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50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

GOP Hijinks on Ethics Panel: Amateur Hour, Not Corruption By Andrew C. McCarthy

Is it that there’s a new sheriff in town, here to save the GOP from its penchant for self-destruction – or at least to stop the bleeding earlier than usual? Is it an incoming Republican administration versed in the art of Clintonian triangulation against its own party in Congress? These questions will be answered in due course after January 20. For now, suffice it to say that President-elect Donald Trump induced House Republicans to reverse their politically inept decision to trim the sails of an independent ethics panel.

Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted out his displeasure at the GOP conference’s unilateral decision, on the eve of the new Congress, to rein in the powers of the Office of Congressional Ethics, an unelected in-house watchdog. Or as the New York Times hyperbolically put it, to “gut” the OCE. Though the tweeted rebuke was mild by Trump standards, it helped raise the volume of hysteria already pouring out of the Left, portraying the Republican move as a harbinger of unprecedented corruption. Following Trump’s tweet, House leaders scrambled to convene an emergency conference meeting, at which the ethics proposal was scrapped before the new session commenced.

Before the story dies a welcome swift death, it is worth pointing out that the GOP’s bad politics was actually good policy, and certainly not corruption.

To be sure, one can only shake one’s head at the GOP’s all too familiar ham-handedness. Republicans have an ambitious agenda now that they control both chambers of Congress and the White House. Yet, they allowed themselves to be portrayed as prioritizing – over the repeal of Obamacare, tax reform, and a host of significant initiatives – a watering down of ethics protocols ostentatiously adopted in 2008, when Democrats were making hay over Republican corruption scandals. Monday night’s OCE gambit – pushed over the objection of Speaker Paul Ryan by a bloc led by Judiciary Committee Chariman Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.) – was a unilateral GOP move, taken in the course of voting on rules for the new session. Naturally, the media-Democrat echo chamber pounced, accusing Republicans of meeting in secret to grease the wheels of graft.

President Trump’s Immigration Challenge To undo Obama’s catastrophic damage. Michael Cutler

On January 20, 2017 President Trump can and likely will end all of Obama’s illegal immigration executive orders, but he needs to do more.

For decades the effective enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws was hobbled by lack of resources in general and a particularly devastating failure to enforce the immigration laws from within the interior of the United States.

For decades the Border Patrol was perceived as the primary enforcement arm of America’s immigration laws and for the Border Patrol this worked out fine. They got the lion’s share of publicity and, far more importantly, the funding while INS special agents and the interior enforcement mission were all but ignored

When the DHS (Department of Homeland Security) was created in the wake of the terror attacks of 9/11, the former INS was dismantled and broken into several components of the DHS and mixed in with other agencies, principally the U.S. Customs Service.

Bad as it was for INS agents to operate in the shadow of the Border Patrol, the creation of the DHS was disastrous and caused many of the INS agents nostalgic for “the good old days.”

On May 5, 2005 the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims conducted a hearing on the topic, “New ‘Dual Mission’ Of The Immigration Enforcement Agencies.”

I was one of four witnesses who testified at that hearing. In point of fact, I testified at several hearings that sought to understand the challenges that the creation of the DHS created for the effective enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws.

In my testimony I clearly articulated my concerns about the myriad issues created when the DHS was established and the former INS was dismantled.

Consider this excerpt from the testimony of then-Subcommittee Chairman John Hostettler in which he articulated the importance of immigration law enforcement and that was, however, hobbled by the creation of the DHS:

The first two Subcommittee hearings of the year examined in detail how the immigration enforcement agencies have inadequate resources and too few personnel to carry out their mission. The witnesses mentioned the lack of uniforms, badges, detention space, and the inevitable low morale of frontline agents who are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of incoming illegal aliens. If this were not enough, these ”immigration enforcement” agencies also face internal confusion resulting from dual or multiple missions in which immigration has all too often taken a back seat. Sadly, contrary to Congress’ expectations, immigration enforcement has not been the primary focus of either of these agencies, and that is the subject of today’s hearing.

The Homeland Security Act, enacted in November 2002, split the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, or INS, into separate immigration service and enforcement agencies, both within the Department of Homeland Security. This split had been pursued by Chairman Sensenbrenner based on testimony and evidence that the dual missions of INS had resulted in poor performance.

There was a constant tug-of-war between providing good service to law-abiding aliens and enforcing the law against law-breakers. The plain language of the Homeland Security Act, Title D, creates a ”Bureau of Border Security,” and specifically transfers all immigration enforcement functions of INS into it. Yet when it came down to actually creating the two: new agencies, the Administration veered off course. Although the service functions of INS were transferred to USCIS, the enforcement side of INS was split in two, what is now Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to handle interior enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to guard our borders.

ICE was given all Customs agents, investigators, intelligence and analysis-from the Treasury Department, as well as the Federal Protective Service to guard Federal buildings, and the Federal Air Marshals to protect our airplanes, and finally the INS investigators.

CBP was given all Treasury Customs inspectors at the ports-of-entry, Agriculture Inspector from the Department Of Agriculture, and INS inspectors.

At no time during the reorganization planning was it anticipated by the Committee that an immigration enforcement agency would share its role with other enforcement functions, such as enforcement of our customs laws. This simply results in the creation of dual or multiple missions that the act sought to avoid in the first place.

Failure to adhere to the statutory framework established by HSA has produced immigration enforcement incoherence that undermines the immigration enforcement mission central to DHS, and undermines the security of our Nation’s borders and citizens.

It is not certain on what basis it was determined that customs and agriculture enforcement should become part of the immigration enforcement agency, except to require Federal agents at the border to have more expertise and more functions.

It is also unknown on what basis the Federal Air Marshals should become part of this agency, especially since it has been revealed that the policy is not to apprehend out-of-immigration status aliens when discovered on flights. If the mission of the Department of Homeland Security is to protect the homeland, it cannot effect its mission by compromising or neglecting immigration enforcement for customs enforcement.

The 9/11 terrorists all came to the United States without weapons or contraband—Added customs enforcement would not have stopped 9/11 from happening. What might have foiled al Qaeda’s plan was additional immigration focus, vetting and enforcement. And so what is needed is recognition that, one, immigration is a very important national security issue that cannot take a back seat to customs or agriculture. Two, immigration is a very complex issue, and immigration enforcement agencies need experts in immigration enforcement. And three, the leadership of our immigration agencies should be shielded from political pressures to act in a way which could compromise the Nation’s security.

The Chicago Farewell A more dangerous nation is the president’s legacy. Lloyd Billingsley

“On Tuesday, January 10,” President Obama said Monday in Hawaii, “I’ll go home to Chicago to say my grateful farewell to you, even if you can’t be there in person.” The president sees his remarks “as a chance to say thank you for this amazing journey, to celebrate the ways you’ve changed this country for the better these past eight years, and to offer some thoughts on where we all go from here.”

Since 2009, the president added, “we’ve faced our fair share of challenges, and come through them stronger. That’s because we have never let go of a belief that has guided us ever since our founding—our conviction that, together, we can change this country for the better.”

The president’s chosen venue of Chicago certainly isn’t much better. In 2016 a full 762 homicides took place in Chicago, up from 485 in 2015 and the biggest increase in 60 years. The 762 homicides, an increase of 57 percent, are more than New York and Los Angeles combined. In Chicago, shootings also jumped 46 percent to 3,550, and most of the victims lived in poor and minority neighborhoods. True to form, on this president’s watch, the entire nation has become a more dangerous place.

The president supports the Black Lives Matter narrative that racist cops are out to gun down African Americans. The president has hosted leaders of this hatemongering group, which celebrates the killing of police officers. In 2016, at least 64 law enforcement officers have been shot and killed, the most in five years. In July, Micah Xavier Johnson assassinated five police officers in Dallas, Texas.

President Obama wants to admit more Islamic refugees, whether or not they are sufficiently vetted, and this has made universities more dangerous. Last November Abdul Razak Ali Artan, a Muslim refugee from Somalia, rammed his car into a building at Ohio State University then began stabbing people, injuring 13.

American nightclubs are also more dangerous, as Omar Mateen killed 50 people at the Pulse club in Orlando, Florida. It was the deadliest mass shooting in American history, but not the only one. In December of 2015, Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik gunned down 14 innocents at a holiday party in San Bernardino, California.

As police learned, Farook and Malik had plans to attack schools and motorists on the freeway. In similar style, sporting events have also become a target-rich environment for terrorists. The 2013 Boston Marathon bombers were two Muslims from southern Russia, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar.

On President Obama’s watch, even U.S. military bases have become sites of terror attacks. At Ford Hood in 2009, self-described “Soldier of Allah” Nidal Hasan gunned down 13 unarmed American soldiers while screaming “Allahu Akbar!” Nidal’s attack claimed twice as many casualties as the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. The Fort Hood victims included private Francheska Velez, 21, pregnant and preparing to go home.

Environmentalists Hand Out Condoms to Protest Feared Trump-Era Overpopulation By Bridget Johnson

An environmental group handed out 10,000 free “endangered species condoms” at New Year’s Eve events and on college campuses nationwide to mark 2017 in a show of protest against President-elect Trump.

The Center for Biological Diversity said the condom giveaway was meant to highlight overpopulation amid fears of Trump policies on contraception along with fears of what could happen to protected wildlife species under his administration.

“Many women are already worrying about what life under President Trump is going to mean for access to affordable birth control. It’s a very real possibility that the Affordable Care Act will be gutted and contraception costs will skyrocket,” Leigh Moyer, the center’s population organizer, said in a statement. “Human population growth drives the majority of environmental problems, so making it harder to prevent unplanned pregnancy isn’t good news for women or for wildlife.”

The enviro-condoms project — using vegan, fair-trade condoms free of animal by-products — has been around since 2009, with contraceptives bearing phrases such as “wrap with care… save the polar bear” and “use a stopper… save the hopper.” The center says strong population growth in states such as Utah, Nevada, Idaho and Florida is linked to pressure on regional wildlife.

Today the group kicks off a 16-city “roadshow of resistance” against the Trump presidency called Earth2Trump, featuring “national and local speakers, live music and an opportunity to join a growing movement of resistance to all forms of oppression and all attacks on reproductive rights and our environment.”

One path of the roadshow starts in Seattle and cuts across Utah, Colorado and Illinois, while another roadshow starts in Oakland and winds through the southwest, Texas and Florida. Both plan to arrive in Washington in time for Inauguration Day, when myriad protests from various groups are planned in the capital.

Trump Is Right about the Russian Hacking Case By Stephen D. Bryen and Shoshana Bryen

President-elect Donald Trump expressed skepticism over reports that Russia hacked the U.S. election. It is well-known that Russia — and China, and various of our friends and allies — spend a lot of time and effort trying to access American military and industrial secrets, as the U.S. does theirs. But in the case of altering the election, Trump’s skepticism appears warranted.

How did we get here?

An attempted hack into Georgia’s voter registration database was traced back to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to The Wall Street Journal last month. It was a criminal act and possibly an attempt to interfere in an election. Even worse, DHS appears to have outsourced the hacking activity. One might think the breach of a state voter registration system by the Federal government would be a big story. But it was quickly replaced by the Obama administration’s claims about Russian cyber attacks on American political institutions. The FBI and DHS (yes, that DHS) then produced the Joint Analysis Report under the seal of its National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center.

It should be noted that the report was prepared without input from the National Security Agency (NSA), Cyber Command, the Pentagon, or the CIA. Wonder why? The answer most likely is that they declined to endorse a report that fails to deliver proof and makes accusations unsupported by evidence. If a college student turned this report in as a research paper, he would flunk the course.

The report claims to provide an analysis of the “tools and infrastructure” used by the Russian intelligence services to “exploit networks and endpoints associated with the U.S. election” as well as a “range of U.S. government, political and private sector entities.” The report calls this “malicious cyber activity” and aggregates it under the code name Grizzly Steppe.

The notion of “malicious activity” is scary and meaningless. If information is stolen, it is theft; it is a crime. But the report cannot demonstrate theft, or even describe the activity any of the identified organizations actually engaged in, so it uses non-legal “term of art.” But grizzlies from the steppe sound pretty malicious.

Equally problematic is that the report cannot tie any of the “known” Russian-located hacking activities directly to the Russian intelligence services in respect to the hack of the email systems of the Democratic National Committee or personal email accounts, such as those of Hillary Clinton and John Podesta, to name a few of the leading targets. There is plenty of notional information that the Russian intelligence services have used private entities to carry out hacking against various Western targets. And there is some important proof that on a number of occasions the Russians have carried out sophisticated cyber attacks against foreign countries. The cases that are clear-cut include Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine, and there are surely others. But in direct attacks like those (hitting everything from power plants, banks, government agencies, military organizations, air defense systems, and communications), it does not appear that the Russians used third parties. Rather, those attacks were launched mostly by the Russian military.

Obama Can’t Redefine Sex A federal judge slaps down another executive overreach.

Among President Obama’s ironic legacies will be how frequently this former teacher of constitutional law has been called out by the federal courts for his aggressive abuse of executive power.

The latest rebuke came on the last day of 2016 in federal court in Texas. Judge Reed O’Connor sided with eight states and three private health-care providers that sued to block a new Health and Human Services rule. This rule defines the Affordable Care Act’s prohibitions against sex discrimination in a way that plaintiffs say will force doctors, hospitals and insurers that take federal funds to cover or perform abortions and gender-transition procedures even when this runs against their best medical judgment or religious beliefs.

The HHS rule rests on a bureaucratic redefinition of sexual discrimination and the deliberate dropping of religious protections Congress included in Title IX. As Judge O’Connor noted, the Title IX prohibitions against sex discrimination passed by Congress “unambiguously” referred to the biological distinction between men and women. The HHS redefinition, he found, deserved no deference because it was not grounded in “a valid grant of authority from Congress.”

The other part of this injunction had to do with the claims by the religious plaintiffs—including a Catholic hospital system and a Christian society of doctors—that the rule violated their rights. Under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the government can infringe on religious exercise—but only where it has a compelling interest. Even when it does have a compelling interest, it has to choose the least restrictive way of pursuing it.

Judge O’Connor conceded that a preliminary injunction is “an extraordinary and drastic remedy, not to be granted routinely.” But he noted that Congress had not granted HHS the authority to redefine sex discrimination the way it had, and that the religious plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits.

In sum, another federal court has found the Obama Administration guilty of imposing its policy choices by fiat rather than doing the hard work of democracy and persuading the elected representatives of the American people. Donald Trump, please take note.

Fake Ethics Reform Fiasco The House GOP shows it will too easily bend to liberals—and Trump.

The 115th Congress flopped into Washington on Tuesday with House Republicans proposing and then dropping marginal changes to an internal ethics office. The reversal is an unforced political error, but the GOP is right that the investigative body has the power to destroy reputations without due process.

By the way, Paul Ryan was re-elected Speaker Tuesday with one GOP defection, while Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi lost four Democrats. But that news was dwarfed as the House considered rules for the new Congress, and Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte offered an amendment to restructure the Office of Congressional Ethics.

The office is composed of political grandees, often former Members, and it has no prosecutorial power. But it conducts investigations into Members or staffers and makes recommendations to the House Ethics Committee. The proposal limited what information can be released to the public and barred the committee from having a press secretary. Also banned: anonymous tips.

Mr. Ryan and other House leaders opposed the rule as badly timed. But the rank and file adopted the idea Monday night anyway, only to dump it on Tuesday after denunciations from the Democratic-media complex. The left rounded up callers to deluge Republican switchboards for “gutting” the outfit. Donald Trump couldn’t resist piling on with a pair of tweets: “With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority.”

The reality is that the office is at best redundant and perhaps worse. Democrats created the office in 2008 to deflect attention from a crush of corruption scandals, including charges against at least three Members. The left is pitching the place as an essential institution of self-government, but the Senate manages to function without a similar office.

As it is, the ethics office is a roving investigator that can publish reports with details that may not be accurate and can damage a reputation with little or no proof of guilt. Evidence of wrongdoing in travel, campaign finances and other matters can be handled by the House Ethics Committee, and if necessary law-enforcement agencies. Both are politically accountable, unlike the independent office.

Anonymous complaints are especially insidious, as subjects of an investigation may not know who is accusing them—and the accuser may never have to press his case. Nixing the communications director is also worthy: A press secretary is nothing but a designated leaker. The office is a great tool for government “watchdog” groups that are progressives posing as transparency enthusiasts, which renders the proceedings even less fair. CONTINUE AT SITE

Vetting Keith Ellison By Tabitha Korol

The Huffington Post’s headline, Minneapolis Jewish Community Defends Rep. Keith Ellison against Anti-Semitism allegations, indicated that Ellison (D-Minn) was making his bid to head the Democrat National Committee. But are such allegations against Ellison implausible?

Consider that the Democrat Party has been sloping further to the left for some time, relying on a voter base that has been under-informed, spoiled, weakened, and entitled. The ugly result is a nation divided by political party, race, financial success, gender and religion, a society consumed with bigotry and disorder. Therefore, it is not inconceivable that an anti-Semite could take the stage from which liberals abandoned their traditional values of Judaism and Christianity in favor of the creed of multiculturalism and its deceptive liturgy of peace and ecumenism.

Enter ISNA (Islamic Society of North America), an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood that has been diligently marketing a false similarity between the so-called “three great Abrahamic faiths.” Jewish congregations, guided by leaders unaware of the unalterable nature of Islamic dictates and their incompatibility with western values, welcome the interfaith programs, hoping for a dialogue of peace with the Islamic world.

The rabbis are irresponsibly under-informed about Islam’s resolve to dominate the entire world – through violence when in the majority and by deception when not. They are either oblivious or unwilling to acknowledge the history of Islam and, specifically, Jewish history under Islam, and its current bloody manifestation across the globe; therefore, they are unqualified to so advise their congregations. They are the blind leading the blind, both doomed to blunder.

If the rabbis have ever heard of BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) or of the Jewish students who must defend themselves across our campuses, they remain silent. Neither do they deliberate the doctrine of the Muslim Brotherhood, “It is the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.” The invading Muslim migrants who behead and rape the host populations, create no-go zones, and generate a fear that prevents the innocent from wearing religious symbols are also off the table. I speak from experience; I have attended such events.

It’s Still a Mad, Mad California Coastal elites set rules for others, exempt themselves, and tolerate rampant lawlessness from illegal aliens. By Victor Davis Hanson

One reason for the emergence of outsider Donald Trump is the old outrage that elites seldom experience the consequences of their own ideologically driven agendas.

Hypocrisy, when coupled with sanctimoniousness, grates people like few other human transgressions: Barack Obama opposing charter schools for the inner city as he puts his own children in Washington’s toniest prep schools, or Bay Area greens suing to stop contracted irrigation water from Sierra reservoirs, even as they count on the Yosemite’s Hetch Hetchy project to deliver crystal-clear mountain water to their San Francisco taps.

The American progressive elite relies on its influence, education, money, and cultural privilege to exempt itself from the bad schools, unassimilated immigrant communities, dangerous neighborhoods, crime waves, and general impoverishment that are so often the logical consequences of its own policies — consequences for others, that is. Abstract idealism on behalf of the distant is a powerful psychological narcotic that allows caring progressives to dull the guilt they feel about their own privilege and riches.

Nowhere is this paradox truer than in California, a dysfunctional natural paradise in which a group of coastal and governing magnificoes virtue-signal from the world’s most exclusive and beautiful enclaves. The state is currently experiencing another perfect storm of increased crime, decreased incarceration, still ongoing illegal immigration, and record poverty. All that is energized by a strapped middle class that is still fleeing the overregulated and overtaxed state, while the arriving poor take their places in hopes of generous entitlements, jobs servicing the elite, and government employment.

Pebble Beach or La Jolla is as far from Madera or Mendota as Mars is from Earth. The elite coastal strip appreciates California’s bifurcated two-class reality, at least in the way that the lords of the Middle Ages treasured their era’s fossilized divisions. Manoralism ensured that peasants remained obedient, dependent, and useful serfs; meanwhile, the masters praised their supposedly enlightened feudal system even as they sought exemptions for their sins from the medieval Church. And without a middle class, the masters had no fear that uncouth others would want their own scaled-down versions of castles and moats.

Go to a U-Haul trailer franchise in the state. The rental-trailer-return rates of going into California are a fraction of those going out. Surely never in civilization’s history have so many been so willing to leave a natural paradise.

Gov. Cuomo Commutes Sentence of Radical Leftist Terrorist Judith Clark Cuomo forgives her role in a triple murder — for which she has never shown genuine remorse. Joseph Klein see note please

from 2012 http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2012/01/15/the-sad-story-of-judith-clark-ron-radosh-oh-puleez-see-note/

THE SAD STORY OF JUDITH CLARK: RON RADOSH…..OH PULEEZ!….SEE NOTE | RUTHFULLY YOURS

THIS “DAMNEDSEL” IN DISTRESS IS NO ONE TO CAPTURE MY COMPASSION. SHE GOT GOOD TRAINING FROM THE PLO IN LEBANON….

READ:http://www.iwp.edu/news_publications/detail/impediments-to-effective-counterintelligence-and-counterterrorism

“The clearest example of this is the Brink’s robbery on October 20, 1981, in which three people were murdered. Remnants of 1970s terrorist groups, the Weather Underground, the Black Liberation Army, and the Republic of New Africa, banded together as the May 19th Communist Organization and attempted to rob a Brink’s truck in order to finance an expansion of their activities. In early 1979, more than two years before the murders, this terrorist group issued a document called Principles of Unity of the May 19th Communist Organization. The document pledged support to terrorists in the United States, South Africa, and Puerto Rico, as well as to terrorists in the Middle East.This was not enough to alert the FBI. Nor was the fact that Judy Clark, a member of the group, had attended an international conference organized by the PLO in Lebanon in September 1981, shortly before the abortive terrorist “expropriation.” Five hundred supporters of the PLO and other international terrorist groups were in attendance. Clark remained in Lebanon with the PLO for a time after the conference.”

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has decided to commute the sentence of a domestic terrorist, Judith Alice Clark, who willingly participated in a bloody robbery that led to the deaths of a security guard and two police officers. Clark, who pleaded not guilty, but was convicted of felony murder, had been sentenced to such a long prison term that she had no real hope for parole during her lifetime – until now. Cuomo’s decision to commute Clark’s sentence will not immediately result in her release, but the steep reduction in her sentence will make her eligible for parole early this year. The loved ones of the three men killed during the robbery and getaway in which Clark took an active part will have to continue to experience their hellish losses for as long as they live. Unless all the family members of the slain are ready to forgive what the self-proclaimed “revolutionary” and “freedom fighter” did, and they do not object to Clark’s release on parole, she should continue to experience her own hell in jail for as long as she lives.

On October 20, 1981, Clark joined members of the violent radical group known as the Weather Underground, who robbed a Brink’s armored truck in Nanuet, New York. Clark, who did not pull the trigger herself, was the driver of one of the getaway cars. Her partners in crime killed a Brinks guard, Peter Paige, in the course of the robbery. They also killed the two police officers, Waverly Brown and Edward O’Grady, who had attempted to stop the getaway vehicles on the highway. Clark was captured after she crashed one of the getaway vehicles. Just before her arrest, according to the 2008 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit denying Clark’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, “police saw Clark reach for a nine-millimeter pistol on the floor of the car.”