RUTHFULLY YOURS

Solving the illegal-immigration problem should not be hard. No one knows how many foreign nationals are residing illegally in the United States — estimates range from 11 million to 20 million. But everyone understands that it is an untenable situation that must be addressed.

The two extreme positions of the Left and Right probably have little public support — on the one hand, blanket amnesties and open borders, and on the other, deportation of all foreign nationals who reside here without legal authorization.

Polls show that most Americans want something in between.

Close the border. Allow entry only to those who have legal permission. Ensure that employers hire only those foreign nationals who have valid green cards. Permit those who have resided here for a while, who are without criminal records and are employed, to apply inside the U.S. for either a pathway to citizenship or legal residence.

Require that those residing here unlawfully pay a fine for breaking the law and wait in line until immigrants who followed the law are first processed. Reform legal immigration to make it ethnically blind and predicated on skill sets and education rather than on proximity to our borders or on family connections to those residing here unlawfully.

Most would agree with those sensible reforms, but I doubt that we will see any such grand bargain. The trouble is not, as the Democratic and Republican establishments allege, because of xenophobic and nativist bigots. Only a minority now favor sending every undocumented immigrant home without a chance for the hard-working and law-abiding to stay here while they apply for citizenship.

The problem instead is that the establishments of both parties talk in high-minded fashion but in fact act selfishly. Unfortunately, identity-politics elites and Democratic-party activists, along with employers of undocumented workers, do not support such a grand bargain.

I agree with David and Rich that John Hinderaker’s Bundy post is very strong. As a matter of law, Cliven Bundy is in the wrong. He is nevertheless a sympathetic figure, and the concerns raised by the standoff in Nevada transcend the illegality of his conduct.

Rich’s recollection of Lincoln’s exhortation that reverence for the law become “the political religion of the nation” triggered my recollection of a seemingly inconsistent speech Lincoln delivered as president nearly a quarter-century later. As the Civil War raged, the president very controversially suspended the writ of habeas corpus and imposed martial law in states where Confederate operatives and sympathizers were taking seditious action. Addressing Congress on July 4, 1861, Lincoln defended his suspension of the writ:

Of course some consideration was given to the questions of power and propriety before this matter was acted upon. The whole of the laws which were required to be faithfully executed were being resisted and failing of execution in nearly one-third of the States. Must they be allowed to finally fail of execution, even had it been perfectly clear that by the use of the means necessary to their execution some single law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citizen’s liberty that practically it relieves more of the guilty than of the innocent, should to a very limited extent be violated? To state the question more directly, are all the laws but one to go unexecuted and the Government itself go to pieces lest that one be violated?

Now, it was only advisedly that I described this speech as “seemingly” inconsistent with the one Rich excerpted. For one thing, Lincoln did not believe his suspension of the writ violated the law, and he had a very colorable argument. The Constitution provides for the writ’s suspension in cases of rebellion or invasion; it does not say who may suspend it. The Supreme Court’s eventual conclusion (in the 1866 case of Ex Parte Milligan) that Congress must enact a suspension because the relevant clause is in Article I was sensible, but it was not indisputable. Lincoln was not without reason to believe that he had the necessary authority as long as a rebellion or invasion had occurred. Moreover, Lincoln’s passion for the rule of law was evident even in the act of arguably breaking it: He not only vigorously contended that his suspension was lawful; he also urged Congress to affirm the suspension by passing legislation (which Congress did in 1863).

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/hawaii-2014-candidates-for-congress-where-they-stand
Not just for those who live in Hawaii. All Congressmen and Senators will vote on issues critical to all Americans…see the whole elections series at Family Security Matters…so far we have posted Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Texas(Primary over), California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia and Hawaii and llinois….coming up next Idaho, Iowa, ….stay tuned…..rsk

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 (**).

Note: Late filing date and primary. We will update periodically if more candidates file.

U.S. Senate

Brian Schatz (D) Incumbent

http://brianschatz.com/ http://www.schatz.senate.gov/

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

HOT BUTTON ISSUES

ENERGY Schatz Statement on Keystone Pipeline Environmental Report – Friday, January 31, 2014: Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-Hawai‘i), Chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water and Power, issued the following statement regarding the State Department’s final supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone XL pipeline permit application:

“I am certain that encouraging the production of Canadian tar sands – some of the dirtiest oil in the world – is not in America’s national interest. As other agencies, Secretary Kerry, and ultimately President Obama review the environmental analysis, I would urge that they conclude that the environmental impacts of this pipeline are simply too high and reject the proposal. Climate change is the challenge of our generation and we need to be moving forward with policies to support clean energy, not backwards with dirty energy like the Keystone pipeline supports.”

HEALTHCARE ICYMI: Schatz Speaks on Senate Floor in Support of Affordable Care Act – Wednesday, September 18, 2013: Today, Senator Brian Schatz delivered a floor speech on the merits of the Affordable Care Act, its benefits in Hawai‘i, and the recklessness of some members of Congress who are holding the debt ceiling vote hostage over implementation of health care reform.

“I refuse to engage in the process of political and parliamentary gymnastics designed to score small, short-term wins at the expense of the American people and the economy,” said Senator Brian Schatz. “It has got to be pointed out that anyone who wants to grind the entire government to a halt over the implementation of this several years’ old law will cause harm to the economy, cause harm to their communities, because federal funding provides essential services and programs to constituents in every state, in every county, in every district. If improvements or changes need to be made, they can be done through the regular order- with hearings, serious discussions and bipartisan support.”

Colleen Hanabusa (D) Challenger

Is currently U.S. Representative in District 1 http://hanabusaforhawaii.com/ http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Colleen_Hanabusa.htm **

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=69498
Sometimes a choice of words can be extremely revealing. That was the case with Kerry’s contentious testimony in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Under pressure, Kerry tends to slip and say revealing things. That was how the infamous, “for it and against it” clip was born.

Kerry dismissed breakout as “just having one bomb’s worth, conceivably, of material, but without any necessary capacity to put it in anything, to deliver it, to have any mechanism to do so, and otherwise.”

He then admitted that “our goal” is not eliminating nuclear capability as much as “proving that this is a peaceful program.”

The first part of that is a preview of the next stage of Obama Inc’s Iran argument. One bomb doesn’t matter. Wait until they have thirty.

The second part however is even more revealing.

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=69495
It’s not often that a U.S. government agency gets caught red-handed abiding by its charter and performing its publicly-avowed and legislatively-approved duties. But last week the AP “broke” a long and breathless story from Havana that nailed the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) for just that.

In their own words, “a secret plan aimed at undermining Cuba’s communist government,” was courageously exposed by the AP’s intrepid Havana bureau.

Such is the magnitude of the scandal that a red-faced and snarling Senator Patrick Leahy is now chairing hearings on Capitol Hill where he grills USAID director Rajiv Shah on his agency’s “cockamamie!” plan.

The diabolical cloak and dagger scheme hatched in 2008 during George Bush’s term, (which may account for Democratic Senator Leahy’s dudgeon) amounted to setting up a “Cuban Twitter” named ZunZuneo (Cuban slang for a hummingbird’s tweet) in order for Cuban youths to text each other without snooping by Castro’s KGB-mentored secret police…..

Caught your breath back?….Yes, amazingly such a scheme somehow escaped the imaginations of Ian Fleming, John Le Carre’ and Tom Clancy.

In sum, a brief effort was made (lasting from 2008-12, and involving 68,000 of Castro’s hapless subjects) to allow Cubans (who pre-Castro enjoyed more phones and TVs per-capita than most Europeans) to communicate with each other in the same manner as do teenagers today in such places as Sudan, Papua New Guinea and Laos.

Understandably this scheme to facilitate a tiny window of freedom for a tiny fraction of their subjects greatly alarmed Cuba’s Stalinist rulers. After all, it wasn’t easy converting a free and prosperous nation with a higher per-capita income than half of Europe, a flood of immigrants from same and the first Mercedes dealership in the Americas into a totalitarian pesthole that repels Haitians and features a glorious rebirth of communications by bongo-drum and transport by oxcart.

Well, the news was barely broken by Castro’s U.S. media allies when, as mentioned, Castro’s U.S. legislative allies picked up the signal from Havana and erupted in outrage—not against the KGB-mentored censorship by a terror-sponsor mind you. But against the U.S. attempt to foil it. No. This is not your father’s cold war.

Senator Patrick Leahy, true to his historic role as U.S. legislative messenger for Castro’s every whim and wish, promptly denounced the program as “dumb, dumb, dumb.” “What in heaven’s name are you thinking?”‘ Leahy complained to Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC about the USAID scheme. “This makes no sense at all.”

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=69492
An explosion devastated a busy bus station on the outskirts of the Nigerian capital of Abuja on Monday, April 14, 2014. It was the latest in a series of terrorist attacks on Africa’s most populous nation. No group had claimed credit for the attack as of Monday, but Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan laid the blame at the feet of Boko Haram, the Islamist terrorist group seeking the eradication of Christians and the Islamization of Nigeria.

The blast took place at 6:55 a.m. according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN). Reuters reported at least 71 dead and 124 injured, but on Tuesday, Punch raised the number dead to 89, including three perpetrators, with 257 injured. And this was not the week’s only attack.

Just days earlier, Boko Haram jihadists killed some 200 in Borno, a northeastern Nigerian state that has seen far more than its share of jihad terrorism. Punch reported that on April 9-10 attacks took place on communities in several towns, as well as on a teachers’ training college and a group of students traveling to their matriculation exams. Boko Haram seemed determined to show that “western education is forbidden.”

Rarer was Monday’s attack on Abuja’s Nyanya Mass Transit Park – demonstrating the terrorists’ brazenness, operating in the country’s capital, as well as the northern and middle state belts to which they have already laid claim. The blast destroyed 16 high-capacity buses and damaged another 24, as well as affecting smaller vehicles, a police spokesman told Reuters. Many of the buses were loaded with commuters, so the attack left a hellish scene of charred bodies, body parts, and twisted metal. In Tuesday’s report, Punch told of an eyewitness who said that the attack was carried out by four insurgents in a Volkswagen Golf.

According to NAN, many of the commuters in this transit point for the satellite communities of the Federal Capital Territory surrounding Abuja were on their way to work and their businesses. But Nigerian attorney and human rights activist Emmanuel Ogebe pointed out that this attack took place on the first day of Holy Week in a country in which Easter is a major holiday.

“Abuja is emptying out as people travel to their home states for the long holiday,” said Ogebe. He believes the bus station was targeted deliberately on the week of Easter. This would be no surprise, as a majority of Islamist attacks in Nigeria target Christians, Christian holidays (holy days), and have occurred at churches and Christian schools and universities.

When President Jonathan visited the scene of the carnage, Reuters said he denounced “the activities of those who are trying to move our country backwards,” mentioning Boko Haram by name. The Nigerian government has not been successful in stopping Boko Haram, nor in assisting those who have been victimized the jihadists. But even their efforts in that direction have been constantly criticized for heavy-handedness and/or unfairness by the US State Department. The State Department favors a more nuanced approach to northern Nigerian Islamists.

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=69489
I hope they start to look into the seditious activity in all those “old folks” residences and social clubs….where over danish and mahjong they are plotting a takeover of the pentagon….rsk

The New York Police Department has disbanded its special unit that was tasked with putting Muslim communities under surveillance.

The unit sent plainclothes officers to neighborhoods with large Muslim populations and into their mosques and restaurants, in hopes of gathering intelligence about looming terrorist attacks — and in so doing, ignited fire among some civil liberties groups. So Police Commissioner Bill Bratton agreed that the program had to go, the New York Post reported.

The unit, called the Demographics Unit, was largely kept secret, until The Associated Press revealed its existence in 2011. By then, it had been in operation since 2003.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said, of the unit’s disbanding: “Our administration has promised the people of New York a police force that keeps our city safe, but that is also respectful and fair. This reform is a critical step forward in easing tensions between the police and the communities they serve, so that our cops and our citizens can help one another go after the real bad guys,” the New York Post said.

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=69486
When Woodrow Wilson signed into law the Revenue Act of 1913, it probably sounded like a good idea.

Most people would pay less in taxes and the prices of everyday goods would drop, he promised. And the rich would — finally! — start paying their fair share.

In those days, tax collection was a highly diffuse business with various states and localities collecting taxes at various rates. The federal government mostly skidded by on exorbitant and uneven tariffs, and on booze and tobacco taxes.

This was always tough and disorganized business for the federal government. Those hardships became especially acute for the federal government when it wanted to launch wars thousands of miles away on other continents.

And, anyway, who could question the motives of Woodrow Wilson?

He was a celebrated professor with a sterling Ivy League background who ran for president on the promise to govern sensibly and never go to war. He maintained a grand worldview and would later be awarded the Nobel Peace prize in the category of “world organizing” on his gallant promises to establish lasting peace to end World War I, which would become mankind’s last war.

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=69483
Like you, April 15th is “IRS day” or the day that you rush to the post office to get that tax return in the mail. More recently, it’s the day that we file online. Or, maybe the day that we renew our call for a “flat tax”.

In baseball terms, April 15th is the day that Jackie Robinson broke what they used to call “the color line” in the major leagues. He opened the game at first base and made history.

For Cubans, and especially those of my parents’ generation, April 15th is the day that Fidel Castro visited the US in 1959, a few months after taking power.

Castro’s visit was rather controversial because he faced skepticism from many in the US. He was asked about the promised elections that were delayed and delayed. He also heard over and over about communists in the background:

“The trip got off to an inauspicious start when it became clear that President Dwight D. Eisenhower had no intention of meeting with Castro. Instead, Eisenhower went to the golf course to avoid any chance meeting with Castro.

Castro gave a talk to the Council on Foreign Affairs, a New York-based group of private citizens and former government officials interested in U.S. international relations.

http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/?p=69480
NYPD drops surveillance of mosques
See also: Al Qaeda holds big rally in Yemen

Candidate Bill de Blasio was “deeply troubled” by NYPD surveillance of mosques, and now his police commissioner is dropping the program. Matt Apuzzo and Joseph Goldstein report ion the New York Times:

The New York Police Department has abandoned a secretive program that dispatched plainclothes detectives into Muslim neighborhoods to eavesdrop on conversations and built detailed files on where people ate, prayed and shopped, the department said.

The decision by the nation’s largest police force to shutter the controversial surveillance program represents the first sign that William J. Bratton, the department’s new commissioner, is backing away from some of the post-9/11 intelligence-gathering practices of his predecessor. The Police Department’s tactics, which are the subject of two federal lawsuits, drew criticism from civil rights groups and a senior official with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who said they harmed national security by sowing mistrust for law enforcement in Muslim communities.

The fact that thousands of New Yorkers were killed in the name of Allah by devout Muslims inspired by what they heard at mosques and that millions of Muslims worldwide believe that they can gain access to paradise and 72 virgins by slaughtering infidels means nothing to Mayor de Blasio, apparently. I can only hope that more New Yorkers do not die as a result of his political correctness.

To many Muslims, the squad, known as the Demographics Unit, was a sign that the police viewed their every action with suspicion. The police mappedcommunities inside and outside the city, logging where customers in traditional Islamic clothes ate meals and documenting their lunch-counter conversations.

Well, when devout members of your community proclaim that your religion requires them to slaughter New Yorkers, Americans, Jews, infidels, and even Muslims who don’t meet their standards of religious practice and devotion, then surveillance is reasonable, it seems to me.