The Worst President Ever – Tea Party Nation

The Worst President Ever – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

All through George W. Bush’s two terms, the Democrats led by Nancy Pelosi and others claimed that they represented “a culture of corruption” and yet I cannot recall any significant examples, nor does a look back at those years reveal any scandals resulting from his administration’s governance. It was not perfect, but it was not corrupt.

This term, however, marked Barack Obama’s first term and now his second which is currently imploding from a confluence of scandals involving Benghazi-Gate, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of Justice. Let’s not forget “Fast and Furious.”

The very first example of the changes that would mark his administration was the announcement of Obama’s “czars”, a shadowy group of advisors whose power to set and influence government policy without any congressional oversight appears to have transcended that of his cabinet members, many of whom would contribute to lengthening the recession he “inherited” as the result of the 2008 financial crisis while increasing the national debt and deficit to heights never before seen in the history of the nation.

What we have come to learn in his first term was that Obama had scant regard for the Constitution, the guiding instrument of governance. It was in his view an “imperfect” instrument and yet, with amendments, it has guided the nation to superpower status since its ratification in 1791, a process that took four years from the 1786 Annapolis Convention that called for a Constitutional Convention.

What we learned though in his first campaign and first term was that Obama lies about everything, starting with his personal life. What we have learned is that his answer to everything is to give another speech, hold another press conference, issue another executive order, and to dismiss any criticism as “a sideshow”, and to host a number of dinners to give the impression he is willing to work with Republicans in Congress. In truth, he rarely interacted even with Democrats in Congress.

In short, Obama has never addressed his duty to govern. He has instead maintained a non-stop process of campaigning and fund-raising. It did not work in 2010 when voters returned power to the Republicans in the House and now he is doing everything he can to regain Democrat control there in 2014.

His priority on September 11, 2012, the night in which he was informed of the attack on the Benghazi consulate in Libya, was to go to bed in order to get a good night’s sleep before flying off to Las Vegas for more fund-raising the next day, skipping his daily intelligence briefing. An American ambassador had been killed along with three other personnel, but it did not alter his schedule.

This is a President who spent his entire first term blaming his predecessor, George W. Bush, for every problem that crossed his desk and demanded his attention.

This is a President whose foreign policy in the Middle East failed to address events there while delegating responsibility to his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton who as of 2 AM the morning of September 12th knew that it was an orchestrated attack by al Qaeda. And then, in concert with the White House, told Americans that it was the result of a video and was a “spontaneous” event.

This is a President who has withdrawn U.S. troops from Iraq, a nation now wracked with daily bombings and has set in process the withdrawal from Afghanistan, a nation that will fall once again under the control of the Taliban. The alleged ally of America, Pakistan, now fears for its stability from the same threat. Both wars, the longest since the Vietnam War, were and remain unpopular, but both were intended to reduce the role of al Qaeda in the Middle East. That role has now expanded into the Syrian civil war and was manifest in Mali.

His response was to depend on isolated drone attacks in Yemen and elsewhere, and of course his authorization of the assassination of Osama bin Laden for which he took total credit despite the fact that the effort had begun in the Bush years.

In the years prior to Benghazi-Gate we have now learned that Obama was using the Internal Revenue Service to harass organizations associated with the Tea Party movement, that identified themselves as “patriots”, or had a pro-Israel agenda. In a similar fashion his Environmental Protection Agency was denying Freedom of Information inquires to organizations opposed to its policies while granting access to those who supported it.

In his first term, his Department of the Interior pursued policies that denied access to drilling for oil and natural gas on federally owned lands and while his Department of Energy wasted billions on “renewable energy” companies manufacturing solar panels no one wanted to purchase, going bankrupt one after another. At one point the President advocated using algae—pond scum—as a source of energy.

This is a President who promised his “stimulus” program would put Americans back to work and revive the economy.

This is a President who has continued to tell Americans that global warming is the greatest threat to the nation and the world despite a sixteen-year cooling cycle in progress.

The current scandals, derided as being “politicized” by Republicans, suggest that impeachable offenses have been authorized and committed by branches of the administration he leads. The current makeup of Congress in which the Senate is still controlled by Democrats suggests that impeachment would be difficult to pursue, but the 2014 midterm elections could and should change that.

The worst of his offenses is Obamacare, described by members of his own party as “a train wreck”, and a program to be administered by the IRS!

It is not hyperbole to say Barack Obama is the worst President in the history of the nation.

Ask the millions of Americans who are still unemployed more than four years since his first inauguration.

Ask the millions of new graduates from colleges and universities who cannot find jobs commensurate with their degrees.

Ask the millions of Americans unable to retire due to the agonizingly slow recovery of the economy.

And ask the mainstream media, after years of ignoring his failures have suddenly awakened to the seizure of Associated Press phone records after acting as mere stenographers for his daily “talking points.”.

The question is how long before he is either impeached or forced to resign as the dream of “hope and change” has turned to hopelessness and the change has become the “transformation” of America from the greatest economy the world has ever known to a debtor nation disrespected by allies and enemies alike.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

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Amnesty Bill is a Multi-Million Dollar Fraud – Tea Party Nation

Amnesty Bill is a Multi-Million Dollar Fraud – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

Native-born and naturalized Americans who are currently seeking work are already competing with illegal immigrants—a term that the Associated Press says it will no longer use—or standing in line behind them as they sign up for all manner of welfare benefits. The official estimate of the number of illegal aliens—oops, undocumented aliens—in the nation is estimated to be eleven million, but if the “Gang of Eight” amnesty bill becomes law, it will act as a magnet to attract millions more.

As Roy Beck, the founder and president of NumbersUSA, points out, “If Congress passes the Senate Gang of Eight bill, it would be like re-creating ALL of the Top 20 cities in the United States, filling them entirely with foreign citizens and giving them lifetime work permits to compete with America’s struggling workers—in just ten years’ time.”

NumbersUSA analysts spent two weeks reading the 844-page bill, concluding that 33 million lifetime work permits would be given to foreign citizens in the first decade if the bill passes. A revised bill has 867 pages and, according to a Daily Caller article, “contains 999 references to waivers, exemptions, and political discretion”, more even than Obamacare.

That’s a lot of competition for jobs and it will hit those graduating from high school and college the hardest. Right now, the youth unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds is 11.7% and, among them, the African-American cohort’s rate it 20.1% and Hispanics’ rate is 12.6%. An additional 1.7 million young adults are not counted as “unemployed” because they are not in the labor force, meaning that they have given up looking for work due to lack of jobs. Do we really want to add millions of formerly illegal immigrants to the work force at this time?

The Center for Immigration Studies also analyzed the Gang of Eight amnesty bill and discovered that it is essentially a Get Out of Jail card:

The report, by Ronald Mortensen, a Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, shows that the token penalties, when they do exist, are not commensurate with the employment-related felonies committed by the majority of illegal aliens, nor are they commensurate with the benefits received by illegal aliens.

Just as unfortunate is the fact that millions of victims of these crimes are ignored while the amnestied illegals are rewarded and even benefit from the so-called penalties, as the monies actually go into a fund that provides services to the very people who paid the “penalties”.

“Illegal aliens will be rewarded for breaking laws for which American citizens are routinely punished,” said Mark Krikorian, Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies. “For example, an American citizen would face a maximum penalty of ten years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 for using a fraudulent Social Security card, but under this bill the illegal alien would face a $1,000 penalty covering all his many offenses, a penalty which in many cases will be waived. Then, they would be issued a new Social Security number without any past bad credit or arrest records.”

View the full report at: http://cis.org/immigration-reform-amnesty-illegal-aliens-and-their-…
Dr. Mortensen discovered the following amnesties for illegal aliens and their employers:

Amnesty for the estimated 75 percent of illegal aliens committing Social Security fraud.

Amnesty from returning to home countries for 10 years before adjusting status.

Amnesty for illegal aliens committing Identity theft.

Amnesty for illegal aliens by officially authorizing them to continue committing identity theft by using fraudulently obtained Social Security numbers belonging to American citizens.

Amnesty for illegal aliens who have committed perjury on I-9 forms.

De-Facto amnesty from the token $1,000 penalty, since it effectively pre-pays services provided to illegal aliens.

Amnesty from existing exclusion, deportation, and removal orders:

While illegal aliens would be granted amnesty for crimes they have committed, government employees who discover Social Security fraud, identity theft, or perjury on I-9 forms while reviewing applications for provisional status would be prohibited from notifying victims, law enforcement, etc. with a threat of a $10,000 penalty. This is 10 times more than the $1,000 penalty paid by an illegal alien who has committed felony identity theft.

Amnesty for employers found to have employed illegal aliens or who are currently employing illegal aliens. Moreover, employers may continue to employ illegal aliens, accept fraudulent Social Security numbers, and renew falsified I-9 forms for those who apply for provisional status.

Amnesty for employers who did not withhold and/or submit payroll taxes for individuals illegally in the United States.

Amnesty for employers who violated labor laws by paying unfair wages, who failed to pay wages, etc.

Amnesty for employers who facilitated Social Security fraud and identity theft by providing or accepting false Social Security numbers.

While employers would be held harmless, government employees who find that employers violated the law while reviewing applications for temporary status would be prohibited from notifying the appropriate law enforcement authorities. If government employees do report tax or labor violations, they could face a fine of $10,000.

Thanks to the passage of Obamacare, the amnesty bill would increase the cost of the nationalized health care system. Betsy McCaughey, the lieutenant governor of New York from 1995 to 1998, in an April 29 letter in The Wall Street Journal, warned that “One looming cost is health care. Under the Obama health law, starting January 1, 2014 legal immigrants will be eligible for subsidized private health plans on the exchanges as soon as they arrive in the U.S.”

“The Senate Gang of Eight’s proposed bill will add $100 billion to the cost of Obamacare’s subsidies over the next decade by doubling the number of legal immigrants entering the country with green cards.” Ms. McCaughey noted that, in 2012, 484,072 immigrants entered that way. “The Gang of Eight plan will push it to about one million. About half of those green card holders will be eligible for the maximum assistance with premiums, subsidies and copays, totaling $9,000 per person, and more than 80% will qualify for at least some taxpayer-funded Obamacare subsidy.”

Little known or reported is the fact that the Schumer-Rubio bill includes two “slush funds” amounting to $150 million that would be used to fund groups like La Raza and the American Immigration Lawyers Association with taxpayer money.

The prevailing wisdom is that the amnesty bill will create more Democrat than Republican voters and that is precisely its purpose. Its victims will be every native-born and naturalized citizen paying taxes and trying to cope with a healthcare system that will be on life-support soon enough.

The proposed bill is a massive multi-million fraud. If it passes and is signed into law, the further destruction of America will be accelerated.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

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Pulitizer Prize-Winning Idiot – Tea Party Nation

Pulitizer Prize-Winning Idiot – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

What kind of idiot would write, “Until we fully understand what turned two brothers who allegedly perpetrated the Boston Marathon bombings into murderers, it is hard to make any policy recommendation other than this: We need to redouble our efforts to make America stronger and healthier so it remains a vibrant counterexample to whatever bigoted ideology may have gripped these young men.”

“Whatever bigoted ideology”? This is what Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times wrote on April 21.

Friedman had spent years in Lebanon, first as a reporter for the United Press International from 1979 to 1981. From 1975 to 1990, Lebanon was convulsed by a civil war between its Christian population and Palestinian forces aligned with Syrian-backed Muslims. In 1981 he was hired by the New York Times and won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon after years of Katyusha rocket attacks on northern Israel. He also won the George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting.

He would serve as the Times Bureau Chief in Jerusalem from June 1984 to February 1988, receiving a second Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the first Palestinian intifada. He witnessed Islamic terrorism first hand and learned nothing from it.

If that is not sufficiently moronic, his column, “How to Put America Back Together Again” was devoted to “healing our economy” and his answer was higher taxes in general and a carbon tax in particular. “We need to raise more revenues, in the least painful way possible.”

No, Mr. Friedman, what we need to do is stop spending more than the nation takes in by reducing spending, fixing the tax code, and reforming entitlement programs, but that is never part of the liberal agenda.

He called for a “‘radical center—one much more willing to suggest radically new ideas to raise revenues…the best place to start is with a carbon tax.” This tax is based on the false assertion that greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide, are causing global warming and/or climate change. It would raise the cost of the use of energy for everyone. It would raise revenue for “investment” in more failed solar energy companies and other crony capitalism that has become the hallmark of the Obama administration.

“A phased-in carbon tax of $20 to $25 a ton could raise around $1 trillion over ten years, as we each pay a few more dimes and quarters for every gallon of gasoline or hour of electricity.” This is easy to say if you are a highly paid Times columnist, author, and public speaker. It is also a formula for inflicting pain on an economy that is dependent for its growth on the use of energy; a nation in which its total recoverable oil, along with Mexico, exceeds 1.7 trillion barrels. That’s the equivalent, based on current use, of enough oil for the next 242 years.

He covered his proposal saying “Yes, a carbon tax is not painless. We would have to, and easily can, cushion the poor from its impact.” Nonsense! Even the poor must purchase gasoline and electricity. And the poor to whom he refers includes the millions of Americans who are unemployed because of Obama administration policies that restrict economy growth. Obama isn’t helping the poor; he is increasing their numbers and increasing more government spending and dependency with food stamps and comparable programs.

Obamacare is already causing companies and businesses to not hire and to put existing staff on a part-time basis. It is driving up the cost of health insurance premiums. It will cause hospitals to close and physicians to stop practicing.

This is typical of the pie-in-the-sky liberal answer to all problems; suck more money out of the pockets of Americans in the name of “infrastructure, preschool education, community colleges and research…” Preschool education is liberal code for earlier indoctrination of a new generation raised to believe that America is the cause of the terrorism directed against it.

His column was laudatory of President Obama and his recent budget proposal, the first since he took office in 2009, but America is suffering as the result of his policies and Friedman thinks he is the answer to our problems, not the cause.

How can a reporter look at Obama’s America where one out of every five families is on food stamps, the actual number of unemployed is estimated to be twenty million or more, and see a nation in need of MORE taxes? Little wonder one of his books is titled “The World is Flat.”

A reporter who spent years covering the war between Muslims and Christians in Lebanon and then later reported from an Israel under siege from the PLO, still cannot comprehend “whatever bigoted ideology” is killing Americans and others around the world and should not be writing columns giving out advice on raising our taxes in the name of an utterly deceitful, environmental attack on energy use.

To understand everything that is wrong with liberalism in America, by all means, read Thomas L. Friedman.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

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New Data on Border Crossings Could Change Immigration Debate – Byron York

New Data on Border Crossings Could Change Immigration Debate – Byron York.

There’s a confrontation coming between the Obama administration and Republicans in Congress over the most basic question of immigration reform: How secure is the U.S. border with Mexico?

Not only does the administration not know — and perhaps doesn’t want to know — but there are signs the border is less secure than some of the most skeptical Republicans thought.

Last year the Border Patrol began experimenting with a new drone-based surveillance system that had been developed for finding Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. Starting in the fall, officials used the radar-based system over a fairly small portion of the Arizona border. The results were striking.

“According to internal reports, Border Patrol agents used the airborne radar to help find and detain 1,874 people in the Sonora Desert between October 1 [2012] and January 17 [2013],” reported the Los Angeles Times last week. “But the radar system spotted an additional 1,962 people in the same area who evaded arrest and disappeared into the United States.”

That means officers caught fewer than half of those who made the crossing in that part of Arizona. If those results are representative of other sectors of the border, then everything the administration has said about border security is wrong.

“These revelations are in stark contrast to the administration’s declaration that the border is more secure than ever due to greater resources having been deployed to the region, and that lower rates of apprehensions signify fewer individuals are crossing,” Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, wrote in an April 5 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

“Since the creation of DHS, Congress has provided significant funding increases in the number of Border Patrol agents, the building of nearly 700 miles of fencing and the deployment of advanced technologies to increase the nation’s ability to monitor the border,” the Texas Republican added. “However, we do not know if additional resources have produced better results.”

For years, Napolitano and other officials at the Department of Homeland Security have pointed to the declining number of border apprehensions as proof that the total number of illegal crossings is also declining. Now, it could mean the administration just isn’t catching most of the crossers.

“The results speak for themselves,” says one GOP Hill aide involved in border security issues. “We can’t really use apprehensions as an accurate measure when we’re not even seeing half the people.”

In light of the radar numbers, McCaul has asked Napolitano to provide data to back up her assertion that the border is more secure than ever. The answer could have a huge effect on the comprehensive immigration reform bills Congress will consider in coming weeks and months.

For example, there are reports that the Senate’s bipartisan Gang of Eight negotiators have added a border security provision to their proposal to give immediate legalization to the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. Before that legalization occurs, Homeland Security would have to submit a plan that would, within a decade, result in the apprehension of 90 percent of those who cross the border illegally. The department would also have to have 100 percent of the border under surveillance.

That’s not all. The Gang of Eight plan is then expected to call for greater border security measures — and results — before those newly legalized immigrants are placed on a path that eventually will lead to citizenship.

Both provisions will be met with a lot of skepticism, at least on the right. Will Republicans really agree to legalize 11 million currently illegal immigrants on the strength of Janet Napolitano’s promise to secure the border sometime in the next 10 years — especially after Napolitano claimed, on the basis of dubious evidence, that the border is already secure?

Some immigration reformers see the radar story as hopeful news, showing that there are new ways to use technology to secure the border. But of course it is the administration’s job to enforce border security, and DHS has spent years resisting even assessing the situation.

McCaul and others are expected to introduce legislation that would require Homeland Security to come up with a comprehensive strategy to secure the border — and then carry it out. The problem is that such demands have been made many times in the past, and the border is still not secure. Given the Obama administration’s record, is there any reason to believe that things will be any different this time, no matter what promises are made?

Barack Obama’s war on America – Tea Party Nation

Barack Obama’s war on America – Tea Party Nation.

Posted by Judson Phillips

Barack Obama and the Party of Treason hate America.   It is no longer a policy difference.  With Obama and the far-left shills for the Democrats, it has never been about policy.   They do not want to debate issues and let the best idea win.  They want to defeat anyone who disagrees with them at all costs. 

 Now the Obama Regime is showing its total contempt and hatred for those who disagree with it.

 How are they doing this?

 In advance of the Budget Sequestration that is set to start on March 1^st, the Obama Regime is releasing illegal aliens into American communities. 

 The sequestration has not even hit yet and the Obama Regime is trying to hurt Americans.

 The illegal aliens being released are not simply illegal aliens, but these are criminal illegal aliens.    These are illegal aliens who have been charged or convicted of criminal offenses.  Usually it is more than one. 

 

Instead of deporting these criminal aliens, the Department of Homeland Security is literally turning them out of the prisons.    Where is most of this happening?

 Arizona.

 That is no accident.

 Arizona is a red state.  Arizona dared to defy Barack Obama and even took him to the Supreme Court and won.

 Over the weekend, in Pinal County, Arizona, DHS released hundreds of criminal illegal aliens.  They did not even notify the local sheriff they were releasing these criminals.

 The Obama Regime claims they must do this because of the upcoming budget sequester.

 The sequester is not causing the release but the Obama Regime is desperate to create a crisis.

 Why?

 What happens if the modest 2% cut in spending goes through? 

 Probably nothing.  Most Americans will not see any change.

 That is the great fear of the Obama Regime.

 If the world does not end with this modest spending cut, then the Republicans and the American people will start asking, what else can we cut.  Where else can we cut?

 For Barack Obama who is determined to bankrupt America before the end of his second term, this is unacceptable.

 So Barack Obama is releasing criminal illegal aliens onto the streets of at least one red state. 

 How many people will die because Obama is releasing criminal illegal aliens?  How many people will be injured?   How many crimes will be committed?

 Obama doesn’t care.  Arizona is a red state.

 He doesn’t care because for Obama, the ends justify the means.   Obama does not care that he took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution because the Constitution means nothing to him.    Obama does not care because he hates America and Americans.

 Instead of being responsible, Barack Obama is trying to make the spending cuts as painful as possible.  Instead of stopping a few of those crony grants to “green energy” projects, he is keeping the Navy tied up in port.  Instead of cutting advertising to promote food stamps, he is releasing criminals on the streets to rampage and make the people of America pay for daring to elect Republicans to try and stop him.

 Barack Obama is hell bent on destroying America.  Americans will die because of his desire to punish those who disagree with him.

 The question is will the Republicans in Washington ever stand up to him?

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A Cabinet of Dunces – Tea Party Nation

A Cabinet of Dunces – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

A President reveals a lot about himself by his choices of his cabinet members to head various government departments and agencies. Some choices turn out to be historically significant such as Truman’s Secretary of State, George Marshall or Nixon’s choice of Henry Kissinger, but since the President sets policy, the blame or approval belongs to him.

Nor is it unusual for cabinet members to leave after a first term if a President is reelected. What has been unusual for President Obama’s first term has been the appointment of an entire shadow government of advisors known as his “czars”; people who functioned behind the scenes with unknown levels of power to influence and even determine policy.

One, Van Jones, was an avowed Communist and, when that became known, he resigned. The obvious problem with the czars is the total lack of transparency they represent and the fact that their appointments—not being cabinet-level, but deemed to be only advisory—by-passed the requirement of Congressional approval.

As of this writing, his most famous appointment, Hillary Clinton, has stepped down as Obama’s Secretary of State to be replaced by one of the greatest dunces to serve in the Senate, John Kerry. He began his career in politics as a Vietnam veteran who testified before Congress that his fellow veterans had engaged in acts that violated the Geneva Convention. When he ran for President, his fellow Swift Boat veterans revealed the scope of his lies about his own service. Kerry’s judgment has proven wrong on so many foreign policy issues it would take a book to chronicle them. In his first two days in office he saw the delivery of fighter jets to an Egypt that is no longer an ally and now in the hands of avowed enemies, the Muslim Brotherhood. Hillary traveled incessantly, but Obama’s foreign policy—mostly isolationist—concluded with the cover-up of the Benghazi attack that got a U.S. ambassador killed.

Most certainly, the nomination of former Senator Chuck Hagel has raised the issue of competency to a whole new level. It is hard to imagine a nominee less capable of running the Pentagon and less in tune with events in a very dangerous world. Given his past votes and statements, he reflects the President’s views. It’s bad news for Israel and good news for our adversaries. Watch now as the Democrats, despite misgivings and doubts, once again line up with the President to impose another bad decision on the nation.

Among those leaving his cabinet is Dr. Steven Chu, who actually wanted the price of a gallon of gasoline to rise to those in Europe in order to curb American’s desire to hop in the car for any reason. He will be best remembered for having swiftly ushered a $528 million loan to Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturer whose company just as swiftly went bankrupt, sticking the taxpayers with the loss. Other similar “investments” also failed. Ignoring America’s vast reserves of coal, natural gas and oil—enough to make the nation energy independent—Chu favored the expansion of solar and wind energy, lavishing millions on its producers even though it provides barely three percent of the electricity Americans use to function.

Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, is also departing and he never saw a square inch of the nation’s landmass that he did not want to acquire as property of the federal government. Salazar, so green that he glows in the dark, was a tree-hugger deluxe. While touting the expansion of oil drilling and the extraction of natural gas, he conveniently neglected to mention that most of it occurred on privately held land and his department did what it could to delay or simply not issue the leases necessary to extract oil, particularly in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. Together with Dr. Chu, these two did more to interdict or retard the provision of energy to the nation than any of their predecessors.

Departing as well is Ray LaHood as Transportation Secretary. A Wall Street Journal editorial noting his departure said he is likely to be remembered “for presiding over a transportation policy predicated on the best the 19th century had to offer: railroads and bicycles.” Railroads served well in the 1800s and early 1900s. The federally owned Amtrak has never turned a profit. As for cars and trucks, in 2010 he wrote “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized.” It doesn’t get more stupid than that and his department shelled out $8 billion in grants to support this stupidity including the San Francisco-to-Anaheim bullet train whose first leg will connect Merced to Bakersfield in the sparsely populated Central Valley.

The worst of the President’s appointments was Lisa Jackson who has resigned from her position as director of the Environmental Protection Agency in the wake of revelations that she used a phony name for emails with which she conducted agency business. Transparency, let alone adherence to the law that forbids this practice, was not favored by Ms. Jackson, nor by her predecessor, Carol Browner, one of Obama’s czars. Browner had served as a commissioner of the Socialist International, an umbrella group for 170 social democratic, socialist, and labor parties in 55 countries. Under Ms. Jackson, the EPA has issued a mountain of regulations, some of which forced utilities around the nation to shut their doors and coal mining companies to cease production. The total number of jobs lost is still being calculated.

The decision to delay the Keystone XL pipeline has not only cost 20,000 jobs at a time when millions of Americans have dropped out of the labor market was also supported by the Interior Department and the EPA. The pipeline, by the way, would not have cost taxpayers a dime as it is privately financed and would be just one of a huge network of pipelines that serve America’s energy needs.

Janet Napolitano—Big Sis—remains on at Homeland Security, possibly the most under-reported department, despite occasional reports that it appears to be arming itself for an insurrection purchasing lots of ammunition and a lot of rapid-fire rifles.

Still presiding at the Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sibelius, is the Cruella de Ville who oversaw the passage of Obamacare and its implementation. She will have blood on her hands as senior citizens in particular are denied vital medical care and will be vilified by Americans who discover that their insurance rates have skyrocketed. Many companies are either not hiring or laying off employees, putting some on a part-time status to avoid its strictures and fines. Others are just shutting their doors.

The departing Secretary of Treasury, Tim Geithner, presided with the President over the greatest accumulation of debt in the nation’s history, as well as its first credit rating reduction. Jack Lew who will replace him holds no promise of slowing this process toward the destruction of the value of the dollar and the continuation of the Great Recession.

This deliberate destruction of jobs, delaying access to traditional sources of energy, resistance to the actual transportation needs of the nation, a failed foreign policy, and panoply of other policies pursued by the out-going cabinet members will be continued by President Obama’s new choices to replace them.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

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The United States Department of Politically Correct Stupidity – Tea Party Nation

The United States Department of Politically Correct Stupidity – Tea Party Nation.

Posted by Judson Phillips

There is one Department in the government that takes the cake for politically correct stupidity. 

 In fact, that Department should be renamed from its current name to the United States Department of Politically Correct Stupidity.

 Which Department is it and what do the constantly do that earns them this title?

 It is the Department of Homeland Security.

 DHS has got to be one of the biggest government run disasters ever pushed upon this nation.

 DHS was George Bush’s big government reaction to the 9/11 attacks. 

 What did DHS do?

 Well, it took a lot of agencies that previously existed, put them under the aegis of the new Department of Homeland Security.  Then, just for good measure new agencies were created and then a whole new level of bureaucracy was added.

 Under the Bush administration, DHS was, well, it was there but that is about all you can say for it.   It created the theater of the absurd that we call airport security.  It gave new meaning to close encounters as real Americans were groped and fondled by people who either were on the sex offender registry or should have been.

 When the Obama Regime took over, DHS turned into a nightmare.  First they called patriotic Americans “domestic terrorists” in a widely panned, totally political report. 

 DHS then made a joke of enforcing immigration laws. 

 DHS has produced videos telling people to be on the look out for domestic terrorism yet all of the terrorists shown in their videos look more like Tea Party members than the people who have actually been committing terrorism against this nation.

 Now DHS is giving advice that is designed to get people killed.

 It is telling people in the case of an active shooter to duck under desks. 

 The children at Sandy Hook ducked under desks and huddled in the back of their classrooms.  According to press reports, that is where they were found, near the body of Adam Lanza who killed himself after killing them.

 The advice DHS gives reminds me of a scene from the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.   In that movie, a young officer is confronted with the infamous Kobayashi Maru scenario.  It is a training exercise that is impossible to win.  After having the starship simulator blown to bits, the young officer turns to Admiral James Kirk and asks what she should do. 

 Kirk’s response?  “Prayer.  The Klingons don’t take prisoners.”

 Active shooters don’t take prisoners either.

 DHS would never suggest something like prayer.  Instead they suggest that if you are confronted with an active shooter, you grab a pair of scissors and defend yourself.

 Really?  Have they never heard the old expression about bringing a knife to a gunfight?

 Even someone who knows how to fight with a knife would be hard pressed to kill someone with a knife or a pair of scissors.  That is especially true when the other person has a gun.

 Do you know what you should bring to a gunfight?  Another gun!

 But the Department of Politically Correct Stupidity would never suggest something that obvious. 

 Instead our government suggests you get yourself killed.   The nation that once lived by the motto, “Live free or die,” has replaced it with “cower like cowards and hope you die quickly.”

 While there are some agencies within the Department of Homeland Security that do a good job, like the Coast Guard for example, most of DHS is simply a bloated waste of taxpayer dollars.

 The best thing America can do is ignore everything that DHS advises and get our elected leaders to abolish that Department as quickly as possible.

Related articles

• Thanks, DHS (nationalreview.com)
• Advice From DHS: ‘If Attacked By A Shooter, Grab Some Scissors’ (Video) (infiniteunknown.net)
• DHS Ransacks Gun Collector’s HOME and BUSINESS (thebubbaeffect.wordpress.com)
• DHS Seeks 7,000 AR-15s with 30 Round Magazines for ‘Personal Defense’ (breitbart.com)
• DHS Says Bring A Knife To A Gunfight (fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com)
• DHS Advice on Active Shooters: Use Scissors (thetruthaboutguns.com)
• Government Targeting Conservatives: A Disturbing Trend (americanclarion.com)

Amnesty Gang Throws Law-Abiders Under the Bus – Michelle Malkin

Amnesty Gang Throws Law-Abiders Under the Bus – Michelle Malkin .

President Obama and the bipartisan Gang of Eight in Washington who want to create a “pathway to citizenship” for millions of illegal aliens have sent a message loud and clear to those who follow the rules: You’re chumps!

Have you patiently waited for months and years for the State Department and Department of Homeland Security to slog through your application? You’re chumps!

Have you paid thousands of dollars in travel, legal and medical fees to abide by the thicket of entry, employment, health and processing regulations? You’re chumps!

Have you studied for your naturalization test, taken the oath of allegiance to heart, embraced our time-tested principle of the rule of law, and demonstrated that you will be a financially independent, productive citizen? You’re chumps!

Unrepentant amnesty peddlers on both sides of the aisle admit their plan is all about votes and power. Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain continues his futile chase for the Hispanic bloc. Illinois Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez is openly salivating at the prospect of millions of new illegal aliens — future Democratic Party dependents of the Nanny State — who could be eligible for Obamacare and a plethora of other government benefits despite clear prohibitions against them.

These cynical pols insist that the rest of law-abiding Americans and law-abiding permanent residents must support Washington’s push to “do something” because “11 million people are living in the shadows.”

To which I say: So? There are 23 million Americans out of work. Why aren’t they Washington’s top priority anymore? Didn’t both parties once pledge that j-o-b-s for unemployed and underemployed Americans was Job No. 1? Why is the very first major legislative push of 2013 another mass amnesty/voter drive/entitlement expansion?

If Washington is really concerned about people “living in the shadows,” how about prioritizing the jaw-dropping backlog of 500,000-plus fugitive deportee cases. These are more than a half-million illegal aliens who have been apprehended, who had their day in immigration court, who have been ordered to leave the country, and who were then released and absconded into the ether. Poof!

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, pols pretended to get serious about fixing the broken deportation system and enacted absconder apprehension initiatives to track down these national security risks. But over the past dozen years, only 100,000 out of 600,000-plus fugitive illegal aliens targeted by the program have been found. Why isn’t the search and removal of these repeat offenders more important than giving “11 million people living in the shadows” a “pathway to citizenship”?

Question: If border security and immigration enforcement are truly a priority to our elected officials, why must these two basic government responsibilities be tethered to benefits for line-jumping illegal aliens? See whether any politician can answer without sputtering about “11 million people living in the shadows” or invoking the over-worn race card.

(By the way, we all know that moldy “11 million” statistic can’t be right. Open borders groups have cited it for nearly 15 years as amnesty measure after amnesty measure attracted new generations of illegal aliens to the country.)

You know who else deserves more attention and compassion than “11 million people living in the shadows”? The 4.6 million individuals around the world who legally applied for sponsored green cards and followed the established legal immigration process. They’ve been shunted aside while the Obama administration ushers illegal alien “DREAM” waiver winners to the front of the line.

As Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies points out: “It is clear that there is no way the roughly one million or more potential Dreamers can be accommodated by (the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service) without noticeably slowing down the processing of legal immigrants (emphasis added). The agency already processes six million applications a year without the amnesty add-ons.

There have been nearly a dozen major amnesty laws, affecting at least five million illegal aliens, passed since the Reagan 1986 amnesty. These beneficiaries and their families have crowded out legal immigrants and increased their application waiting times in untold ways. GOP Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas asked the Obama administration last summer to disclose data on how much the DREAM waiver amnesty alone has affected adjudication/processing times for everyone else. The White House has failed to answer the request.

Want a reality check? Not one of the past federal amnesties was associated with a decline in illegal immigration. Instead, the number of illegal aliens in the U.S. has tripled since 1986. The total effect of the amnesties was even larger because relatives later joined amnesty recipients, and this number was multiplied by an unknown number of children born to amnesty recipients who then acquired automatic U.S. citizenship.

Hopelessly naive (or stubbornly self-deluded) freshman GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida insists that any new recipients of the Gang of Eight’s Grand Pander scheme will have to “go to the back of the line and wait behind everybody who applied before them, the right way.” Rubio emphasizes to conservative talk show hosts that there will be background checks and rigorous vetting.

But as I’ve reported for the past two decades, the background check process has been corrupted under both Democratic and Republican administrations. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration turned immigration policy into a massive Democratic voter recruitment machine through the Citizenship USA program. Naturalization officers simply abandoned background checks wholesale. In 2003, an INS center in Laguna Niguel solved the massive backlog problem by putting tens of thousands of applications through a shredder. And in 2006, I exposed how some high-immigrant regions rewarded adjudication officers with bonuses for rubber-stamping as many applications as possible without regard to security.

You want “comprehensive immigration reform”? Start with reliable adjudications, fully cleared backlogs, consistent interior enforcement, working background checks for the existing caseload, and efficient and effective deportation policies that punish law-breakers and do right by law-abiders.

And please don’t pretend that piling millions of new illegal aliens onto an already overwhelmed system is going to fix a darned thing. Chumps.

Related articles

• Michelle Malkin: Amnesty Gang Throws Law-Abiders Under the Bus (conservativeread.com)
• Amnesty gang to law-abiders: You’re chumps! (michellemalkin.com)
• Amnesty Red Alert (topconservativenews.com)
• Suicidal GOP senators join open-borders Dems for Shamnesty Redux (michellemalkin.com)
• Amnesty plus Obamacare = fiscal nightmare (michellemalkin.com)

 

Obama Could Not Pass a Background Check – Tea Party Nation

Obama Could Not Pass a Background Check – Tea Party Nation.

By Alan Caruba

President Barack Obama could not pass a background check if he was applying for a gun permit or a job. Why has this man been allowed to remain in office or take the oath for a second time?

During the 2008 campaign, it was known that:

His official, long form birth records were SEALED.His Occidental College records were SEALED.His Columbia College records were SEALED.His Harvard College records were SEALED.His College thesis – SEALED. His Harvard Law Review articles – SEALED. His Indonesian adoption records – SEALED. His passport file – SEALED. His medical records – Unavailable. His baptism records – Unavailable. His papers from his service in the Illinois legislature – Unavailable. His Illinois State Bar Association records – Unavailable.

The birth certificate that the White House released is reputed by document experts to be false.

The Social Security number he has used was issued to someone else. He could not pass an E-Verify test. The first three numbers of his Social Security ID are reserved for applicants with Connecticut addresses, 040-049. The number was issued between 1977 and 1979. Obama’s earliest employment reportedly was in 1975 at a Baskin-Robbins in Oahu, Hawaii.

Many of the “facts” he cited in his two memoirs have turned out to be questionable, if not outright lies; particularly as regards his birth father, a citizen of Kenya at the time of his birth.

A job applicant with Obama’s paper trail would not even pass the smell test, but this man was elected and reelected. The role of journalism is to vet the credentials of anyone running for public office, let alone the highest office in the land. Instead, he has been protected against all inquiries and those making them have been called “birthers” or simply ignored.

Obama so routinely lies that keeping track of them would require a team of full-time archivists.

In August 2009 he said, “I have not said I was a single-payer supporter”, but in June 2003, as an Illinois state senator, he said, “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care system.”

In March 2006, he said “Leadership means the buck stops here…I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.” He is now into his second political battle to raise the debt limit. In July 2011, he said “It is not acceptable for us not to raise the debt ceiling and to allow the U.S. government to default.”

In response to a 1996 questionnaire he said “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages, but in November 2008 he said, “I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage.”

He spent his first term blaming the nation’s economic ills on his predecessor, George W. Bush, saying in July 2008, that “he added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion in debt that we are going to have to pay back. That’s irresponsible. It’s unpatriotic.” Today, the debt stands at more than $16 trillion because Obama added more to the debt than all previous presidents combined. For the first time in U.S. history, our credit rating was reduced and rating services are warning they will reduce it again.

He has a record of using executive orders to bypass the constitutional powers and duties of Congress. His most recent effort was 23 such orders regarding gun control at the same time Americans are buying guns as fast as they can, fearing the loss of the right to own and bear arms. This is the same President who just signed a law granting him and his family lifetime Secret Service protection.

He used “executive privilege” to cover-up the “Fast and Furious” scandal in which guns were allowed to be purchased and transported for use by Mexican drug cartel members.

He lied about the attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed a U.S. ambassador and encouraged members of his staff to spread the lie that it was “spontaneous” and the result of a video no one has seen.

He and the Democratic Party imposed “Obamacare” on the nation and its passage is already undermining the provision of healthcare services, driving up the cost of health insurance, and causing physicians and the providers of testing and other services to leave the profession and close their doors.

He no longer can blame President Bush, so now he blames the Republican Party that has offered solutions to the nation’s economic crisis that has worsened every day he has been in office. His foreign policy has consisted of apologizing for America and standing aside while one nation after another in the Middle East and northern Africa has fallen under the control of Islamist radicals. He is doing nothing to avoid the sequestration cuts that would harm national defense and a range of other government functions.

He has failed us. Congress has failed us.

It has taken four years for a case challenging his right to hold office and the Supreme Court has scheduled a “conference” in February that might decide to ignore a current case.

The mainstream media has failed us and we only hope the courts will not fail us.

He should not be administered the oath of office for a second time.

© Alan Caruba, 2013

Related articles

• Obama Could Not Pass A Background Check (papundits.wordpress.com)

The end of the Republican Party and possibly the United States – Tea Party Nation

The end of the Republican Party and possibly the United States – Tea Party Nation.

Posted by Judson Phillips

Barack Obama is moving forward with two of his cherished goals.  One is destroying the Republican Party and the other is destroying the United States of America.    In both cases, Obama’s efforts are being aided and abetted by the Republican Party.

 What is going on?

 Barack Obama is planning his second term assault on America and one of the centerpieces of that assault is a bill to grant full Amnesty to 11 millions illegal aliens.

 To call this a disaster would be an understatement.

 We have been down this road before. 

 The first and most important thing for Americans is that we secure our southern border.   This will not happen under the Obama bill.  In 1986 when Ronald Reagan signed off on Amnesty, he was promised that if he agreed to Amnesty, the southern border would be secured.  

 Twenty-Six years later, we are still waiting.

 The unsecured southern border has been a magnet for not only trafficking in illegal aliens, smuggling drugs and it is inconceivable that terrorists and weapons have not come through that border.

 When Reagan agreed to Amnesty, the number of people given amnesty was supposed to be relatively small.  Instead it mushroomed into millions.   Almost anything was accepted as “proof” someone had been in the country prior to Amnesty.   We will see the same thing here.  It will not be eleven million people given Amnesty.  It will be twenty million or more.

 What have we seen with illegal aliens?  Even though illegals are not supposed to receive welfare benefits, many are.  The Obama Regime has worked with Mexico to teach illegal aliens how to apply for benefits when they get into the country.

 What will happen after Amnesty?

 The welfare rolls will explode.

 The value illegal aliens have had to the economy is that they are cheap labor.   They could be hired and paid substandard wages.  Often payments were in cash and under the table so the employer did not have to pay taxes on them.

 Once Amnesty is granted, employers will not be able to pay illegals substandard wages and will not be able to pay them under the table.  In Mexico, public education only goes through the 6^th grade and many of the illegals do not even go that far.

 How are these people going to find employment in the modern American economy?

 The answer is they are not.   They will end up on public assistance.

 Finally, this is going to destroy the Republican Party as a national party.  Not only will it split the Party, it will make it all but impossible for Republicans to ever get a national majority again.

 These newly legal residents, who the Obama Regime wants to put on the fast track for citizenship, overwhelmingly like big government.  They overwhelmingly want lavish welfare packages.   

 Some Republicans are calling for Republicans to support Amnesty.

 What the hell are they thinking?

 The Republicans who think that Amnesty is a good idea are the same ones who told us Mitt Romney would be a great candidate.

 While it would be political suicide for Republicans to deport ten million illegal aliens, particularly those who have been here for decades and have family members who are legal.  For people like that who have been here ten or twenty years and have never committed a crime, let them register and they can get a “we will not deport you” card. 

 That is a huge difference between common sense and political suicide.  The Republicans do not seem to know the difference.