September 28, 2016, 02:54 pm
By Katie Bo Williams and Cristina Marcos
Congress voted Wednesday to override President Obama for the first time in his eight-year tenure, as the House followed the Senate in rejecting a veto of legislation allowing families of terrorist victims to sue Saudi Arabia.
The House easily cleared the two-thirds threshold to push back against the veto. The final tally was 348-77, with 18 Republicans and 59 Democrats voting no.
The Senate voted 97-1 in favor of the override earlier in the day, with only Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) voting to sustain the president’s veto.
“We can no longer allow those who injure and kill Americans to hide behind legal loopholes denying justice to the victims of terror,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte(R-Va.).
The White House immediately slammed lawmakers following the Senate vote.
Ridgewood NJ, Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05) issued the following statement after the Institute for Science and International Security released a report today that the Obama Administration gave the Iranian regime secret loopholes to keep Iran compliant with last year’s nuclear deal. The report states that Iran did not limit their nuclear stocks and facilities by Implementation Day in direct violation of the parameters set by the P5+1 nuclear deal.
“To recap the perks given to Iran by the Obama Administration since signing the nuclear deal, Iran has been given sanctions relief, a financial windfall, ransom money, less oversight, and freedom to test ballistic missiles. Now, according to today’s report, we can add secret loopholes to that list. It’s as if the president is going out of his way to keep the American people in the dark about the details of this dangerous deal.”
“It’s obvious from this report that the Obama Administration thought it was more important to keep a politically expedient deadline than to ensure terrorists never develop nuclear weapons. The world will undoubtedly be a more dangerous place if the Iranian regime builds a nuclear arsenal, and I will continue to fight against this terrible deal to ensure the safety and security of the United States and its allies.”
For centuries on end this was how the Muslim world and the West interacted. Literally, this was more or less the only mode of interaction. Muslim raiders descended upon a littoral Mediterranean town or village on the mainland of Europe or in England or Ireland and dragged their hostages to one or another Muslim city in North Africa.
Later, we would diligently pay the muslim captors to get as many of our people back as we could afford. For hundreds of years thus was business as usual. Western populations were weak and vulnerable to the depredations of a barbaric culture that was stuck in the 7th cenury, and there was no option but to endure the raids and pay the ransom demanded. If any hostage renounced the Christian faith to avoid the cruel treatment given to kaffirs or infidels, the Catholic Church, having limited funds for this purpose, would generally not pay for that person’s release, favoring instead those who had kept the faith. That was the price for apostasy at the time. There still exists some kind of Holy See office, largely dormant now, that conducted this hostage ransoming work. Those who were engaged in it were seen as doing the Lord’s work in saving souls from the grip of Satan. And that’s exactly what they were doing.
Now, the Obama administration didn’t pay 400 million in ransom for this laudable reason. No, it was vulnerable to heavy criticism from the likes of Donald Trump for abandoning the American hostages during the so-called nuclear negotiations and needed to save Hillary’s electoral bacon by eliminating the Iranian hostage situation as an issue during the presidential race. Humanitarian motivations played no part in the calculus.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05), Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, today voted for three pieces of legislation before the Financial Services Committee to stop the sale of U.S. aircrafts to Iran from entities like Boeing.
“It’s crazy for the Obama Administration to allow U.S. companies to sell airplanes to the largest state sponsor of terror in the world, Iran, and it’s even crazier to allow the U.S. financial system to finance these transactions or use taxpayer dollars to back these deals,” said Garrett. “Since the president is willing to put the needs of Iran before our national security, and entities such as Boeing and the Export-Import Bank are more concerned about profits than stopping terrorists, Congress must put an immediate stop to this dangerous idea. The legislation before the Financial Services Committee today will ensure that taxpayer money and the U.S. financial system is never used to assist an Iranian regime that wants to destroy the United States and its allies.”
Legislation before the committee:
H.R. 5729, Prohibits the Secretary of the Treasury from licensing the export of commercial aircraft to Iran.
H.R. 5711, Prohibits the Secretary of the Treasury from authorizing transactions by U.S. financial institutions in connection with these sales.
H.R. 5715, Ensures that no taxpayer dollars will back these sales in the form of Ex-Im financing by codifying and strengthening a current prohibition on Ex-Im support for Iran contained in annual appropriations language and closing a loophole that could allow for indirect Ex-Im financing of aircraft deals with Iran through third-party leasing companies.
Background:
By authorizing aircraft sales to the ayatollahs, the Obama Administration would materially aid what its own State Department calls the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. Just last month, Iran Air flew “known weapons resupply routes to Syria” three times. This is the very airline President Obama wants to receive new Boeing airplanes. Additionally, neither the Treasury Department nor Boeing has provided assurances that Iran Air will not transfer planes to other airlines.
Under current law, Ex-Im may indirectly finance planes being exported to Iran, particularly by providing support to aircraft leasing companies. This is a loophole that Congress must close. When selling the nuclear deal, the Obama Administration has explicitly stated that Iran will not have access to the U.S. financial system. Any authorization of U.S. financing for aircraft exports would show that the Administration has been misleading the public.
Garrett has been an outspoken critic of the Ex-Im bank and the Iran nuclear deal.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05) issued the following statement after the House Financial Services Committee released a staff report of its investigation into the U.S. Department of Justice’s (DOJ) decision not to prosecute HSBC or any of its executives or employees for serious violations of U.S. anti-money laundering laws and related offenses.
“While the vast majority of Americans pay a price if they break the law, the Justice Department has once again proven that the rules don’t apply to those with special privileges and connections under the Obama Administration,” said Garrett. “Despite their best efforts for three years to side-step Congressional inquiries and oversight, the House Financial Services Committee was able to find that DOJ has been misleading the American people about their decision not to prosecute HSBC employees and executives on anti-money laundering charges, proving that too-big-to-jail is alive and well.”
Background:
The Committee initiated its investigation in March 2013. The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of the Treasury failed to comply with the Committee’s requests to obtain relevant documents, necessitating the issuance of subpoenas to both agencies.
Approximately three years after its initial inquiries, the Committee finally obtained copies of internal Treasury records showing that DOJ has not been forthright with Congress or the American people concerning its decision to decline to prosecute HSBC. To read the House Financial Services Committee’s full report, click here.
Scott Garrett is Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises.
A leading figure in the British push to exit the European Union says President Obama accidentally helped the Brexit cause.
Nigel Farage on Friday said Obama’s calls for the United Kingdom to stay in the EU caused people to vote to leave.
“Threatening people too much insults their intelligence,” the United Kingdom Independence Party head said.
“A lot of people in Britain said, ‘How dare the American president come here and tell us what to do?’ ” Farage continued on Sirius XM’s “Breitbart News Daily,” citing Obama’s U.K. trip in April.
“It backfired. We got an Obama-Brexit bounce, because people do not want foreign leaders telling them how to think and vote.”
Britain on Thursday voted to leave the EU in a move experts predict will lead to worldwide financial uncertainty.
British Prime Minister David Cameron promptlyresigned Friday morning.
No room in America for Christian refugees
January 07, 2015, 04:00 pm
By Abraham H. Miller
At the end of World War II, the Jewish survivors of Europe’s Holocaust found that nearly every door was closed to them. “Tell Me Where Can I Go?” was a popular Yiddish song at the time. Decades later, the Christians of the Middle East face the same problem, and the Obama administration is keeping the door shut.
America is about to accept 9000 Syrian Muslims, refugees of the brutal war between the Assad regime and its Sunni opposition, which includes ISIS, Al Qaeda, and various other militias. That number is predicted to increase each year. There are no Christian refugees that will be admitted.
Why? Because the Department of State is adhering with all the rigidity of a Soviet era bureaucracy to the rule that only people at risk from massacres launched by the regime qualify for refugee status. The rapes of Christian women and the butchery of Christian children do not count. No matter how moved Americans were this Christmas season by the plight of their fellow Christ followers in Syria and Iraq, no matter how horrific the visuals of beheadings, enslavement, and mass murder, the Christians fleeing death do not engender the compassion of this president.
The Christians are being raped, tortured, and murdered by militias, not by the Syrian government. This technicality condemns them to continue to be victims without hope. And this technicality is being adhered to with all the tenacity with which President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s State Department manipulated quotas and created subterfuges to keep out the Jews fleeing the oppression of Nazi Germany. Obama no more wants the Middle East’s Christian refugees than Roosevelt wanted Europe’s Jewish refugees.
We have seen in the last several weeks that President Obama has no difficulty using his “phone and his pen,” as he dramatically boasts, to circumvent the law. When it comes to immigration, he had no difficulty enacting an amnesty that a federal judge subsequently ruled unconstitutional. He has had no problem circumventing Congress to change the relationship with Cuba. This president has shown that he will push back on the constraints of law when he wants to get something done.
Ridgewoood NJ,Rep Scott Garrett R-NJ 5th District ,voted NO on the Obama Admin , seemingly suicidal Nuke Deal with Iran .Garret made his strongest statement yet on the Administrations latest foreign Policy fiasco .
The somberness of the 14th anniversary of 9/11 ,Garrett commented that , “We will never forget those we lost. We will never forget those who ran into danger to help their fellow man and woman. We will never forget that evil forces still conspire to destroy our very way of life. And we will never forget those who sacrifice everything to defend our freedom.”
Garrett adressed the Iran Nuke deal vote specifically saying , “Today I voted against this terrible Iran nuclear deal. If enacted, this deal will give Iran sanctions relief and a path to obtaining a nuclear weapon while jeopardizing the security of the United States and its allies. It will allow Iran to generate weapons grade nuclear materials in 15 years, possess intercontinental ballistic missiles in eight years, and receive a multi-billion dollar financial windfall in sanctions relief to fund their nuclear program.
As a member of the special committee that implemented sanctions on Iran, I understand the severity of this situation. The Obama Administration failed the American people, it failed our allies around the world, and it failed future generations that will live in a more dangerous world with a nuclear-armed Iran. This fight isn’t over. I will continue to do everything in my power to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of known terrorists”
The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has “clarified” requirements for individuals becoming naturalized citizens by stripping out the requirement of defending the United States through military service.
“Effective July 21, 2015, new guidance (PA-2015-001) in the USCIS Policy Manual clarifies the eligibility requirements for modifications to the Oath of Allegiance. Reciting the Oath is part of the naturalization process. Candidates for citizenship normally declare that they will “bear arms on behalf of the United States” and “perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States” when required by the law. A candidate may be eligible to exclude these two clauses based on religious training and belief or a conscientious objection,” an email from USCIS clarifying the requirements states (bolding is mine).
Elizabeth Slattery / @EHSlattery / Hans von Spakovsky / @HvonSpakovsky / March 20, 2015
The IRS, however, extended the tax credits to the federal exchange by interpreting “State” to mean “federal government,” a reading that defies common sense and the normal rules of statutory interpretation.
Putting an imaginative spin on an unfavorable outcome for the administration, Professor Baude claims that the Constitution would allow the administration to apply the judgment only to the four plaintiffs and otherwise ignore the ruling for the rest of the nation. His rationale: “The King litigation is different, because almost everybody who is eligible for the tax credits is more than happy to get them.” Yet whether or not folks are “happy” about a particular regulation has no bearing on whether that rule is authorized by law.
Baude claims that the administration is “free to follow its own honest judgment about what the law requires.” But if the Supreme Court holds that the IRS rule violates federal law, it wipes out the IRS rule in its entirety. Baude raises the fact that President Lincoln ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling in the infamous decision Dred Scott v. Sandford. Yet this is a red herring. The King case is not about the separation of powers or the relationship between co-equal branches of government—it is simply a matter of statutory interpretation.
Such action by the administration would also potentially violate the equal protection principles embodied in the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause—recognized by the Supreme Court in Bolling v. Sharpe—because the administration would not be equally applying the rule of law to everyone in the nation.
Baude also makes the odd claim that such behavior by the administration “would not defy a Supreme Court order, since the court has the formal power to order a remedy only for the four people actually before it.” Again, that is simply not the case. If the Supreme Court holds that a particular statute is unconstitutional on its face or that a particular regulation was improperly issued by a federal agency, that ruling applies in all circumstances in which that statute or regulation was or could be applied—not just to the particular plaintiff in front of the Court unless the Court specifically limits its ruling to the plaintiffs before the Court.
In fact, the Court rejected Baude’s legal theory in Cooper v. Aaron, when it determined that officials in Arkansas were bound by the holding of Brown v. Board of Education even though only Delaware, Kansas, South Carolina and Virginia were the named parties in Brown. Obviously many students and school administrators were, at the time, unfortunately “happy” with segregation; that doesn’t mean the states that weren’t parties to the case could ignore the Court’s ruling in Brown.
This issue already came up in another Obamacare subsidies case, Halbig v. Burwell, before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. As the Halbig plaintiffs pointed out, “[T]his Court has made clear that when it invalidates a regulation under the [Administrative Procedures Act], such a ruling has ‘nationwide’ effect, for ‘plaintiffs and non-parties alike.’”
Baude’s legal theory also ignores the Anti-Deficiency Act, which makes it a crime for a federal employee to spend funds without congressional authorization. Thus, if the Supreme Court rules that Congress did not authorize subsidies for the federal exchanges, and if the Obama administration continues to pay out these subsidies, every federal official involved in making such payments could be fined or even imprisoned.
Baude seems to be urging Obama to copy President Andrew Jackson’s shameful response to Worcester v. Georgia, in which the Supreme Court ruled that Georgia violated a federal treaty when it sought to regulate the Cherokees. Jackson allegedly responded, “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it,” leading to the infamous Trail of Tears when the Cherokees were forced out of their ancestral homelands.
Let’s hope Obama doesn’t take this legal advice to channel Old Hickory and taunt Chief Justice John Roberts in such a way. Though the administration has shown contempt for the rule of law, it has not yet stooped to the level of ignoring a decision by the Supreme Court.
Senate panel probing possible Obama administration ties to anti-Netanyahu effort
By Steven Edwards
Published March 14, 2015
FoxNews.com
A powerful U.S. Senate investigatory committee has launched a bipartisan probe into an American nonprofit’s funding of efforts to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the Obama administration’s State Department gave the nonprofit taxpayer-funded grants, a source with knowledge of the panel’s activities told FoxNews.com.
The fact that both Democratic and Republican sides of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations have signed off on the probe could be seen as a rebuke to President Obama, who has had a well-documented adversarial relationship with the Israeli leader.
The development comes as Netanyahu told Israel’s Channel Two television station this week that there were “governments” that wanted to help with the “Just Not Bibi” campaigning — Bibi being the Israeli leader’s nickname.
It also follows a FoxNews.com report on claims the Obama administration has been meddling in the Israeli election on behalf of groups hostile to Netanyahu. A spokesperson for Sen. Rob Portman, Ohio Republican and chairman of the committee, declined comment, and aides to ranking Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, of Missouri, did not immediately return calls.
Vindictive? The Obama Administration is playing DIRTY! over a grudge?
March 7,2015
Greta Van Susteren
The issue in this post is not whether Senator Menendez should be indicted or not. I don’t know if he should be or not. This is about Obama Administration tactics.
But I do know this: the Department of Justice (DOJ) LEAKING on a Friday night that they are going to bring criminal charges is about as DIRTY as it gets. A leak about intentions is not an indication of a good faith investigation — it is an ugly SMEAR. It is dirty.
I am all for fair investigations (and news if there is an actual indictment) but LEAKING of a possible indictment on a Friday night like this shows bad faith. Why did the Obama Admin do it? So that it gets talked about on all the Sunday morning shows? Rotten! It sure is not playing it straight.
And why would the Obama Administration / DOJ want to SMEAR fellow Democrat, Senator Menendez? Two motivations could be: 1/ Sen Menendez opposes the Obama Administration desire to normalize relations with Cuba and 2/ he also opposes the Obama Administration suspected deal with Iran. President Obama really wants both these deals. The last thing the Obama Adminstration and the President want is for the Democratic Ranking Member on the Senate Foreign Relations to oppose them [and his opposition began when the Democrats controlled the Senate and he was Chairman.]
Sharyl Attkisson: Obama Administration Treats Journalists Like ‘Enemies of the State’
Ben Smith / @bmcsmith92 / January 30, 2015
Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson accused the Obama administration of stifling press freedom by systematically cracking down on reporters—even treating them like enemies.
“If you cross this administration with perfectly accurate reporting they don’t like, you will be attacked and punished,” Attkisson said. “You and your sources may be subjected to the kind of surveillance devised for enemies of the state.”
Attkisson, a senior independent contributor to The Daily Signal, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday about the Department of Justice’s treatment of journalists under outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder.
Loretta Lynch’s nomination to replace Holder is awaiting Senate confirmation, prompting Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to call on Attkisson to give her own personal account of troubles with the Justice Department.
“The job of getting at the truth has never been more difficult,” Attkisson said at the hearing. “Facets of the federal government have isolated themselves from the public they serve. They covet and withhold public information that we as citizens own.”
Attkisson highlighted the “bullying” tactics that she claims the government, and specifically the Justice Department, have used against journalists.
Government officials called and threatened her superiors when she was at CBS News, launched a “frenzied campaign” against her with surrogate bloggers, and even denied her and other journalists access to federal buildings.
“Let me emphasize that my reporting was factual,” Attkisson said in reference to her work on the Fast and Furious gun-walking scandal. “It was not because my reporting was poor.”
Attkisson also reiterated her own problems with alleged government snooping, which included “keystroke monitoring, password capture, use of Skype to listen into audio.”
The Justice Department sought to push back on some of Attkisson’s claims yesterday with the release of an inspector general report.
Attkisson concluded that freedom of the press is “under assault due to government policies of secrecy, leak prevention, and officials’ contact with the media, combined with large-scale surveillance programs.”
She urged Lynch, if confirmed, to “chart a new path” as attorney general.
“If we aren’t brave enough to confront these concerns,” Attkisson said, “it could do serious, long-term damage to a supposedly free press.”
Bob Menendez, Marco Rubio Torch Obama Administration Over Cuba Announcement
Two longtime critics of Cuba made blistering statements Wednesday morning following the Obama administration’s announcement that the U.S. would normalize full diplomatic relations with the communist island, marking a significant policy shift not seen in decades.
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), the outgoing Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair, praised the release of former USAID worker and prisoner Alan Gross, but sharply criticized the administration for the price it paid.
“President Obama’s actions have vindicated the brutal behavior of the Cuban government,” he said in a statement. “There is no equivalence between an international aid worker and convicted spies who were found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage against our nation. One spy was also convicted of conspiracy to murder for his role in the 1996 tragedy in which the Cuban military shot down two U.S. civilian planes, killing several American citizens. My heart goes out to the American families that lost love ones on that fateful day.”
“Trading Mr. Gross for three convicted criminals sets an extremely dangerous precedent,” he added. “It invites dictatorial and rogue regimes to use Americans serving overseas as bargaining chips. I fear that today’s actions will put at risk the thousands of Americans that work overseas to support civil society, advocate for access to information, provide humanitarian services, and promote democratic reforms.”
The U.S. is reportedly looking to normalize relations by opening an embassy in Havana, as well as loosening current travel restrictions on the country.
Business groups are bracing for an onslaught of regulations, with the Obama administration bent on completing a host of the president’s unfinished policy goals and the midterm elections now in the rearview mirror.
Agencies across federal government are expected to drop a host of major rules over the next few months, with regulations running the gamut from calorie label requirements on restaurant menus to new rules for hydraulic fracturing and air pollution.
There are at roughly two dozen major rules that are scheduled to drop between now and late January, according to a review of the administration’s official regulatory agenda and rules now awaiting approval at the White House.
Groups including the Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute said they are most concerned by expected costs associated with a slate of rules now in the pipeline at the Environmental Protection Agency.
“The EPA’s regulatory march is very concerning to the business community,” said Matt Letourneau, spokesman for the Chamber’s energy institute. “We’re fighting these regulations,” he added. “We’re trying to encourage EPA to listen to our concerns. We’re hoping EPA backs off or changes course.”
