Obama Celebrates Ramadan Month, Plans to Host Islamic Dinner at White House
By Garrett HaleyPresident Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have both released statements to celebrate the Islamic month of Ramadan, as the administration prepares for the annual Iftar dinner at the White House.
To commemorate the beginning of Ramadan, the White House released a statement from President Obama on Friday. In the statement, the President pays tribute to Muslims across the world and describes Ramadan as a “blessed month” and a “sacred time.”
...both Obama and Kerry mentioned the administration’s upcoming Iftar dinners, in which Muslim leaders will gather for dinners with Obama and other administration officials. The President has hosted the Islamic dinners in the White House every year since 2009; however, the tradition was started by Bill Clinton in 1993 and continued by George W. Bush.
President Obama issued a taunt to Republicans during a speech Tuesday, saying “so sue me” for taking executive actions on various political issues without Congress.
“As long as they insist on taking no action whatsoever that will help anybody, I’m going to keep on taking actions on my own that can help the middle class, like the actions I’ve already taken to speed up construction projects and attract new manufacturing jobs and lift workers’ wages and help students pay off their student loans,” Obama said in Washington. “Middle-class families can’t wait for Republicans in Congress to do stuff. So sue me. As long as they’re doing nothing, I’m not going to apologize for trying to do something.”
Obama added he felt Republicans were “patriots” but they had antiquated views on the economy.
Obama's Imperial Overreach
By Kirsten Powers...When asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos about Boehner's claim that the president had exceeded his executive authority, Obama retorted, "I'm not going to apologize for trying to do something while they're doing nothing." He went on to explain that his administrative actions regarding immigration were OK because the GOP wouldn't work with him and "the majority of the American people want immigration reform done."
Notice that the former constitutional law professor did not make a substantive legal case in defense of his executive power grabs. He merely stated that what he did was popular, ergo his extra-constitutional actions are fine. A more reassuring answer would include explaining how his actions are consistent with the Constitution.
Luis Gutierrez: We've Given Obama Four-Page Wish List of Executive Actions
By Tony LeeA day after President Barack Obama announced that, on his own, he would try to change as many of the nation's immigration laws as he can, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) said he gave the President a wish list of executive actions.
Appearing on Tuesday's Morning Joe, Gutierrez said that he and other pro-amnesty advocates gave Obama a "four-page memorandum of different things within the law that he can do" with executive actions.
Saying that he expects Obama to be "broad, expansive, and generous" with his use of executive action...
What Does the Left Think the Supreme Court Is?
Hobby Lobby exposes mass incomprehension of the role of courts in a constitutional republic.
By Charles C W Cooke...One cannot help but wonder whether Kristof and Reid are aware of what the Supreme Court actually does — which, as anybody who has even a fleeting grasp of American civics knows, is not to set American policy, on health or anything else, but to interpret and uphold the law. In this particular case, the justices were called to judge whether a mandate that was pushed out by the Obama administration in 2012 was in conflict with another law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, that was added to the books in 1992. This being so, the degree to which those who decided the case are “experts on women’s health” is wholly immaterial. The justices are jurists not doctors — they are nine appointed attorneys whose role in the American settlement is to provide legal answers to legal questions.
....Identity politics notwithstanding, the central implication of the Kristofs and Reids of the world — that the very involvement of the Court in this area is uncouth — is a rather strange one. The only way that such questions will not end up in the courts is if a political accommodation is reached: If Congress moves to reconcile its incompatible laws; if the Obama administration elects not to push the state into hitherto unthinkable areas; or if the Constitution is amended to render moot the question of what governments may require of the religious. In the absence of such action, the courts will inevitably be asked to intervene. Does the pair have a better way of resolving legal disputes? Is Marbury v. Madison to be reconsidered each time the result of a Supreme Court case is not to the liking of the New York Times?Perhaps so. Kristof’s widely repeated claim that the Court “ruled today against contraception coverage” was not merely grossly hyperbolic, but an utterly extraordinary way of describing the process. The Supreme Court is not a legislature; it is a court. The majority in the Hobby Lobby case didn’t rule “against contraception coverage” or women or atheists or employees; it ruled against the administration. The question at hand was not whether women have a cosmic right to certain forms of contraception, but whether the administration’s actions can pass muster under current law.
Washington’s Bad Policies Stunt Jobs Growth
By Peter MoriciThursday, the Labor Department is expected to report the economy added 211,000 jobs in May. In line with the pace so far this year, that is far short of what is needed to keep up with population growth and genuinely reduce unemployment.
The jobless rate is down to 6.3 percent from the recession peak of 10 percent, but most of the "reduction" has been accomplished by adults quitting the labor market—neither working nor looking for work. If the same percentage of adults were in the labor force today as when Presidents Obama or Bush took office, the jobless rate would be 10.4 and 12.4 percent, respectively.
...Efforts to bring jobs back to America are often frustrated by government regulations that are more burdensome than necessary to accomplish their legitimate objectives, and skilled labor shortages. Paradoxically, in an economy with 9.8 million unemployed and actively looking for work, too many lack skills appropriate to the 21st Century economy and seem to lack adequate incentives to acquire those.
The combination of free and subsidized health care, the earned income tax credit, and other government programs whose benefits phase out as incomes rise, imposes high effective marginal tax rates on lower income working families. These often encourage prime working age adults to forgo full time employment or not work at all.
Congress Quietly Deletes a Key Disclosure of Free Trips Lawmakers Take
By Shane Goldmacher
It's going to be a little more difficult to ferret out
which members of Congress are lavished with all-expenses-paid trips
around the world after the House has quietly stripped away the
requirement that such privately sponsored travel be included on
lawmakers' annual financial-disclosure forms.
The move, made behind closed doors and without a public announcement by the House Ethics Committee, reverses more than three decades of precedent. Gifts of free travel to lawmakers have appeared on the yearly financial form dating back its creation in the late 1970s, after the Watergate scandal. National Journal uncovered the deleted disclosure requirement when analyzing the most recent batch of yearly filings.
"This is such an obvious effort to avoid accountability," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "There's no legitimate reason. There's no good reason for it."
The move, made behind closed doors and without a public announcement by the House Ethics Committee, reverses more than three decades of precedent. Gifts of free travel to lawmakers have appeared on the yearly financial form dating back its creation in the late 1970s, after the Watergate scandal. National Journal uncovered the deleted disclosure requirement when analyzing the most recent batch of yearly filings.
"This is such an obvious effort to avoid accountability," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "There's no legitimate reason. There's no good reason for it."
"The more you can hide, the less accountable you can be," Sloan said of lawmakers. "It's clear these forms are useful for reporters and watchdogs, and obviously a little too useful."
House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Conaway, R-Texas, did not return a call for comment; ranking member Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., referred questions to committee staff. The committee declined to comment.
EPA Water Rule Could Extinguish July Fourth Celebrations, Warn Senators
By Bridget Johnson
GOP senators warned the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency that a rulemaking effort to define waters under federal regulatory control could put the kibosh on July Fourth celebrations.
The “waters of the U.S.” rule would redefine “tributaries,” “adjacent waters,” and “neighboring waters” under the Clean Water Act, resulting in a broad expansion of government jurisdiction that could include backyard ditches, floodplains, ornamental creeks, and more.
“As Independence Day approaches, we write to express concern for a cherished Fourth of July tradition: celebratory fireworks to commemorate our nation’s founding. In the past few years, misguided citizen lawsuits have threatened community fireworks shows. We are concerned, on the eve of the celebration of this great nation’s founding, that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is set to foster expanded efforts to undermine this form of celebration,” 10 senators wrote to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “If finalized, EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers’ (Corps) proposal to expand the Clean Water Act’s definition of the ‘waters of the United States’ may enable litigious environmental groups to jeopardize fireworks displays throughout the country.”
Inside the VA's Spin-'N-Stonewall Machine
By Michelle MalkinThe Public and Intergovernmental Affairs Office of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is very concerned.
No, the communications specialists in the agency are not concerned with veterans in need. They're not concerned with citizens and public officials requesting public information. They're not concerned with journalists seeking the truth.
What these entrenched government employees care most about, above all else, is the business of spin and stonewalling.
The VA mouthpieces are preoccupied with covering their ample bureaucratic backsides, withholding data, monitoring critics, fending off watchdogs and running constant interference for their corrupt, negligent agency.
...House Committee on Veterans' Affairs Chairman Rep. Jeff Miller, whose statements are tracked by the VA propaganda machine, also has run into the stone wall. As of last week, the VA was sitting on nearly 100 separate requests for information from the House panel. Sixty-eight of those requests have been pending for more than 60 days. There are three outstanding requests from 2012.
...Miller added: "As VA's despicable delays in care crisis made painfully clear, the department's extreme secrecy has resulted in deadly consequences. And it's well past time for department leaders at all levels to understand that taxpayer-funded organizations such as VA have a responsibility to provide information to Congress and the public rather than stonewalling them."
Whether ordinary taxpayer or congressional investigator, truth-seekers are apparently treated the same by the VA spin patrol: as nuisances and threats to their power and comfort.
Medical staff warned: Keep your mouths shut about illegal immigrants or face arrest
By Todd StarnesA government-contracted security force threatened to arrest doctors and nurses if they divulged any information about the contagion threat at a refugee camp housing illegal alien children at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, sources say.
In spite of the threat, several former camp workers broke their confidentiality agreements and shared exclusive details with me about the dangerous conditions at the camp.
...The sources said workers were guarded by a security force from the Baptist Family & Children’s Services, which the Department of Health and Human Services hired to run the Lackland Camp.
The sources say security forces called themselves the “Brown Shirts.”
“It was a very submissive atmosphere,” the counselor said. “Once you stepped onto the grounds, you abided by their laws – the Brown Shirt laws.”
She said the workers were stripped of their cellphones and other communication devices. Anyone caught with a phone was immediately fired.
“Everyone was paranoid,” she said. “The children had more rights than the workers.”
She said children in the camp had measles, scabies, chicken pox and strep throat as well as mental and emotional issues.
...The nurse told me she became especially alarmed because their files indicated the children had been transported to Lackland on domestic charter buses and airplanes.
Tipping point? Protestors block illegals from being dumped in their town
By Rick MoranA bus carrying about 140 illegal aliens was blocked by proterstors from entering a California town after they had been flown from Texas in order to be "processed" and released.
ICE apparrently made the mistake of calling the mayor of the town and informing him of the transfer. The mayor, none too pleased with the prospect of the Feds using his town as an illegal alien dumping ground, publicly complained which sparked the protest.
We're going to be seeing a lot more of this.
Sen. Cruz Releases Fifth Legal Limit Report about the Obama Administration’s Attempts to Expand Federal Power
Supreme Court has unanimously rejected Obama Administration’s arguments 20 times
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today released the fifth report on the Obama Administration’s attempts to expand federal power that documents the many times the Supreme Court has unanimously rejected its legal arguments..... the Court struck down the Administration’s federal overreaches nine times. If Obama’s DOJ had been successful in those cases the federal government would have the power to:
- Attach GPSs to a citizen’s vehicle to monitor his movements, without having any cause to believe that a person has committed a crime (United States v. Jones);
- Deprive landowners of the right to challenge potential government fines as high as
$75,000 per day and take away their ability have a hearing to challenge those fines (Sackett v. EPA); - Interfere with a church’s selection of its own ministers (Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC);
- Override state law through the Presidential fiat (Arizona v. United States);
- Dramatically extend statutes of limitations to impose penalties for acts committed decades ago (Gabelli v. SEC);
- Destroy private property without paying just compensation (Arkansas Fish & Game Commission v. United States);
- Impose double income taxation (PPL Corp. v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue);
- Limit property owner’s constitutional defenses (Horne v. USDA); and
- Drastically expand federal criminal law (Sekhar v. United States).
- Unilaterally install officers and bypass the Senate confirmation process (NLRB v. Noel Canning);
- Search the contents of cell phones without a warrant (Riley v. California);
- Use international treaties to displace state sovereignty over criminal law (Bond v. United States);
- Expand federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws (Burrage v. United States);
- Apply arbitrary immigration rules (Judulang v. Holder);
- Bring prosecutions after statutory deadlines (United States v. Tinklenberg);
- Ignore certain veterans’ challenges to administrative agency rulings (Henderson ex rel. Henderson v. Shinseki);
- Override state prosecutorial decisions by treating minor state drug offenses as aggravated felonies under federal law (Carachuri-Rosendo v. Holder);
- Undermine Congress’s power to define criminal laws and the jury’s role in criminal cases (United States v. O’Brien);
- Charge drug buyers with crimes committed by drug sellers (Abuelhawa v. United States); and
- Ignore mental states needed for federal criminal convictions (Flores-Figueroa v. United States).
Nothing but the best for Consumer Financial Protection Bureau HQ
By Thomas Lifson...The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is one of the most powerful and least accountable agencies of the federal government. The intellectual spawn of Senator Elizabeth Warren created by the ill-considered Dodd-Frank law of 2010, when Democrats controlled Congress, the CFPB has broad powers to regulate the financial industry, and is completely unaccountable to Congress’s budgetary powers because its funding comes from the Federal Reserve, the good folks who print money.
As can be expected from such an agency, it is feathering its own nest lavishly.
...This scandal is exposed in an Inspector General’s Report. As summarized by the staff of the House Financial Services Committee, the report is shocking.
The cost of renovating the CFPB’s rented headquarters has spiraled to more than $215 million – $65 million more than the agency’s estimate just six months ago and $120 million more than last year’s estimate, according to the Federal Reserve’s Inspector General.
It also equals more than $590 per square foot being renovated at the CFPB’s rented headquarters. That means the CFPB is spending much more per square foot than it cost to build the Trump World Tower ($334/square foot), the Bellagio Hotel and Casino ($330/square foot) and the Burj Khalifa in Dubai ($450/square foot).
A federal watchdog on Tuesday faulted the Department of Interior for delays in permitting for oil and gas extraction on federal land.
DOI’s inspector general knocked insufficient review processes that “impede productivity” in a report released on Tuesday. The delays are reducing oil production and federal royalty payments, the report noted.
The Obama administration has come under fire from critics who say that it restricts oil and gas exploration on federal land.
While the IG’s report noted that energy companies share some of the blame, it identified a number of improvements” in DOI’s review process “that would expedite the review process and still maintain quality.”
We found that neither BLM nor the operator can predict when the permit will be approved. Target dates for completion of individual APDs are rarely set and enforced, and consequently, the review may continue indefinitely. The process at most field offices does not have sufficient supervision to ensure timely completion. BLM also does not have a results-oriented performance goal to address processing times.
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