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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION

50 STATES AND DC, CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT

Can Hillary Clinton Complete the Fundamental Transformation? Has this country already turned the dangerous corner? October 27, 2015 Bruce Thornton

Just as they did after the first Democrat debate, the Public Relations and Marketing Division of the Democrat Party––otherwise known as the mainstream media––fell all over themselves declaring Clinton’s victory over her Democrat rivals and the Republican Party. Ignored were the damning admissions that were revealed, particularly the irrefutable evidence that Clinton knew the Benghazi attack was planned by terrorists and not a spontaneous reaction to what Clinton called “an awful Internet video that we had nothing to do with,” the big lie spun by State and the White House to protect Obama’s campaign for reelection.

So now a full year from November 8, 2016 the Dems have all but anointed Hillary to be our next president, based on this despicable display of mendacity, hauteur, and uncontrolled giggling. If they are right, then this country will have turned a dangerous corner on the road to abandoning our republican heritage of limited government, federalism, and personal freedom.

Navy Day in New York, 1945 The biggest display of military might the nation had ever seen. By Elliot Rosenberg

Seventy years ago, on Oct. 27, 1945, New York City was the site of the most spectacular homefront display of American military might the nation had ever seen. Navy Day was in effect a monumental victory lap, coming seven weeks after the signing of the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay aboard the USS Missouri.

Now the “Big Mo” and other stars and supporting players from the Pacific Fleet had come home. Along a six-mile stretch of the Hudson River, 47 warships gathered—battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, submarines and submarine chasers.

President Truman was there. So was I. About 3.5 million people crowded along Manhattan’s West Side, with another 1.5 million viewing from New Jersey, according to press reports. Joining the USS Missouri, with its 16-inch turret guns bristling from its 56,000-ton frame, were the USS New York (an older battle wagon) and the USS Enterprise, the only aircraft carrier that had been active from Pearl Harbor to V-J Day.

At midafternoon, President Truman boarded a destroyer for a two-hour review of the assembled firepower. Twenty-one-gun salutes boomed from many of the vessels. Overhead, 1,200 Hellcat and Corsair fighters, Avenger torpedo planes and Helldiver bombers circled in 12-mile ovals. For half-hour spells on two successive nights the ships turned on their 24-inch and 36-inch searchlights, sending brilliant blue-white beams, with millions in candle power, flashing across the sky and illuminating the city’s skyscrapers. No fireworks display could compare.

End the Civil Rights Commission’s Reign of Error By John Fund —

Everywhere you look, someone is accusing governments of abusing the rights of people crossing their borders. The United Nations just accused the Czech Republic of human-rights abuses for holding migrants in “degrading” conditions.

Last month, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights issued a report in which it demanded that illegal-immigrant families be released from detention centers. Conditions in the centers, the commission suggested, were worse than the abuse and persecution they had fled in their home countries. It demanded that Congress stop funding detention centers.

If we know anything about the human-rights community, it’s that it often combines lofty idealism with dubious anecdotes and shifty statistics that undermine its genuine concerns. Take the U.S. commission’s report: On close examination, it is a dubious farrago of abuse claims used to lobby for a preferred pro-immigrant and pro-union outcome.

The report was supposed to examine conditions at detention facilities for immigrants, but its members didn’t get around to visiting any facilities until the report was nearly finished. They apparently thought they didn’t need to; instead, they relied largely on rumor and innuendo. Indeed, in its initial proposal to study detention facilities — adopted by the commission long before it undertook any research — the commission had already concluded that “egregious human rights and constitutional violations” were occurring.

Congress Ready to Drive a Stake through the Climate Vampire’s Heart By H. Sterling Burnett

Paris just one month after All Hallows’ Eve and All Saints’ Day.

The climate treaty under negotiation is like a vampire from a bad old horror film. Every time you think it’s dead, it rises from the grave. This vampire is not sucking blood, but money and resources from taxpayers and needy people around the world. It’s time to put a stake through its heart and cut off the head of this climate-treaty monstrosity once and for all.

Congressional Republicans are working to do just that. Politico reports that Neil Chatterjee, a top aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has been making the rounds at foreign embassies alerting the countries’ diplomats that Republicans intend to fight President Barack Obama’s climate agenda until the end of his term and beyond.

Stop Obama’s War on Watchdogs His administration harasses officials who uncover graft and corruption. By Michelle Malkin….see note please

Obama’s war on Inspectors General started with the firing and subsequent efforts to smear Gerald Walpin…please read:

The White House Fires a Watchdog The curious case of the inspector general and a Presidential ally.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124511811033017539?alg=y

In the sadistic era of fraudulent Hope and Change, inspectors general inside the federal government have been kicked, neutered, and starved of the authority and information they need to do their jobs.

It’s transparently clear: President Obama loathes and fears independent watchdogs.

Accountability is an empty talking point without whistleblower protection and investigative autonomy. That is why Capitol Hill must do everything in its power to stop the White House war on the public’s ombudsmen. Federal inspectors general across dozens of agencies are begging lawmakers to grant them access to public records, as guaranteed by the 1978 Inspector General Act.

The call for help comes as Obama-administration obstructionists and cover-up operatives impede and downplay several key investigations into government corruption and malfeasance.

Last year, 47 of the nation’s 73 federal IGs signed an open letter decrying the Obama administration’s stonewalling of their investigations. The White House, they reported, had placed “serious limitations on access to records that have recently impeded the work” of IGs at the Peace Corps, the EPA, and the Department of Justice, and jeopardized their “ability to conduct our work thoroughly, independently, and in a timely manner.”

Immigration Law Enforcement: Why Bother? The crucial issues at stake for American citizens. Michael Cutler

Since the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, the responsibility for securing America’s borders against the illegal entry of people and contraband and for conducting inspections of people and cargo entering the United States has been the responsibility of CBP (Customs and Border Protection) a component agency of the DHS.

The Performance and Accountability Report / Fiscal Year 2014 reports that for FY 2014 CBP had 59,544 employees and was provided with a $13.9 billion annual budget for law enforcement and trade operations.

Yet I am compelled to ask, “Why bother spending all that money and expending that effort?”

Consider that President Obama and many politicians from both political parties have declared that we should provide unknown millions of illegal aliens, who evaded the vital inspections process at ports of entry, with lawful status in the United States. While the Democrats want to provide these individuals who have trespassed on the United States with a pathway to United States citizenship, most Republicans “only” want to provide them with lawful status and employment authorization.

Most illegal aliens do not enter the United States seeking United States citizenship. Most enter the United States seeking employment opportunities that ultimately displace American workers on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder and, by their sheer huge numbers, suppress the wages for all such workers.

The Latest Progressive Attack on Speech- Still infuriated by the Citizens United ruling, the left keeps trying to undo that blow for freedom.By Dan Epstein

On Tuesday the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing arguments in Van Hollen v. FEC. Though little-known, this case is a critical part of the left’s campaign to silence political debate after the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that upheld campaign spending as protected speech. At stake again are no less than the First Amendment’s guarantees of free speech and free association.

The central figure is Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), who argues that he has a right to participate “in elections untainted by expenditures from undisclosed sources.” He sued the Federal Election Commission in 2011, claiming that the agency infringed upon this right. In his lawsuit, he says that federal law requires nonprofits that fund “electioneering communications”—ads that advocate for a candidate’s election or defeat—to release a full list of supporters. Mr. Van Hollen asked the court to strike down an FEC regulation that prevents such disclosure.

Issued in 2007, the FEC rule requires nonprofits to disclose only donors who gave money for the specific purpose of funding electioneering communications. Those who funded, say, a new research program, didn’t need to be disclosed. The FEC intended to balance the public’s interest in political disclosure with the freedoms protected by the First Amendment. As such, there is disclosure for those who engaged in the electoral process, and privacy for those who didn’t.

Is Obama as Bad as Carter? No, He’s Worse Posted By Tyler O’Neil

Conservatives have long attacked President Barack Obama by comparing him with Jimmy Carter. Obama seemed to be following in Carter’s footsteps, becoming a failure both at home and abroad. That comparison is mistaken, however. Obama is far worse than Carter.

“I think of Jimmy Carter as the good old days,” said former ambassador and American Enterprise Institute senior fellow John Bolton [1].

In the late 1970s, Carter came to represent American weakness abroad and decline at home, from the Iran hostage crisis to the terrifying effects of “stagflation.” The late Obama years have seen the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS), Russia’s posturing in Ukraine and Syria, and a tremendously sluggish “recovery” with low labor participation rates.

In Carter’s last years, however, he changed course — beginning the policies which, under his successor Ronald Reagan, would reinvigorate both the economy and American presence around the world. By this measure, Carter achieved a much better legacy, and Obama would be hard-pressed to catch up.

Ahmed ‘Clock Kid’ Mohamed Visits the Butcher of Darfur By Ian Tuttle —

Is anyone saving Darfur these days?

You might remember Darfur. Just a few years ago, it was all the rage. There were t-shirts, postcards, and tote bags. There was an Amnesty International compilation album with songs by U2, Jackson Browne, and the Black Eyed Peas. There were baby onesies. Celebrities were all about saving Darfur. In April 2006, thousands of people gathered on the National Mall to urge the Bush administration to intervene. Among the speakers was George Clooney, who a few months later addressed the U.N. Security Council on the subject. Speed-skater Joey Cheek donated his 2006 Olympic bonus money to the cause. In 2009, actress Mia Farrow carried out a twelve-day hunger strike in solidarity with starving victims.

Such passions were not misplaced. The death toll in Darfur since 2003 is somewhere north of 300,000, according to the United Nations. And that is on top of 2.2 million Sudanese wiped out by the government in the south of the country before the atrocities in Darfur began in earnest.

At the head of all of this has been Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, whose reign of terror my colleague Jay Nordlinger chronicled back in 2005:

IMPORTANT NEWS UPDATES FROM THE INVESTIGATIVE PROJECT

General security, policy
1. Iranian underground missile bases enable ‘surprise launches’; US confirms Iran tested nuclear-capable ballistic missile; Iran’s ludicrous conviction of Jason Rezaian
2. US Navy civilian engineer sentenced to 11 years for attempted espionage for Egypt
3. TX man admits to lying about ISIS terrorist allegiances
4. State Dep’t report: Radical Islamist groups are the world’s chief religious persecutors
5. Haroon Aswat, Brit who plotted to set up OR terror training camp, sentenced to 20 yrs in prison
6. Federal appeals court revives lawsuit over NYPD surveillance of Muslims
7. Iranian-Canadian imprisoned for terrorism challenges possible loss of citizenship as ‘cruel & unusual’
8. Three weeks after kidnapping in Philippines, video surfaces of Canadians being held by Abu Sayyaf, affiliated with IS

Cyber, transportation, health, energy & communication security
9. ISIL-linked hacker arrested in Malaysia on US charges of providing material support to ISIL and computer hacking related to theft & distribution of US military and federal employee personal info
10. Terror watch list program glitch blamed for flight delays at major airports
11. Man who pointed laser at Tampa Police Department helicopter sentenced to prison

Financing, money laundering, fraud, identity theft, civil litigation
12. Two Hezbollah associates charged with conspiring to launder narcotics proceeds & with int’l arms trafficking
13. US Treasury sanctions prolific Chinese synthetic drug traffickers; 151 arrested in 16 states in probe of synthetic drug rings, proceeds traced to Middle East
14. Georgia man pleads guilty to operating unlicensed money transmitting business
15. New indictment adds bank fraud & financial aid fraud charges vs 2 Orange County men charged with conspiring to provide material support to ISIL

Border security, immigration & customs
16. ACLU accuses US Border Patrol of profiling and abuse
17. Ontario man who ‘got the last laugh’ and slipped past no-fly list into Turkey now back in Canadian court