Obama Administration Under Siege From 3 Huge Scandals: Here’s Why It Could All Come Crashing Down

...These three scandals have encircled the Obama administration. They threaten to turn the President’s second term into an ongoing partisan dogfight as the GOP pushes for answers that could trigger investigations, resignations—yes, possibly even impeachment, depending on what is found.

Here’s a brief rundown of the current debacles facing Obama:

1) IRS as a Political Weapon

The IRS singled out and harassed conservative political groups, including during the election year of 2012. The mere mention of the IRS understandably sends a jolt of anxiety through most Americans, so the implications of this conduct for Tea Party and other conservative groups are obvious. This was the worst kind of dirty politics, and an affront to even the most basic trust in government.

While the IRS admitted this egregious conduct, already there have been lies peddled about the depth and scope of this malfeasance. At first we were told that the breaches were limited to low-level civil servants in a few field offices. But that was also false, as we now know Washington DC-based IRS officials were involved too.

The familiar script from Obama and his phalanx of public relations protectors in the White House—that the IRS abuses are not political, and only those who want answers have any political motivations—sounds increasingly obtuse, and pathetic. All the obfuscation on these issues come from the same direction, and benefit the same side of the political aisle.

And ultimately, incompetence and ignorance are poor excuses for a chief executive. The president can only claim he didn’t know what his agencies were up to so many times before someone asks the President that all important question– what would you say, you do here?

2) Frontal Assault on the First Amendment

If a free press is the foundation upon which representative government is built, the Obama administration has allowed the Department of Justice to take a sledgehammer to it. The wholesale investigation of a major news outlet like the Associated Press undermines the intent and spirit of laws meant to promote the discourse necessary for democracy.

And this sets a very dangerous precedent. Unknown to much of the public, there is no special exception for the media to publish classified government information, nor are there hard-and-fast statutory constraints on calling members of the press to divulge their sources under pressure of subpoena. If Obama’s DOJ can do this once, there is no reason they can’t make it standard operating procedure. That would mean bye-bye, fourth estate.

Until now, the federal government has been generally aware of the tension that exists between national security and the First Amendment. Not this administration. Leakers, at least the ones not authorized from the White House itself, are punished severely.

At this early stage, it seems likely the Obama administration recognized that, despite its loud proclamations of outrage, no arrests have been made over the string of national security leaks over the past two years. In order to make it look like they take all leaks seriously, and to send a message to any prospective whistleblowers, Obama officials probably decided to go all in after one unauthorized leaker without the benefit of White House connections. That frenzied effort may have led to the unprecedented, secret seizure of Associated Press records.

3) Benghazi Lies Laid Bare

While the audacity of hyper-partisanship from Obama is jarring, it’s not shocking. So much about this administration, and for so long, has been venal, petty, and undignified. The most recent iteration of the Benghazi hearings solidified those feelings and left even the most ardent administration supporter defending the indefensible. But many questions remain:

Who made up the story about the YouTube video? Was Hillary Clinton incapable of calling her own employees to find out what happened? Where was President Obama during the 8-hour attack? What is being done to bring the attackers to justice? These are just some of the unknowns that require continued investigation despite the administration’s efforts at stonewalling.

It’s impossible to tell at this point what the consequences of these scandals will be for the Obama administration. To be sure, more information on the IRS targeting, DOJ snooping on journalists, and Benghazi is certain to come out. And while it will be damning overall, we can’t yet tell whether the sum total will be an ironclad implication of President Obama or his cabinet.

But if this administration can get away with using federal agencies to stifle political dissent, harassing and spying on journalists, and lying about the origins, actions, and aftermath of a terrorist attack, America is no longer worthy of the Constitution left to us by the Founders.

It’s time for answers and accountability. The dignity and future of the Republic hangs in the balance.

http://www.theblaze.com/contributions/obama-administration-under-siege-from-3-huge-scandals-heres-why-it-could-all-come-crashing-down/

White House Counsel Knew in April of IRS’s Targeting of Conservatives

Politico is reporting that the White House counsel’s office was informed by the Treasury Department’s Inspector General Office in April of the IRS’s targeting of conservatives.

White House spokesman Jay Carney insists that the president was not informed of the IG’s review of the IRS and learned about the program on Friday through news reports.

The White House counsel’s office was informed in April of an inspector general’s review of the Internal Revenue Service, press secretary Jay Carney said Monday.

Carney told reporters that the counsel’s office was told of the examination into the targeting of conservative groups during the week of April 22, but not given details about the review’s findings. President Obama, Carney said, was not told about the review and learned of it only after news reports emerged Friday, just what Obama said earlier Monday.

“We have never — we don’t have access to, nor should we, the IG’s report or any draft versions of it,” Carney said.

So the White House counsel’s office knew generally that the IRS was targeting conservative groups in April, but apparently didn’t know the “details.”

Suppose you’re some innocent little president, sitting in your Oval Office playing with your ship in the bottle, watching the news and all of a sudden you learn that the government that you are in charge of has been targeting your political enemies with harassment and bullying. What would be your first reaction — if you were an innocent little president?

WHY THE BLAZES DIDN’T ANYONE TELL ME!
Suppose then you learn that your personal counsel kept the bad news from you. Even though he didn’t have “specific details,” he was aware of the program targeting the president’s enemies and, presuming he isn’t brain dead, knew the political ramifications of such targeting and the very real possibility that it could destroy the administration. If you were indeed just some innocent little president, minding your own business, what would be the first words out of your mouth when the White House counsel came to see you after the story broke?

YOU’RE FIRED!
I do not believe that Barack Obama first learned of the IRS’s targeting of conservatives “from news reports” on Friday. That doesn’t pass the smell test, especially since a close aide was told of the program three weeks ago. Are we to believe that the president’s own counsel didn’t immediately go to the Oval Office after learning of this and tell Obama “We’ve got a big problem, sir”? And the fact that the White House is now in full-blown circle-the wagons damage-control mode would suggest that their primary goal is to keep the president a thousand miles away from anything having to do with this scandal.

Good luck with that, guys. Just remember — it’s always the cover-up that gets ya.

http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2013/05/13/white-house-counsel-knew-in-april-of-irs-targeting-of-conservatives/

EPA waives fee requests for friendly groups, denies conservative groups

Conservative groups seeking information from the Environmental Protection Agency have been routinely hindered by fees normally waived for media and watchdog groups, while fees for more than 90 percent of requests from green groups were waived, according to requests reviewed by the Conservative Enterprise Institute.

CEI reviewed Freedom of Information Act requests sent between January 2012 and this spring from several environmental groups friendly to the EPA’s mission, and several conservative groups, to see how equally the agency applies its fee waiver policy for media and watchdog groups. Government agencies are supposed to waive fees for groups disseminating information for public benefit.

“This is as clear an example of disparate treatment as the IRS’ hurdles selectively imposed upon groups with names ominously reflecting an interest in, say, a less intrusive or biased federal government,” said CEI fellow Chris Horner.

For 92 percent of requests from green groups, the EPA cooperated by waiving fees for the information. Those requests came from the Natural Resources Defense Council, EarthJustice, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, The Waterkeeper Alliance, Greenpeace, Southern Environmental Law Center and the Center for Biological Diversity.

Of the requests that were denied, the EPA said the group either didn’t respond to requests for justification of a waiver, or didn’t express intent to disseminate the information to the general public, according to documents obtained by The Washington Examiner. CEI, on the other hand, had its requests denied 93 percent of the time. One request was denied because CEI failed to express its intent to disseminate the information to the general public. The rest were denied because the agency said CEI “failed to demonstrate that the release of the information requested significantly increases the public understanding of government operations or activities.” Similarly, requests from conservative groups Judicial Watch and National Center for Public Policy Research were approved half the time, and all requests from Franklin Center and the Institute for Energy Research were denied. “Their practice is to take care of their friends and impose ridiculous obstacles to deny problematic parties’ requests for information,” said Horner. Freedom of Information Act requests from CEI forced the EPA to release emails under the the “Richard Windsor” alias former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson used to conduct government business. CEI has also filed FOIA requests for emails, text messages and instant messages from Jackson and EPA nominee Gina McCarthy. Horner said he believes the EPA has denied CEI’s requests because his think tank is the most active group seeking to hold the agency accountable. “This is a clear pattern of favoritism for allied groups and a concerted campaign to make life more difficult for those deemed unfriendly,” he said. “The left hand of big government reaches out to give a boost to its far-left hand at every turn. Argue against more of the same, however, and prepare to be treated as if you have fewer rights.” Update: An earlier version incorrectly called the Natural Resources Defense Council the “National Resources Defense Council.”

http://washingtonexaminer.com/epa-waives-fee-requests-for-friendly-groups-denies-conservative-groups/article/2529609

Report: EPA followed double standard for conservative groups too? (And FCC)

Don’t worry. The media will be all over this two years from now, when the head of the EPA finally comes clean.

Time to add one more to the scandal scorecard?

FOIA is clear that public interest groups who, by trade, obtain and broadly disseminate “government” information to the public are the intended beneficiaries of its provision for waiving fees. EPA routinely grants such fee waivers to its favored left-wing groups who demand a more intrusive and powerful EPA, but systematically denies waivers for groups on the right, according to research compiled by CEI Senior Fellow Christopher Horner, author of “The Liberal War on Transparency.”

In a review of letters granting or denying fee waivers granted at the “initial determination” stage from January 2012 to this Spring, Horner found green groups, such as the National Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and EarthJustice, had their fees waived in 75 out of 82 cases. Meanwhile, EPA effectively or expressly denied Horner’s request for fee waivers in 14 of 15 FOIA requests over this same time.

Moreover, every denial Horner appealed was overturned. “That these denials are ritually overturned on appeal, not after I presented any new evidence or made any new point, but simply restated what was a detailed and heavily sourced legal document to begin with, reaffirms the illegitimacy of these hurdles EPA places in the way of those who cause it problems.” Horner said. “EPA’s practice is to take care of its friends and impose ridiculous obstacles to deny problematic parties’ requests for information.”

Green groups had their FOIA fees waived 92 percent of the time, CEI had its waiver requests denied 93 percent of the time. Does that sound familiar? Per Lachlan Markay, it should: Last year, the Daily Caller reported that the FCC had an odd habit of rejecting conservative groups’ FOIA requests while granting similar requests made by pro-net neutrality groups. At Reason, Mike Riggs remembers yet another example, of DHS routing FOIA requests through political appointees for a year beginning in 2009 (“If the request came from Congress, career employees were expected to alert political appointees to the party affiliation of the office making the request”) before questions about the practice led them to discontinue it.

So much for FOIA requests. According to Brandon Darby, at least one conservative group targeted by the IRS for special scrutiny in its 501(c)(4) application suddenly started getting attention from other federal agencies too. That’s the next question in this clusterfark: Did the IRS share information with other arms of the government? If they’d leak to a news outlet, why wouldn’t they leak to the FBI?

True the Vote, a Houston-based nonprofit which focuses on election integrity issues, was formed by Catherine Engelbrecht and her King Street Patriots Tea Party group. True the Vote applied to the IRS for their 501(c3) non-profit status in July 2010, and almost immediately their problems began.

Within two years, multiple federal agencies, along with an EPA-affiliated Texas state agency, began auditing True the Vote and its founders, visiting their group, their businesses, and asking questions of people who knew them. The IRS was not the only governmental agency involved…

Engelbrecht’s application with the IRS for non-profit status allegedly triggered aggressive audits of one of her family’s personal businesses as well. The FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) began a series of inquiries about her and her group; the BATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) began demanding to see her family’s firearms in surprise audits of her and her husband’s small gun dealership–which had done less than $200 in sales; OSHA (Occupational Safety Hazards Administration) began a surprise audit of their small family manufacturing business; and the EPA-affiliated TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environment Quality) did a surprise visit and audit due to “a complaint being called in.”

Worth a look from the press? Probably not, no.

Let me speak a language here that Obama can understand: I want to know what the “permission structure” was for the IRS and EPA in creating double standards for conservative groups. Remember when O used that term at his presser last week to explain how he was going to get Republicans to cooperate with him? I’m more interested in the “permission structure” by which federal agencies start singling out the president’s ideological opponents for special scrutiny, whether or not he’s handing down direct orders. Ross Douthat had a theory about that. Let’s hear more.

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/05/14/report-epa-followed-double-standard-for-conservative-groups-too/

Friday news dump? More like a Friday nuclear bomb

...Let me be fair and give President Obama the benefit of the doubt since I don't know that he knew about it or engineered such a stupid act.

At the same time, how many times are we supposed to believe that President Obama is surrounded by people who never tell him anything?

Fast & Furious? Solyndra's financial statements? Benghazi?

Put me down as someone who believes that the IRS scandal will lead to one of two things:

1) The resignation of President Obama, specially if the scandal gets close to him; or,

2) The crippling of the Obama presidency, if we learn that this is another example of his lackadaisical managerial style.

President Obama will lose either way. The country will lose too! We need to address serious problems and this administration's self inflicted wounds are making it difficult to do so.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/05/friday_news_dump_more_like_a_friday_nuclear_bomb.html#ixzz2THDoYWx7

Report: DOJ Needed Holder’s Signature to Get AP Phone Records

The Associated Press reported Monday that the Department of Justice had secretly seized two months worth of telephone records from reporters and editors working for the global news organization.

Needless to say, news that the DOJ had secretly obtained AP phone records has rocked the media. As it turns out, people really, really don’t like being spied on or having the feds snoop around their personal information.

This is going to take some explaining.

And it looks like it’ll take a lot more than a “low-level employee” to get U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder out of this tight spot.

See, as the Washington Examiner’s Phillip Klein notes, “it will be harder for President Obama to pin the DOJ’s action on lower level bureaucrats … because requests to subpoena news organization records require the approval of Attorney General Eric Holder.”

From the DOJ’s U.S. Attorneys’ Manual:

The Attorney General’s authorization is normally required before the issuance of any subpoena to a member of the news media or for the telephone toll records of a member of the news media. However, in those cases where the media member or his or her representative agrees to provide the material sought and that material has been published or broadcast, the United States Attorney or the responsible Assistant Attorney General may authorize issuance of the subpoena, thereafter submitting a report to the Office of Public Affairs detailing the circumstances surrounding the issuance of the subpoena….

The probe was secret, as Klein notes, therefore the second condition wasn’t met. This means that the DOJ needed Holder’s signature to go forward with obtaining the AP phone records.

The manual continues:

Department attorneys seeking the Attorney General’s authorization to issue a subpoena to a member of the news media, or for telephone toll records of a media member, must submit a written request summarizing the facts of the prosecution or investigation, explaining the essentiality of the information sought to the investigation or prosecution, describing attempts to obtain the voluntary cooperation of the news media through negotiation and explaining how the proposed subpoena will be fashioned as narrowly as possible to obtain the necessary information in a manner as minimally intrusive and burdensome as possible.

Obviously, this puts Holder and the entire DOJ in an interesting position.

“[E]ither attorneys’ ignored procedure in obtaining phone records without proper approval, or Holder directly approved an operation that involved obtaining journalists’ work and personal phone records,” Klein writes.

Perhaps we’ll learn more when Holder testifies before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday for an oversight hearing.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/14/report-doj-needed-holders-signature-to-get-ap-phone-records/

The man who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue...

Back in 2011, Frank Burke wrote this about President Obama's managerial style:

"In classic management theory, Barack Obama would have to be described as an abdicative manager.

The abdicative manager evidences a tendency to flee from responsibility and is frequently encountered in situations where he or she never wanted the job in the first place (for instance, a son or daughter who inherits a company or the individual who discovers that they are incapable of adequate performance). Abdication can be exhibited in a variety of ways, ranging from physically removing oneself through travel (the confusion of movement with action), to obsessing about personal interests or a limited range of controllable subjects."

President Obama's "abdicative style" is also the byproduct of a career devoid of any managerial experience. After all, this is a man who was elected president of the US without ever running anything.

Beyond style, President Obama seems to love being surrounded by people who idolize him, according to a review of Kenneth Walsh's new book:

"Walsh, who has covered the White House for 25 years and written several books on the presidency, credits Obama for trying to get out of the so-called "bubble," but found that instead the president often relies on a tiny cadre of Chicago aides, thus living in "a bubble within the bubble."

He called top Chicago aide Valerie Jarrett "one of the leading idolizers" who blocks the access of critics to her boss. "Jarrett has gone too far in limiting others' access to the president, according to a number of White House and congressional sources," writes Walsh in the book, due out June 1. "Her goal is to keep Obama in a cocoon of admirers who won't, in her mind, shake him up too much or present views that might be contrary to her understanding of Obama's positions.""

An "abdicative style" plus "a bad case of narcissism" is a time bomb that will consume the man who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

President Obama survived the first term because of a media in the tank and a very effective vote gathering machine that got him 50.7% of the popular vote.

President Obama won't be so lucky in his second term. He either gets in the game or will lose all credibility as a manager.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/05/the_man_who_lives_at_1600_pennsylvania_avenue.html#ixzz2THPMfrQT

Serving Justice to Gosnell

Justice has been served for a few infants and one mother whose lives were taken within the filthy walls of 3801 Lancaster Avenue.

Late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell was convicted yesterday of first-degree murder in the deaths of three infants who were born alive after botched abortions performed in his run-down West Philadelphia clinic. He was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old woman who died from an overdose of anesthetic drugs during an abortion procedure.

The jury’s deliberations came after six weeks of harrowing testimony detailing the brutal deaths of newborns and unthinkable mistreatment of women. The gruesome murder of moving, breathing infants after botched abortions allegedly became a regular occurrence at the filthy West Philadelphia facility, with one clinic worker estimating nearly 100 living babies were killed shortly after birth.

Many of those murders followed failed abortions performed after Pennsylvania’s 24-week limit. In addition to the four murder charges, Gosnell was also convicted of more than 200 other criminal counts including violating Pennsylvania's informed consent law and performing illegal late-term abortions.

In wake of the trial’s disturbing revelations, many are left questioning how the oft-repeated slogan of “safe, legal, and rare” abortions can continue to encompass late-term procedures—especially of the kind that can produce live births.

There is broad consensus that abortions like those Gosnell performed should not take place, whether in a run-down Philadelphia clinic or the sterile facilities of other abortion providers. Nearly two-thirds of Americans generally oppose abortions in the second trimester of pregnancy, while 80 percent oppose abortions in the third trimester.

“The first degree murder conviction of Kermit Gosnell brings some closure to this horrific case, but we must act to address the broader problems highlighted by this tragedy,” remarked Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL). “Congress should conduct a thorough investigation into the practices of late-term abortions in America with the goal of ensuring that these atrocities are never repeated in the future.…Life is precious at every stage, and America's policies must reflect this fact at every turn.”

That policy work got underway last week, when the House Energy and Commerce Committee began investigations into current state efforts to monitor clinics and protect the rights of born-alive infants and their mothers.

Yet much more needs to be done, especially as current policy entangles taxpayer dollars in the abortion industry.

The leader in that industry, Planned Parenthood, performs roughly one out of every four abortions in the United States. The organization that holds the title of the nation’s largest abortion provider also allegedly turned a blind eye to the safety of women in Pennsylvania and Delaware, opposes legal protections for infants born after botched abortions, and faces repeated accusations of fraud.

This is the organization that President Obama vowed to support at its recent annual fundraising gala. This is the multibillion-dollar industry to which the government sends hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every year. And the abortion subsidization through taxpayer funding will only increase under Obamacare.

In light of the brutality that became commonplace at 3801 Lancaster Avenue and has appeared elsewhere, policymakers should rethink continued financial support for an industry that creates and supports the likes of Gosnell.

Americans must likewise reexamine the prevailing ethic of abortion-on-demand for any reason—even in late-term abortions.

“[I]n our justice system premeditating and exacting the demise of babies is only a crime if a child is fully outside the womb,” stated Representative Virginia Foxx (R-NC). “We would do well as a society to consider what deciding murder based upon geographic technicalities reveals about our collective conscious.”

For over four decades since the Roe v. Wade decision, American medical practice, politics, and laws have separated the health of mothers from the well-being of the children they carry. Gosnell’s “house of horrors” should demonstrate that the severing of that connection does a disservice and risks the health and lives of both child and mother.

http://blog.heritage.org/2013/05/14/morning-bell-serving-justice-to-gosnell/?roi=echo3-15607667342-12714091-a8ec98b903e965beddbde28f5aa216b8&utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

The farm bill is a real porker

They're going to mark up the farm bill this week and if I were you, I'd follow the advice of Heritage Action:

"Hold On To Your Wallets: Farm Bill Incoming!"

Nothing says big government quite like a trillion dollar farm and food stamp bill. And agri-lobbyists went to town in fashioning as many special interest goodies as the could stuff into a single bill.
Two words: Out Rageous:

Mark up week for the $1 trillion food stamp and farm bill has finally arrived and with it the ominous prospect of self-styled conservatives and Republicans rubberstamping President Obama's big-government agenda. Both the House and Senate Agriculture Committees released the draft text of their respective bills last week and the contempt for the American taxpayer could not be more evident.

The bills look remarkably similar to last year's legislation: chock full of special interest handouts, market-distorting subsidies, taxpayer-funded shallow loss crop insurance, and of course hundreds of billions of dollars in food stamps. Whether it's the consumer-crushing sugar program or a dairy program with a Soviet-style flare, the farm bill is an American taxpayer's worst nightmare.

The Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Frank Lucas (R-OK), is already putting on his best "don't look behind the curtain" routine when it comes to the enormity of his proposed bill. He would have us believe that the Ag Committee really scraped the bottom of the barrel to save money this go around!

Instead of the $35 billion in "savings" from last year's proposed bill, Rep. Lucas was able to stretch things out to find $38 billion for this year's mark up. "I was compelled to match his [President Obama] number. I'm saving $38 billion from the farm bill process," Lucas said.
Indeed. The problem of course is that this bill doesn't save much of anything considering the cost is some 60% higher than the original estimate for the 2008 farm bill. And there's also that slight little hiccup courtesy of CBO showing the $35 billion in "savings" from last year's proposed bill was actually more like $26 billion.
Nothing to see here, folks, move along!

Politicians get all weepy when they talk about the "family farm" and such. And while there is still something to said for the small businessman who farms for a living, most of the goodies in the bill will not be going to them. Instead, the gigantic corporate farmers will be the beneficiaries of congressional largess.Whether they need it is not the issue; they want it, and they're going to get it. There are few industries where lobbyists have a bigger impact than agriculture policy. And the hogs were really feeding when this monstrosity was being written.

Despite a record drought last year, farm incomes are at an all time high. The depression-era subsidy programs needs to be scrapped and other reforms that would make sensible farm policy a reality need to be instituted.

But when it comes to agriculture, it doesn't matter what party is in power; the waste continues and the taxpayer gets shafted.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/05/the_farm_bill_is_a_real_porker.html#ixzz2THCquBQS

Senate Skips Details in Rush to Pass Immigration Bill

Are snowboard instructors key to American immigration policy? Well, they're important enough to be specifically included in the Senate bipartisan Gang of Eight immigration reform bill.

How did that happen? The original 844-page Gang of Eight bill, released in mid-April, granted a break to certain foreigners who come to the United States to work but do not wish to settle here. The Gang -- which includes Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet from the nation's skiing capital of Colorado -- gave one of those breaks to anyone who is "a ski instructor seeking to enter the United States temporarily to perform instructing services."

That was in mid-April. A couple of weeks later, the Gang released an 867-page substitute bill filled with changes large and small. Among those changes was new language adding snowboarders to the ski-instructor clause.

In the revised bill, the break goes to anyone who is "a ski instructor, who has been certified as a level I, II, or III ski and snowboard instructor by the Professional Ski Instructors of America or the American Association of Snowboard Instructors, or received an equivalent certification in the alien's country of origin, and is seeking to enter the United States temporarily to perform instructing services."

So now the American Association of Snowboard Instructors has been recognized in historic legislation that could bring profound changes to the United States.

The bill has been public for less than a month, and the substitute version for an even shorter period of time. Only now are analysts beginning to go through all of its details, and only now are those details surfacing in the public conversation.

For example, in another overlooked portion of the bill, as conservative writer Yuval Levin points out, the Gang of Eight "defin[es] the hourly wages of immigrant farm workers to the second decimal place."

It's true. Among other things, the bill sets pay scales for "Animal Breeders; Graders and Sorters; Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop, Nursery, and Greenhouse; and Farmworkers, Farm, Ranch and Aquacultural Animals." The Gang dictates, for example, that graders and sorters will be paid $9.84 an hour in 2016, equipment operators $11.58 in 2015, and nursery and greenhouse workers $9.64 in 2016.

Despite the bill's far-reaching scope and extraordinary level of detail, Democrats are trying to move it through the Senate with unusual speed. This week marks a new stage of that effort. On May 9, the Senate Judiciary Committee began considering amendments to the bill -- work that chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has promised will be finished, with a final committee vote, by the end of this month. After a few initial sessions, Leahy said recently, the committee will meet "every day and evening" to make the deadline.

Democrats are hurrying because they can. They outnumber Republicans 10 to eight on the Judiciary Committee, which means Democrats can by themselves shoot down any unwanted amendments. In addition, two of the committee's eight Republicans, Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake, are members of the Gang of Eight, giving pro-reform forces even more strength, should they need it.

Sure enough, in the first session devoted to considering amendments, Graham and Flake joined with a unanimous Democratic majority to defeat several Republican-sponsored border security proposals.

When it's finished, the bill, with whatever amendments Democrats on the Judiciary Committee approve, will go to the full Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has vowed to keep the rush on. Again, Democrats enjoy another big numerical advantage, with 55 members. Add to that the four Republicans on the Gang of Eight, and you've got 59 in a body in which 60 votes are required to overcome a filibuster. Getting that 60th vote from Republicans still panicked by last November's election results will likely be no problem for the pro-immigration forces.

Unless things change. One key indicator of immigration reform's prospects in the full Senate will be positions taken by Democratic senators -- Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu and Jon Tester -- who voted against reform in 2007. Back then, they were voting against a Republican president, George W. Bush, who favored reform. Now, they would be crossing a president of their own party.

In addition, there are other Democrats up for re-election next year in states won by Mitt Romney in 2012. Together, what they decide to do could shape the final bill.

But the bottom line is that in the Senate, Democrats have an advantage that will be hard to beat. That makes what happens in the Republican-controlled House, which still has not come up with a plan, crucial to the future of immigration in America.

http://townhall.com/columnists/byronyork/2013/05/14/senate-skips-details-in-rush-to-pass-immigration-bill-n1594165/page/full

Politicizing Junior High Literature

Forty-five states have adopted the Common Core State Standards, including the New York State Education Department, which publishes a document titled, "Grades 6-8 English Language Arts Curriculum Map." Four texts are specified for each year, or 12 books.

The idea of a core curriculum is appealing to conservatives, who imagine replacing the current multicultural smorgasbord with a great books course that communicates the adventure and drama of human experience. In the hands of education bureaucrats, however, this junior high school literature curriculum is a biased collection, selected for the most part to indict America for its sins:

Racism
America's children should certainly learn about our shameful history of racism, but it is so overdone by our educational establishment that my kids roll their eyes when they're forced to sit through another racism assembly or read another slave narrative. Of the twelve books in the Core Curriculum, five deal with racism:

1. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (1960) is an American classic in which the heroic Atticus Finch stands up to evil of bigotry in the American South under Jim Crow laws. It merits inclusion in a balanced curriculum, which this is not.

2. Bud Not Buddy, Christopher Paul Curtis (2000) -- An African-American orphan in 1936 looks for his father. From an Amazon review: "Curtis tackles obvious racism, and a range of other issues like homelessness, poverty, familial issues, and the Great Depression."

3. Dragonwings -- Lawrence Yep (1975) -- Chinese immigrants face racism in San Francisco in 1903. The Glencoe Study Guide reports that "The United States had long discriminated against Asian immigrants" (true enough) and that the author's "experiences as a youth [in San Francisco in the 1950s] made him feel like an outsider... he did not feel part of the community. He says that he felt as if he were the neighborhood's 'all-purpose Asian.'"

4. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) "One of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th century in the United States" (Wikipedia).

5. Inside Out and Back Again, by Thanh ha Lai (2011) -- The back cover describes a just downright mean America:

No one would believe me but at times I would choose wartime in Saigon over peacetime in Alabama.
For all the ten years of her life, [the main character] Hà has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, the warmth of her friends close by . . . and the beauty of her very own papaya tree.
But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. Hà and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls... In America, Hà discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food...

Environmental Destruction and Global Warming
A second group of texts addresses America's role in the environmental degradation of the planet.

6. Frightful's Mountain, Jean Craighead George (2001) -- This book about a condor appears in the unit, "Insecticides: Controlling Disease or Saving Wildlife?" Is this really a "core" element in the education of every American 6th grader? From the Amazon.com review: "George's narrative follows the falcon through a series of dangerous adventures (involving DDT, electricity lines, and unscrupulous bird traders, to name a few)... The environmental message is slightly heavy-handed."

7. "Water is Life" by Barbara Kingsolver (National Geographic article, 2010) -- Leftist author Kingsolver has lamented that "communist" is a pejorative and has written a novel portraying Trotsky favorably. She writes in the article:

We've lately raised the Earth's average temperature by .74°C (1.3°F), a number that sounds inconsequential. But these words do not: flood, drought, hurricane, rising sea levels, bursting levees. Water is the visible face of climate and, therefore, climate change.

8. A Long Walk to Water, Linda Sue Park (2010) is the third book in the curriculum about immigrants arriving in America. Park portrays America favorably and the adoptive American family of a Sudanese Lost Boy as kind and caring. The theme of water shortage read in conjunction with Barbara Kingsolver's global warming jeremiad, however, might lead 7th graders to assume that American CO2 "pollution" is responsible for the shortage of water in the Sudanese desert.

9. The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan (2006), part of a unit titled, "Sustainability of World's Food Supply." Pollan avoids the strident polemics of leftist critics of the American food industry like Eric Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, but it's a questionable choice for eighth graders who don't comprehend that humanity has teetered on the edge of starvation for most of its history.

Capitalism
10. Lyddie, Katherine Patterson (1991) -- A young girl working in the brutal conditions of the Lowell mills speaks up for "better working conditions" -- a young adult Norma Rae union organizer. I wouldn't want my daughters to work in the Lowell textile mills, but when tourists from England visited in the 1850s, Lowell was a required stop to view the humane working conditions that contrasted with Britain's dark Satanic mills.

Japanese Internment
11. Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand (2010) -- I enjoyed this book, but the Common Core places it in a unit where students "Analyze Conflicting Information about Japanese Internment."

Rather than learning about the heroism of World War II, when Americans rescued the world from Nazism, Fascism, and Japanese imperialism, students learn about America's sin of Japanese internment. Heroism is defined as remaining an "unbroken" victim of war, rather than a victorious warrior.

Pantheism
12. The Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan (2005) -- This fantasy-adventure graphic novel, source of a popular 2010 movie, might not stand the test of time, but it does not seem to be overtly political. It appears in a unit on Greek mythology. Is this an acknowledgement of the Greek foundations of Western civilization? More likely a means to undermine Judeo-Christian monotheism by exposing students to pantheism.

Conclusions
● Every selection consigns other books to oblivion. A book published in 2011 by a disgruntled Vietnamese-American author is now one-twelfth of our national junior high curriculum. Does anyone still read Huckleberry Finn, Johnny Tremaine, Robinson Crusoe, or Animal Farm?

● The workload in "English language arts" is not exactly onerous. The sixth grade reading adds up to 904 pages, or 25 pages of easy reading per week. One book is a graphic novel, and Inside Out and Back Again is prose formatted as poetry, with around 40 words per page. Many 12-year olds are capable of devouring an 800-page Harry Potter book in a few days.

● All 12 books are American, and 8 of the 12 were written after 2000.

Leftists like Alinsky and Gramsci preached that the progressive revolution can be achieved by a "long march through the institutions." Taking control of the school curriculum of unformed minds is the most effective way to build the next generation of progressives.

Recently Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed a bill to "pause" implementation of Common Core while they "take a long, hard look" at the standards. Let's hope other states follow suit.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/05/politicizing_junior_high_literature.html#ixzz2THNDh2Wy

Enter the non-President and his un-Administration

So… what, exactly, does Barack Obama “preside” over? He claims to have learned about the IRS scandal by watching the evening news last Friday. He’s got no idea what those crazy rogue operatives in the State Department and intelligence community were doing when the Benghazi consulate was attacked, or during the crucial news cycles that followed. He’s got nothing to do with the economy – he wishes for jobs with all his heart when his head hits the pillow each night, but they never come. The sequester he insisted on suddenly became a conspiracy to short-circuit his beloved super-government by trimming a few bucks off future spending increases. Why, Mr. Obama was even helpless to keep the White House open for tours!

Reporting on the Benghazi and IRS scandals, NBC News correspondent Peter Alexander wailed, “Some observers are already asking if Mr. Obama is falling victim to the second-term curse.” Falling victim to a curse? Leaving aside for a moment the inconvenient detail that Benghazi happened at the end of Obama’s first term, the idea that he’s some hapless doomed victim of malicious second-term evil spirits is pathetic. He’s a bystander to his own presidency now. It’s a crappy reality show he watches on TV.

Obama is keen to expand government, but he wants nothing do with administering it. Which is too bad, because he’s part of a lavishly funded operation called “The Obama Administration.” But he’s not even keen on discussing what the Obama Administration does. After he allegedly discovered the IRS scandal by watching TV on Friday night, he said nothing until the sole question permitted during his joint press conference with British Prime Minister David Cameron broached the subject. Only then did Obama weigh in on a massive, rapidly developing scandal that threatens the very foundations of American government. He doesn’t even preside over his own mouth.

The spectacle of a non-President loosely associating himself with an un-Administration that doesn’t take responsibility for anything is particularly troubling in combination with Obama’s vision of the all-powerful super-State. Watch the Administration blather about “low level employees in Cincinnati” somehow unleashing a wave of politicized tax audits, then ask yourself how carefully the ObamaCare complaint box is likely to be monitored. The same people who targeted Obama’s political opponents for audits will be the enforcement arm of a health-care plan that’s already coming apart at the seams… a plan that grants insane levels of “discretion” to the iron-fisted bureaucracy that will be enforcing scores of mandates against millions of individuals and business entities.

Even the combination of huge deficits plus non-budgeted federal spending is an evasion of accountability.
There’s no requirement to sacrifice money from old programs to pay for new ones. Everyone can be promised everything. Fraud and abuse become permanent fixtures of the Leviathan State, because none of its dependents are expected to sacrifice a nickel after scam artists scurry away with billions of dollars. Politicians score points by promising to crack down on problems that never get addressed, because their failure to actually address the problem is not hurting any vengeful constituencies. It’s easy to talk about accountability when you know you’ll never be forced to eat your words at the ballot box buffet.

Obama’s vision of the total State requires an enormous level of trust from populace. The whole idea is to trade liberty for security, which the Founding Fathers did not view as a wise transaction. The State is supposed to be wiser, more compassionate, and more accountable than those horrid private-sector robber barons. People must be protected from both the ambitions of others, and the consequences of their own decisions.

That’s always been a ridiculous notion. The government’s lack of wisdom is laid bare in the ruins of Solyndra, or countless other scandals. Granting it credit for its compassion amounts to writing a blank check for endless “well-meaning” failures, and it’s foolish to criticize private industry for its alleged greed while ignoring the politician’s obvious lust for power and money. As for accountability, nothing ensures it better than a competitive environment in which dissatisfied customers can walk away. Supposedly we can keep the political class honest by threatening to vote it out of office, but that opportunity comes very infrequently, politicians have plenty of tools for escaping the wrath of angry voters, and they’re constantly telling us we have no real chance to vote against permanent “fixtures” like the progressive tax system or ObamaCare.

Isn’t it funny how “progressives” are always taking steps toward bigger government, which they insist can never be retraced… while simultaneously assuring voters they can be held accountable at the ballot box? How do you hold someone “accountable” for a disaster that can never be cleaned up? Why does anyone fall for that?

We find ourselves with an Administration that can no longer earn the minimal level of trust that would be required for a trim libertarian government, let alone reach the highly improbable level of transparency and accountability that would make Obama-sized government seem vaguely reasonable. Scandal after scandal rocks this Administration, but none of its power players are ever held to account. No one admits wrongdoing; nobody gets fired. Bloody disasters from Benghazi to Boston are portrayed as stunning surprises nobody could have anticipated, but then we learn of countless red flags that were ignored… by the same government that devotes very special levels of scrutiny to law-abiding domestic political opponents.

We are told to accept the authority of those who recognize no authority. We can be punished for failing to comply with their agenda, even when obedience violates our conscience, but no dereliction of duty on their part is unacceptable.

But notice that they love using the word “unacceptable.” It’s the frowny-face emoticon of political irresponsibility, a meaningless verbal gesture from people who very much expect us to accept their failures and lies.

http://www.redstate.com/2013/05/13/enter-the-non-president-and-his-un-administration/

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