From The Heritage Foundation:
Stopping Voter Fraud
Voter fraud happens. Just ask Olivia Alair, press secretary for the U.S. Department of Transportation. Alair was regional communications director for the 2008 election in Ohio under White House press secretary Robert Gibbs. In 2008, Alair and two other Obama campaign staffers registered to vote in Ohio. The problem was that Alair did not live in Ohio and had no permanent plans to do so. By Ohio law, this made her ineligible to register. Only after this was made public did Alair and her cohorts send letters asking that their registrations be canceled. If the press had never made this public, would Alair have gone ahead and committed a felony by voting? Only she knows. But her cavalier attitude toward our nation's voting laws permeates the entire Obama administration.
In 2004, an immigrant illegally registered to vote in Putnam County, Tenn., and then voted illegally. This is a felony three times over! 18 U.S.C. § 1015(f) makes it illegal to claim you are a U.S. citizen in order to register to vote for any election; 18 U.S.C. § 611 prohibits a noncitizen from voting in an election where there is a federal candidate on the ballot; and 18 U.S.C. § 911 makes false claims of citizenship in general a felony. Instead of prosecution, the Obama administration sent the immigrant a letter asking him when he "discovered" that he was "not a United States Citizen." Protecting the ballot box was not their priority (you can read more about The Threat of Non-Citizen Voting, here).
And the Tennessee case was not an isolated incident. Thanks to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, we now know that not protecting the ballot box from voter fraud is the official policy of the Obama Justice Department. Former American Civil Liberties Union attorney and current Justice Department employee Christopher Coates testified before the committee that: 1) Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes ordered DOJ attorneys only to enforce "traditional types of [voter intimidation] cases that would provide political equality for racial and minority language voters;" and 2) Fernandes informed DOJ attorneys that it was the policy of the Obama administration not to enforce anti-voter fraud laws since Obama "was not interested in that type of issue, but instead interested in issues that pertained to voter access." Fernandes has never responded to these allegations.
For most electoral races today, fraud will not be a factor. But there are some races where some will desperately cling to power in a close election. And that is where voting fraud is most likely to happen. The Heritage Foundation's voting law expert Hans von Spakovsky told Fox News:
Any place where we have very close elections, there's always going to be the potential there that voter fraud may make a difference, and that's where we are going to have to be really careful to be sure that doesn't happen.
In fact, voter fraud has already happened in this election. A Daytona Beach City Commissioner was arrested for absentee ballot fraud just last week. In Troy, N.Y., Democrats on the city council have been ordered to supply DNA to prosecutors to be tested against absentee ballots and absentee ballot applications that were allegedly forged. And in Bucks County, Pa., a Democratic program intimidated some voters into needlessly, and sometimes fraudulently, applying for absentee ballots.
Federal law does allow for poll workers to assist the disabled and those who can't read English. But, if you see or hear a poll worker attempt to give unsolicited instructions to any voter (other than technical instructions), that is not allowed. Neither is any electioneering in or near the polling place, and promises of payments for voting of any kind (whether it be cash or free food) are also illegal. If you witness any of these activities, notify both the chief election official in their particular county or city, as well as the media to make sure that officials do something about it.
The right to vote in a free and fair election is the most basic civil right, on which depends all of the other rights of the American people protected by the Bill of Rights. Unfortunately, as long as elections put people into positions where they can make decisions about how much the government will spend, who will receive the money, and how the government will exercise its power, elections will be important enough to tempt some individuals to steal them. As the Supreme Court recognized when it upheld the constitutionality of Indiana's voter identification law in 2008, flagrant examples of voter fraud "have been documented throughout this Nation's history by respected historians and journalists." Those examples "demonstrate that not only is the risk of voter fraud real but that it could affect the outcome of a close election." Be on the look out to protect your most basic civil right today.
A Nation In Distress
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Pay No Attention To The Communists Behind The Democratic Curtain
From The American Thinker;
November 01, 2010
Pay No Attention to the Communists behind the Curtain
By Robert Knight
The evidence is overwhelming. The media interest is zero. The UFO strategy is in force.
Let me explain.
I'm talking about the unsolved Weather Underground murder of San Francisco Police Officer Brian V. McDonnell. A bomb placed on Feb. 16, 1970 outside the Golden Gate Park police station ripped through Sgt. McDonnell, who died two days later. His killers never paid a price.
Apart from simple justice, here's why this open case still matters. According to testimony by undercover FBI agent Larry Grathwohl, William Ayers was almost certainly involved. Ayers helped launch Obama's political career in 1995 at his home in Chicago and served on two boards with him. Ayers told Grathwohl that Ayers' wife, Bernardine Dohrn, planted the bomb. In 1971, the FBI found Ayers' fingerprints and those of other Weather Underground terrorists in an apartment that had been a bomb-making factory.
Because of prosecutorial errors, Ayers went free, boasting, "Guilty as hell, free as a bird." Dohrn remained underground until 1980, spent jail time for lesser charges, and then went on, like Ayers, to be a professor at a major college. Ayers was at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Dohrn is at Northwestern University.
On Oct. 21, Larry Grathwohl told his story at a seminar at the National Press Club sponsored by America's Survival, Inc. Moderator Cliff Kincaid, who recently obtained a 601-page FBI file of Barack Obama's communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, unveiled a raft of speakers and evidence pointing to manipulation of American liberals by actual communist revolutionaries.
Among the speakers was New Zealand blogger and investigative reporter Trevor Loudon, who uncovered former "green jobs czar" Van Jones' communist background, which led to Jones' resignation in 2009. Jones is now back at the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress.
I spoke as well, reporting on the FBI file on Harry Hay, a Communist Party member off and on from 1934 to 1948 and a founder of the Mattachine Society, an early homosexual activist group. Hay also co-founded the Radical Faeries and championed the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). Hay was cited as an "inspiration" by longtime homosexual activist Kevin Jennings, whom Obama appointed as the nation's "safe schools czar" at the U.S. Department of Education.
Another speaker was Paul Kengor, best-selling author of a new book, Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century. Dr. Kengor has the goods on numerous leftists, including the Hollywood Ten, who became famous during the McCarthy era. Four of them, according to FBI files, actually had Communist Party cards with membership numbers. It might be good to recall this the next time you see the media describe them as the "famed Hollywood Ten."
The evidence is so obvious that communists infiltrated many liberal causes and unions and that the liberal media have looked away while crying "McCarthyism." I call this the UFO strategy. Even if you actually saw a UFO, you'd be considered, uh, crazy. What's different here is that the communist influence on America's Left is no delusion. It is thoroughly documented.
On Oct. 23, Kincaid, with a video camera, confronted both Ayers and Dohrn at an environmentalist event in Washington, D.C.
Kincaid: "Why did your husband tell [undercover FBI agent] Larry Grathwohl that you planted the bomb?"
Dohrn: "That is so stupid." She went on to deny involvement.
Kincaid then asked Ayers about the dedication to radicals in the 1974 manifesto Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism that included Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy. Signed by Ayers, Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and Celia Sojourn, the manifesto says, "We are communist men and women, underground in the United States for more than four years ... The only path to the final defeat of imperialism and the building of socialism is revolutionary war ... Without armed struggle there can be no victory."
Kincaid: "Mr. Ayers, if you're anti-war, why did you dedicate your book to the assassin of the leading anti-war candidate in the country?"
Ayers: "You're delusional." He walked away while others blocked the camera.
In an onstage presentation, Dohrn addressed the charges in a pamphlet that Kincaid had circulated. She said, "We live in a time of greater polarization, of hate speech and hate talk. ... We were never terrorists. It's all crap." That flatly contradicts a New York Times interview published on Sept. 11, 2001, in which an unrepentant Ayers said, "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough."
Dohrn also misrepresented what she and Ayers were doing in the 1970s -- aiding and abetting communism: "We were trying to stop the murderous assault that for 10 years killed three million people in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and U.S. service people. It was the right thing to do."
In his Oct. 21 presentation, former FBI agent Grathwohl noted that no anti-war literature was found in the Weather Underground bomb factory, just communist booklets urging violent revolution.
In any event, the anti-war movement was instrumental in the U.S. pullout in 1975, leaving Cambodia at the mercy of Khmer Rouge dictator Pol Pot, who killed more than two million of his countrymen. For Dohrn to claim that she and Ayers were merely peaceniks when they were in fact agitating for a communist victory is a lie worthy of the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's novel 1984.
This all should be very hot stuff, given Ayers' and Dohrn's long association with Barack Obama and their continuing activism, which includes, according to Kincaid, recent visits to Hugo Chávez's Venezuela and with radicals in Gaza. But the press is silent. They have spent far more time, personnel, and treasure searching Sarah Palin's garbage cans.
On May 22, 2008, Kincaid held a seminar unveiling evidence about Frank Marshall Davis and his eight years influencing a young Barack Obama in Hawaii. Among the speakers was Herb Romerstein, the dean of researchers on communism, whose work has spanned six decades. The Big Media skipped it, except for the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, who ignored the facts and viciously ridiculed the gathering, calling Romerstein "a living relic." Milbank likened the event to a "UFO convention."
The UFO strategy. It's very handy against a mountain of inconvenient facts. But facts are stubborn things.
Robert Knight is a Senior Fellow at the American Civil Rights Union, and the author of the recently updated Radical Rulers: The White House Elites Who Are Pushing America Toward Socialism (2010, www.radicalrulers.com).
November 01, 2010
Pay No Attention to the Communists behind the Curtain
By Robert Knight
The evidence is overwhelming. The media interest is zero. The UFO strategy is in force.
Let me explain.
I'm talking about the unsolved Weather Underground murder of San Francisco Police Officer Brian V. McDonnell. A bomb placed on Feb. 16, 1970 outside the Golden Gate Park police station ripped through Sgt. McDonnell, who died two days later. His killers never paid a price.
Apart from simple justice, here's why this open case still matters. According to testimony by undercover FBI agent Larry Grathwohl, William Ayers was almost certainly involved. Ayers helped launch Obama's political career in 1995 at his home in Chicago and served on two boards with him. Ayers told Grathwohl that Ayers' wife, Bernardine Dohrn, planted the bomb. In 1971, the FBI found Ayers' fingerprints and those of other Weather Underground terrorists in an apartment that had been a bomb-making factory.
Because of prosecutorial errors, Ayers went free, boasting, "Guilty as hell, free as a bird." Dohrn remained underground until 1980, spent jail time for lesser charges, and then went on, like Ayers, to be a professor at a major college. Ayers was at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Dohrn is at Northwestern University.
On Oct. 21, Larry Grathwohl told his story at a seminar at the National Press Club sponsored by America's Survival, Inc. Moderator Cliff Kincaid, who recently obtained a 601-page FBI file of Barack Obama's communist mentor Frank Marshall Davis, unveiled a raft of speakers and evidence pointing to manipulation of American liberals by actual communist revolutionaries.
Among the speakers was New Zealand blogger and investigative reporter Trevor Loudon, who uncovered former "green jobs czar" Van Jones' communist background, which led to Jones' resignation in 2009. Jones is now back at the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress.
I spoke as well, reporting on the FBI file on Harry Hay, a Communist Party member off and on from 1934 to 1948 and a founder of the Mattachine Society, an early homosexual activist group. Hay also co-founded the Radical Faeries and championed the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). Hay was cited as an "inspiration" by longtime homosexual activist Kevin Jennings, whom Obama appointed as the nation's "safe schools czar" at the U.S. Department of Education.
Another speaker was Paul Kengor, best-selling author of a new book, Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century. Dr. Kengor has the goods on numerous leftists, including the Hollywood Ten, who became famous during the McCarthy era. Four of them, according to FBI files, actually had Communist Party cards with membership numbers. It might be good to recall this the next time you see the media describe them as the "famed Hollywood Ten."
The evidence is so obvious that communists infiltrated many liberal causes and unions and that the liberal media have looked away while crying "McCarthyism." I call this the UFO strategy. Even if you actually saw a UFO, you'd be considered, uh, crazy. What's different here is that the communist influence on America's Left is no delusion. It is thoroughly documented.
On Oct. 23, Kincaid, with a video camera, confronted both Ayers and Dohrn at an environmentalist event in Washington, D.C.
Kincaid: "Why did your husband tell [undercover FBI agent] Larry Grathwohl that you planted the bomb?"
Dohrn: "That is so stupid." She went on to deny involvement.
Kincaid then asked Ayers about the dedication to radicals in the 1974 manifesto Prairie Fire: The Politics of Revolutionary Anti-Imperialism that included Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy. Signed by Ayers, Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and Celia Sojourn, the manifesto says, "We are communist men and women, underground in the United States for more than four years ... The only path to the final defeat of imperialism and the building of socialism is revolutionary war ... Without armed struggle there can be no victory."
Kincaid: "Mr. Ayers, if you're anti-war, why did you dedicate your book to the assassin of the leading anti-war candidate in the country?"
Ayers: "You're delusional." He walked away while others blocked the camera.
In an onstage presentation, Dohrn addressed the charges in a pamphlet that Kincaid had circulated. She said, "We live in a time of greater polarization, of hate speech and hate talk. ... We were never terrorists. It's all crap." That flatly contradicts a New York Times interview published on Sept. 11, 2001, in which an unrepentant Ayers said, "I don't regret setting bombs" and "I feel we didn't do enough."
Dohrn also misrepresented what she and Ayers were doing in the 1970s -- aiding and abetting communism: "We were trying to stop the murderous assault that for 10 years killed three million people in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos and U.S. service people. It was the right thing to do."
In his Oct. 21 presentation, former FBI agent Grathwohl noted that no anti-war literature was found in the Weather Underground bomb factory, just communist booklets urging violent revolution.
In any event, the anti-war movement was instrumental in the U.S. pullout in 1975, leaving Cambodia at the mercy of Khmer Rouge dictator Pol Pot, who killed more than two million of his countrymen. For Dohrn to claim that she and Ayers were merely peaceniks when they were in fact agitating for a communist victory is a lie worthy of the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell's novel 1984.
This all should be very hot stuff, given Ayers' and Dohrn's long association with Barack Obama and their continuing activism, which includes, according to Kincaid, recent visits to Hugo Chávez's Venezuela and with radicals in Gaza. But the press is silent. They have spent far more time, personnel, and treasure searching Sarah Palin's garbage cans.
On May 22, 2008, Kincaid held a seminar unveiling evidence about Frank Marshall Davis and his eight years influencing a young Barack Obama in Hawaii. Among the speakers was Herb Romerstein, the dean of researchers on communism, whose work has spanned six decades. The Big Media skipped it, except for the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, who ignored the facts and viciously ridiculed the gathering, calling Romerstein "a living relic." Milbank likened the event to a "UFO convention."
The UFO strategy. It's very handy against a mountain of inconvenient facts. But facts are stubborn things.
Robert Knight is a Senior Fellow at the American Civil Rights Union, and the author of the recently updated Radical Rulers: The White House Elites Who Are Pushing America Toward Socialism (2010, www.radicalrulers.com).
On Tuesday, It's All About Us
From The American Thinker:
November 01, 2010
On Tuesday, It's All about Us
By Geoffrey P. Hunt
When President Barack Obama insists that "it's not about me," you can be certain it's about nothing but him. Obama still prefers a referendum on who he is rather than what he has done. But he will lose on both counts.
Obama is loath to acknowledge his rejected ideology and destructive politics combined with incompetence at governing. The only fault he is willing to confess -- far from a grievous one, and a red herring at that-- is a failure to communicate, and that rests with his handlers solely responsible for his depleted charisma. So he says.
Two years ago, Obama represented the ascendancy of identity politics. He now represents its abrupt descent.
In 2008, Obama successfully transposed his own narcissism into hero-worship and rapturous messianic anticipation by his followers. But now his once-presumed powers of absolution and healing have proven to be so much hollow stage craft and hubris. In the meantime, he has been the vessel in which the Democrats in Congress have distilled accumulated collectivist aspirations and grievances against American exceptionalism into a corrosive legislative and regulatory acid reflux brew forced down the gullets of the American people.
With his presidency in free-fall, accelerated by wholesale repudiation, Obama wonders, What happened to the good judgment shown by the American electorate two years ago? How could such enlightened folks become so ignorant so fast?
Obama's allies, notably the ruling class elites epitomized by Sen. John Kerry, insist that the people are not paying attention, are uninformed, are "influenced by a simple slogan," and get their news from the wrong source. In other words, lazy, stupid, and gullible. Obama now suffers at the hands of dirty, money-soiled, right-wing provocateurs who have foisted their latent genome-mapped biases of racism and xenophobia on a "know-nothing" parochial electorate.
Of course, Obama's mentor and spiritual advisor for twenty years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, predicted in so many sermons that Obama's enemies would persecute him for who he is rather than what he has done. While patriotism may be the last refuge of a scoundrel, a persecution complex is the last refuge of an identity politician.
The allure of pure celebrity in presidential sweeps -- beyond the usual campaign fluff and polish -- is a 21st-century phenomenon. Perhaps Teddy Roosevelt was the most flamboyant 20th-century president whose outsized persona was shaped by myth-making publicity, following the examples set by Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison over a half-century earlier. At least all three had résumés worth embellishing.
Until JFK, most other 20th-century presidents -- Calvin Coolidge the most austere type -- were the antithesis of image-making. FDR's public face was shaped more by the need to conceal a physical disability than to project a theatrical mask. JFK was the first product of celebrity myth-making where style triumphed over substance.
We do not know if Obama has read Homer. Perhaps it's unlikely, but if so, he should recall in the Iliad where Homer tells us that Phoenix, Achilles' tutor, is instructed to make Achilles into a "speaker of words" and "doer of deeds." The words we remember best from epics to short stories are always associated with deeds. This is true from the Savior of the Christian Gospels to Chaucer's pilgrims to Shakespeare's Henry. Obama never learned that mere words are not enough.
In Lincoln's cemetery consecration address at Gettysburg, he apologizes for his own words: "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." Lincoln rightfully dwelled on deeds of others, mostly uninterested in how others dwelled on him. Obama's words, considered only recently by those infatuated media elites Lincolnesque, are now seen to be just shallow, jarring, self-absorbed, and divisive. Obama's words will soon be forgotten, but his deeds of dishonor and demise will endure and be long remembered.
Thus, voters on Tuesday know this election is about Obama only indirectly -- names on the ballot represent either Obama's surrogates for more indebtedness, insecurity, and insult or a chance for something else. We will see voters reassert the most stubborn but noble aspects of the American character -- individualism and personal liberty. There will be no failure to communicate. It will not be about Obama, nor about any others in our nation's capital who mistakenly believe it is about them. It will be about us.
November 01, 2010
On Tuesday, It's All about Us
By Geoffrey P. Hunt
When President Barack Obama insists that "it's not about me," you can be certain it's about nothing but him. Obama still prefers a referendum on who he is rather than what he has done. But he will lose on both counts.
Obama is loath to acknowledge his rejected ideology and destructive politics combined with incompetence at governing. The only fault he is willing to confess -- far from a grievous one, and a red herring at that-- is a failure to communicate, and that rests with his handlers solely responsible for his depleted charisma. So he says.
Two years ago, Obama represented the ascendancy of identity politics. He now represents its abrupt descent.
In 2008, Obama successfully transposed his own narcissism into hero-worship and rapturous messianic anticipation by his followers. But now his once-presumed powers of absolution and healing have proven to be so much hollow stage craft and hubris. In the meantime, he has been the vessel in which the Democrats in Congress have distilled accumulated collectivist aspirations and grievances against American exceptionalism into a corrosive legislative and regulatory acid reflux brew forced down the gullets of the American people.
With his presidency in free-fall, accelerated by wholesale repudiation, Obama wonders, What happened to the good judgment shown by the American electorate two years ago? How could such enlightened folks become so ignorant so fast?
Obama's allies, notably the ruling class elites epitomized by Sen. John Kerry, insist that the people are not paying attention, are uninformed, are "influenced by a simple slogan," and get their news from the wrong source. In other words, lazy, stupid, and gullible. Obama now suffers at the hands of dirty, money-soiled, right-wing provocateurs who have foisted their latent genome-mapped biases of racism and xenophobia on a "know-nothing" parochial electorate.
Of course, Obama's mentor and spiritual advisor for twenty years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, predicted in so many sermons that Obama's enemies would persecute him for who he is rather than what he has done. While patriotism may be the last refuge of a scoundrel, a persecution complex is the last refuge of an identity politician.
The allure of pure celebrity in presidential sweeps -- beyond the usual campaign fluff and polish -- is a 21st-century phenomenon. Perhaps Teddy Roosevelt was the most flamboyant 20th-century president whose outsized persona was shaped by myth-making publicity, following the examples set by Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison over a half-century earlier. At least all three had résumés worth embellishing.
Until JFK, most other 20th-century presidents -- Calvin Coolidge the most austere type -- were the antithesis of image-making. FDR's public face was shaped more by the need to conceal a physical disability than to project a theatrical mask. JFK was the first product of celebrity myth-making where style triumphed over substance.
We do not know if Obama has read Homer. Perhaps it's unlikely, but if so, he should recall in the Iliad where Homer tells us that Phoenix, Achilles' tutor, is instructed to make Achilles into a "speaker of words" and "doer of deeds." The words we remember best from epics to short stories are always associated with deeds. This is true from the Savior of the Christian Gospels to Chaucer's pilgrims to Shakespeare's Henry. Obama never learned that mere words are not enough.
In Lincoln's cemetery consecration address at Gettysburg, he apologizes for his own words: "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here." Lincoln rightfully dwelled on deeds of others, mostly uninterested in how others dwelled on him. Obama's words, considered only recently by those infatuated media elites Lincolnesque, are now seen to be just shallow, jarring, self-absorbed, and divisive. Obama's words will soon be forgotten, but his deeds of dishonor and demise will endure and be long remembered.
Thus, voters on Tuesday know this election is about Obama only indirectly -- names on the ballot represent either Obama's surrogates for more indebtedness, insecurity, and insult or a chance for something else. We will see voters reassert the most stubborn but noble aspects of the American character -- individualism and personal liberty. There will be no failure to communicate. It will not be about Obama, nor about any others in our nation's capital who mistakenly believe it is about them. It will be about us.
Day Of Reckoning
From The American Thinker:
November 01, 2010
Day of Reckoning
Richard Pecore
A sense of entitlement is a powerful thing. It led Democrats to believe they were invulnerable to public opinion and seduced them into believing they could do all manner of things in contravention to the Constitution and the established rule of law. They believed they could do these things without consequences -- or at least, serious consequences; and that the wave of animosity against the polices of George W. Bush that swept them into office, would insulate them from any fallout from their votes.
They were wrong.
Almost immediately after his inauguration, Obama turned the reins of his legislative agenda over to the most radical far left leadership in American history, led by Nancy Pelosi from the California 8th District of San Francisco, and Harry Reid from Nevada, which based upon state population, is to essentially say, Las Vegas.
This is the regional viewpoint forced upon America as a whole in secrecy, with backroom deals, massive taxation, and uncontrollable spending. Democrats, banded together from all over the country, like mindless lemmings marching in lockstep over the cliff, willingly went along. Now they not only refuse to stand on their records, they must hide from them.
Over 56% of Americans strongly support the Tea Parties. Over seventy percent identify favorably with them. There is a reason for that. America is a center-right nation. We have seen with our own eyes, how the left chooses to govern. They use the iron fist. They choose to employ trickery, chicanery, obfuscation, dishonesty, bribery, thuggery and outright lies to bend, twist, convalute, ram through or otherwise forcibly enact legislation -- not of, by and for the People, but in spite of the People.
The House of Representatives is currently comprised of 435 Members (256 Democrats, 178 Republicans, and 1 vacancy in FL-19). The Senate is composed of 57 Democrats, 41 Republicans, and 2 Independents (who reliably vote with Democrats).
Consider that between these two figures, 40% of America's duly elected representatives have been effectively silenced by the House and Senate leadership for two full years. Yet the media and the Democrats continue to scream at the top of their lungs that the Republicans have been obstructionists; that they have stopped the Democrats from doing even more. The Republicans had insufficient numbers to stop anything. Every new piece of legislation we have seen come out of Washington is clear evidence of that.
They have not just been omitted from the process. They have been actively excluded from participating in the committee meetings, strategy sessions, drafting or review of legislation that now accounts for more debt at one time than the nation has previously accumulated in its 234 years of existence and consumes 62% of our GNP. It will also cost more. Far more than the current $4 Trillion of spending and $14 Trillion dollars in debt that we, our children, and our grandchildren have spent before we earned it.
Stated more plainly, a full forty percent of Congress has been prevented from participating in the representative process in any meaningful way. The current U.S. Census clock declares our population to now be an estimated 310,000,000 Americans. This means at the very least, 124,000,000 American voices have been removed from the legislative process and could not voice our views. This of course, does not include all the Republicans, Independents, Libertarians and Democrats in the purported current 186,000,000 "represented" Americans who suffered buyer's remorse after discovering they'd bought a pig in a poke. Just because a Congressman or Senator represents you, does not mean your voice is being heard -- or paid attention to.
We are angry. We want our money back, and we want our country back. The resulting tidal wave that will sweeps scores of Democrats from office is still being understated by the leftist media in a desperate last ditch attempt to stem the tide.
The election night watch parties all over the country should make for a much greater comedy show than the feeble Stewart/Colbert nonsense put forth on the National Mall.
Democrats are whistling in the dark past their own political graveyards on All Hallows Eve.
Never in my lifetime has the federal government ruled so directly against the will of the American people and of the states. Never in my lifetime has justice been so corrupted on a federal level, with daily reminders how power has been misused. Never in my lifetime have I seen the mainstream liberal media so blatantly and wholesale biased in favor of an incumbent's liberal policies, and so horrifically prejudiced against reporting the facts.
The resulting election will be historic. This will be a wholesale landslide and rejection of leftist policies that America has been chomping at the bit to voice. You cannot silence the Voice of Freedom forever. Even Ramses discovered this.
President Obama and the Democrats celebrate their arrogant sense of entitlement to their offices by continuing to insult us, attack us, divide us, or ignore us. The source of this self-pride is undeterminable, since every policy and legislative act employed by the left has been a dismal failure. Their sense of superiority over the stupid, ungrateful masses is the stuff of tyrants and dictators, not of representative government. They continue to insist more government is better government. They continue to insist that we not only increase, but double our daily quote of bricks, and that we now must make them without straw.
A Day of Reckoning is fast approaching.
As the Bible and Torah say, "Let my people go."
Posted at 01:02 AM
November 01, 2010
Day of Reckoning
Richard Pecore
A sense of entitlement is a powerful thing. It led Democrats to believe they were invulnerable to public opinion and seduced them into believing they could do all manner of things in contravention to the Constitution and the established rule of law. They believed they could do these things without consequences -- or at least, serious consequences; and that the wave of animosity against the polices of George W. Bush that swept them into office, would insulate them from any fallout from their votes.
They were wrong.
Almost immediately after his inauguration, Obama turned the reins of his legislative agenda over to the most radical far left leadership in American history, led by Nancy Pelosi from the California 8th District of San Francisco, and Harry Reid from Nevada, which based upon state population, is to essentially say, Las Vegas.
This is the regional viewpoint forced upon America as a whole in secrecy, with backroom deals, massive taxation, and uncontrollable spending. Democrats, banded together from all over the country, like mindless lemmings marching in lockstep over the cliff, willingly went along. Now they not only refuse to stand on their records, they must hide from them.
Over 56% of Americans strongly support the Tea Parties. Over seventy percent identify favorably with them. There is a reason for that. America is a center-right nation. We have seen with our own eyes, how the left chooses to govern. They use the iron fist. They choose to employ trickery, chicanery, obfuscation, dishonesty, bribery, thuggery and outright lies to bend, twist, convalute, ram through or otherwise forcibly enact legislation -- not of, by and for the People, but in spite of the People.
The House of Representatives is currently comprised of 435 Members (256 Democrats, 178 Republicans, and 1 vacancy in FL-19). The Senate is composed of 57 Democrats, 41 Republicans, and 2 Independents (who reliably vote with Democrats).
Consider that between these two figures, 40% of America's duly elected representatives have been effectively silenced by the House and Senate leadership for two full years. Yet the media and the Democrats continue to scream at the top of their lungs that the Republicans have been obstructionists; that they have stopped the Democrats from doing even more. The Republicans had insufficient numbers to stop anything. Every new piece of legislation we have seen come out of Washington is clear evidence of that.
They have not just been omitted from the process. They have been actively excluded from participating in the committee meetings, strategy sessions, drafting or review of legislation that now accounts for more debt at one time than the nation has previously accumulated in its 234 years of existence and consumes 62% of our GNP. It will also cost more. Far more than the current $4 Trillion of spending and $14 Trillion dollars in debt that we, our children, and our grandchildren have spent before we earned it.
Stated more plainly, a full forty percent of Congress has been prevented from participating in the representative process in any meaningful way. The current U.S. Census clock declares our population to now be an estimated 310,000,000 Americans. This means at the very least, 124,000,000 American voices have been removed from the legislative process and could not voice our views. This of course, does not include all the Republicans, Independents, Libertarians and Democrats in the purported current 186,000,000 "represented" Americans who suffered buyer's remorse after discovering they'd bought a pig in a poke. Just because a Congressman or Senator represents you, does not mean your voice is being heard -- or paid attention to.
We are angry. We want our money back, and we want our country back. The resulting tidal wave that will sweeps scores of Democrats from office is still being understated by the leftist media in a desperate last ditch attempt to stem the tide.
The election night watch parties all over the country should make for a much greater comedy show than the feeble Stewart/Colbert nonsense put forth on the National Mall.
Democrats are whistling in the dark past their own political graveyards on All Hallows Eve.
Never in my lifetime has the federal government ruled so directly against the will of the American people and of the states. Never in my lifetime has justice been so corrupted on a federal level, with daily reminders how power has been misused. Never in my lifetime have I seen the mainstream liberal media so blatantly and wholesale biased in favor of an incumbent's liberal policies, and so horrifically prejudiced against reporting the facts.
The resulting election will be historic. This will be a wholesale landslide and rejection of leftist policies that America has been chomping at the bit to voice. You cannot silence the Voice of Freedom forever. Even Ramses discovered this.
President Obama and the Democrats celebrate their arrogant sense of entitlement to their offices by continuing to insult us, attack us, divide us, or ignore us. The source of this self-pride is undeterminable, since every policy and legislative act employed by the left has been a dismal failure. Their sense of superiority over the stupid, ungrateful masses is the stuff of tyrants and dictators, not of representative government. They continue to insist more government is better government. They continue to insist that we not only increase, but double our daily quote of bricks, and that we now must make them without straw.
A Day of Reckoning is fast approaching.
As the Bible and Torah say, "Let my people go."
Posted at 01:02 AM
The New Axis Of Evil
From Big Government:
6:28 PM (10 minutes ago)The New Axis of Evilfrom Big Government by Dan FreemanIn 1983, Ronald Reagan infuriated liberals worldwide by accurately labeling the Soviet Union as the evil empire. George W. Bush received a similar reaction following his “axis of evil” speech in which he used the politically incorrect term, evil, to describe the regimes of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Although most Americans found it refreshing to hear a politician speak so directly and honestly, the media and the rest of the liberal elites went berserk. Imagine that. It was not that the Kim Jong-il regime kept the people of North Korea in a state of poverty and near starvation that got liberals in a tizzy. Rather, it was that Bush had the audacity to use the word evil to describe it.
The nearly two years of corruption, plunder, and economic destruction—combined with the mockery of the American people and vilification of the private sector—has crystallized for many a realization of a home grown threat more destructive and imminently dangerous to America than any of the substantial external threats we faced over the last century. It’s a threat that has been building quietly for many years but has come to the fore since President Obama was elected. Have you wondered how the radical left managed to capture the reins of power and govern in direct opposition to the will of two thirds of the population? The answer is the New Axis of Evil. It is the power base of the left (and the Democratic Party).
No doubt, the list can be debated and expanded, but here, at least is a starting point—the dirty dozen if you will, with a few prime examples included.
1.Old Media (ACB, CBS, CNN, NBC, NPR, NY Times)
2.Engorged Public Unions (SEIU, NEA, AFSCME)
3.Global Socialist Elites (Robert McChesney, Andy Stern, George Soros)
4.Liberal “Think” Tanks (Media Matters, Center for American Progress, ThinkProgress)
5.America Hating Academics (Noam Chomsky, Paul Krugman )
6.Professional Victims Groups (La Raza, CAIR, NAACP, NOW)
7.Community Disorganizers & Activists (ACORN, Code Pink, ACLU)
8.Environmental Redistributionists (Greenpeace, EDF)
9.Social Justice Preachers (Jeremiah Wright, Reverend Jim Wallis)
10.Progressive Hollywood Elites (Oliver Stone, Sean Penn)
11.Bloated Federal Bureaucracy (DOE, DOA, TSA)
12.Public/Private Colluders (AAPR, Government Motors, Goldman Sachs)
It almost goes without saying (but here I’ll say it anyway)—there are many good people scattered among these institutions.
It is rather the leadership and the aims, desires, and policies of these institutions that warrant their inclusion. Most Americans will instinctively recognize that these are the bad guys. After all, they rob us blind with taxes to pay for every social experiment their bloated egos can conceive while calling us greedy, dim-witted, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, bible clinging, imperialists for not wanting to go along with their half-witted plans. It is often said by conservatives that while the left is hopelessly wrong, they are not evil. I beg to differ. A tipping point has been reached wherein their twisted values, economic illiteracy, arrogance, vile personal behavior, and ends-justify-the-means mentality in their quest to dominate the rest of us, does constitute evil.
All players among of the new axis of evil share certain fundamental values, including a hatred and gross misunderstanding of free enterprise, disdain for the Constitution, contempt for individual rights, and a belief in virtually unlimited government power in the name of their amorphous concept of the collective good. They also share a fundamental ignorance about human nature, including the corrupting influence of power, and the importance of both individual struggle and personal responsibility in achieving happy and satisfying lives. They mock Judeo Christian values (or in the case of Jim Wallis and the social justice crowd, pervert them) and turn upside down traditional western notions of virtue.
The new axis of evil are largely economic illiterates, believing the dual myths that wealth is a zero sum game and a country can spend its way into prosperity. They view America as an oppressor and look for every opportunity to vilify her while supporting dictators that they consider more worthy. The American people are viewed alternatively as their ATMs and their subjects to be prodded into their version of perfection. While they excoriate the greedy private sector, the new exist of evil maintain privileged lives by taking from the very people they condemn. Those who do earn their own way (entertainers, for example) gain access to the governing elite not by giving their own money away, but by convincing others to in the form of higher taxes.
Perhaps the most perverse characteristic of the new axis of evil is its disdain for the individual. Without exception, they seek to usurp power traditionally reserved for individuals in order to empower the state, which, of course, funds their mischief. This, I believe, gets us closer to why this band of misfits is not merely wrong, but evil. The Greek philosopher Plotinus described evil as the negation of the good. When individuals’ are allowed the freedom to make the crucial decisions that affect their own lives, and held responsible for these decisions, they have control over their own destiny, and this is the primary ingredient in living happy, satisfying, and meaningful lives. Since the Renaissance, individuals have gained more and more control over their own lives. Under America’s unique system of individual liberty, limited government, and free enterprise, the individual thrived and humanity leapt ahead in inconceivable ways. Life expectancy doubled in the US from 1850 to 2000, and a typical middle class American had within his control the opportunity (not the guarantee) to live a life that was previously available only to those lucky few born into privilege. This is why we consider America a great nation. Our love of country is not the blind nationalism that academics mock. Rather, it is a love of freedom and self-government. America is the world’s greatest good, not because we are rich and powerful, but because we are free, and through that freedom, have been able to achieve a remarkable degree of control over our own lives. That control has been steadily whittled away by the new axis of evil. If, as Plotinus said, evil is the negation of the good, then fundamentally transforming America—Obama’s paramount goal— from the world’s beacon of freedom to a European socialist state where leaders lord over their subjects whom they consider too feeble and inept to handle the burdens of life, is one of the greatest evils that can be perpetrated.
Beginning with Marx’s Communist Manifesto in 1848 and accelerating in the mid 20th century, with the rise of the collective good and its transformation into Stalinism, Nazism, and Maoism, the centuries-long trend towards individual freedom was reversed. It was not only the murder of tens of millions that was evil, but also the billion lives make stark by the corruption, economic destruction, and personal degradation of centralized control, always in the name of the collective good. America has always fought against the horrors of the totalitarian state in defense of the individual. But while we fought foreign enemies, the new axis of evil plotted to undermine America.
At its core, the new axis of evil is about the forced redistribution of wealth from those who earn it, to those who burn it. The justifications for legalized theft get more absurd by the day. From the eternal war on poverty, to global warming, climate change, social justice, racial justice, healthcare as a right, even to saving those poor companies like GM that cannot make it on their own. The only thing one finds in common with these policies is that each feeds the beast of the new axis of evil with money extracted from us. The left does not understand how its noble desire to spread the wealth is itself a vicious attack on individual freedom. Our wealth is the closest thing we have to stored toil. After all, whether one earns minimum wage or a million dollars a year, he must work to earn it, and taking that money to give it to someone else is akin to both legalized theft and servitude.
With the attack of the individual, necessarily comes an attack on Judeo-Christian values. The Ten Commandments is a code of personal behavior. Thou shalt not lie does not mean thou shalt not lie unless doing so allows us to get the votes to pass Obamacare. It’s no coincidence that in academic circles, the very notion of fixed, absolute standards of good and evil are rejected. But although Judeo-Christian values are disregarded, the only code of conduct that has replaced these ancient guideposts of individual behavior seems to be—whatever our self anointed leaders decree to be right. The loss of the left’s moral compass is nowhere more evident than in a commercial produced an environmental group that shows children being blown up because they do not actively support cutting CO2 emissions
The new “good” is simply everyone and everything that supports the left’s un-definable collective good. The new “evil” is everything that stands in opposition, which places FOX News and the Tea Party at the epicenter of the left’s hatred. If our self annointed leaders declare that everyone has the right to free healthcare, it must be so. Even if Obamacare conflicts with our right to private property, undermines the free market system, impedes medical innovation, adds another trillion to our deficit, and is a prime driver of unemployment. History shows that when the collective good is the goal, individual moral standards evaporate. If ever anyone needed the grounding and restraint demanded in the Ten Commandments, it’s the new axis of evil.
This is the battle we are in. It is a battle of good versus evil. Of individual freedom—protected by a constitutionally limited government—versus collectivism—fed by the unquenchably appetite of the State. In America, a man still has control over his destiny. He can still pursue his own happiness, his God given right. But not without a fight.
6:28 PM (10 minutes ago)The New Axis of Evilfrom Big Government by Dan FreemanIn 1983, Ronald Reagan infuriated liberals worldwide by accurately labeling the Soviet Union as the evil empire. George W. Bush received a similar reaction following his “axis of evil” speech in which he used the politically incorrect term, evil, to describe the regimes of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Although most Americans found it refreshing to hear a politician speak so directly and honestly, the media and the rest of the liberal elites went berserk. Imagine that. It was not that the Kim Jong-il regime kept the people of North Korea in a state of poverty and near starvation that got liberals in a tizzy. Rather, it was that Bush had the audacity to use the word evil to describe it.
The nearly two years of corruption, plunder, and economic destruction—combined with the mockery of the American people and vilification of the private sector—has crystallized for many a realization of a home grown threat more destructive and imminently dangerous to America than any of the substantial external threats we faced over the last century. It’s a threat that has been building quietly for many years but has come to the fore since President Obama was elected. Have you wondered how the radical left managed to capture the reins of power and govern in direct opposition to the will of two thirds of the population? The answer is the New Axis of Evil. It is the power base of the left (and the Democratic Party).
No doubt, the list can be debated and expanded, but here, at least is a starting point—the dirty dozen if you will, with a few prime examples included.
1.Old Media (ACB, CBS, CNN, NBC, NPR, NY Times)
2.Engorged Public Unions (SEIU, NEA, AFSCME)
3.Global Socialist Elites (Robert McChesney, Andy Stern, George Soros)
4.Liberal “Think” Tanks (Media Matters, Center for American Progress, ThinkProgress)
5.America Hating Academics (Noam Chomsky, Paul Krugman )
6.Professional Victims Groups (La Raza, CAIR, NAACP, NOW)
7.Community Disorganizers & Activists (ACORN, Code Pink, ACLU)
8.Environmental Redistributionists (Greenpeace, EDF)
9.Social Justice Preachers (Jeremiah Wright, Reverend Jim Wallis)
10.Progressive Hollywood Elites (Oliver Stone, Sean Penn)
11.Bloated Federal Bureaucracy (DOE, DOA, TSA)
12.Public/Private Colluders (AAPR, Government Motors, Goldman Sachs)
It almost goes without saying (but here I’ll say it anyway)—there are many good people scattered among these institutions.
It is rather the leadership and the aims, desires, and policies of these institutions that warrant their inclusion. Most Americans will instinctively recognize that these are the bad guys. After all, they rob us blind with taxes to pay for every social experiment their bloated egos can conceive while calling us greedy, dim-witted, racist, homophobic, Islamophobic, bible clinging, imperialists for not wanting to go along with their half-witted plans. It is often said by conservatives that while the left is hopelessly wrong, they are not evil. I beg to differ. A tipping point has been reached wherein their twisted values, economic illiteracy, arrogance, vile personal behavior, and ends-justify-the-means mentality in their quest to dominate the rest of us, does constitute evil.
All players among of the new axis of evil share certain fundamental values, including a hatred and gross misunderstanding of free enterprise, disdain for the Constitution, contempt for individual rights, and a belief in virtually unlimited government power in the name of their amorphous concept of the collective good. They also share a fundamental ignorance about human nature, including the corrupting influence of power, and the importance of both individual struggle and personal responsibility in achieving happy and satisfying lives. They mock Judeo Christian values (or in the case of Jim Wallis and the social justice crowd, pervert them) and turn upside down traditional western notions of virtue.
The new axis of evil are largely economic illiterates, believing the dual myths that wealth is a zero sum game and a country can spend its way into prosperity. They view America as an oppressor and look for every opportunity to vilify her while supporting dictators that they consider more worthy. The American people are viewed alternatively as their ATMs and their subjects to be prodded into their version of perfection. While they excoriate the greedy private sector, the new exist of evil maintain privileged lives by taking from the very people they condemn. Those who do earn their own way (entertainers, for example) gain access to the governing elite not by giving their own money away, but by convincing others to in the form of higher taxes.
Perhaps the most perverse characteristic of the new axis of evil is its disdain for the individual. Without exception, they seek to usurp power traditionally reserved for individuals in order to empower the state, which, of course, funds their mischief. This, I believe, gets us closer to why this band of misfits is not merely wrong, but evil. The Greek philosopher Plotinus described evil as the negation of the good. When individuals’ are allowed the freedom to make the crucial decisions that affect their own lives, and held responsible for these decisions, they have control over their own destiny, and this is the primary ingredient in living happy, satisfying, and meaningful lives. Since the Renaissance, individuals have gained more and more control over their own lives. Under America’s unique system of individual liberty, limited government, and free enterprise, the individual thrived and humanity leapt ahead in inconceivable ways. Life expectancy doubled in the US from 1850 to 2000, and a typical middle class American had within his control the opportunity (not the guarantee) to live a life that was previously available only to those lucky few born into privilege. This is why we consider America a great nation. Our love of country is not the blind nationalism that academics mock. Rather, it is a love of freedom and self-government. America is the world’s greatest good, not because we are rich and powerful, but because we are free, and through that freedom, have been able to achieve a remarkable degree of control over our own lives. That control has been steadily whittled away by the new axis of evil. If, as Plotinus said, evil is the negation of the good, then fundamentally transforming America—Obama’s paramount goal— from the world’s beacon of freedom to a European socialist state where leaders lord over their subjects whom they consider too feeble and inept to handle the burdens of life, is one of the greatest evils that can be perpetrated.
Beginning with Marx’s Communist Manifesto in 1848 and accelerating in the mid 20th century, with the rise of the collective good and its transformation into Stalinism, Nazism, and Maoism, the centuries-long trend towards individual freedom was reversed. It was not only the murder of tens of millions that was evil, but also the billion lives make stark by the corruption, economic destruction, and personal degradation of centralized control, always in the name of the collective good. America has always fought against the horrors of the totalitarian state in defense of the individual. But while we fought foreign enemies, the new axis of evil plotted to undermine America.
At its core, the new axis of evil is about the forced redistribution of wealth from those who earn it, to those who burn it. The justifications for legalized theft get more absurd by the day. From the eternal war on poverty, to global warming, climate change, social justice, racial justice, healthcare as a right, even to saving those poor companies like GM that cannot make it on their own. The only thing one finds in common with these policies is that each feeds the beast of the new axis of evil with money extracted from us. The left does not understand how its noble desire to spread the wealth is itself a vicious attack on individual freedom. Our wealth is the closest thing we have to stored toil. After all, whether one earns minimum wage or a million dollars a year, he must work to earn it, and taking that money to give it to someone else is akin to both legalized theft and servitude.
With the attack of the individual, necessarily comes an attack on Judeo-Christian values. The Ten Commandments is a code of personal behavior. Thou shalt not lie does not mean thou shalt not lie unless doing so allows us to get the votes to pass Obamacare. It’s no coincidence that in academic circles, the very notion of fixed, absolute standards of good and evil are rejected. But although Judeo-Christian values are disregarded, the only code of conduct that has replaced these ancient guideposts of individual behavior seems to be—whatever our self anointed leaders decree to be right. The loss of the left’s moral compass is nowhere more evident than in a commercial produced an environmental group that shows children being blown up because they do not actively support cutting CO2 emissions
The new “good” is simply everyone and everything that supports the left’s un-definable collective good. The new “evil” is everything that stands in opposition, which places FOX News and the Tea Party at the epicenter of the left’s hatred. If our self annointed leaders declare that everyone has the right to free healthcare, it must be so. Even if Obamacare conflicts with our right to private property, undermines the free market system, impedes medical innovation, adds another trillion to our deficit, and is a prime driver of unemployment. History shows that when the collective good is the goal, individual moral standards evaporate. If ever anyone needed the grounding and restraint demanded in the Ten Commandments, it’s the new axis of evil.
This is the battle we are in. It is a battle of good versus evil. Of individual freedom—protected by a constitutionally limited government—versus collectivism—fed by the unquenchably appetite of the State. In America, a man still has control over his destiny. He can still pursue his own happiness, his God given right. But not without a fight.
Obama Regime Sends Federal Observers To Harass Arizona Poll Watchers At SEIU's Request
From Floyd Reports;
Obama Sends Feds to Harass Arizona Poll Watchers at SEIU’s Request
Posted on November 1, 2010 by Ben Johnson by Ben Johnson
As part of its traditional Friday news dump, the Obama administration announced the Justice Department will be sending “400 federal observers to 30 jurisdictions in 18 states” to oversee the midterm elections. Unfortunately, the feds will not attempt to keep illegal immigrants or fraudulent voters from casting a ballot; instead, they will harass poll watchers who try to assure everyone admitted to the polls is properly registered. Moreover, Obama is dispatching the observers at the specific request of the Hispanic political arm of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
The federal locusts who will descend upon America’s fields of suffrage will include 85 lawyers (“monitors”) and an additional 335 “observers” who will watch local officials “for a variety of potential infractions ranging from voter intimidation or coercion targeting voters because of their race, color, national origin, religion or language skills.”
That’s right; the monitors will make sure local election workers do not unduly burden would-be voters by asking for identification too often, or challenging the voting status of any one ethnic group more than any other. The action will bludgeon poll watchers into submission and ease the process for any illegal alien or fraudulent voter to cast a ballot.
CNN notes a number of DoJ attorneys have been assigned to Maricopa County, Arizona, the home of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Curiously, the announcement came one day after the Justice Department received a plea from an organization called Mi Familia Vota (MFV) for the feds to send agents to Maricopa County. (Others claim the Obama administration had decided to send agents to the area long before receiving the letter. The request simply provides the department with an additional level of local, “grassroots” cover.)
Eric Holder will undoubtedly try to portray his action as a response to a complaint from a civil rights organization. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mi Familia Vota is merely the political arm of the labor union closest to the president.
MFV=SEIU
Mi Familia Vota is a wholly dependent project of the SEIU. Hunter Cantor has listed the “two” organizations’ undeniable connections: both are headquartered at the same physical location, and MFV’s website is owned and operated by SEIU. A 2004 SEIU report entitled Anatomy of an Election Strategy: The Facts on SEIU’s Role in Bringing Home a Victory for America’s Working Families noted the union uses MFV and another group called American Families United as tools to “shape the outcome of presidential election.”
To remove all doubt, MFV’s personnel is drawn from SEIU’s ranks. Mi Familia Vota’s executive director, Ben Monterroso, has worked for SEIU for more than 20 years, including a stint as “special assistant to SEIU’s executive Vice President Eliseo Medina as director of the Civic Participation Project aimed at increasing the political participation of immigrants.”
MFV’s treasurer is none other than Eliseo Medina. In addition to serving as SEIU’s International Secretary-Treasurer and honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, Medina was also a member of Barack Obama’s National Latino Advisory Committee.
It’s odd; it’s as if Mi Familia Vota and SEIU were one and the same entity.
MFV states its purpose is to “build power in Latino, immigrant and allied communities, and to ensure social and economic justice through increased civic engagement.” Stripped of its euphemisms, that means it intends to register as many people of Hispanic origin as possible and convince them to vote for socialism (sorry, “social and economic justice”).
To that end, MFV has submitted thousands of disputed, last minute voter registrations in Colorado and Arizona.
Eliseo Medina described the process last summer. Medina told a far-Left conference if liberals “reform the immigration laws – it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters. Can you imagine if you had even the same ratio, two out of three, if we get eight million new voters that care about our issue and will be voting, we will create a governing coalition for the long-term, not just for an election cycle.”
It would mean, in other words, the fundamental transformation of America.
Illegal Immigrants Allied with SEIU
Similar efforts are underway across the country. SEIU is spending $10 million to mobilize Latinos in California, alone, and much more nationwide, because the union believes “40 Competitive Races in 12 States Could Hinge on Latino Voter Turnout.” Altogether, SEIU and the AFL-CIO have pledged $88 million to the 2010 midterm elections.
Similarly, an organization called OneAmerica Votes is using illegal immigrants to canvass the state of Washington on behalf of Democrats. OV hosted a “New Americans Ballot Initiative Party,” where the group offered “Free food, music and other entertainment” to its often impoverished attendees before “educating” them about how to vote, then voting early en masse.
OneAmerica Votes, which was formerly known as “Hate Free Zone,” is financed by George Soros’ Open Society Institute, the Tides Foundation, Planned Parenthood, and (wait for it) SEIU.
OneAmerica boasts that it has received the “Community Strength Partner, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare 775 NW.”
OneAmerica CAIRs
OV also received two awards from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): the Voices of Unity Award from the national Council on American-Islamic Relations in 2003 and the Partner of the Year Award from the Seattle Chapter Council on American-Islamic Relations. The latter probably stems from the joint voter registration drive between OneAmerica Votes and the Seattle chapter of CAIR in 2004, known as the Muslim Civic Engagement Project. Altogether, OV claims to have registered “over 2,000 Muslims to vote; approximately 90% turn out to vote on Election Day.”
As Muslim voters and CAIR were to the war on terror, so are illegal immigrants in the war to institute socialism.
Feds Force Bilingual Ballots on Ohio
Another set of federal monitors is going to Cleveland to assure the city provides bilingual ballots to Puerto Rican voters who cannot speak English. The Justice Department surprised the city with the costly last-minute decision in August. “They just dropped it on us,” said Rob Frost, a Republican elections board member in the area. “They were essentially saying we’d like you to decide on this very quickly.” The Plain Dealer reported, “Cuyahoga County has the largest Puerto Rican community in America not served with bilingual ballots, the board of elections has been told by Justice Department officials.”
Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, no Puerto Rican with a sixth grade education may be “denied the right to vote in any Federal, State, or local election because of his inability to read, write, understand, or interpret any matter in the English language.” Seizing on the fact that an alleged 6,000 Puerto Ricans have trouble with English, out of the 34,000 Puerto Ricans who reside in the area, the DoJ has forced the county to print bilingual ballots in Spanish or face a costly federal lawsuit.
While the law may require assistance to Puerto Ricans who are U.S. citizens, the most obvious beneficiaries to bilingual ballots will be Hispanics who hail from other nations — some perhaps here illegally. By pure happenstance, the state of Ohio has a U.S. Senate race and a governor’s race, and Obama has made multiple stops in the state that he sees as pivotal to his party’s future. (And where the Democrats are about to be blown out of the water.) In 2008, 67 percent of Hispanic voters supported Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.
Other federal monitors will go to South Dakota, where Democrats are offering “feeds” on Indian reservations before Indians cast an early ballot.
Additional states where feds appear poised to run interference for vote fraudsters include Alabama, Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas. But federal attorneys are not the only ones headed to monitor the polls.
The Pink Black Panther Returns
In Houston, the head of the New Black Panther Party, Quanell X, has confirmed the Black Panthers will once again watch over polling places, as they famously did in 2008. The Obama administration’s decision to drop the case has emboldened them to continue hazing white voters and anti-fraud watchdogs. One such group, the King Street Patriots, has legally monitored polling places to assure ineligible voters are not voting. In return, they say they have been threatened and intimidated by everyone from voters to registered Democratic Party officials.
They asked the Justice Department to investigate the matter on their behalf. Good luck with that.
(Story continues after video.)
On election eve, SEIU and its allies use illegal aliens to canvass in sanctuary cities, register “new Americans” to vote in numbers so great the local registrars cannot properly assess their merits, offer all the free food and left-wing propaganda Hispanics or American Indians can swallow before marching the new citizens (and for all we know, non-citizens) off to vote. They requested, and received, federal lawyers to monitor concerned citizens who are doing what the federal government ought to be doing: leaving no doubt that every voter involved in our most cherished civic institution is acting in accordance with the law. At the last minute, they force the battleground state of Ohio to produce bilingual ballots — but only in Spanish. And they fail to prosecute a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party, enticing the party to send “observers” to the polls again this year.
The Justice Department, as all of the federal government, is one extension of Barack Obama’s will-to-power, enforcing his diktats and crushing his enemies. It appears this election is a pincers movement of SEIU-funded organizations rounding up the downtrodden (and probably ineligible) to vote, while Eric Holder’s clones make sure no one prevents them from doing so. It has every mark of an opportunity to steal the election outright.
The good news is, as Hugh Hewitt once wrote, If It’s Not Close, They Can’t Cheat. And this election will not be close.
(Nonetheless, report any and all suspicious activity. And, if you are a legal U.S. citizen registered to vote, be sure to vote tomorrow.)
Obama Sends Feds to Harass Arizona Poll Watchers at SEIU’s Request
Posted on November 1, 2010 by Ben Johnson by Ben Johnson
As part of its traditional Friday news dump, the Obama administration announced the Justice Department will be sending “400 federal observers to 30 jurisdictions in 18 states” to oversee the midterm elections. Unfortunately, the feds will not attempt to keep illegal immigrants or fraudulent voters from casting a ballot; instead, they will harass poll watchers who try to assure everyone admitted to the polls is properly registered. Moreover, Obama is dispatching the observers at the specific request of the Hispanic political arm of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
The federal locusts who will descend upon America’s fields of suffrage will include 85 lawyers (“monitors”) and an additional 335 “observers” who will watch local officials “for a variety of potential infractions ranging from voter intimidation or coercion targeting voters because of their race, color, national origin, religion or language skills.”
That’s right; the monitors will make sure local election workers do not unduly burden would-be voters by asking for identification too often, or challenging the voting status of any one ethnic group more than any other. The action will bludgeon poll watchers into submission and ease the process for any illegal alien or fraudulent voter to cast a ballot.
CNN notes a number of DoJ attorneys have been assigned to Maricopa County, Arizona, the home of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Curiously, the announcement came one day after the Justice Department received a plea from an organization called Mi Familia Vota (MFV) for the feds to send agents to Maricopa County. (Others claim the Obama administration had decided to send agents to the area long before receiving the letter. The request simply provides the department with an additional level of local, “grassroots” cover.)
Eric Holder will undoubtedly try to portray his action as a response to a complaint from a civil rights organization. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mi Familia Vota is merely the political arm of the labor union closest to the president.
MFV=SEIU
Mi Familia Vota is a wholly dependent project of the SEIU. Hunter Cantor has listed the “two” organizations’ undeniable connections: both are headquartered at the same physical location, and MFV’s website is owned and operated by SEIU. A 2004 SEIU report entitled Anatomy of an Election Strategy: The Facts on SEIU’s Role in Bringing Home a Victory for America’s Working Families noted the union uses MFV and another group called American Families United as tools to “shape the outcome of presidential election.”
To remove all doubt, MFV’s personnel is drawn from SEIU’s ranks. Mi Familia Vota’s executive director, Ben Monterroso, has worked for SEIU for more than 20 years, including a stint as “special assistant to SEIU’s executive Vice President Eliseo Medina as director of the Civic Participation Project aimed at increasing the political participation of immigrants.”
MFV’s treasurer is none other than Eliseo Medina. In addition to serving as SEIU’s International Secretary-Treasurer and honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America, Medina was also a member of Barack Obama’s National Latino Advisory Committee.
It’s odd; it’s as if Mi Familia Vota and SEIU were one and the same entity.
MFV states its purpose is to “build power in Latino, immigrant and allied communities, and to ensure social and economic justice through increased civic engagement.” Stripped of its euphemisms, that means it intends to register as many people of Hispanic origin as possible and convince them to vote for socialism (sorry, “social and economic justice”).
To that end, MFV has submitted thousands of disputed, last minute voter registrations in Colorado and Arizona.
Eliseo Medina described the process last summer. Medina told a far-Left conference if liberals “reform the immigration laws – it puts 12 million people on the path to citizenship and eventually voters. Can you imagine if you had even the same ratio, two out of three, if we get eight million new voters that care about our issue and will be voting, we will create a governing coalition for the long-term, not just for an election cycle.”
It would mean, in other words, the fundamental transformation of America.
Illegal Immigrants Allied with SEIU
Similar efforts are underway across the country. SEIU is spending $10 million to mobilize Latinos in California, alone, and much more nationwide, because the union believes “40 Competitive Races in 12 States Could Hinge on Latino Voter Turnout.” Altogether, SEIU and the AFL-CIO have pledged $88 million to the 2010 midterm elections.
Similarly, an organization called OneAmerica Votes is using illegal immigrants to canvass the state of Washington on behalf of Democrats. OV hosted a “New Americans Ballot Initiative Party,” where the group offered “Free food, music and other entertainment” to its often impoverished attendees before “educating” them about how to vote, then voting early en masse.
OneAmerica Votes, which was formerly known as “Hate Free Zone,” is financed by George Soros’ Open Society Institute, the Tides Foundation, Planned Parenthood, and (wait for it) SEIU.
OneAmerica boasts that it has received the “Community Strength Partner, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Healthcare 775 NW.”
OneAmerica CAIRs
OV also received two awards from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR): the Voices of Unity Award from the national Council on American-Islamic Relations in 2003 and the Partner of the Year Award from the Seattle Chapter Council on American-Islamic Relations. The latter probably stems from the joint voter registration drive between OneAmerica Votes and the Seattle chapter of CAIR in 2004, known as the Muslim Civic Engagement Project. Altogether, OV claims to have registered “over 2,000 Muslims to vote; approximately 90% turn out to vote on Election Day.”
As Muslim voters and CAIR were to the war on terror, so are illegal immigrants in the war to institute socialism.
Feds Force Bilingual Ballots on Ohio
Another set of federal monitors is going to Cleveland to assure the city provides bilingual ballots to Puerto Rican voters who cannot speak English. The Justice Department surprised the city with the costly last-minute decision in August. “They just dropped it on us,” said Rob Frost, a Republican elections board member in the area. “They were essentially saying we’d like you to decide on this very quickly.” The Plain Dealer reported, “Cuyahoga County has the largest Puerto Rican community in America not served with bilingual ballots, the board of elections has been told by Justice Department officials.”
Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, no Puerto Rican with a sixth grade education may be “denied the right to vote in any Federal, State, or local election because of his inability to read, write, understand, or interpret any matter in the English language.” Seizing on the fact that an alleged 6,000 Puerto Ricans have trouble with English, out of the 34,000 Puerto Ricans who reside in the area, the DoJ has forced the county to print bilingual ballots in Spanish or face a costly federal lawsuit.
While the law may require assistance to Puerto Ricans who are U.S. citizens, the most obvious beneficiaries to bilingual ballots will be Hispanics who hail from other nations — some perhaps here illegally. By pure happenstance, the state of Ohio has a U.S. Senate race and a governor’s race, and Obama has made multiple stops in the state that he sees as pivotal to his party’s future. (And where the Democrats are about to be blown out of the water.) In 2008, 67 percent of Hispanic voters supported Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.
Other federal monitors will go to South Dakota, where Democrats are offering “feeds” on Indian reservations before Indians cast an early ballot.
Additional states where feds appear poised to run interference for vote fraudsters include Alabama, Alaska, California, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas. But federal attorneys are not the only ones headed to monitor the polls.
The Pink Black Panther Returns
In Houston, the head of the New Black Panther Party, Quanell X, has confirmed the Black Panthers will once again watch over polling places, as they famously did in 2008. The Obama administration’s decision to drop the case has emboldened them to continue hazing white voters and anti-fraud watchdogs. One such group, the King Street Patriots, has legally monitored polling places to assure ineligible voters are not voting. In return, they say they have been threatened and intimidated by everyone from voters to registered Democratic Party officials.
They asked the Justice Department to investigate the matter on their behalf. Good luck with that.
(Story continues after video.)
On election eve, SEIU and its allies use illegal aliens to canvass in sanctuary cities, register “new Americans” to vote in numbers so great the local registrars cannot properly assess their merits, offer all the free food and left-wing propaganda Hispanics or American Indians can swallow before marching the new citizens (and for all we know, non-citizens) off to vote. They requested, and received, federal lawyers to monitor concerned citizens who are doing what the federal government ought to be doing: leaving no doubt that every voter involved in our most cherished civic institution is acting in accordance with the law. At the last minute, they force the battleground state of Ohio to produce bilingual ballots — but only in Spanish. And they fail to prosecute a voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party, enticing the party to send “observers” to the polls again this year.
The Justice Department, as all of the federal government, is one extension of Barack Obama’s will-to-power, enforcing his diktats and crushing his enemies. It appears this election is a pincers movement of SEIU-funded organizations rounding up the downtrodden (and probably ineligible) to vote, while Eric Holder’s clones make sure no one prevents them from doing so. It has every mark of an opportunity to steal the election outright.
The good news is, as Hugh Hewitt once wrote, If It’s Not Close, They Can’t Cheat. And this election will not be close.
(Nonetheless, report any and all suspicious activity. And, if you are a legal U.S. citizen registered to vote, be sure to vote tomorrow.)
FAIR Legislative Update
From FAIR:
FAIR Legislative Update November 1, 2010
My Interests
All >
Interests: Legislative Update -- Return to Top --
Legislative Update
Add to My Interests
Reid Promises Action on DREAM Act Before Year’s End
On the Univision program "Al Punto," which aired Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised to bring the DREAM Act to the Senate floor during the lame duck session of Congress, regardless of the outcome of the elections. (The New York Times, Oct. 31, 2010) According to The Hill, the show’s host, Jorge Ramos, repeatedly asked Reid whether the vote would happen, win or lose. "The answer is yes," Reid said. "I have the right to do that, you know, I have the right to bring that up any time I want, that's why I brought it up the first time," he said. "I am a believer in our needing to do something. ... We all support the DREAM Act. I just need a handful of Republicans to help me." (The Hill, Nov. 1, 2010)
Senator Reid is locked in a neck-and-neck race to keep his Senate seat against Republican candidate Sharron Angle. Recently, one of Ms. Angle’s television ads – referring to Reid’s long-time support for amnesty – characterized Reid as “the best friend an illegal alien ever had.” (The New York Times, Oct. 31, 2010) That label, said Reid, was “totally without fact our (sic) foundation.” (Id.)
Reid Aide Admits to Marriage Fraud
According to federal court documents, Diana Tejada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Press Secretary of Hispanic Media, admitted to receiving payment in exchange for fraudulently marrying a Lebanese man in 2003 so he could obtain a green card (legal permanent residence). (Fox News, Oct. 25, 2010) Ms. Tejada’s husband, Bassam Mahmoud Tarhini , was charged with two felony counts in 2009 and held in jail and at an immigration detention center. He pled guilty to the felony charge of entering a fraudulent marriage to evade immigration laws in November 2009, and was deported in March 2010. (Id.)
Fox News, which originally broke the story, reports that Mr. Tarhini entered the U.S. in 2000 on a student visa to attend Oklahoma City University, where Ms. Tejada was also a student. They married in September 2003, and two months later, Tejada submitted an affidavit sponsoring her husband’s green card application. Ms. Tejada signed numerous affidavits fraudulently representing her marriage along with a signed obligation to support Tarhini. In 2005, Tejada moved to Washington, DC to work for the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic-based organization country. In October 2008, she began working for Senator Reid. A month later, in November 2008 she admitted that her marriage was fraudulent, arranged for the purpose of getting a green card for her husband. (Id.)
Federal officials, however, never charged Ms. Tejada. “We did not charge the woman, and of course we don’t discuss the reasons we don’t charge people,” said a U.S. Attorney spokesperson. Jeffrey Byers, Mr. Tarhini’s attorney, could not provide reporters with much more insight: “I don’t honestly know the reason why they chose to prosecute Bassam and not her.” (Id.)
Although Ms. Tejada appeared as a spokesman for Senator Reid only a few weeks ago, his office now says that she is no longer employed there. A spokesman for the Senate Majority Leader said the office had not been aware of these charges against Tejada prior to the Fox News report. "Our office was not previously aware of these allegations and, following an internal investigation, the staffer at issue is no longer with our office." (Id.)
Immigrant Workers Gain Jobs; Native-Born Workers Lose Jobs
Last week, the Pew Hispanic Center released new data showing that since the official end of the “Great Recession,” immigrant workers gained jobs while native workers lost jobs. (Pew Hispanic, Oct. 29, 2010) Specifically, the Pew Hispanic Center found that from June 2009 to June 2010, the unemployment rate for foreign born workers dropped 0.6 percent, while rising 0.5 percent for native born workers. Interestingly, the unemployment rate for foreign-born Hispanics decreased from 11.0 percent in the second quarter of 2009 to 10.1 percent in the second quarter of 2010. At the same time, the unemployment rate for native-born Hispanics increased from 12.9 percent to 14.0 percent.
Although unemployment for foreign born workers has dropped over the past year, Pew’s data shows that, as a group, they still have experienced a significant loss of jobs and a 4.5 percent drop in wages. The authors suggest that one reason for these changes is that immigrant workers traditionally have had greater mobility and – especially in the case of illegal aliens – are willing to accept lower wages and reduced work hours. Most notably, the Pew report suggests that immigration (not distinguishing between legal and illegal) is sensitive to business cycles and that it appears that the economic recovery, modest as it may be, is attracting immigrant workers back to the U.S. (Id.)
GAO: Border Patrol has Limited Access to Federal Land at Southern Border
Two-thirds of Border Patrol supervisory agents (called “agents-in-charge”) report that the Border Patrol’s access to much of the land along the southwest border is limited due to federal land management laws and regulations, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released last week. (GAO -11-38, Oct. 2010) The GAO reports that this web of laws and regulations has resulted in delays and restrictions in the agents’ ability to patrol and monitor these lands.
According to the report, roughly 40% of land along the southwest border is owned by the federal government and is thus subject to a myriad of environmental and management laws. (Id. at 4) These laws, which include the National Environmental Policy Act, National Historic Preservation Act, Wilderness Act, and the Endangered Species Act, are all administered by the U.S. Departments of Interior and Agriculture. (Id. at 16-19) Pursuant to these laws and regulations, the Border Patrol must obtain permission or a permit from agencies within these Departments before agents can maintain roads and install surveillance equipment on such land. (Id. at 13)
As a result, the GAO reports that agents-in-charge for many Border Patrol stations have been unable to obtain a permit or permission to access certain areas in a timely manner because of how long it takes for land managers to conduct required environmental and historic property assessments. Land management agencies are concerned that the Border Patrols’ heavy equipment and all-terrain vehicles cause damage to the pristine territory and endangered wildlife. (Id. at 11) Meanwhile, the Border Patrol is concerned for the danger presented by illegal alien and especially drug cartel traffic. In fact, the GAOreports that certain portions of these federal lands are so dangerous that the government has posted warning signs and even closed portions to the public. (Id. at 48-49)
While the missions of the Border Patrol and land management agencies can conflict, the GAO also states that the Border Patrol can help protect natural resources on federal land by deterring illegal alien traffic. Federal land managers have documented thousands of miles of illegal alien trails and thousands of pounds of trash, “littering landscapes that have more wildlife and plant species listed under the Endangered Species Act than any other geographic region in the continental United States.” According to a 2009 report by the Department of the Interior, “endangered species and their habitats are potentially being irreversibly damaged” from illegal border crossings. (Id. at 11)
Although some Border Patrol agents-in-charge say the security of their jurisdiction is not affected by the land management laws, the GAO concludes that certain land management laws present challenges to the Border Patrol’s operations. “With limited access for patrols and monitoring, some illegal entries may go undetected. This challenge is exacerbated as illegal traffic shifts to areas where Border Patrol has previously not needed, or requested access.” Adding to the problem, is that management agencies have not always been able to timely complete required assessments and that their method of doing so may slow down the Border Patrol’s access to these regions along the border. (Id. at 51)
FAIR Legislative Update November 1, 2010
My Interests
All >
Interests: Legislative Update -- Return to Top --
Legislative Update
Add to My Interests
Reid Promises Action on DREAM Act Before Year’s End
On the Univision program "Al Punto," which aired Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised to bring the DREAM Act to the Senate floor during the lame duck session of Congress, regardless of the outcome of the elections. (The New York Times, Oct. 31, 2010) According to The Hill, the show’s host, Jorge Ramos, repeatedly asked Reid whether the vote would happen, win or lose. "The answer is yes," Reid said. "I have the right to do that, you know, I have the right to bring that up any time I want, that's why I brought it up the first time," he said. "I am a believer in our needing to do something. ... We all support the DREAM Act. I just need a handful of Republicans to help me." (The Hill, Nov. 1, 2010)
Senator Reid is locked in a neck-and-neck race to keep his Senate seat against Republican candidate Sharron Angle. Recently, one of Ms. Angle’s television ads – referring to Reid’s long-time support for amnesty – characterized Reid as “the best friend an illegal alien ever had.” (The New York Times, Oct. 31, 2010) That label, said Reid, was “totally without fact our (sic) foundation.” (Id.)
Reid Aide Admits to Marriage Fraud
According to federal court documents, Diana Tejada, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Press Secretary of Hispanic Media, admitted to receiving payment in exchange for fraudulently marrying a Lebanese man in 2003 so he could obtain a green card (legal permanent residence). (Fox News, Oct. 25, 2010) Ms. Tejada’s husband, Bassam Mahmoud Tarhini , was charged with two felony counts in 2009 and held in jail and at an immigration detention center. He pled guilty to the felony charge of entering a fraudulent marriage to evade immigration laws in November 2009, and was deported in March 2010. (Id.)
Fox News, which originally broke the story, reports that Mr. Tarhini entered the U.S. in 2000 on a student visa to attend Oklahoma City University, where Ms. Tejada was also a student. They married in September 2003, and two months later, Tejada submitted an affidavit sponsoring her husband’s green card application. Ms. Tejada signed numerous affidavits fraudulently representing her marriage along with a signed obligation to support Tarhini. In 2005, Tejada moved to Washington, DC to work for the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic-based organization country. In October 2008, she began working for Senator Reid. A month later, in November 2008 she admitted that her marriage was fraudulent, arranged for the purpose of getting a green card for her husband. (Id.)
Federal officials, however, never charged Ms. Tejada. “We did not charge the woman, and of course we don’t discuss the reasons we don’t charge people,” said a U.S. Attorney spokesperson. Jeffrey Byers, Mr. Tarhini’s attorney, could not provide reporters with much more insight: “I don’t honestly know the reason why they chose to prosecute Bassam and not her.” (Id.)
Although Ms. Tejada appeared as a spokesman for Senator Reid only a few weeks ago, his office now says that she is no longer employed there. A spokesman for the Senate Majority Leader said the office had not been aware of these charges against Tejada prior to the Fox News report. "Our office was not previously aware of these allegations and, following an internal investigation, the staffer at issue is no longer with our office." (Id.)
Immigrant Workers Gain Jobs; Native-Born Workers Lose Jobs
Last week, the Pew Hispanic Center released new data showing that since the official end of the “Great Recession,” immigrant workers gained jobs while native workers lost jobs. (Pew Hispanic, Oct. 29, 2010) Specifically, the Pew Hispanic Center found that from June 2009 to June 2010, the unemployment rate for foreign born workers dropped 0.6 percent, while rising 0.5 percent for native born workers. Interestingly, the unemployment rate for foreign-born Hispanics decreased from 11.0 percent in the second quarter of 2009 to 10.1 percent in the second quarter of 2010. At the same time, the unemployment rate for native-born Hispanics increased from 12.9 percent to 14.0 percent.
Although unemployment for foreign born workers has dropped over the past year, Pew’s data shows that, as a group, they still have experienced a significant loss of jobs and a 4.5 percent drop in wages. The authors suggest that one reason for these changes is that immigrant workers traditionally have had greater mobility and – especially in the case of illegal aliens – are willing to accept lower wages and reduced work hours. Most notably, the Pew report suggests that immigration (not distinguishing between legal and illegal) is sensitive to business cycles and that it appears that the economic recovery, modest as it may be, is attracting immigrant workers back to the U.S. (Id.)
GAO: Border Patrol has Limited Access to Federal Land at Southern Border
Two-thirds of Border Patrol supervisory agents (called “agents-in-charge”) report that the Border Patrol’s access to much of the land along the southwest border is limited due to federal land management laws and regulations, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released last week. (GAO -11-38, Oct. 2010) The GAO reports that this web of laws and regulations has resulted in delays and restrictions in the agents’ ability to patrol and monitor these lands.
According to the report, roughly 40% of land along the southwest border is owned by the federal government and is thus subject to a myriad of environmental and management laws. (Id. at 4) These laws, which include the National Environmental Policy Act, National Historic Preservation Act, Wilderness Act, and the Endangered Species Act, are all administered by the U.S. Departments of Interior and Agriculture. (Id. at 16-19) Pursuant to these laws and regulations, the Border Patrol must obtain permission or a permit from agencies within these Departments before agents can maintain roads and install surveillance equipment on such land. (Id. at 13)
As a result, the GAO reports that agents-in-charge for many Border Patrol stations have been unable to obtain a permit or permission to access certain areas in a timely manner because of how long it takes for land managers to conduct required environmental and historic property assessments. Land management agencies are concerned that the Border Patrols’ heavy equipment and all-terrain vehicles cause damage to the pristine territory and endangered wildlife. (Id. at 11) Meanwhile, the Border Patrol is concerned for the danger presented by illegal alien and especially drug cartel traffic. In fact, the GAOreports that certain portions of these federal lands are so dangerous that the government has posted warning signs and even closed portions to the public. (Id. at 48-49)
While the missions of the Border Patrol and land management agencies can conflict, the GAO also states that the Border Patrol can help protect natural resources on federal land by deterring illegal alien traffic. Federal land managers have documented thousands of miles of illegal alien trails and thousands of pounds of trash, “littering landscapes that have more wildlife and plant species listed under the Endangered Species Act than any other geographic region in the continental United States.” According to a 2009 report by the Department of the Interior, “endangered species and their habitats are potentially being irreversibly damaged” from illegal border crossings. (Id. at 11)
Although some Border Patrol agents-in-charge say the security of their jurisdiction is not affected by the land management laws, the GAO concludes that certain land management laws present challenges to the Border Patrol’s operations. “With limited access for patrols and monitoring, some illegal entries may go undetected. This challenge is exacerbated as illegal traffic shifts to areas where Border Patrol has previously not needed, or requested access.” Adding to the problem, is that management agencies have not always been able to timely complete required assessments and that their method of doing so may slow down the Border Patrol’s access to these regions along the border. (Id. at 51)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)