Disorder at the Border : What Obama wrought.
JUL 21, 2014, VOL. 19, NO. 42 • BY SCOTT W. JOHNSON
Watching the influx of unaccompanied minors crossing our southwestern border daily, a reasonable man could conclude that we are living out the fevered dreams of a dystopian novel. The United States has lost a basic aspect of sovereignty. Control over its borders is a relic of the past.
Having traversed Mexico with the help of drug cartels freely operating human trafficking networks, Central American minors are voluntarily entering the United States through the Rio Grande Valley. They’re shepherded to the border, where they cross on their own and seek apprehension by Department of Homeland Security agents, believing that minors won’t be deported.
According to Brian Bennett’s intensely reported July 5Los Angeles Times story, U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures show that officers took fewer than 4,000 unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras into custody annually for most of the last decade. Then, in fiscal year 2012, officers seized 10,146 unaccompanied minors. Last fiscal year, they took 20,805; between last October and this June 15, they nabbed 39,133. The overused word “crisis” fits the numbers—indeed, “invasion” doesn’t seem too strong. By July 8, however, the White House had downgraded the invasion from a “crisis” to a “situation.”
https://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/disorder-border_796395.html
Tag: Obamanomics
Christie jabs Obama: ObamaCare a ‘failure’
Christie jabs Obama: ObamaCare a ‘failure’
In what could be the latest move toward a 2016 presidential bid, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) offered a wide-ranging critique of President Obama’s domestic and foreign policies.
Speaking to reporters at the National Governors Association on Saturday, Christie labeled Obamacare, the administration’s signature legislation, a “failure on a whole number of levels” and said it should be repealed.
“But has to be repeal and replace with what. It can’t just be about repeal,” Christie told the audience. “What I’ve said before is, what Republicans need to be doing is putting forth alternatives for what should be a better healthcare system.”
He also urged his GOP colleagues to keep bringing up their opposition to same-sex marriage, even though a series of court decisions have overturned many statewide gay marriage bans.
“I don’t think there’s some referee who stands up and says, ‘OK, now it’s time for you to change your opinion,’” according to Christie.
Christie also said the latest outbreak of violence between Israelis and Palestinians was partly the White House’s fault because the administration “does stand up for our friends.”
The president should be “speaking firmly and forcefully on behalf of Israel,” he said.
\
Read more: https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/212071-christie-jabs-obama-obamacare-a-failure#ixzz37LhJWPeD
EPA Regulators Gone Wild
EPA Regulators Gone Wild
Robert Gordon / July 11, 2014
Following the revelation that the Environmental Protection Agency plans to garnish wages without a court order to collect non-tax debts (i.e. misused grant funds, unrepaid loans or “fines, penalties or fees assessed by federal agencies”), the EPA has sought to defend its proposed rules.
The agency cites The Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 (DCIA) as its authority for these rules and called it proposed rule “noncontroversial.” It is curious that the agency tucked these rules into the Federal Register as everyone was headed out for the July 4thvacation.
In a Politico story, part of defense offered by EPA was that it had to put these rules forward as “the same Treasury guidelines apply to all federal agencies that refer delinquent non-tax debts to Treasury for Collection.” This is not reassuring. If correct, this means we can soon expect similar rules to garnish wages without a court order from other agencies that have the power to fine citizens. Are such rules in the pipeline for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Occupational Health and Safety Administration, and the Bureau of Land Management?
No matter what the EPA says, it is just wrong for an agency to allege violations, impose fines and then garnish wages without a court order. The whole process is stacked against citizens and ripe for abuse. There are, however, a variety of simple fixes:
First, Congress could use its power of the purse and simply prohibit the use of any funds for garnishing wages without a court order as regards fines or penalties imposed by an agency. Given EPA’s warning that other agencies are likely to follow, it could be widely applied.
Second, Congress could overturn the EPA regulation or the underlying 1998 Treasury regulation.
o It could do so by adding due process requirements to the DCIA, crafting procedures that would not be so stilted in favor of the agency.
o More directly, it could simply require that, in the case of fines or penalties, an agency obtain a court order for wage garnishment.
o It could even amend the DCIA to limit garnishment to non-regulatory debts.
There are other possible fixes, but the point is this: This is a problem that Congress should be easily able to analyze and fix in a bipartisan manner.
An EPA spokesperson tried to assuage fears stating that, before wages could be garnished for fines, alleged violators are given prior notice and the opportunity to “review, contest or enter into a payment agreement.”
When one reads regulations’ fine print that opportunity is not so encouraging. Under EPA’s proposed system, the agency gets to unilaterally decide whether there is an oral hearing or whether it will decide the case based on the paper record. If there is an oral hearing, EPA has unbridled discretion to choose where. So, if you are from Alaska for example, the EPA could decide the oral hearing for your alleged violations will be in Washington DC. Tough luck.
Also, according to EPA’s proposed system, when you arrive your hearing official will be someone picked by the very agency that has sought to impose the fine. EPA gets to designate any individual the agency considers “qualified” for that job. Could EPA’s view of “qualified” include the official who imposed the fines in the first place? Who knows? Finally the standards basically put the burden of proving one’s self innocent on the citizen. While most see this as ridiculously stacked, this is the EPA’s notion of“adopting hearing procedures that … provide due process.”
There is no reason to tolerate this behavior. It is regulators gone wild and should be nipped in the bud.
NEA Teachers unions turn on Obama
NEA Teachers unions turn on Obama
By Peter Sullivan – 07/12/14 01:49 PM EDT
Teachers unions have turned on Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and the Obama administration, creating a major divide in the Democratic Party coalition.
The largest teachers union in the country, the National Education Association (NEA), called for Duncan to resign at its convention on July 4, arguing his policies on testing have failed the nation’s schools.
Tensions between Duncan and the unions had been building for some time.
The administration’s Race to the Top program, which has provided $4.35 billion to states, incentivized changes that unions strongly oppose. One of the most controversial policies backed by Duncan is using students’ improvement on standardized tests to help evaluate teachers and make pay and tenure decisions.
“Our members are frustrated and angry,” said NEA president Dennis Van Roekel. “Number one is the toxic testing. There is too much.”
An added spark came on June 10, when a California judge ruled the state’s teacher tenure laws are unconstitutional because they keep ineffective teachers in the classroom and deprive poor and minority students of their right to an equal education.
Teachers unions, which are strong defenders of tenure, expressed outrage when Duncan said the plaintiffs in the case were just some of millions of students disadvantaged by tenure laws. He called the decision “a mandate to fix these problems.”
With the teachers unions at loggerheads with the administration, Democrats are suddenly at risk of losing one of their most reliable allies and fundraising sources.
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/212034-teachers-unions-turn-on-obama#ixzz37HT2NbWO
Bloggers, Surveillance and Obama’s Orwellian State
Bloggers, Surveillance and Obama’s Orwellian State
Justin Lynch
July 11, 2014
U.S. President Barack Obama (R) arrives to make a statement to the news media about the recent problems at the Veterans Affairs Department with White House Press Secretary Jay Carney in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House May 21, 2014 in Washington, DC.Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images
Advancements in technology have fueled this White House’s obsession with controlling the message.
Jay Carney is free. But not loose – at least so far. After resigning as the press secretary for President Obama on June 20, Carney gave insight into the Obama administration’s handling of classified documents, and responded to criticism that this administration has been the most Orwellian in recent history.
“I know — because I covered them — that this was said of Clinton and Bush, and it will probably be said of the next White House,” said Carney in a recent New York Times Magazine interview. “I think a little perspective is useful…It is a serious, serious matter to leak classified information. Some of the debate around this kind of forgets how serious that is.”
But, it could also be the changing nature of the relationship between the media and the White House. At a recent event at the New America Foundation, journalists and historians challenged Carney, arguing that this White House has been more secret than previous occupants.
“Increasingly, the Obama White House has become so brittle, and so controlling of the message, that people are afraid to respond to me,” said Kimberly Dozier, a former Associated Press reporter. She was one of the journalists whose phone records were obtained by the Department of Justice last spring during its investigation into a leak of classified information about a failed Al-Qaeda plot. The scope of that investigation, some critics said, was unprecedented overreach.
https://time.com/2976711/obama-press-surveillance/
Black Americans: The True Casualties of Amnesty
Black Americans: The True Casualties of Amnesty
Democrats throw black voters under the bus.
By A. J. Delgado
One of the sleeper issues surrounding the debate on amnesty for illegal immigrants – an inconvenient one that no proponent of a widespread amnesty wishes to acknowledge – is the devastating effect so-called immigration reform will have on African Americans.
The black unemployment rate is almost 11 percent, far higher than that of any other group profiled by labor statistics. African Americans are disproportionately employed in lower-skilled jobs – the very same jobs immigrants take. As Steven Camarota asked in a recent column, why double immigration when so many people already aren’t working?
https://www.nationalreview.com/article/382338/black-americans-true-casualties-amnesty-j-delgado
Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama’s ‘politically-driven suppression of news’
Censorship: 38 journalism groups slam Obama’s ‘politically-driven suppression of news’
BY PAUL BEDARD | JULY 9, 2014 | 11:21 AM
In unprecedented criticism of the White House, 38 journalism groups have assailed the president’s team for censoring media coverage, limiting access to top officials and overall “politically-driven suppression of the news.”
In a letter to President Obama, the 38, led by the Society of Professional Journalists, said efforts by government officials to stifle or block coverage has grown for years and reached a high-point under his administration despite Obama’s 2008 campaign promise to provide transparency.
Worse, they said: As access for reporters has been cut off, the administration has opened the door to lobbyists, special interests and “people with money.”
And as a result, they wrote, Obama only has himself to blame for the current cynicism of his administration. “You need look no further than your own administration for a major source of that frustration – politically driven suppression of news and information about federal agencies. We call on you to take a stand to stop the spin and let the sunshine in,” wrote David Cuillier, president of SPJ.
The administration has dismissed similar charges from other journalism groups, notably the White House Correspondents’ Association, but the new letter sent Tuesday provided several examples of censorship and efforts to block reporter access. Among them:
• Officials blocking reporters’ requests to talk to specific staff people.
• Excessive delays in answering interview requests that stretch past reporters’ deadlines.
• Officials conveying information “on background” — refusing to give reporters what should be public information unless they agree not to say who is speaking.
• Federal agencies blackballing reporters who write critically of them.
“In many cases, this is clearly being done to control what information journalists — and the audience they serve — have access to. A survey found 40 percent of public affairs officers admitted they blocked certain reporters because they did not like what they wrote,” added the letter.
In addition to asking for openness, the groups demanded Obama create an ombudsman position to help clear away barriers to news coverage.
https://washingtonexaminer.com/censorship-38-journalis
Sen. Jeff Sessions: Obama created border crisis
Sen. Jeff Sessions: Obama created border crisis
Jeff Sessions4:54 p.m. EDT July 8, 2014
The president’s policies have failed to enforce the law and are hurting American citizens.
The crisis on our border is the direct and predictable result of President Obama’s sustained effort to undermine America’s immigration laws. As the president’s previous director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), John Sandweg recently acknowledged: “if you are a run-of-the-mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero.” Enforcement has collapsed.
Today President Obama says he needs $3.7 billion from Congress to handle the crisis his lawless policies are creating. Amazingly, the funding request further advertises his administration’s amnesty efforts and our fraud-riddled asylum programs, while explicitly omitting any request for expedited deportation authority. The request is also not paid for. The administration wants to borrow every penny.
President Obama has yielded to the demands of open borders groups, to whom he pledged amnesty in 2008. He has dramatically abandoned his lawful duty to the American people. Immigration enforcement for the world’s most powerful nation is now held hostage by a small band of radical immigration activists. That is why the administration still refuses to deliver the crucial message necessary to halt this flow: if you attempt to cross our border illegally, you will be apprehended and deported.
Most egregiously, the president has announced his intention to yet again bypass Congress in order to expand his far-reaching non-enforcement directives. His unlawful actions guarantee that the $3.7 billion will be only the beginning, and that the deluge of illegal immigration — and the huge costs — will only grow.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/07/08/sessions-immigration-reform-column/12354693/
COSTCO REMOVING D’SOUZA’S ‘AMERICA’ FROM SHELVES
COSTCO REMOVING D’SOUZA’S ‘AMERICA’ FROM SHELVES
Bestseller disappearing as companion movie hits theaters
Published: 21 hours ago
JEROME R. CORSI
NEW YORK – The retail giant Costco Wholesale has issued an order to remove all copies of Dinesh D’Souza’s bestselling book, “America: Imagine the World Without Her,” from the shelves of its stores nationwide, WND has confirmed.
The book, in this midterm election year, is a strong rebuttal of the progressive ideology behind President Obama’s policies, which have been supported by Costco co-founder and director Jim Sinegal, a major Democrat donor and a speaker at the 2012 Democratic National Convention that nominated the president. A Washington Post political reporter has noted Obama’s “romance” with the nation’s second-largest retailer.
At Amazon.com, D’Souza’s book, released June 2, is ranked No. 5 overall and No. 1 in Political Commentary and Opinion.
UPDATE: Costco fires back after yanking ‘America’ off shelves
Copies of “America” at a Costco store Monday (WND photo)
Costco has sold more than 3,600 copies of “America” nationwide, with about 700 copies sold last week as D’Souza’s film by the same name opened at more than 1,000 movie theaters nationwide.
But Costco’s book department issued the “pull-order,” requiring all Costco stores nationwide to remove the book, confirmed Scott Losse, an inventory control specialist in the book department at the Costco Wholesale corporate office in Issaquah, Washington, a suburb of Seattle.
The July 1 order required all copies to be removed by July 15.
Contacted for a reaction, D’Souza was surprised to learn of the Costco decision.
“If true, this would be very odd,” D’Souza said.
“We’re in the process of finding out what’s happening. I look forward to getting to the bottom of this and continuing the strong relationship my publisher and I have always had with Costco and their millions of shoppers.”
Most Costco stores WND contacted Monday had already pulled “America” from the shelves, with others scheduled to remove it with their regularly scheduled inventory changes Tuesday or Wednesday this week.
A few Costco stores told inquirers Monday they were “in luck,” because a handful of books were still available and a few copies remained in the warehouse waiting to be returned. Staffers offered to put aside a book so it could be purchased before all copies were shipped back to the vendor.
Read more at https://www.wnd.com/2014/07/costco-removing-dsouzas-america-from-shelves/#zFdVyuPDs7D0k7gd.99
Student-loan debt hurts some North Jerseyans nearing retirement
Student-loan debt hurts some North Jerseyans nearing retirement
JULY 6, 2014, 9:27 PM LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JULY 6, 2014, 9:31 PM
BY PATRICIA ALEX
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD
Lingering student-loan debt — which in recent years has been a drag on the economy as borrowers delay big-ticket purchases such as homes and cars — is now beginning to affect millions as they head toward retirement.
More than 16 percent of the nearly $1.2 trillion in outstanding student-loan debt in the nation is held by people over 50, according to the New York Federal Reserve Bank. In New Jersey, the median balance of those loans is more than $16,000.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/student-loan-debt-hurts-some-north-jerseyans-nearling-retirement-1.1047009#sthash.np50P2lM.dpuf
Analysis: N.J. budget can’t shake familiar problems
Analysis: N.J. budget can’t shake familiar problems
JULY 5, 2014, 11:49 PM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, JULY 5, 2014, 11:50 PM
BY JOHN REITMEYER
STATE HO– USE BUREAU
THE RECORD
Governor Christie’s latest state budget delays property tax relief, offers more tax breaks to businesses and slashes the state’s pension fund payment. It also highlights the fact that New Jersey is still struggling to overcome long-standing fiscal problems nearly five years into his tenure.
The state’s economy has recovered only half of the jobs lost to the last recession and borrowing has increased each year Christie has been in office, to a record $40 billion.
Property tax bills now average nearly $8,000, but revenue shortfalls have forced Christie to delay relief until next year. Sources of funding for transportation upgrades and open-space preservation have run dry.
And after several years of not making full state payments into the public employee pension fund, Christie is now using the poor health of the pension system to compare New Jersey to bankrupt Detroit.
All three major Wall Street ratings agencies have taken notice of New Jersey’s financial predicament with each one lowering the state’s credit rating and warning that additional downgrades may occur. A poor bond rating can compound the state’s fiscal problems by making it more costly to borrow for things such as new schools and bridges that cannot be funded in one budget year.
The state’s $32.5 billion budget, which Christie signed last week, could be thrown further into disarray if public employee unions are able to persuade a judge to block Christie from providing only a fraction of the state payment that actuaries say the pension system needs.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/analysis-n-j-budget-can-t-shake-familiar-problems-1.1046801#sthash.ziRefILg.dpuf
Teens Need Summer Jobs. Too Bad There Aren’t Many
Teens Need Summer Jobs. Too Bad There Aren’t Many.
Stephen Moore / @StephenMoore / July 06, 2014
School’s out, and I’m terrified my two teenage boys won’t get a job this summer and will sit around watching TV, playing computer games or just eating me out of house and home. Idle hands really are the devil’s workshop, and at this stage, I’d pay an employer to get the kids out of the house and teach them some practical lifetime skills.
My first job was working at a warehouse for $2.35 an hour in suburban Chicago. The first job for me – and many others – was one of the most important.
But in many areas this summer, kids won’t have an easy time finding work. The teen unemployment rate is already above 20 percent in many areas. Meanwhile, Seattle just became the latest city to raise its minimum wage – to double the minimum and all the way to $15 an hour. If you aren’t worth $15 an hour, it is now illegal for you to hold a job in Seattle. The White House wants to raise the federal minimum from $7.25 to $10.10 over the next several years.
Many California cities and at least a dozen states are talking about creating a similar “super” minimum wage above the federal minimum. The idea is to reduce income inequality and raise wages for workers at the bottom of the scale.
The debate rages about whether this will actually raise wages or simply make it nearly impossible for the young to find paid work. Some liberals argue that raising the minimum wage will increase employment. In other words, making workers more expensive will evidently make employers hire more of them.
But we don’t have to debate what the effect of a higher minimum wage will have on young people. We already know from recent history. In 2007 and 2008 the minimum wage was raised three times. This wage hike requirement came at the worst possible time – just as the U.S. economy was entering recession. The effects on teen employment were immediate and devastating. The national teen unemployment rate nearly doubled. At one point during the recession in 2009, the black teen unemployment rate was nearly 50 percent, which is the rate in many third-world nations.
Also, teenage work participation plummeted to below 40 percent. In other words, as jobs became scarcer, teens either couldn’t get a job or just gave up even trying to find one. The lasting impact of this high teenage unemployment and low entry into the workforce is sharply negative. Wages later in life are higher when the young work earlier.
Skeptics say the teen unemployment rate soared only because the economy was in recession and jobs were hard to come by for every age group. True, but the teen rate rose fastest. They were the first tossed out of jobs. And as labor economist Richard Vedder of Ohio University has shown, when jobs are scarce, the solution to reducing unemployment is to allow employers to offer lower wages temporarily, not to raise the wage requirement, which only exacerbates the jobless problem.
We know about half the workers earning the minimum wage are below the age of 25. Very few minimum wage workers are the head of a household or the primary earner. Most minimum wage workers receive a pay raise within six months on the job. This is a training wage. Only about one in 20 workers is paid the minimum wage and the median wage is three times the minimum, or $24 an hour.
I love my sons (sometimes I don’t like them, though), but few employers would pay them $10 or $12 or $15 an hour. They just don’t have the skills to merit that kind of wage. Wouldn’t it be better for kids to have a job that pays $5 or $6 an hour than no job at all?
The victims of a higher minimum wage are the young and the unskilled. They are left on the jobs sideline when the wage requirement rises. This is why my own work finds that states with high minimum wages actually have MORE income inequality than those with lower minimum wages.
With about 17 million Americans out of work, not looking for work or just unable to find a full-time job, now is the worst time to raise the minimum wage. But if we do, at least let us have a federal teen minimum wage of $5 an hour. Call it a Training Wage. Let kids learn how to become productive and learn vital job skills at a young age.
This on-the-job training will pay off double or triple in the future as these teens turn into adults. It will also keep kids out of trouble this summer. There is something much worse than a minimum wage job and that is laziness, which doesn’t pay a penny.
West Bergen Tea Party Presents Immigration and Common Core Updates
West Bergen Tea Party Presents Immigration and Common Core Updates
Immigration Update by Gayle Kesselman
Common Core Update
380 Godwin Avenue, Wyckof (1/4 mile North of Stop & Shop on the right)
More information: 201 891-5918 [email protected]
www.westbergenteaparty.com
We, the people are violent and filled with rage: A nation spinning apart on its Independence Day
We, the people are violent and filled with rage: A nation spinning apart on its Independence Day
School shootings, hatred, capitalism run amok: This 4th of July, we are in the midst of a tragic public derangement
JIM SLEEPER
FRIDAY, JUL 4, 2014 09:45 AM EDT
By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard ’round the world.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Concord Hymn,” 1837
For centuries most Americans have believed that “the shot heard ’round the world” in 1775 from Concord, Massachusetts, heralded the Enlightenment’s entry into history. Early observers of America such as G.W.F. Hegel, Edward Gibbon and Edmund Burke believed that, too. A new kind of republican citizen was rising, amid and against adherents of theocracy, divine-right monarchy, aristocracy and mercantilism. Republican citizens were quickening humanity’s stride toward horizons radiant with promises never before held and shared as widely as they were in America.
The creation of the United States really was a Novus ordo seclorum, a New Order of the Ages, a society’s first self-aware, if fumbling and compromised, effort to live by the liberal expectation that autonomous individuals could govern themselves together without having to impose religious doctrines or mystical narratives of tribal blood or soil. With barely a decorous nod to The Creator, the founders of the American republic conferred on one another the right to have rights, a distinguished group of them constituting the others as “We, the people.”
That revolutionary effort is not just in trouble now, or endangered, or under attack, or reinventing itself. It’s in prison, with no prospect of parole, and many Americans, including me, who wring our hands or wave our arms about this are actually among the jailers, or we’ve sleepwalked ourselves and others into the cage and have locked ourselves in. We haven’t yet understood the shots fired and heard ’round the world from 74 American schools, colleges and military bases since the Sandy Hook School massacre of December 2012.
These shots haven’t been fired by embattled farmers at invading armies. They haven’t been fired by terrorists who’ve penetrated our surveillance and security systems. With few exceptions, they haven’t been fired by aggrieved non-white Americans. They’ve been fired mostly by young, white American citizens at other white citizens, and by American soldiers at other American soldiers, inside the very institutions where republican virtues and beliefs are nurtured and defended.
https://www.salon.com/2014/07/04/we_the_people_are_violent_and_filled_with_rage_a_nation_spinning_apart_on_its_independence_day/
Obama racking up judicial losses as Supreme Court rules on Obamacare, union dues
Obama racking up judicial losses as Supreme Court rules on Obamacare, union dues
President Obama suffered two final defeats in the Supreme Court on Monday, capping a 2013-2014 term in which the justices delivered several judicial hits to the White House while taking a firm stand against the unchecked power of the state.
The administration’s losses on Obamacare rules and compulsory union dues served as a rebuke on the Supreme Court’s final day after months of judicial decisions to rein in big government on issues such as snooping without a warrant, campaign finance restrictions and Mr. Obama’s recess appointment powers.
Just as damning was the way the court ruled in some of those cases. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. corralled unanimous votes on privacy and recess appointments — cases that dealt stinging defeats to Mr. Obama, himself a lawyer and former lecturer on constitutional law.
In the more than five years that Mr. Obama has been in office, the court has rejected the government’s argument with a 9-0 decision 20 times.
During the eight years each in the administrations of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, the government lost on unanimous votes 15 times and 23 times, respectively. That puts the Obama administration on pace to greatly exceed recent predecessors in terms of judicial losses.
Read more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jun/30/obama-racking-up-judicial-losses/#ixzz36DlnoddZ
















