday at which a ruling is expected on defense requests for the very evidence that McInerney is citing.
The general, who retired in 1994 after serving as vice commander in chief of USAF forces in Europe, commander of the 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing and assistant vice chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, among other positions, said the chain of command issue is critical, since officers are obligated both to follow orders and to disobey illegal orders.
See the movie Obama does not want you to see: Own the DVD that probes this unprecedented presidential-eligibility mystery!
"Officers in the United States military service are – and must be – trained that they owe their highest allegiance to the United States Constitution," he said in the affidavit.
(Story continues below)
"There can be no question that it is absolutely essential to good order and discipline in the military that there be no break in the unified chain of command, from the lowliest E-1 up to and including the commander in chief who is under the Constitution, the president of the United States. As military officers, we owe our ultimate loyalty not to superior officers or even to the president, but rather, to the Constitution."
He continued, explaining, "good order and disipline requires not blind obedience to all orders but instead requires officers to judge – sometimes under great adversity – whether an order is illegal."
"The president of the United States, as the commander in chief, is the source of all military authority," he said. "The Constitution requires the president to be a natural born citizen in order to be eligible to hold office. If he is ineligible under the Constitution to serve in that office that creates a break in the chain of command of such magnitude that its significance can scarcely be imagined."
Lakin is being supported by the American Patriot Foundation, which said the affidavit is for use in Lakin's trial, scheduled Oct. 13-15, as well as Thursday's hearing on the evidence to be allowed in the case.
The group said McInerney is the highest-ranking officer yet to lend public support to Lakin.
A recent poll showed that only about 4 in 10 Americans believe Obama's story of being born in Hawaii.
McInerney's affidavit "acknowledges widespread concerns over the president's constitutional eligibility and demands the president release his birth records or the court authorize discovery," the foundation said.
Lakin's defense counsel has asked for the president's school records as well as a deposition from the custodian of Obama's birth records that may exist in Hawaii.
The hearing is scheduled at 11 a.m. Thursday at Ft. Meade, Md., at the courthouse at 4432 Llewellyn Ave., inside the military base. The court is open to the public.
Lakin is a physician and in his 18th year of service in the Army. He posted a video asking for the court-martial to determine Obama's eligibility.
He is board certified in family medicine and occupational and environmental medicine. He has been recognized for his outstanding service as a flight surgeon for year-long tours in Honduras, Bosnia and Afghanistan. He was also awarded the Bronze Star for his service in Afghanistan and recognized in 2005 as one of the Army Medical Department's outstanding flight surgeons.
McInerney commanded forces equipped withi nuclear weapons.
"In my command capacity I was responsible that the personnel with access to these weapons had an unwavering and absolute confidence in the unified chain of command, because such confidence was absolutely essential – vital – in the event the use of those weapons were authorized," the general wrote.
"I cannot overstate how imperative it is to train such personnel to have confidence in the unified chain of command. Today, because of the widespread and legitimate concerns that the president is constitutionally ineligible to hold office, I fear what would happen should such a crisis occur today."
He said Lakin is acting "exactly" as "proper training dictates."
"It is my opinion that LTC Lakin's request for discovery relating to the president's birth records in Hawaii is absolutely essential to determining not merely his guilt or innocence but to reassuring all military personnel once and for all for this president whether his service as commander in chief is constitutionally proper.
"He is the one single person in the chain of command that the Constitution demands proof of natural born citizenship," he continued. "This determination is fundamental to our republic.
"According to the Constitution, the commander in chief must now, in the face of serious – and widely-held – concerns that he is ineligible, either voluntarily establish his eligibility by authorizing release of his birth records or this court must authorize their discovery. The invasion of his privacy in these records is utterly trivial compared to the issues at stake here," McInerney wrote.
Lakin is represented by military counsel and by Paul Rolf Jensen, a civilian attorney from California who has been provided to him by the American Patriot Foundation, a non-profit group incorporated in 2003 to foster appreciation and respect for the U.S. Constitution.
The foundation says the Army's opinion of Lakin was made clear in an evaluation just before Lakin raised the issue of eligibility.
From Col. Dale Block: "Dr. Lakin is an extremely talented, highly knowledgeable senior Army clinician ... he can always be counted on to provide me with expert advice. ... LTC Lakin is clearly one of the top clinicians in the Northern Regional Medical Command. He has superb clinical skills, rapport with patients and staff. ... Terry is the best choice for tough assignments. ... Already on the promotion list to colonel, he should be groomed for positions of greater responsibility."
But Lakin, the foundation says, has been compelled to act because he swore an oath to support and defend the U.S. Constitution. Obama's eligibility to be president has been questioned, he argues, and Obama has refused all efforts to obtain documents that could determine his eligibility.
The controversy stems from the Constitution, Article 2, Section 1, which states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President."
A number of challenges and lawsuits have been based on the constitutional requirement, some alleging Obama does not qualify because he was not born in Hawaii in 1961 as he claims. Others say he fails to qualify because he was a dual citizen of the U.S. and the United Kingdom when he was born, and the framers of the Constitution specifically excluded dual citizens from eligibility.
Complicating the issue is the fact that besides Obama's actual birth documentation, he has kept from the public documentation including his kindergarten records, Punahou school records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, scholarly articles from the University of Chicago, passport, medical records, files from his years as an Illinois state senator, Illinois State Bar Association records, baptism records and his adoption records.
Lakin declined to follow deployment orders after he tried through military channels to affirm the validity of orders under Obama's command and was rebuffed. He had been scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan again.
Lakin is not the first officer to raise questions. Others have included Army doctor Capt. Connie Rhodes and Army reservist Maj. Stefan Cook.
In at least one of the earlier disputes, the Army simply canceled the orders rather than allow the argument to come to a head.
Lakin's attorneys have said they now are demanding "discovery" of Obama's records, and that in such a dispute that information is critical. The multitude of civil cases that have been brought over the Obama eligibility dispute all have failed to reach that process because of federal judges who have ruled on issues generally involving "standing." The judges have concluded that damages from an ineligible president suffered by the plaintiffs would not be more for them than any other member of the public, so there is not a specific damage or danger.
Lakin's counsel, Jensen, has explained that the Lakin case is different, since his client is being processed on criminal charges over the issue – a status that puts him in imminent danger of specific and personal "damages."
The courts already have shown a weakness on the subject of Obama's records. The discovery-of-evidence issue previously was raised in court by attorney John Hemenway, who was threatened by a federal judge with sanctions for bringing a court challenge to Obama's presidency.
Hemenway is serving in emeritus status with the SafeguardOurConstitution website. Hemenway brought a previous court challenge, now on appeal, on behalf of a retired military officer, Gregory S. Hollister, who questioned Obama's eligibility.
The Hollister case ultimately was dismissed by Judge James Robertson, who notably ruled during the 2008 election campaign that the federal legal dispute had been "twittered" and, therefore, resolved.
Robertson sarcastically wrote: "The plaintiff says that he is a retired Air Force colonel who continues to owe fealty to his commander in chief (because he might possibly be recalled to duty) and who is tortured by uncertainty as to whether he would have to obey orders from Barack Obama because it has not been proven – to the colonel's satisfaction – that Mr. Obama is a native-born American citizen, qualified under the Constitution to be president.
"The issue of the president's citizenship was raised, vetted, blogged, texted, twittered and otherwise massaged by America's vigilant citizenry during Mr. Obama's two-year campaign for the presidency, but this plaintiff wants it resolved by a court," Robertson wrote.
Then the judge suggested sanctions against Hemenway for bringing the case. Hemenway responded that the process then would provide him with a right to a discovery hearing to see documentation regarding the judge's statements – not supported by any evidence introduced into the case – that Obama was properly "vetted."
Hemenway warned at the time, "If the court persists in pressing Rule 11 procedures against Hemenway, then Hemenway should be allowed all of the discovery pertinent to the procedures as court precedents have permitted in the past.
"The court has referred to a number of facts outside of the record of this particular case and, therefore, the undersigned is particularly entitled to a hearing to get the truth of those matters into the record. This may require the court to authorize some discovery," Hemenway said.
The court ultimately backed off its threat of sanctions.
In a separate case, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals threatened sanctions against attorney Mario Apuzzo. The court quickly backed off, however, when Apuzzo noted that under the rules of court procedure, being subjected to sanctions and penalties would give him the right to discovery in the case, possibly including Obama's birth certificate.
The Constitution requires a president to be a "natural born citizen," and, while the term is not defined in the Constitution, many legal analysts believe at the time it was written it meant a person born in the U.S. of two U.S. citizen parents. Critics say Obama clearly does not qualify under that definition, since he has admitted in his book his father never was a U.S. citizen. Some legal challenges have argued he wasn't even born in Hawaii.
Tim Adams, a former senior elections clerk for Honolulu, has said there "definitely" are problems with Obama's Hawaii birth story.
"As of the time I was in Hawaii working in the elections office we had many people who were asking about the eligibility of Senator Obama to be president. I was told at the time there is no long-form birth record, which would have been the case if President Obama was born in [a] hospital in Honolulu. There is no such form in Hawaii," he said.
Lakin had posted a YouTube video challenging the Army to charge him over the issue.
As WND reported, Lakin posted the video of his challenge to Obama to document his eligibility March 30.
In his latest video, Lakin said the issue of evidence is important:
Note: A legal-defense fund has been set up for Lt. Col. Terry Lakin.
Arizona Vs. The U.N. Human Rights Police
From GOP USA, The Patriot Update:
Malkin: Arizona vs. the U.N. Human Rights Police
By Michelle Malkin September 1, 2010 7:06 AM
An indignant President Obama complained last week, "I can't spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead." Fine. How about plastering a copy of his presidential oath of office there instead? The kowtowing commander-in-chief is in dire need of a daily reminder that his job is to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" -- not international law or global diktats.
Case in point: Last week, Obama's State Department handed in America's first-ever report to the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights in conjunction with something called the "Universal Periodic Review." In short, the 29-page document is a self-aggrandizing report card touting the administration's far-left domestic and foreign policy initiatives for the world's approval. The report boasts of racial- and gender-bean-counting in the executive branch; Justice Department outreach to Muslim grievance groups opposed to post-9/11 security measures; teachers' union payoffs in the federal stimulus law; continuing commitment to closing the Gitmo detention facility for enemy combatants; and the illusory lifesaving effects of Obamacare on minorities through "expanding community health centers" (which have yet to be built, but not that it matters in our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president's age of post-achievement).
The report also includes a section on "values and immigration," which essentially singles out Arizona's immigration enforcement law as a human rights deficiency "that is being addressed in a court action."
In response, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer rightly blasted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration for succumbing to "internationalism run amok." Brewer pointed out in a letter to Clinton, "Human rights as guaranteed by the United States and Arizona Constitutions are expressly protected in S.B. 1070 and defended vigorously by my Administration. In fact, the Department of Justice has correctly not included these so-called 'human rights' issues in the current litigation against the State of Arizona." Somehow, that inconvenient detail escaped the Foggy Bottom bureaucrats' notice.
No one should be surprised, of course, that the Department of Blame America First is prostrating itself before the likes of repressive U.N. Human Rights Council members Libya, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China. No one should be surprised that Obama's globalist panderers couldn't simply keep their mouths shut and refrain from trashing Americans with whom they disagree. In May, you'll recall, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner preemptively trashed our country's human rights record to Chinese government officials and humiliated Arizonans -- and all Americans -- who support states' rights to protect their borders and enhance their security through strict immigration enforcement. An obsequious Posner called S.B. 1070 "a troubling trend in our society" in his bow-and-scrape conversations with the ChiComs.
The inclusion of Arizona in a politically correct catalogue of human rights and wrongs is more than "downright offensive," as Brewer put it. It's a national travesty. In the very same Obama administration document, the State Department praises the administration for its "robust protections for freedom of expression." The report notes sanctimoniously: "As a general matter, the government does not punish or penalize those who peacefully express their views in the public sphere, even when those views are critical of the government. Indeed, dissent is a valuable and valued part of our politics."
Yeah? Tell that to the Democratic members of Congress leading the punitive economic boycott and political demonization of Arizona. Or to Attorney General Eric Holder, who rushed to attack S.B. 1070 before he had even read it. Fresh off this U.N. mess, Holder's Social Justice Department has launched yet another vendetta against Arizona. On Monday, DOJ filed suit against Phoenix-area community colleges because they imposed strict citizenship screening of potential employees.
As Obama throws America under the bus for the cause of open borders, the shady U.N. human rights police must be laughing their jackboots off.
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010).
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
Read more: http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/2010/09/arizona-vs-the-un-human-rights-police.php#ixzz0yK0ZWW6F
And from Floyd Reports:
Video of the Day: AZ Sheriff, “I Have About As Much Regard for the UN As I Do Vermin”
Posted by Ben on September 1, 2010 · Comments (2)
We were the first news outlet to report the Obama administration’s decision to take Arizona before the UN Human Rights Council. CNSNews.com Penny Starr interviewed Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County, Arizona, about the development; his fearless comments are below. As UN bureaucrats from foreign nations — some of them human rights abusers — judge the people of Arizona, lawmen like Dever, Joe Arpaio, Paul Babeu, and countless others whose names we will never know fight to keep Arizona safe from a crime epidemic. For a brief glimpse of how bad things are, watch our previous video of the day about conditions in Cochise County: “A Day on the Border.”
Malkin: Arizona vs. the U.N. Human Rights Police
By Michelle Malkin September 1, 2010 7:06 AM
An indignant President Obama complained last week, "I can't spend all of my time with my birth certificate plastered on my forehead." Fine. How about plastering a copy of his presidential oath of office there instead? The kowtowing commander-in-chief is in dire need of a daily reminder that his job is to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" -- not international law or global diktats.
Case in point: Last week, Obama's State Department handed in America's first-ever report to the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights in conjunction with something called the "Universal Periodic Review." In short, the 29-page document is a self-aggrandizing report card touting the administration's far-left domestic and foreign policy initiatives for the world's approval. The report boasts of racial- and gender-bean-counting in the executive branch; Justice Department outreach to Muslim grievance groups opposed to post-9/11 security measures; teachers' union payoffs in the federal stimulus law; continuing commitment to closing the Gitmo detention facility for enemy combatants; and the illusory lifesaving effects of Obamacare on minorities through "expanding community health centers" (which have yet to be built, but not that it matters in our Nobel Peace Prize-winning president's age of post-achievement).
The report also includes a section on "values and immigration," which essentially singles out Arizona's immigration enforcement law as a human rights deficiency "that is being addressed in a court action."
In response, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer rightly blasted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration for succumbing to "internationalism run amok." Brewer pointed out in a letter to Clinton, "Human rights as guaranteed by the United States and Arizona Constitutions are expressly protected in S.B. 1070 and defended vigorously by my Administration. In fact, the Department of Justice has correctly not included these so-called 'human rights' issues in the current litigation against the State of Arizona." Somehow, that inconvenient detail escaped the Foggy Bottom bureaucrats' notice.
No one should be surprised, of course, that the Department of Blame America First is prostrating itself before the likes of repressive U.N. Human Rights Council members Libya, Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China. No one should be surprised that Obama's globalist panderers couldn't simply keep their mouths shut and refrain from trashing Americans with whom they disagree. In May, you'll recall, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Michael Posner preemptively trashed our country's human rights record to Chinese government officials and humiliated Arizonans -- and all Americans -- who support states' rights to protect their borders and enhance their security through strict immigration enforcement. An obsequious Posner called S.B. 1070 "a troubling trend in our society" in his bow-and-scrape conversations with the ChiComs.
The inclusion of Arizona in a politically correct catalogue of human rights and wrongs is more than "downright offensive," as Brewer put it. It's a national travesty. In the very same Obama administration document, the State Department praises the administration for its "robust protections for freedom of expression." The report notes sanctimoniously: "As a general matter, the government does not punish or penalize those who peacefully express their views in the public sphere, even when those views are critical of the government. Indeed, dissent is a valuable and valued part of our politics."
Yeah? Tell that to the Democratic members of Congress leading the punitive economic boycott and political demonization of Arizona. Or to Attorney General Eric Holder, who rushed to attack S.B. 1070 before he had even read it. Fresh off this U.N. mess, Holder's Social Justice Department has launched yet another vendetta against Arizona. On Monday, DOJ filed suit against Phoenix-area community colleges because they imposed strict citizenship screening of potential employees.
As Obama throws America under the bus for the cause of open borders, the shady U.N. human rights police must be laughing their jackboots off.
Michelle Malkin is the author of "Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies" (Regnery 2010).
COPYRIGHT 2010 CREATORS.COM
Read more: http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/2010/09/arizona-vs-the-un-human-rights-police.php#ixzz0yK0ZWW6F
And from Floyd Reports:
Video of the Day: AZ Sheriff, “I Have About As Much Regard for the UN As I Do Vermin”
Posted by Ben on September 1, 2010 · Comments (2)
We were the first news outlet to report the Obama administration’s decision to take Arizona before the UN Human Rights Council. CNSNews.com Penny Starr interviewed Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County, Arizona, about the development; his fearless comments are below. As UN bureaucrats from foreign nations — some of them human rights abusers — judge the people of Arizona, lawmen like Dever, Joe Arpaio, Paul Babeu, and countless others whose names we will never know fight to keep Arizona safe from a crime epidemic. For a brief glimpse of how bad things are, watch our previous video of the day about conditions in Cochise County: “A Day on the Border.”
The Justice Department Strikes Arizona Again
From The Heritage Foundation:
The Justice Department Strikes Arizona Again
Posted September 1st, 2010 at 10:00am in Protect America, Rule of Law with 0 comments Print This Post
Eric Holder’s Justice Department really seems to believe that its primary responsibility is to help aliens who violate federal law as opposed to tax-paying citizens of the United States. What else can one say about the latest action filed by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division against Arizona community colleges claiming they violated federal law when they asked noncitizens applying for jobs to produce their green cards? According to news reports, the complaint was filed with the Executive Office for Immigration Review, an administrative office within the Justice Department that handles immigration cases.
Every employer has to fill out a federal form on all new employees, the I-9, which verifies that they are citizens or noncitizens who are legally in the United States and entitled to work. The I-9 form specifies what documents employers can ask for from prospective employees. They range from primary documents like passports and permanent resident alien cards to secondary documents like driver’s licenses, social security cards, and birth certificates.
As part of the Immigration Control and Reform Act of 1986, liberals insisted on the insertion of a provision that makes it a violation of federal law for an employer to demand any documents other than those listed in the I-9 form or “refusing to honor documents tendered that on their face reasonably appear to be genuine.” 8 U.S.C. § 1324b. There actually is an office within the Civil Rights Division called the “Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices” whose only job is to look for violations of this statute and other supposedly discriminatory practices against noncitizens. This provision puts employers in a confusing Catch-22 since they can be found in violation of federal law for hiring noncitizens yet they can also be found in violation of federal law for questioning the authenticity of documents presented by applicants like social security cards, probably the most easily and commonly forged identification documents issued by the federal government.
What is also completely unfair about this provision is that federal law requires noncitizens who are here legally to “at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration” issued by the federal government. 8 U.S.C. § 1304. So essentially, the Justice Department is suing these community colleges for asking job applicants who are not citizens to show them a federally-issued document that they are supposed to carry with them “at all times.”
The suit was filed at the direction of Thomas Perez, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, who said that DOJ “is acting now to remedy this pattern or practice of discrimination.” Prior to his confirmation, Perez was the president of Casa de Maryland, an extreme Left-wing advocacy organization that opposes the enforcement of our immigration laws and encourages illegal aliens to evade federal law. So according to Perez, a “pattern or practice of discrimination” is for state authorities to ask a noncitizen to show them a federally-issued alien identification card that they must have in their possession when they are sitting across from the state official and filling out the paperwork required for a new job at a community college.
While Perez may have a technical basis for this lawsuit, this particular provision of federal law and how it is being interpreted is, quite frankly, ridiculous. It is a good example of the inane contradictions inherent in some aspects of our immigration law and this administration’s misplaced enforcement priorities. It also demonstrates the misuse of Justice Department resources, which are being used to attack Arizona in federal district court and now in a federal immigration court, while hundreds of thousands of outstanding deportation orders pending at Justice go unenforced and ignored. The administration’s abuse of its law enforcement powers to achieve political ends is both disturbing and very damaging to the best interests of the country.
The Justice Department Strikes Arizona Again
Posted September 1st, 2010 at 10:00am in Protect America, Rule of Law with 0 comments Print This Post
Eric Holder’s Justice Department really seems to believe that its primary responsibility is to help aliens who violate federal law as opposed to tax-paying citizens of the United States. What else can one say about the latest action filed by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division against Arizona community colleges claiming they violated federal law when they asked noncitizens applying for jobs to produce their green cards? According to news reports, the complaint was filed with the Executive Office for Immigration Review, an administrative office within the Justice Department that handles immigration cases.
Every employer has to fill out a federal form on all new employees, the I-9, which verifies that they are citizens or noncitizens who are legally in the United States and entitled to work. The I-9 form specifies what documents employers can ask for from prospective employees. They range from primary documents like passports and permanent resident alien cards to secondary documents like driver’s licenses, social security cards, and birth certificates.
As part of the Immigration Control and Reform Act of 1986, liberals insisted on the insertion of a provision that makes it a violation of federal law for an employer to demand any documents other than those listed in the I-9 form or “refusing to honor documents tendered that on their face reasonably appear to be genuine.” 8 U.S.C. § 1324b. There actually is an office within the Civil Rights Division called the “Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices” whose only job is to look for violations of this statute and other supposedly discriminatory practices against noncitizens. This provision puts employers in a confusing Catch-22 since they can be found in violation of federal law for hiring noncitizens yet they can also be found in violation of federal law for questioning the authenticity of documents presented by applicants like social security cards, probably the most easily and commonly forged identification documents issued by the federal government.
What is also completely unfair about this provision is that federal law requires noncitizens who are here legally to “at all times carry with him and have in his personal possession any certificate of alien registration” issued by the federal government. 8 U.S.C. § 1304. So essentially, the Justice Department is suing these community colleges for asking job applicants who are not citizens to show them a federally-issued document that they are supposed to carry with them “at all times.”
The suit was filed at the direction of Thomas Perez, the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, who said that DOJ “is acting now to remedy this pattern or practice of discrimination.” Prior to his confirmation, Perez was the president of Casa de Maryland, an extreme Left-wing advocacy organization that opposes the enforcement of our immigration laws and encourages illegal aliens to evade federal law. So according to Perez, a “pattern or practice of discrimination” is for state authorities to ask a noncitizen to show them a federally-issued alien identification card that they must have in their possession when they are sitting across from the state official and filling out the paperwork required for a new job at a community college.
While Perez may have a technical basis for this lawsuit, this particular provision of federal law and how it is being interpreted is, quite frankly, ridiculous. It is a good example of the inane contradictions inherent in some aspects of our immigration law and this administration’s misplaced enforcement priorities. It also demonstrates the misuse of Justice Department resources, which are being used to attack Arizona in federal district court and now in a federal immigration court, while hundreds of thousands of outstanding deportation orders pending at Justice go unenforced and ignored. The administration’s abuse of its law enforcement powers to achieve political ends is both disturbing and very damaging to the best interests of the country.
Pinal County Sherriff Babeu: Mexican Cartels Control Parts Of Arizona
From Newsmax:
Sheriff: Mexican Cartels Control Parts of Arizona
Wednesday, 01 Sep 2010 08:18 AM Article Font Size
By: Jerry Seper and Matthew Cella
The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state.
The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.
They warn travelers that they are entering an "active drug and human smuggling area" and they may encounter "armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed." Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs encourage travelers to "use public lands north of Interstate 8" and to call 911 if they "see suspicious activity."
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, whose county lies at the center of major drug and alien smuggling routes to Phoenix and cities east and west, attests to the violence. He said his deputies are outmanned and outgunned by drug traffickers in the rough-hewn desert stretches of his own county.
"Mexican drug cartels literally do control parts of Arizona," he said. "They literally have scouts on the high points in the mountains and in the hills and they literally control movement. They have radios, they have optics, they have night-vision goggles as good as anything law enforcement has.
"This is going on here in Arizona," he said. "This is 70 to 80 miles from the border - 30 miles from the fifth-largest city in the United States."
He said he asked the Obama administration for 3,000 National Guard soldiers to patrol the border, but what he got were 15 signs.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer condemned what she called the federal government's "continued failure to secure our international border," saying the lack of security has resulted in important natural recreational areas in her state being declared too dangerous to visit.
In a recent campaign video posted to YouTube, Mrs. Brewer - standing in front of one of the BLM signs - attacked the administration over the signs, calling them "an outrage" and telling President Obama to "Do your job. Secure our borders."
BLM spokesman Dennis Godfrey in Arizona said agency officials were surprised by the reaction the signs generated when they were put up this summer.
"We were perhaps naive in setting the signs up," he said. "The intention of the signs was to make the public aware that there is potential illegal activity here. But it was interpreted in a different light, and that was not the intent at all."
He said there should be "no sense that we have ceded the land," adding that no BLM lands in Arizona are closed to the public.
"I kind of liken it to if I were visiting a city I were not familiar with and asked a policeman if it were safe to go in a particular area," Mr. Godfrey said.
Rising violence along the border has coincided with a crackdown in Mexico on warring drug gangs, who are seeking control of smuggling routes into the United States.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has waged a bloody campaign against powerful cartels, yesterday announcing the arrest of Texas-born Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez - a powerful cartel leader captured outside of Mexico City on Monday evening.
More than 28,000 people have died since Mr. Calderon launched his crackdown in late 2006, and the bloodshed shows no sign of ending. Law enforcement authorities have been warning for more than two years that the dramatic rise in border violence eventually would spread into the U.S.
T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents all 17,500 of the Border Patrol's front-line agents, said areas well north of the border are so overrun by armed criminals that U.S. citizens are being warned to keep out of those locations.
"The federal government's lack of will to secure our borders is painfully evident when signs are posted well north of the border warning citizens that armed and dangerous criminals are roaming through those areas with impunity," he said. "Instead of taking the steps necessary to secure our borders, politicians are attempting to convince the public that our borders are more secure now than ever before.
"Fortunately, some responsible civil servants are candidly warning the public about the dangers that exist not just along the border but, in some cases, well beyond," he said. "This situation should alarm all sensible people, and should spur endless demands that our legislators take whatever actions are necessary to restore law and order to these areas."
Rep. Ted Poe, Texas Republican and a member of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, said the federal government's new border security plan apparently is to "erect some signs telling you it's not safe to travel in our own country."
"If you are planning on loading up the station wagon and taking the kids to Disneyland, the federal government doesn't advise going through Arizona - it's too dangerous and they can't protect you," said Mr. Poe. "These signs say to American citizens, the federal government has ceded this area to the drug cartels. Don't come here; we can't protect you."
Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, called the signs "an insult to the citizens of border states."
"American citizens should not have to be fearful for their lives on U.S. soil," he said. "If the federal government would do its job of enforcing immigration laws, we could better secure the border and better protect the citizens of border states."
Michael W. Cutler, a retired 31-year U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) senior criminal investigator and intelligence specialist, said the BLM warning signs suggest the U.S. government is "ceding American territory to armed criminals and smugglers."
Meanwhile, he said, politicians in Washington, D.C., including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, continue to claim the border is now more secure than ever and, as a result, it is time for comprehensive immigration reform.
"How much more land will our nation cede to drug dealers and terrorists? At what point will the administration understand its obligations to really secure our nation's borders and create an immigration system that has real integrity?" Mr. Cutler said.
"At the rate we are going, the 'Red, White and Blue' of the American flag will be replaced with a flag that is simply white - the flag of surrender."
Ms. Napolitano said this week that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would begin flying a Predator B drone out of Corpus Christi, Texas, on Wednesday, extending the reach of the agency's unmanned surveillance aircraft across the length of the 1,956-mile border with Mexico.
Last month, Mr. Obama signed a $600 million bill to beef up security along the southwestern border. The bill funds 1,000 more Border Patrol agents, as well as 250 CBP officers and two more unmanned aerial vehicles.
Two years ago, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the investigative arm of Homeland Security, said in a report that border gangs were becoming increasingly ruthless and had begun targeting not only rivals, but federal, state and local police. ICE said the violence had risen dramatically as part of "an unprecedented surge."
The Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center, in its 2010 drug threat assessment report, called the cartels "the single greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States." It said Mexican gangs had established operations in every area of the United States and were expanding into rural and suburban areas. It said assaults against U.S. law enforcement officers along the southwestern border were on the increase - up 46 percent against Border Patrol agents alone.
At the same time, the Justice Department brought a lawsuit to stop a new immigration enforcement law in Arizona, saying it violated the Constitution by trying to supersede federal law and by impairing illegal immigrants' right to travel and conduct interstate commerce.
Mr. Cutler said it was "outrageous" for the BLM to direct travelers to dial 911 to report suspicious activities since the calls do not go to the federal government but to state and local police. He said the signs are telling Americans to call state and local law enforcement authorities to deal with border lawlessness while at the same time telling Arizona that only the federal government can write and enforce immigration laws.
"You can't make this stuff up," he said.
Mr. Godfrey said that just because the signs direct travelers who witness illegal activity to call 911, "that does not mean that only a local agency will respond."
"The idea is that people will get help as quickly as they can," he said.
Sheriff Babeu has dealt firsthand with the rising violence in his county since his 2008 election. One of his deputies, Louie Puroll, was shot and critically wounded in April after he spotted five men he suspected of transporting drugs along a remote span of desert near Interstate 8 and Arizona 84.
He said his experience makes him see the issue differently from the administration in Washington.
"The president is only looking at this from a political perspective," he said. "Everything is not fine. Everything is not OK."
© Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC
Sheriff: Mexican Cartels Control Parts of Arizona
Wednesday, 01 Sep 2010 08:18 AM Article Font Size
By: Jerry Seper and Matthew Cella
The federal government has posted signs along a major interstate highway in Arizona, more than 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, warning travelers the area is unsafe because of drug and alien smugglers, and a local sheriff says Mexican drug cartels now control some parts of the state.
The signs were posted by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 between Casa Grande and Gila Bend, a major east-west corridor linking Tucson and Phoenix with San Diego.
They warn travelers that they are entering an "active drug and human smuggling area" and they may encounter "armed criminals and smuggling vehicles traveling at high rates of speed." Beginning less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, the signs encourage travelers to "use public lands north of Interstate 8" and to call 911 if they "see suspicious activity."
Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu, whose county lies at the center of major drug and alien smuggling routes to Phoenix and cities east and west, attests to the violence. He said his deputies are outmanned and outgunned by drug traffickers in the rough-hewn desert stretches of his own county.
"Mexican drug cartels literally do control parts of Arizona," he said. "They literally have scouts on the high points in the mountains and in the hills and they literally control movement. They have radios, they have optics, they have night-vision goggles as good as anything law enforcement has.
"This is going on here in Arizona," he said. "This is 70 to 80 miles from the border - 30 miles from the fifth-largest city in the United States."
He said he asked the Obama administration for 3,000 National Guard soldiers to patrol the border, but what he got were 15 signs.
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer condemned what she called the federal government's "continued failure to secure our international border," saying the lack of security has resulted in important natural recreational areas in her state being declared too dangerous to visit.
In a recent campaign video posted to YouTube, Mrs. Brewer - standing in front of one of the BLM signs - attacked the administration over the signs, calling them "an outrage" and telling President Obama to "Do your job. Secure our borders."
BLM spokesman Dennis Godfrey in Arizona said agency officials were surprised by the reaction the signs generated when they were put up this summer.
"We were perhaps naive in setting the signs up," he said. "The intention of the signs was to make the public aware that there is potential illegal activity here. But it was interpreted in a different light, and that was not the intent at all."
He said there should be "no sense that we have ceded the land," adding that no BLM lands in Arizona are closed to the public.
"I kind of liken it to if I were visiting a city I were not familiar with and asked a policeman if it were safe to go in a particular area," Mr. Godfrey said.
Rising violence along the border has coincided with a crackdown in Mexico on warring drug gangs, who are seeking control of smuggling routes into the United States.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has waged a bloody campaign against powerful cartels, yesterday announcing the arrest of Texas-born Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez - a powerful cartel leader captured outside of Mexico City on Monday evening.
More than 28,000 people have died since Mr. Calderon launched his crackdown in late 2006, and the bloodshed shows no sign of ending. Law enforcement authorities have been warning for more than two years that the dramatic rise in border violence eventually would spread into the U.S.
T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, which represents all 17,500 of the Border Patrol's front-line agents, said areas well north of the border are so overrun by armed criminals that U.S. citizens are being warned to keep out of those locations.
"The federal government's lack of will to secure our borders is painfully evident when signs are posted well north of the border warning citizens that armed and dangerous criminals are roaming through those areas with impunity," he said. "Instead of taking the steps necessary to secure our borders, politicians are attempting to convince the public that our borders are more secure now than ever before.
"Fortunately, some responsible civil servants are candidly warning the public about the dangers that exist not just along the border but, in some cases, well beyond," he said. "This situation should alarm all sensible people, and should spur endless demands that our legislators take whatever actions are necessary to restore law and order to these areas."
Rep. Ted Poe, Texas Republican and a member of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, said the federal government's new border security plan apparently is to "erect some signs telling you it's not safe to travel in our own country."
"If you are planning on loading up the station wagon and taking the kids to Disneyland, the federal government doesn't advise going through Arizona - it's too dangerous and they can't protect you," said Mr. Poe. "These signs say to American citizens, the federal government has ceded this area to the drug cartels. Don't come here; we can't protect you."
Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee and a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, called the signs "an insult to the citizens of border states."
"American citizens should not have to be fearful for their lives on U.S. soil," he said. "If the federal government would do its job of enforcing immigration laws, we could better secure the border and better protect the citizens of border states."
Michael W. Cutler, a retired 31-year U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) senior criminal investigator and intelligence specialist, said the BLM warning signs suggest the U.S. government is "ceding American territory to armed criminals and smugglers."
Meanwhile, he said, politicians in Washington, D.C., including Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, continue to claim the border is now more secure than ever and, as a result, it is time for comprehensive immigration reform.
"How much more land will our nation cede to drug dealers and terrorists? At what point will the administration understand its obligations to really secure our nation's borders and create an immigration system that has real integrity?" Mr. Cutler said.
"At the rate we are going, the 'Red, White and Blue' of the American flag will be replaced with a flag that is simply white - the flag of surrender."
Ms. Napolitano said this week that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) would begin flying a Predator B drone out of Corpus Christi, Texas, on Wednesday, extending the reach of the agency's unmanned surveillance aircraft across the length of the 1,956-mile border with Mexico.
Last month, Mr. Obama signed a $600 million bill to beef up security along the southwestern border. The bill funds 1,000 more Border Patrol agents, as well as 250 CBP officers and two more unmanned aerial vehicles.
Two years ago, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the investigative arm of Homeland Security, said in a report that border gangs were becoming increasingly ruthless and had begun targeting not only rivals, but federal, state and local police. ICE said the violence had risen dramatically as part of "an unprecedented surge."
The Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center, in its 2010 drug threat assessment report, called the cartels "the single greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States." It said Mexican gangs had established operations in every area of the United States and were expanding into rural and suburban areas. It said assaults against U.S. law enforcement officers along the southwestern border were on the increase - up 46 percent against Border Patrol agents alone.
At the same time, the Justice Department brought a lawsuit to stop a new immigration enforcement law in Arizona, saying it violated the Constitution by trying to supersede federal law and by impairing illegal immigrants' right to travel and conduct interstate commerce.
Mr. Cutler said it was "outrageous" for the BLM to direct travelers to dial 911 to report suspicious activities since the calls do not go to the federal government but to state and local police. He said the signs are telling Americans to call state and local law enforcement authorities to deal with border lawlessness while at the same time telling Arizona that only the federal government can write and enforce immigration laws.
"You can't make this stuff up," he said.
Mr. Godfrey said that just because the signs direct travelers who witness illegal activity to call 911, "that does not mean that only a local agency will respond."
"The idea is that people will get help as quickly as they can," he said.
Sheriff Babeu has dealt firsthand with the rising violence in his county since his 2008 election. One of his deputies, Louie Puroll, was shot and critically wounded in April after he spotted five men he suspected of transporting drugs along a remote span of desert near Interstate 8 and Arizona 84.
He said his experience makes him see the issue differently from the administration in Washington.
"The president is only looking at this from a political perspective," he said. "Everything is not fine. Everything is not OK."
© Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)