RUTHFULLY YOURS

There is an unwarranted “mystery” that surrounds the third branch of government: the Judiciary Branch. People understand – or claim, to anyway – how the Executive and Legislative Branches of our federal government work. But very few people understand the Judicial Branch: how judges are selected, what their purview consists of, how they can be held accountable to We the People. This comes as no surprise to those who understand and actively defend the United States Constitution and the Charters of Freedom. After all, the Progressive controlled education system has all but expunged US history and civics education from any and all curriculum. This reality serves to undermine our Republic; to enslave our “free” people to the tyranny of Progressivism.

Most people understand that there is a procedure for removing a sitting president. The requirements for engaging in this process – impeachment – are outlined in Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution:

“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

The definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” is more complex than some would like to believe.

The Farlex free legal dictionary explains “high crimes and misdemeanors” thusly:

“[T]he Framers intended for removal from office to be the final step in a two-part process that began in the House of Representatives and, if charges should result, ended in a trial-like hearing before the US Senate. Thus, two goals would be achieved: a full public inquiry into allegations, and, if necessary, the adjudication of those charges requiring a two-thirds majority for removal…

“The generally accepted viewpoint…defines high crimes and misdemeanors as any serious abuse of power – including both legal and illegal activities. Supporters of this [definition] believe that because impeachment is a public inquiry, first and fore-most, it is appropriate to read the phrase broadly in order to provide the most thorough inquiry possible. Thus, a civil officer may face impeachment for misconduct, violations of oath of office, serious incompetence, or, in the case of judges, activities that undermine public confidence or damage the integrity of the judiciary.”

So, per the US Constitution, any “civil officer” was – and is – subject to impeachment. That means Attorney General Eric Holder is just as vulnerable to impeachment as President Obama, although this avenue is seldom traveled by politicians more devoted to the ballot box than their constituencies. Go figure.

http://www.humanrightsvoices.org/?h=1

HAMAS ROCKET ATTACKS SKYROCKET AS UN & OBAMA ADMINISTRATION FOCUS ON “RESTRAINING” ISRAEL

U.S.: ASSAD’S ‘MACHINERY OF DEATH’ WORST SINCE THE NAZIS

ISRAELI ARAB CONFESSES TO MURDER OF 20-YEAR OLD ISRAELI JEW, SHELLY DADON Shelly Dadon, A 20-year-old resident of Afula whose body was found on Thursday in the woods near Migdal Haemek

SAUDI RIGHTS LAWYER SENTENCED TO 15 YEARS PRISON

SWASTIKA FLIES IN PALESTINIAN TOWN AS ARABS RIOT

29 PEOPLE KILLED IN OVERNIGHT ATTACKS BY TERROR GROUP AL-SHABAB

Iraq Militants Executed At Least 160 Captives

Where is the outrage over the bombardment of civilians in Israel?
Hundreds of rockets have been fired and a million citizens are forced to run for cover. Imagine if London suffered this bombardment

You see, as most people in the UK were waking up this morning, and those in Europe, United State and elsewhere around the world were going about their daily routines, here in Israel over one million people were running for cover from a hail of rockets being rained down by Palestinian Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

In the last 24 hours alone, over 120 rockets have been fired on southern Israel. That’s approximately five rockets per hour. By the time I finish this article, odds are that count will have risen to 125 rockets.

To put things in context: one million Israelis is roughly 13 per cent of the population. Thirteen per cent of the UK population equates to about 8.4 million people, or the entire population of London.

A number of Israelis have already been injured, though thankfully without fatalities. The only reason more have not been hurt is because Israel has invested millions of dollars in bomb shelters and the Iron Dome defence system. Meanwhile, Hamas, whose very raison d’être is the destruction of Israel and which is recognised as a terrorist organisation both by the EU and UK, has invested millions of dollars in foreign aid into more rockets.

So, where is the outrage?

Since the beginning of this year, Gaza terrorists have fired more than 450 rockets on Israel, with about half of them coming since mid-June, when two Hamas terrorists kidnapped and brutally murdered three Israeli teenagers.

Why is it that a majority of the international community only notices when Israel undertakes its sovereign right, and obligation, to defend its citizens? Can you imagine if even one rocket was fired on London, Washington, Paris or Moscow? This is simply intolerable and no country can, or should, tolerate such attacks on its people.

Where is the outrage from the United Nations, which does not hesitate for a moment to call a “special emergency session” on the “Question of Palestine” or pass the umpteenth resolution blindly condemning Israel? But 24 hours after the rocket attacks on Israel started, I am still waiting for even one syllable of condemnation from the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly or the Human Rights Council.

Where is the EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who repeatedly slams Israel over settlement building, but is yet to say a word about the Palestinians firing over 120 rockets on Israeli civilians in one day? Even 10 Downing and the Foreign Office are yet to comment.

On June 11, the day before the kidnapping of Israeli teens Eyal Yifrach, Gil-ad Shaer and Naftali Frenkel, a resident of Moshav Yashresh named Avraham Levy murdered his two young children in cold blood.

The horror story was the kind that would have received extensive media coverage and public outrage had it not been upstaged by the abduction.

The explanation for this is twofold. In the first place, items that involve the wider conflict between Arabs and Jews in Israel necessarily capture the attention of the international press in a way that local ones do not. Secondly, though no less important, the teenagers were deemed alive and in need of urgent rescue, whereas 14-year-old Sarah Levy and her 10-year-old brother, Yishai, were already dead.

Their tragic end nevertheless warrants recounting. Doing so is not merely a way of paying respect to their devastated mother, who has received none of the sympathy that has been heaped on the parents of Eyal, Gil-ad and Naftali, and of 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir, who was brutally burned to death on July 2 by a group of young Jewish-Israeli vigilantes out for vengeance.

Another reason for telling their tale is to examine Israeli society’s response to it, by way of contrast.

Avraham Levy and his wife, Karen — an American immigrant to Israel — divorced three years ago. According to the terms of the divorce, Karen was allowed to take the children to live in the United States (near her family), with the stipulation that they would visit their father in Israel twice a year.

In spite of the fact that Karen and the children had spent time at a shelter for battered women following repeated domestic abuse, the court determined — based on the opinion of social services professionals — that Avraham was fit to see his children.

Karen kept up her end of the deal. After moving to Columbus, Ohio, she sent the kids to Israel as scheduled. And everything was fine, or at least ostensibly so, until last month. The children arrived for the summer, as planned. They were picked up from the airport and brought to their aunt’s house, where they enjoyed a pleasant family dinner.

Atrocity invites atrocity, and just when we think we’ve reached the bottom of the homo sapiens order, we discover there’s a bottom beneath the bottom.

The kidnapping and murder of children is the vilest of all crimes, and why the perpetrators of such indecency are held as the lowest of the low in nearly every prison in the world. There is honor, of a kind, even among the killing breed.

The latest indecencies at the bottom of the human order have taken the lives of four young men — three Israelis and a Palestinian. The reaction to these tragedies is eloquent testimony to why the region is adrift in such a sea of depravity and hopelessness. The only true equivalency is the equivalency of the intent of killers.

Three young Israeli youths, aged 16, 16 and 19, were kidnapped last month and murdered, execution style, on their way home from religious-studies classes. Their bodies were found in a field several days later, at the end of a search driven by a hope for the best and the expectation of the worst.

The Israeli government promised to find the killers and punish them by the law, and given the efficiency of the Israeli security forces few could doubt that justice would prevail. But this being the land of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, barbarians could not wait. They first attempted the kidnapping of a 9-year-old, then took a Palestinian boy of 16. His body, burned beyond recognition, was also found in a field, abandoned in the Jerusalem Forest.

Israeli investigators quickly detained six suspects, presumably Israeli citizens, just as the Palestinian streets erupted in the usual riot. Police were said by usually reliable sources to believe that the murder was done by Jewish extremists, including minor children, in retaliation for the slayings on the West Bank. One of the suspects is said to have confessed, and the police were about to reveal details of the arrests and interrogations when a magistrate’s court gagged all parties at the request of Shin Bet, the Israeli security police leading the investigation. The suspects could be held under Israeli law without lawyers for up to 10 days, or 21 days if a court is persuaded that they are suspected of committing a terrorism-related crime.

The six suspects are, in the antiseptic euphemism often used to hint at what’s going on in police interrogation rooms, “assisting police in their investigation.”

Sixteen-year-old Muhammad Abu Khdeir was doing his own thing last Tuesday when he was abducted by Jewish terrorists, who slaughtered him. They killed him because he was an Arab, and they are racist murderers.

The police made solving Abu Khdeir’s murder a top priority. In less than a week, they had six suspects in custody. Three confessed to the murder.

There are dark forces at work in Israeli society. They need to be dealt with.

And they will be dealt with harshly.

They will be dealt with harshly because there is no significant sector in Israeli society that supports terrorism.

There is no Jewish tradition that condones or calls for the murder of innocents. In Jewish tradition, the line between protecting society from its enemies and committing murder is long, wide, unmistakable and unmoving.

This is why, for instance, at the memorial service for 20-year-old Shelly Dadon, who was murdered by an Israeli Arab terrorist from the Galilee in early May, the placards held up by the 2,000 participants called for the police to protect the public.

“Our blood is not worthless,” “Today it’s Shelly, tomorrow it could be you,” and, “Death penalty for murderers,” they read.

Not surprisingly, when on Sunday the police revealed both that they had arrested Abu Khdeir’s Jewish killers and that they had arrested Dadon’s Muslim murderer, public interest in the former story far surpassed interest in the latter.

The story of an Israeli Muslim terrorist murdering an Israeli Jewish woman is a dog bites man story.

I saw “The Death of Klinghoffer” at BAM many years ago and exited, as many did, before the intermission. To paraphrase the humorist Edgar Wilson Nye who said of Wagner “ the music is better than it sounds.”( That quote is often inaccurately attributed to Mark Twain).

There is a last act to this musical felony committed by composer John Adams.

Leon Klinghoffer’s widow, Marilyn, filed a lawsuit against the PLO when she returned from the hijacking, but died before the litigation. The Klinghoffer sisters continued with the lawsuit, where former United States Attorney General, Ramsey Clark, the PLO’s lawyer argued that the PLO was a de-facto state and therefore immune from prosecution under international law. The PLO was one of the wealthiest terrorist groups in the world, funded by virtually all the oil producing states, but had no property or accounts in this country. The Klinghoffer sisters persevered and pressed the $1.5 billion dollar lawsuit which was settled for an “undisclosed” sum before it reached the courts in 1991.
According to reports, an “undisclosed “ sum from the “undisclosed” settlement with the PLO was given to the Anti-Defamation League for the Leon and Marilyn Klinghoffer Memorial Foundation .

The question hangs in the air…..using money from the PLO to combat terrorism? The PLO continued its murderous rampage against civilians- in wheelchairs and baby strollers, undeterred by their loss in the lawsuit.
The ADL and the Klinghoffers have mounted opposition to the opera “The Death of Klinghoffer.” I applaud all the efforts against the opera, particularly those of patrons like my friend Leonard Weiss who will withhold funds from the Metropolitan Opera.

This, however, from the ADL webist in June 2014 is bizarre:

http://www.adl.org/israel-international/israel-middle-east/content/backgroundersarticles/the-klinghoffer-family-reacts-to-death-of-klinghoffer-opera.htmlhttp:/www.adl.org/israel-international/israel-middle-east/content/backgroundersarticles/the-klinghoffer-family-reacts-to-death-of-klinghoffer-opera.html#.U7aTYI1OWUm

“While the opera is highly problematic and has a strong anti-Israel bias, it is not anti-Semitic. A scene which was featured in the premier of the opera in 1991, in which some of the Jewish characters exhibited stereotypical behavior, was removed by the composer, and to ADL’s knowledge, has not been featured in any production since that time. Some have charged the version of the opera currently being performed with anti-Semitism based on the language used by one of its characters. In Act 2, Scene 1, the character of “Rambo,” the terrorist who subsequently shoots Leon Klinghoffer, sings an aria in which he taunts Leon, saying:
You are always complaining
Of your suffering
But wherever poor men
Are gathered they can
Find Jews getting fat.
You know how to cheat
The simple, exploit
The virgin, pollute
Where you have exploited
Defame those you cheated,
And break your own law
With idolatry.
America
Is one big Jew….

We do not view this openly articulated animus toward Jews as promoting anti-Semitism, rather it exposes Rambo and the hijacker’s entrenched and destructive anti-Semitism. This is akin to characters in other plays or movies (for example Nazi characters) whose anti-Semitism is part of their character and part of the plot’s development. In such cases, the character is anti-Semitic but the play or film is not. ”

Huh?rsk

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/oklahoma-2014-candidates-for-congress-where-they-stand?f=puball

To see the actual voting records of all incumbents on other issues such as Foreign Policy, Second Amendment Issues, Homeland Security, and other issues as well as their rankings by special interest groups please use the links followed by two stars (**).

U.S. Senate

Jim Inhofe (R) Incumbent

http://www.jiminhofe.com/home/ http://www.inhofe.senate.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/james_inhofe.htm**

Rated -2 by AAI, indicating anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

HEALTHCARE Healthcare Medical decisions belong between a patient and their doctors – not a government bureaucrat. While reforms are needed to reign in ever increasing healthcare costs, a government take-over is not the answer. Senator Inhofe is committed to repealing and replacing President Obama’s healthcare law. Principles of reform must improve the quality of coverage and care while reducing costs. Any reforms that take away patient choice while giving control to the government will devastate the quality of patient care. Additionally, federally administered programs like Medicare and Medicaid must be reformed to address costs and gaps in coverage.

IMMIGRATION Senator Inhofe has long supported immigration reform that makes border security a priority. He has insisted on immigration solutions that do not grant amnesty, shortcut the naturalization process, or ignore our nation’s laws by rewarding illegal activity. Senator Inhofe has repeatedly authored legislation that would make English the official language of the United States. He has stood up to the federal bureaucracies and defended the rights of states, especially those on the border, to protect themselves, their citizens, and their property from those that enter the country illegally.

ENERGY ” The Keystone XL Pipeline is the bellwether of energy policy today. It’s such a simple decision, but the President has wavered year after year. This posture should give the American people every bit of information they need about what the President really thinks about North America becoming energy independent and economically secure. He simply doesn’t want it to happen.” APRIL 29, 2014

American energy independence is not simply an economic issue. Energy independence is a matter of national security. Throughout my time in Washington, D.C. I have worked toward policies that encourage the U.S. to meet its energy needs domestically. This mean an “all the above” U.S. energy policy. We must continue to work to increase exploration and production of natural gas and oil, continuing the development and use of coal, along with the development of renewable sources of energy and further develop nuclear energy. As the former Chairman and Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, I have worked hard to build upon the environmental accomplishments of the past thirty years. Scientifically based, well thought-out environmental regulations can provide benefits to the American people. Unfortunately, however, many current environmental regulations are not grounded in science. As a result, they usually do harm and put undue restrictions upon the freedoms of many Americans. Additionally, poorly designed environmental regulations have been a large contributor to the energy problems we now face and have put an unnecessary drag on our overall economy. If we rethink environmental regulation, we could be in a better position in the future and find ourselves in a place where we can have far greater environmental protection, more reliable and diverse energy sources, a stronger national defense, and a stronger economy.

America does not need to be dependent upon foreign powers to meet our energy needs. We must open domestic sources of energy production in our Outer Continental Shelf, Alaska, and on federal lands, and I know it is possible to do this in an environmentally friendly way. Oklahoma plays a key role in America’s energy independence. The oil and natural gas industry that helped build our state years ago is experiencing a resurgence and contributes billion of dollars and thousands of jobs to our Oklahoma economy.
Matt Silverstein (D) Challenger

http://www.mattforoklahoma.com/

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

REAL EQUALITY FOR WOMEN Women are paid less than men for the same work and that must change. Matt is a husband, father of a two-year old daughter, and grew up in a household as the older brother to two younger sisters. He is an adamant fighter for women. Matt has pledged to support forward thinking policies that help level the field for women. He is also a strong advocate for the Violence Against Women’s Act, equality for women in the military, and overall women’s health issues. Congress should never turn a blind eye to inequality towards women and we should all support common sense efforts to help local officials address these inequalities. The first step is admitting they exist.

ENERGY Our approach to energy must put Oklahoma first. Matt won’t allow special interests to guide his energy policy and he won’t promote out of state resources over Oklahoma’s own resources.

Jim Inhofe embraces out of state coal. While he wants to pick winners and losers, Matt believes the free market should guide our energy policy. Oklahoma is in a unique position to lead on new energy as well as old and that is what we should be doing in a 21st Century economy. Oklahoma energy can and will lead our nation towards energy independence and away from the grasp of OPEC.

TAX REFORM Matt will support a tax system that makes sense for businesses and individuals alike. Our corporate taxes are among the highest in the world and that makes our businesses less competitive around the world. However, corporate tax loopholes reduce taxes for the biggest corporations while the entrepreneurs and small businesses that are creating new jobs are saddled with paying close to the full rate. Matt is determined to work towards a tax system that works for small businesses not Wall Street. Matt supports eliminating all special interest corporate tax loopholes and reducing the overall rate to 20 percent or less.
Tom Coburn (R)

Resigning in December 2014 – Special Election in November 2014
James Lankford (R)

Challenger presently U.S Congressman for Oklahoma District 5

http://jameslankford.com/ http://lankford.house.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/house/James_Lankford.htm**

Rated -4 by AAI, indicating anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

ENERGY Voted for construction of the KeystoneXL Pipeline. As a nation, we currently spend over $2 billion a day importing over 42 percent of our oil from foreign countries. Some oil exporting nations are unfriendly towards the United States with unstable governments that control the supply and pricing of some of the largest oil reserves in the world. The United States is the top producer of natural gas in the world, and we should have the opportunity to responsibly sell our abundant resources to energy-hungry friendly nations and allies. According to a recently released study by the National Economic Research Associates (NERA), American natural gas production from 2012 to 2040 is predicted to increase overall by 39%. The NERA report concluded that the U.S. increase in GDP for exporting LNG could range from $1.5 billion in 2018 to $36 billion in 2038.

HEALTHCARE Repealing the Government Takeover of Health Care and Replacing with Patient-Oriented Solutions

JOBS AND ECONOMY America is at a crossroads and House Republicans are committed to taking every possible step to spur job creation and get our economy back on track so that Americans can do what they do best: create, innovate and lead.
Connie Johnson (D) Challenger

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

SENSIBLE REFORM OF OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM Oklahoma ranks number one in the world in female incarceration, and fourth in incarceration of men. These numbers are the result of the War on Drugs and its “tough on crime” and “mandatory minimums” legislation that is separating families and destroying neighborhoods and communities across Oklahoma and the country. Low-level drug offenders, primarily poor people and people of color, face wildly disproportionate prison sentences, at a cost to Oklahoma taxpayers of over $500 million per year. As an Oklahoma State Senator, Connie introduced a variety of sentencing reform measures, including eliminating “life without parole” as a possible punishment for drug offenses; eliminating three-strikes-you’re out sentencing for non-violent offenses; creating structured sentencing guidelines; decriminalizing marijuana; legalizing medical marijuana; and, establishing post-incarceration grace periods for court fees and restitution.

WOMEN’S ISSUES Ensuring Equal Pay for Equal Work As our U.S. Senator, Connie will work to close the wage gap between women and men in our state and nation. She’ll fight to ensure equal pay for equal work. Today, while women are 50.5 percent of Oklahoma’s population, they still only make 77 cents on the dollar compared to their male counterparts. Connie supports the Violence Against Women Act in the U.S. Senate. Oklahoma ranks third in the nation in deaths from spousal/partner abuse. Women who experience violence, emotional and sexual trauma, unintended pregnancy, and witness violence early in life are more likely to be incarcerated during their lifetimes.

Protecting Women’s Reproductive Rights

IMPROVING HEALTH CARE REFORM As our U.S. Senator, Connie will work to improve health care reform that provides access to care for all hardworking Oklahomans. She’ll fight for effective cost controls that reign in spiraling prescription drug and hospital costs. Even though Oklahoma is not participating in the Affordable Care Act-refusing to expand Medicaid or to create state health insurance exchanges-Oklahomans still benefit from key provisions in the ACA that Connie supports.

IMMIGRATION REFORM Immigrants in the U.S. have always encouraged innovation and helped spur economic growth. Connie supports immigration reform that paves the way for college graduates with international backgrounds to remain legally in our country after they graduate.

Connie also supports the Dream Act. Every high school student-including young Oklahomans whose parents are undocumented-should have access to affordable college education that helps them become skilled, productive, civic-minded citizens. It’s not these young people’s fault that they were born to parents who are here illegally. We do not visit the sins of the fathers upon the children.

District 1
Jim Bridenstine (R) Incumbent

http://www.jimbridenstine.com/ http://bridenstine.house.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Jim_Bridenstine.htm**

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

HEALTHCARE Obamacare – America has the world’s finest doctors, hospitals, and medical innovations, but all that is in jeopardy because of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. I truly believe that Obamacare is the most significant domestic policy issue of our time, and stopping it is one of my top priorities in Congress.

While Obamacare was supposed to bring down the cost of health insurance, the average premium for a family has risen by more than $3,000 since it was signed into law.
President Barack Obama has repeatedly promised that “if you like your health care plan, you can keep it” under Obamacare, but the Congressional Budget Office now estimates that 7,000,000 Americans will lose access to their employer-based health insurance as a result of the law.
Because the most stringent regulations apply to businesses with over 50 employees, many employers are already laying off staff and/or reducing work hours to avoid the exorbitant expenses and compliance requirements of Obamacare.
Despite assurances to the contrary during debate over the law, new insurance mandates coming out of Washington threaten fundamental freedoms by requiring employers to cover services that directly conflict with their moral and religious principles.

Obamacare will be hugely expensive to each of us as consumers of healthcare. On top of that, the government will hire 16,500 new IRS agents to administer and enforce the provisions of the program. They will be charged with enforcing the mandate that citizens buy insurance, while many constitutional scholars believe that forcing citizens to buy any product is unconstitutional. The fact of the recent revelations of IRS corruption only reinforces the suspicion that compliance waivers granted to companies are politically motivated. Equal application of the law does not apply to Obamacare.

Putting a stop to Obamacare is one of my top priorities in Congress. That is why I co-sponsored and voted for H.R. 45, which passed in the House on May 16, 2013, and if enacted into law, would repeal Obamacare in its entirety.

ENERGY Supports construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline without limiting amendments. Most of America’s energy needs are met with fossil fuels. Coal has long been the fuel of choice for electric generation. Since early in the first term, the Obama administration has targeted the coal industry, and the EPA has steadily tightened regulations. This is bad policy. Burdensome regulations on coal use directly increases the cost of electricity. Since low-income families spend a larger portion of their income on utilities, this is especially hard on the poorest Americans, but it hits everyone and increases costs for everything people consume.

For even more fundamental, constitutional reasons, I oppose EPA policy and regulatory efforts to penalize coal use. It is entirely inappropriate for any federal agency to circumvent the separation of powers by trying to achieve by regulation what would never pass Congress as legislation.

IMMIGRATION Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution gives Congress the authority “To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization.” The immigration system does need reform, and it is the right and responsibility of Congress to do so. Border security must be a precondition to any comprehensive immigration reform. In order to fix our broken immigration system, we must start by securing the border and doing a better job of tracking guest workers. If these problems are not corrected first, a future Congress will be forced to deal with the same immigration problems we have today. Additionally, border security and guest worker tracking can’t just be a promise from the President but must have real “teeth” and credibility. I support enhancing our border security by extending and reinforcing physical barriers along the southern border, augmented with sufficient surveillance assets to alert authorities of illegal entries. I also support increasing our response capability. Once the border has been secured, we can begin to discuss meaningful reforms, but it is important that we focus on policies that will actually begin to solve the problem. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 demonstrates that simply giving citizenship to illegal aliens will not slow or stop illegal immigration so long as the border is unsecured and guest workers are not tracked. In fact, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service (CRS), the number of illegal aliens living in the United States has risen from about 3.2 million in 1986 to 11.1 million in 2011. Indeed, the mere discussion of this kind of “reform” only serves as a powerful incentive to accelerate illegal entries.

Here is where I stand on several specific issues related to any legislative reform of our immigration laws: ·

I will vote “no” on any bill that is not given sufficient time for reading, deliberating, and vetting. Immigration reform must not be passed in the same secretive, rushed, and frenzied manner as Obamacare. Members of Congress must not shirk transparent discussions.
Immigration reform starts with accountable border security that includes regular audits and oversight from Congress.
We cannot reward people who broke our laws. The punishment must be proportional to the crime. It must be neither weak nor excessive.

No challenger

District 2

Markwayne Mullin (R) Incumbent

http://www.mullinforcongress.com/ http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Markwayne_Mullin.htm**

http://mullin.house.gov/

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

IMMIGRATION America always has been, and always will be, the land of freedom and opportunity. Any solution to our broken immigration system must contain strong border protection provisions, and must not allow amnesty. We cannot reward those who break our laws by giving them amnesty. We must also find a way to protect ourselves from dangerous criminals who enter this country and to ensure the safety net programs for legal U.S. Citizens are not used by non-Americans.
It is also critical that the immigration laws already on the books are enforced, not ignored for political reasons.

HEALTHCARE I have voted numerous times to delay, defund or repeal the budget-busting government-run health care known as Obamacare. This terrible law imposes more mandates, new taxes and it is costing jobs. A recent Congressional Budget Office report estimates that Obamacare will cause Americans to work fewer hours, enough to equal 2 million fewer jobs in 2017, estimated to rise to the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs in 2024. Furthermore, it jeopardizes Oklahoma’s rural hospitals, which are already struggling. Instead of more government intervention in our personal healthcare decisions, I favor reforms that are market-based and patient centered and which actually solve some of the problems in our health care system – not create an entirely new system with layer upon layer of new problems.

ENERGY America is rich in natural resources, but the federal government makes it difficult and expensive to tap into these resources. Instead, we are beholden to countries that don’t always have America’s best interests in mind. The President’s climate action plan and “War on Coal” will only cost Americans more money and kill jobs. That “War on Coal” is already being felt here in Oklahoma. I have repeatedly called on the President to finally permit the northern leg of the Keystone XL Pipeline. For over five years, this Administration and its liberal supporters have stood in the way of the good jobs and economic boost that this northern leg will have. I believe the government needs to get out of the way and allow us to access and use these natural resources to make America more energy independent while keeping energy costs down.
Earl Everett (D) Challenger

http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/local/x1535565437/Retired-educator-seeks-to-serve-in-Congress

District 3

Frank Lucas (R) Incumbent

http://www.frankdlucas.com/ http://lucas.house.gov/

http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Frank_Dean_Lucas.htm**

Rated -2 by AAI, indicating anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

ENERGY Voted for construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline without limiting amendments. I support an “all of the above” energy agenda that can create new American jobs, decrease our dependence on foreign oil, and promote efficient usage of energy here at home. –

HEALTHCARE We need real health care reform in this country that lowers costs, maintains options, reduces the uninsured population, and expand access. –

IMMIGRATION I am working to see our borders secured and our immigration laws enforced, allowing legal immigration and naturalization.
Frankie Robbins (D) Challenger No website

District 4

Tom Cole (R) Incumbent

http://www.tomcoleforcongress.com/ http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Tom_Cole.htm**

Rated -2 by AAI, indicating anti-Arab anti-Palestine voting record. (May 2012)

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

HEALTH CARE Our country’s health care system needs reform. As your Representative I will fight for patient centered improvements that reduce cost, allow flexibility, and protect America’s most vulnerable citizens. Obamacare – I strongly oppose the so-called Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

IMMIGRATION America is a land of immigrants, and we are also a nation of laws. Those laws must be enforced in order to secure our borders and stop the flood of illegal immigration.

TAXES I support the simplification of our nation’s tax code and common sense proposals to make tax collection fair and efficient for America’s workers. I support making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

DEBT Our national debt is unsustainable. Families have to live within a budget and Congress should too. I am fighting to root out wasteful, duplicative, and unnecessary spending and return us to balanced budgets.

ENERGY I support developing all of our nation’s energy resources and becoming energy independent while reducing dependence on foreign oil. I support the Keystone XL Pipeline and increased production of oil and natural gas.
Bert Smith (D) Challenger

http://bertsmith4congress.com/

In 1997, I retired as a Lieutenant Colonel after 28 years in the U S Army Reserve. In 1971-72, I flew in combat in the Republic of Vietnam as a helicopter pilot, lift section leader, and assistant S2 with the 3/17 Air Cavalry Squadron. My military career included being honor graduate of my Infantry Officer Basic Class, five years with the 96th MTC, graduation from the Army’s Command and General Staff College, and 10 years as an Admissions Field Representative for the United States Military Academy at West Point.

District 5

James Lankford (R) Candidate for US Senate in 2014

No decisive winners: There will be a runoff on August 26
Patrice Douglas (R) Challenger

http://www.patricedouglas.com/

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

HEALTHCARE As a proud mother of two boys, I understand the importance of a health-care system that empowers and protects the trusted doctor-patient relationship. Bureaucrats in Washington should not control Oklahoma families’ medical decisions. Patient care must be our primary goal.

We MUST REPEAL ObamaCare. Let’s work together and find free market-based and patient-centered solutions that will increase accessibility, lower costs and promote cutting-edge research that save, improve and enhance lives without raising taxes, rationing care or increasing government control.

IMMIGRATION I oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants. America must protect and secure its borders to ensure the financial and personal safety of all Americans. The failure of the federal government to enforce our immigration laws leaves taxpayers with higher costs in health care, education and public safety. I strongly support a solid employment verification system that encourages companies to hire legal workers, and provides stiff prosecution for those who employ illegal workers.

JOBS AND ECONOMY Oklahoma’s small businesses power our economy and create jobs. Let’s find solutions to reduce our national debt, balance the budget and keep America prosperous so small businesses can once again flourish without the threat of job-killing regulations and higher taxes. In my experience, I believe Oklahoma small businesses won’t be able to start hiring again until Washington gets off their backs. We do not need the federal government to create jobs; we can create an atmosphere that encourages entrepreneurship and small business growth with a sensible tax system and little government interference.
Steve Russell (R) Challenger

http://www.vets4victory.com/

The unit LTC Steve Russell (Ret) commanded was a central player in the hunt and Capture of Saddam Hussein. LTC Russell speaks across the US and Canada, rallying the American public to support the troops with victory, not just words. LTC Russell retired from the US Army after serving 21 years in Airborne, Light and Mechanized assignments in the Arctic, the desert, the Pacific, in Europe and in the Continental United States. He served more than 7 years overseas and has deployed operationally to Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.

During Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, LTC Russell commanded the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry ‘Regulars’ and conducted combat in Tikrit, Iraq from the spring of 2003 to the spring of 2004. His battalion was broadly covered during the first year of the war by CNN, FOX NEWS, ABC, NBC, CBS, TIME MAGAZINE, Associated Press and Reuters. His unit was a central player in the hunt and capture of Saddam Hussein and has been featured in Discovery’s ‘Ace in the Hole’ and BBC Panorama’s ‘Saddam on the Run’ documentaries. He is described by the media as “an officer who never misses a chance to be on patrol with his unit. Russell is of average height, wiry and doesn’t seem imposing. Yet, he impresses you as a natural leader. He’s got the earnestness and intensity of a missionary.”

LTC Russell is highly decorated, having received the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal with Valor Device and Oak Leaf Cluster, the Combat Infantryman’s Badge and the Valorous Unit Award.
Tom Guild (D) Challenger

http://www.guildforcongress.com/

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

UNIONS I support the right to organize, collective bargaining and minimum wage laws. I oppose “Right to Work,” attacks on Unions and the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy.

HEALTHCARE Providing health care to American families is a moral issue. Democrats have just extended health coverage by passing health care reform that extends protection to 32 million additional Americans. It makes denial of coverage on the basis of preexisting conditions a thing of the past, prohibits sex discrimination that charges women more for their health care premiums and forbids insurers from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies. It is devastating for the American people to have their health insurance premiums increase by 30, 40 or even 50 percent or more each year. Cost controls put in place by the new law will reduce premiums, and provide income based subsidies to assist all families in paying for their health insurance. It is simply unacceptable that 12,000 Americans a day lose their coverage; the new law eliminates cancellation for illness or pre-existing conditions. It was not acceptable that businesses had to choose between failure and providing their employees with health care protection. The new law provides subsidies to support small business in doing the right thing and insuring all their employees.​

WOMEN I am running for Congress to help ensure that every woman is treated fairly in her life. Whether on the job, making health decisions, raising children or in her every day affairs. “All Women Deserve a Voice in Washington!”

GLBT I support equal rights for all. I support the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” I support equality for all and I do not believe it should be legal to fire someone solely based on sexual orientation.
Al McAffrey (D) Challenger

http://www.almcaffrey.com/

Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/oklahoma-2014-candidates-for-congress-where-they-stand?f=puball#ixzz36s66PjIb
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Efraim Karsh is professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King’s College London, a senior researcher at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and at the Middle East Forum, and the author most recently of Palestine Betrayed (Yale, 2010).
The Uses of Lydda
How a confusing urban battle between two sides was transformed into a one-sided massacre of helpless victims.

In “What Happened at Lydda,” Martin Kramer has performed a signal service by putting to rest the canard of an Israeli massacre of Palestinian Arab civilians in that city in July 1948. The charge has been most recently circulated by Ari Shavit in his best-selling My Promised Land. But Lydda is hardly the only instance of such allegations at the time of the founding of the Jewish state—or, for that matter, long afterward. As Kramer suggests at the outset of his investigation, “time and again over the decades, Israeli soldiers have stood accused of just such wanton killing when in fact they were doing what every soldier is trained to do: fire on an armed enemy, especially when that enemy is firing at him.”

Indeed. In late 1947, a violent Arab attempt was made to prevent the creation of a Jewish state in line with November’s UN partition resolution. No sooner had the Haganah rebuffed it than it was accused of scores of nonexistent massacres. The same happened in the run-up to the establishment of the state in May 1948 and the ensuing war launched by the Arab nations to destroy it. The fall of the city of Haifa in April 1948 gave rise to totally false claims of a large-scale slaughter that circulated throughout the Middle East and reached Western capitals. Similarly false rumors were spread after the fall of Tiberias (April 18), during the battle of Safed (in early May), and in Jaffa, where in late April the mayor fabricated a massacre of “hundreds of Arab men and women.” Accounts of a massacre at Deir Yasin (April 9), where some 100 people died, were especially lurid, featuring supposed hammer-and-sickle tattoos on the arms of Jewish fighters and fictitious charges of havoc and rape.

In later years, Palestinians and supporters of the Palestinian cause have even invented retroactive atrocities, unknown to anyone at the time of their supposed occurrence. A notable instance is the “Tantura massacre” of May 1948, an event glaringly absent from contemporary Palestinian Arab historiography of the war. And this is not to mention more recent trumped-up allegations of atrocities committed by Israel in, most notoriously, Jenin (2002) and Gaza (2009).

It is into this crowded field that the prominent Israeli journalist Ari Shavit has stepped. “In 30 minutes, at high noon, more than 200 civilians are killed,” Shavit writes dramatically; “Zionism carries out a massacre in the city of Lydda.” But as Kramer conclusively shows, it is likelier that there was no massacre: only casualties of war, killed or wounded in the fierce fighting between the small Israeli force in the city and the numerically superior force of local Arab fighters supplemented by Transjordanian troops and armored vehicles.

‘NOT MY BOSS’S BUSINESS,” screamed several protest signs outside the U.S. Supreme Court, as the Hobby Lobby case was argued on March 25 and decided last Monday morning. Another placard hollered: “HEY SUPREME COURT — NO BOSSES IN MY BEDROOM.”

The first slogan belongs to NARAL Pro-Choice America, previously called the National Abortion Rights Action League. NARAL has lost the courage of its convictions. While it once proudly preached abortion rights, NARAL now peddles “choice,” without saying what, precisely, will be chosen. Perhaps the choice is NARAL itself.

In any case, these banners are laughable in one sense and laudable in another.

The accidental comedy involves demonstrators who want birth control to be none of their bosses’ business — until the bill arrives. Then it suddenly becomes their bosses’ business to purchase whatever contraception these protesters want. This includes drugs and devices that may kill human beings soon after conception. And, if bosses refuse to finance such birth-control methods, the federal government will force them to do so and fight them all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if they disobey.

So, to be clear: Bosses should stay the hell out of America’s bedrooms — except to deliver contraceptives at no cost to their employees, especially when Uncle Sam so orders.

Thankfully, the Supremes excused from this unconstitutional contraceptive mandate Hobby Lobby and other companies closely held by pious owners. This odious rule is yet another reason to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Indeed, crushing Obamacare and its relentless edicts could give the “Not my boss’s business” crowd precisely what their posters demand.

This brouhaha exists because most Americans get group medical insurance through their employers. Consequently, it is the boss’s business to decide whether to cover birth control, mental-health or substance-abuse treatment, and even pills for erections. The protesters are right: Why should bosses control such intimate details of workers’ lives?

The answer is to repeal Obamacare and replace it with a robust market for individual health insurance. Companies simply could pay their staffers to purchase whatever health plans satisfy their needs and wants. Employees who prefer insurance that includes birth control could buy it. Those who neither want nor need contraceptives could choose plans without it.