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2015
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February
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- He Lived Long... and Prospered
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 27, 2015
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 26, 2015
- The Clock is Ticking on the Future of the Internet
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 25, 2015
- Is Your Beloved Blog Host Right... or Wrong... Con...
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 23, 2015
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 21 & 22, 2015
- For Mrs. Clinton, Does Charity Begin at Home?
- Peggy Noonan (and yours truly) on The Atlantic's E...
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 20, 2015
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 19, 2015
- Even if ONLY Michelle Reads This... I'm Posting It!
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 16, 2015
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 14 & 15, 2015
- How'bout "Mothers Against Obama"? (Drunk Illegals ...
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 13, 2015
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 12, 2015
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, February 10, 2015
- The Difference Between a Scumbag Like Ron Fournier...
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 9, 2015
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 7 & 8, 2015
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 6, 2015
- 26 Ways the Media Botched Their Reporting on the L...
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 5, 2015
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 2, 2015
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February
(26)
About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
16 comments:
* FOUR-PARTER... (Part 1 of 4)
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/nyts-tom-friedman-propaganda-shill-for-the-war-partys-ukrainian-coup/?utm_source=wysija&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Mailing+List+Sunday+10+AM
If you wonder how the lethal “group think” on Iraq took shape in 2002, you might want to study what’s happening today with Ukraine.
* ABSOFRIGGIN'LUTELY...!!!
A misguided consensus has grabbed hold of Official Washington and has pulled in everyone who “matters” and tossed out almost anyone who disagrees.
(*NOD*)
Part of the problem, in both cases, has been that neo-con propagandists understand that in the modern American media the personal is the political, that is, you don’t deal with the larger context of a dispute, you make it about some easily demonized figure. So, instead of understanding the complexities of Iraq, you focus on the unsavory Saddam Hussein.
(*SOULFUL SIGH*)
This approach has been part of the neo-con playbook at least since the 1980s when many of today’s leading neo-cons – such as Elliott Abrams and Robert Kagan – were entering government and cut their teeth as propagandists for the Reagan administration.
* ONLY REAGAN HAD THE SENSE, JUDGMENT, SELF-ASSUREDNESS, AND MOST OF ALL INTEGRITY TO PULL BACK WHEN THE NEO-CONS GOT HIM INVOLVED IN LEBANON! (UNFORTUNATELY... I FEAR WE WILL NEVER SEE ANOTHER "REAGAN.")
Back then, the game was to put, say, Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega into the demon suit, with accusations about him wearing “designer glasses.”
Later, it was Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega...
Then, of course... Saddam Hussein.
Instead of Americans coming to grips with the painful history of Central America, where the U.S. government has caused much of the violence and dysfunction, or in Iraq, where Western nations don’t have clean hands either, the story was made personal – about the demonized leader – and anyone who provided a fuller context was denounced as an “Ortega apologist” or a “Noriega apologist” or a “Saddam apologist.”
* FOLKS... THINK BACK TO ALL THE RIDICULOUS HITLER COMPARISONS!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
All the American people heard was that Saddam Hussein was “a bad guy” and it was America’s right and duty to get rid of “bad guys” who supposedly had dangerous WMDs that they might share with other “bad guys.”
Almost no one who joined in the Iraq “group think” was punished.
(It turns out that there truly is safety in numbers.)
Many of those exact same people are still around holding down the same powerful jobs as if nothing horrible had happened in Iraq. Their pontifications still are featured on the most influential opinion pages in American journalism, with the New York Times’ Thomas L. Friedman a perfect example.
(*SNORT*)
Though Friedman has been wrong again and again, he is still regarded as perhaps the preeminent foreign policy pundit in the U.S. media.
(*SAD NOD*)
Which brings us to the issue of Ukraine and Russia...
From the start of the Ukraine crisis in fall 2013, the New York Times, the Washington Post and virtually every mainstream U.S. news outlet have behaved as dishonestly as they did during the run-up to war with Iraq.
Objectivity and other principles of journalism have been thrown out the window.
The larger context of both Ukrainian politics and Russia’s role has been ignored.
Again, it’s all been about demonized “bad guys” – in this case, Ukraine’s elected President Viktor Yanukovych and Russia’s elected President Vladimir Putin – versus the “pro-Western good guys” who are deemed model democrats even as they collaborated with neo-Nazis to overthrow a constitutional order.
Again, the political is made personal: Yanukovych had a pricy sauna in his mansion; Putin rides a horse shirtless and doesn’t favor gay rights. So, if you raise questions about U.S. support for last year’s coup in Ukraine, you somehow must favor pricy saunas, riding shirtless and holding bigoted opinions about gays.
(*CAN'T HELP CHUCKLING*)
Anyone who dares protest the unrelentingly one-sided coverage is deemed a “Putin apologist” or a “stooge of Moscow.”
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
* YEP... THAT'S ME... JUST COLLECTING THOSE MONTHLY STIPENTS FROM THE KREMLIN!
(*LAUGHING OUT LOUD*)
So, most Americans in a position to influence public knowledge but who want to stay employable stay silent - just as they did during the Iraq War stampede.
(*CHUCKLING ABRUPTLY CEASED*)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 3 of 4)
One of the ugly but sadly typical cases relates to Russia scholar Stephen F. Cohen, who has been denounced by some of the usual neo-con suspects for deviating from the “group think” that blames the entire Ukraine crisis on Putin. The New Republic, which has gotten pretty much every major issue wrong during my 37 years in Washington, smeared Cohen as “Putin’s American toady.”
Cohen [himself] noted that even established foreign policy figures Zbigniew Brzezinski and Henry Kissinger have been accused in the Washington Post of “advocating that the West appease Russia,” with the notion of “appeasement” meant “to be disqualifying, chilling, censorious.”
(Kissinger had objected to the comparison of Putin to Hitler as unfounded.)
In other words, as the United States rushes into a new Cold War with Russia, we are seeing the makings of a new McCarthyism, challenging the patriotism of anyone who doesn’t get into line.
It may seem clever for some New Republic blogger or a Washington Post writer to insult anyone who doesn’t accept the over-the-top propaganda on Russia and Ukraine – much as they did to people who objected to the rush to war in Iraq – but a military clash with nuclear-armed Russia is a crisis of a much greater magnitude.
* PARTICULARLY WHEN RUSSIA IS LOOSELY ALLIED WITH CHINA - OUR TRUE ENEMY!
Professor Cohen has been one of the few scholars who was right in criticizing Official Washington’s earlier “group think” about post-Soviet Russia, a reckless and mindless approach that laid the groundwork for today’s confrontation.
* YEP. CLINTON, BUSH, AND OBAMA ALL BLEW IT!
To understand why Russians are so alarmed by U.S. and NATO meddling in Ukraine, you have to go back to those days after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Instead of working with the Russians to transition carefully from a communist system to a pluralistic, capitalist one, the U.S. prescription was “shock therapy.” As American “free market” experts descended on Moscow during the pliant regime of Boris Yeltsin, well-connected Russian thieves and their U.S. compatriots plundered the country’s wealth, creating a handful of billionaire “oligarchs” and leaving millions upon millions of Russians in a state of near starvation, with a collapse in life expectancy rarely seen in a country not at war.
* FOLKS... THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED! (AND VIA THIS "TEST CASE" OUR OWN OLIGARCHY GAINED THE CONFIDENCE TO ENGAGE IN THE EXACT SAME BEHAVIOR VIA THE BAILOUTS OF 2007-2008-2009!)
The widespread suffering led Vladimir Putin, who succeeded Yeltsin, to pull back on the wholesale privatization, to punish some oligarchs and to restore some of the social safety net.
* NOTICE... HERE... IN THE GOOD OL' USA... NO OLIGARCHS WERE PUNISHED AFTER OUR ECONOMY BLEW UP IN 2007-2008-2009!
Though the U.S. mainstream media portrays Putin as essentially a tyrant, his elections and approval numbers indicate that he commands broad popular support, in part, because he stood up to some oligarchs (though he still worked with others). Yet, Official Washington continues to portray oligarchs whom Putin jailed as innocent victims of a tyrant’s revenge.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 4 of 4)
Last October, after Putin pardoned one jailed oligarch, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, neo-con Freedom House sponsored a Washington dinner in his honor, hailing him as one of Russia’s political heroes. “I have to say I’m impressed by him,” declared Freedom House President David Kramer. “But he’s still figuring out how he can make a difference.”
(*SNORT*)
New York Times writer Peter Baker fairly swooned at Khodorkovsky’s presence. “If anything, he seemed stronger and deeper than before” prison, Baker wrote. “The notion of prison as cleansing the soul and ennobling the spirit is a powerful motif in Russian literature.”
(Yet, even Khodorkovsky, who is now in his early 50s, acknowledged that he “grew up in Russia’s emerging Wild West capitalism to take advantage of what he now says was a corrupt privatization system,” Baker reported.)
In other words... Khodorkovsky was admitting that he obtained his vast wealth through a corrupt process, though by referring to it as the “Wild West” Baker made the adventure seem quite dashing and even admirable when, in reality, Khodorkovsky was a key figure in the plunder of Russia that impoverished millions of his countrymen and sent many to early graves.
* FOLKS... JON CORZINE... NOT BEHIND BARS... (THINK ABOUT IT...)
In the 1990s, Professor Cohen was one of the few scholars with the courage to challenge the prevailing boosterism for Russia’s “shock therapy.” He noted even then the danger of mistaken “conventional wisdom” and how it strangles original thought and necessary skepticism.
“Much as Russia scholars prefer consensus, even orthodoxy, to dissent, most journalists, one of them tells us, are ‘devoted to group-think’ and ‘see the world through a set of standard templates,’” wrote Cohen. “For them to break with ‘standard templates’ requires not only introspection but retrospection, which also is not a characteristic of either profession.”
Arguably, no one in journalism proves that point better than New York Times columnist Friedman, who is at best a pedestrian thinker plodding somewhere near the front of the herd. But Friedman’s access to millions of readers on the New York Times op-ed page makes him an important figure in consolidating the “group think” no matter how askew it is from reality.
Friedman played a key role in lining up many Americans behind the invasion of Iraq and is doing the same in the current march of folly into a new Cold War with Russia, including now a hot war on Russia’s Ukrainian border.
In one typically mindless but inflammatory column, entitled “Czar Putin’s Next Moves,” Friedman decided it was time to buy into the trendy analogy of likening Putin to Hitler.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
“Last March, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine, supposedly in defense of Russian-speakers there, was just like ‘what Hitler did back in the ‘30s’ — using ethnic Germans to justify his invasion of neighboring lands. At the time, I thought such a comparison was over the top. I don’t think so anymore.”
* YOU... DON'T... THINK...! (AND NEITHER DOES THAT PIECE OF GARBAGE CLINTON!)
http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2015/february/01/the-failed-yemen-model/
* BY THE ALWAYS HONORABLE RON PAUL!
Last September President Obama cited his drone program in Yemen as a successful model of U.S. anti-terrorism strategy.
(*GUFFAW*)
He said that he would employ the Yemen model in his effort to “degrade and ultimately destroy” ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
* UH-HUH...
But just a week ago, the government in Yemen fell to a Shiite militia movement thought to be friendly to Iran.
* THE U.S. PUPPET GOVERNMENT...
The U.S. embassy in Yemen’s capitol was forced to evacuate personnel and shut down operations.
* NO. NOT FORCED. OBAMA SIMPLY CHOSE NOT TO REINFORCE/PROTECT IT.
(*SHRUG*)
If Yemen is any kind of model, it is a model of how badly U.S. interventionism has failed.
* YEP. ABSOLUTELY! OBAMA PORTRAYS EPIC FAILURE AS SPECTACULAR SUCCESS. THIS... IS... INSANITY...!!!
In 2011 the US turned against Yemen’s long-time dictator, Saleh, and supported a coup that resulted in another, even more U.S.-friendly leader taking over in a “color revolution.” The new leader, Hadi, took over in 2012 and soon became a strong supporter of the U.S. drone program in his country against al-Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula.
But last week Hadi was forced to flee from office in the coup. The media reports that the U.S. has lost some of its intelligence capability in Yemen, which is making it more difficult to continue the drone strikes. Nevertheless, the White House said last week that its drone program would continue as before, despite the disintegration of the Yemeni government.
And the drone strikes have continued. Last Monday, in the first U.S. strike after the coup, a 12 year old boy was killed in what is sickeningly called “collateral damage.”
* AGAIN...
Last Monday, in the first U.S. strike after the coup, a 12 year old boy was killed in what is sickeningly called “collateral damage.”
The U.S. government has killed at least dozens of civilian non-combatants in Yemen, but even those it counts as “militants” may actually be civilians. That is because the Obama administration counts any military-aged male in the area around a drone attack as a combatant.
Does anyone wonder why, after 14 years of drone strikes killing more than 800 al-Qaeda militants, it seems there are still so many of them?
As a Slate Magazine article this week asked, “what if the drones themselves are part of the problem?”
That is an excellent question and one that goes to the heart of U.S. anti-terrorist strategy. What if it is U.S. interventionism in general and drone strikes in particular that are motivating so many people to join anti-U.S. militant movements?
That is the question that the interventionists fear most. If blowback is real, if they do not hate us because we are so rich and free but because of what our governments are doing to them, then U.S. interventionism is making us less safe and less free.
The disintegration of Yemen is directly related to U.S. drone policy.
The disintegration of Libya is directly related to U.S. military intervention.
The chaos and killing in Syria is directly related to U.S. support for regime change.
Is there not a pattern here?
The lesson from Yemen is not to stay the course that has failed so miserably. It is to end a failed foreign policy that is killing civilians, creating radicals, and making us less safe.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/business/economy/middle-class-shrinks-further-as-more-fall-out-instead-of-climbing-up.html?_r=0
In the late 1960s, more than half of the households in the United States were squarely in the middle, earning, in today’s dollars, $35,000 to $100,000 a year. Few people noticed or cared as the size of that group began to fall, because the shift was primarily caused by more Americans climbing the economic ladder into upper-income brackets.
But since 2000, the middle-class share of households has continued to narrow, the main reason being that more people have fallen to the bottom.
* FOLKS... IF YOU BELIEVE THE NYT SIMPLY PICKED THE YEAR 2000 AT RANDOM...
(*SMIRK*)
* FOLKS... EVEN AFTER 9/11... EVEN AFTER KATRINA... THE "BUSH ECONOMY" WASN'T ALL THAT BAD. NOW CERTAINLY BUSH POLICIES... AND BEFORE THAT CLINTON POLICIES... AND BEFORE THAT YADDA-YADDA-YADDA POLICIES CAN BE IDENTIFIED AS "LEADING TO" THE EVENTUAL CRASH, BUT, THE FACT IS... THE CRASH CAME IN 2007 AND 2008 - TRUE... STILL THE BUSH PRESIDENCY, BUT ALSO BOTH YEARS REPRESENTING YEARS DEMOCRATS CONTROLLED BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS.
* THAT'S WHY THE NYT PICKED 2000 INSTEAD OF 2006... 2007... 2008... 2009...
(*SHRUG*)
The share of the American population that is middle income has been shrinking for several decades. Until fairly recently, that was because more people were entering a higher-income bracket.
* RIGHT! UPWARD MOBILITY! "GOOD" SHRINKAGE!
Now it’s for the opposite reason.
* THE OBAMA ECONOMY...
Even as the American middle class has shrunk, it has gone through a transformation. The 53 million households that remain in the middle class — about 43% of all households — look considerably different from their middle-class predecessors of a previous generation, according to a New York Times analysis of census data.
* THE NYT CLEARLY BELIEVES THAT SHRINKAGE LEADS TO TRANSFORMATION. (WRONG AGAIN NYT!) ACTUALLY, IT'S THE TRANSFORMATION (THE DEMOGRAPHICS... THE ILLEGITIMACY...) THAT HAS LED TO THE SHRINKAGE.
In recent years, the fastest-growing component of the new middle class has been households headed by people 65 and older. Today’s seniors have better retirement benefits than previous generations. Also, older Americans are increasingly working past traditional retirement age. More than eight million, or 19%, were in the labor force in 2013, nearly twice as many as in 2000. As a result, while median household income, on average, has fallen 9% since the turn of the century, it has jumped 14% among households headed by older adults.
* FOLKS... THIS IS INTERESTING, BUT DON'T GET BOGGED DOWN IN IT. WHAT MATTERS ISN'T THAT THE ELDERLY AS A GROUP AREN'T DOING BAD... WHAT MATTERS IS THAT DUE TO ILLEGITIMACY AND OTHER SOCIAL DYSFUNCTION OUR YOUNG ADULTS ARE DIGGING THEMSELVES PITS THAT THEY'LL NEVER CLIMB OUT OF!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
In the late 1960s, about 45% of all households included married adults and their offspring. But among middle-class households, more than 60% had that traditional family arrangement. Today, married couples with children at home make up just a quarter of households.
* YEP! THAT'S THE PROBLEM...!!!
But even as they diminished as a share of the population, these families surged up the economic ladder as more married women went to work in the paid labor force. By 2000, 42% earned more than $100,000 in today’s dollars.
* IN ENGLISH: THE RICH ARE GETTING RICHER. CLASS MEMBERSHIP IS SOLIDIFYING. BUT BOTTOM LINE... MORE MIDDLE CLASS "CHILDREN" ARE MOVING BACKWARDS... ENDING UP LOWER-MIDDLE-CLASS OR LESS... AS OPPOSED TO "MOVIN' ON UP."
(*WINK*)
The most recent recession put a halt to the advances of even that generally successful group. Its share in the middle class has fallen by three percentage points and the share earning less than $35,000 has increased.
(*SHRUG*)
As the middle class has shrunk, its composition has changed, with people 65 and older making up the fastest-growing segment. Meanwhile, married couples with children, who have seen their incomes grow, have diminished as a share of the middle class.
* BECAUSE THEY'VE SEEN THEIR INCOMES GROW...!!! DUH...!!!
* GOTTA LUV HOW THE TIMES TRYS TO MANIPULATE THEIR READERS EVEN WHEN IN THE END ADMITTING REALITY...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
“In the Great Recession, we lost a lot of middle-income jobs and we gained a lot of low-paying jobs,” said Michael R. Strain, resident scholar at the right-of-center American Enterprise Institute. “That’s a slower-burning thing, but it increased in ferocity during the recession, and people are feeling it.”
These days, most middle-class adults reached their status through higher education.
* CREDENTIALISM... NOT NECESSARILY "EDUCATION" PER SE.
As recently as 1992, half of all middle-class households were headed by someone with a high school education or less, according to the Times analysis. Today, only 37% of the middle class has not been to college.
* THUS MY POINT: IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE SUCH NUMBERS THEY MUST DUMB DOWN THE "EDUCATION" A COLLEGE DEGREE REPRESENTS. (MORE SO IN THE LIBERAL ARTS THAN THE SCIENCES... BUT FRANKLY... BOTH ARE ADVERSELY EFFECTED.)
Geography also matters. The biggest declines in middle-class households during the previous half-century occurred in the Northeast — states like Massachusetts, Connecticut and New Jersey — where industrial economies gave way to mass suburbanization and increased affluence.
According to a New York Times poll in December, 60% of people who call themselves middle class think that if they work hard they will get rich. But the evidence suggests that goal is increasingly out of reach. When middle class people look up, they see the rich getting richer while they spin their wheels.
(*NOD*)
“The middle has basically stayed the same; it hasn’t improved,” said Lawrence F. Katz, an economist at Harvard University. “You’ve got an iPhone now and a better TV, but your median income hasn’t changed. What’s really changed is the penthouse has become supernice.”
* NOTE... NEITHER THE IDIOT REPORTER NOR IDIOT EDITOR GO OUTSIDE THE BOX TO NOTE THAT THE IPHONE COSTS $500 - PER IPHONE - AND THAT A FAMILY OF FOUR SERVICE PLAN CAN RUN HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS A MONTH... THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS PER YEAR. (SAME WITH THE TV PROGRAMMING BILLS!)
Still, there are some recent signs of hope for the middle class. The economy is improving and more jobs are being created, many of them in better-paying categories like professional services, health care and even a reviving manufacturing sector.
* MOST NOT... (*SNORT*)... AGAIN... GOTTA LUV THESE FRAUDS...
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://cis.org/clinton-kerry-share-responsibility-criminal-alien-releases
* TO PREFACE:
"This six-month presumption, of course, does not mean that every alien not removed must be released after six months. To the contrary, an alien may be held in confinement until it has been determined that there is no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future." -- U.S. Supreme Court, Zadvydas vs. Davis, 2001
* NOW... TO THE ARTICLE:
As Congress begins to focus on the disturbing new information uncovered by the Center for Immigration Studies — that the Obama administration released over 36,000 criminal aliens into our neighborhoods in 2013 — it is important to understand that these releases were not mandated by the Supreme Court, despite the claims of the Obama administration.
* OBAMA BASICALLY ORDERED 36,000 CRIMINAL ALIENS TO BE "FREED" - TURNED LOOSE ON OUR STREETS - IN 2013 AND THEN LIED ABOUT IT.
The report, "ICE Document Details 36,000 Criminal Alien Releases in 2013", by Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, finds that last year Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) freed 36,007 convicted criminal aliens from detention who were awaiting the outcome of deportation proceedings. The group included aliens convicted of hundreds of violent and serious crimes, including homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping, and aggravated assault.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
The list of crimes also includes more than 16,000 drunk or drugged driving convictions.
* AND...
Since many had committed multiple crimes, the 36,007 aliens had nearly 88,000 convictions among them.
(*SILENCE*)
In response to the report, the Obama administration claimed that some of the releases were mandated by a Supreme Court ruling from 2001.
* HE LIED. RE-READ THE PREFACE.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING...
The central case is Zadvydas v. Davis, which held that the federal government can detain aliens for deportation up to six months, but generally must release them back into the United States after that point if there is "no significant likelihood of removal in the reasonably foreseeable future."
* CLEARLY BY THE PHRASE "NO SIGNIFICANT LIKELIHOOD OF REMOVAL" THE COURT WASN'T SAYING "UNLESS THE PRESIDENT DOESN'T WANT THEM REMOVED." REMEMBER... IN 2001... PRESIDENTS WERE EXPECTED TO UPHOLD RATHER THAN UNDERMINE EXISTING LAW.
One of the main reasons such a situation arises is that a criminal alien's home country will refuse to take its nationals back.
* SO WHAT...? WHY WOULD WE GIVE THEM THE OPTION...?!?! LISTEN... I DON'T CARE IF WE HAVE TO LOAD 'EM ON SHIPS OR PLANES AND DUMP 'EM OFF-SHORE OR KICK 'EM OUT IN THE SKY ABOVE THEIR NATIVE LANDS... MAKE THE FOREIGN COUNTRIES ACCEPT THEIR PEOPLE BACK!
Federal law requires the Secretary of State to stop issuing visas to the citizens of any country that refuses to take back its nationals. Though it has rarely been invoked, the threat understandably has the effect of getting countries to cooperate, increasing the likelihood that the alien will be returned, and thereby allowing for detention longer than six months, if necessary. (Threatening to end the issuance of visas right at the outset has resulted in a country taking back its citizens within two months.) As the Supreme Court explained, its holding "does not mean that every alien not removed must be released after six months." It is really a matter of the executive branch showing that a significant likelihood of removable exists in the reasonably foreseeable future.
Instead of following the law that requires the State Department to stop issuing visas, however, it appears that Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and the Department of Homeland Security decided that it was better to simply release criminal aliens from detention and allow them to go free, despite the potential threat to public safety.
* CLINTON WORKED FOR OBAMA. KERRY WORKS FOR OBAMA. THEY "REPRESENT" EXECUTIVE WILL. EXECUTIVE WILL IS THE PRESIDENT'S ALONE.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Not only is this a failure to abide by federal law, it also made it less likely that the alien would be removed, thereby allowing the Obama administration to cite the Supreme Court ruling as an excuse to release the aliens into American neighborhoods.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and current Secretary of State John Kerry should explain why they did not follow federal law and stop the issuance of visas to the countries that have refused to take back their law-breaking citizens. DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson and former Secretary Janet Napolitino should also explain whether they directed the State Department to stop issuing visas. The release of dangerous aliens did not start with the Obama administration; officials from the Bush administration could also be questioned about releases that occurred during their tenure. Congress has given the State Department the tools to ensure that Americans do not have to live among criminals who do not belong in the country.
* HEAR! HEAR!
Congress and the White House should do everything in their power to protect legal residents from criminal aliens who do not belong in the country. This should start with the goal of ensuring that such individuals never enter the country in the first place, which would require a serious commitment to immigration enforcement. If this fails and an immigrant - legal or illegal - commits a crime, the government should do everything it its power to return the alien home and avoid releasing the individual back into the United States.
It is clear that the Obama administration has not taken all steps required by law to prevent the release of dangerous aliens into our neighborhoods. The failure of DHS and the State Department to follow 8 U.S.C. § 1253 is inexcusable and may ultimately result in harm to legal residents.
The fallout from the Supreme Court's decision in Zadvydas v. Davis requires Congress and the executive branch to assert their inherent authority over immigration regulation and make public safety a priority.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/2/hillary-clinton-libya-tapes-set-house-benghazi-com/
The chairman of a special House committee created to investigate the 2012 Benghazi tragedy on Monday instructed his staff to review secretly recorded tapes and intelligence reports that detail Hillary Rodham Clinton’s role in advocating and executing the war in Libya, opening the door for a possible expansion of his probe.
* SECRETLY RECORDED TAPES AND INTELLIGENCE REPORTS...
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* THE MOST TRANSPARENT ADMINISTRATION IN HISTORY... UH-HUH...
Rep. Trey Gowdy’s decision to seek a review of the materials, first highlighted in a series of Washington Times stories last week, carries consequences for the 2016 election in which Mrs. Clinton is expected to seek the presidency. It could also move the committee to examine the strained relationship between the State Department and Pentagon, which sharply disagreed over the 2011 war in Libya and the response to the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi a year later.
* FUCK THE POLITICAL FALLOUT; THE AMERICAN PEOPLE DESERVE TO KNOW WHO KNEW WHAT WHEN AND THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT!
The Times reported last week that U.S. intelligence did not support Mrs. Clinton’s story of an impending genocide in Libya that she used to sell the war against Moammar Gadhafi’s regime.
* BIG SURPRISE THERE! (NOT!)
The newspaper also unveiled secretly recorded tapes from Libya that showed that the Pentagon and Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich so distrusted her stewardship of the war that they opened their own diplomatic channels with the Gadhafi regime.
* WOW...
The tapes included candid conversations and allegations that Mrs. Clinton took the U.S. to war on false pretenses and was not listening to the advice of military commanders or career intelligence officers.
“Chairman Gowdy and the committee are aware of the details reported by The Washington Times, and we are reviewing them as part of the committee’s inquiry into Benghazi,” Benghazi Committee spokesman Jamal Ware announced Monday.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a 2016 GOP hopeful who has been intensely critical of Mrs. Clinton’s handling of the 2011 Libya intervention, said the stories demonstrate she is not the right person to lead the country or the nation’s military.
“Hillary’s judgment has to be questioned – her eagerness for war in Libya should preclude her from being considered the next Commander in Chief,” said Sen. Paul, who opposed the Libyan intervention at the onset.
“We want someone in that office with wisdom and better judgment… We created chaos in Libya – as a result many arms have gone to Syria which are now aiding jihadi terrorists. I couldn’t fathom how Hillary Clinton could become Commander and Chief after this,” he added.
* IT IS AMAZING. THE SAME PEOPLE WHO SWEAR THAT SARAH PALIN IS STUPID BELIEVE HILLARY CLINTON IS QUALIFIED TO BE POTUS!
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman have declined any comment about the tapes.
* I'M SURE THEY HAVE!
(*GUFFAW*)
The Times reported that on one of the tapes, a Pentagon liaison told a Gadhafi aide that Army Gen. Charles Jacoby, a top aide to Adm. Mullen, “does not trust the reports that are coming out of the State Department and CIA, but there’s nothing he can do about it,” the Pentagon liaison said, offering a candid assessment of tensions within the Obama administration.
“I can tell you that the President is not getting accurate information so at some point someone has to get accurate information to him… I think about a way through former Secretary Gates or maybe to Admiral Mullen to get him information.”
* AMERICAN HISTORY SINCE OBAMA TOOK OFFICE HAS BEEN RUN LIKE A GRADE B THRILLER. UNFRIGGIN'BELIEVABLE!
Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, chairman of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations, said the Pentagon’s actions were “highly unusual,” but said that it would make sense for the Pentagon to want to make sure their Commander in Chief was getting accurate information.
“I think it’s unusual to have the military say wait a minute, that’s not true,” Mr. Poe said in a telephone interview with the Times. “You have a false report from the Secretary of State, and then the military holding a completely different view of what’s taking place.
“They wanted [the president] to have facts – facts as opposed to what Secretary Clinton was hoping the facts would be; that Moammar Gadhafi was killing innocent women and children. That was a false narrative. So, it would make sense that they would want to get that information straight to the president and not go through the Secretary of State,” he added
In reaction to the Times final installment of the series on Monday, which revealed secret Libyan intelligence reports that linked NATO supported rebels to al-Qaeda, Rep. Louie Gohmert said the news was not a complete surprise. “During the Obama-Clinton hunger to enter a bombing war in Libya, some of us knew the rebels included al-Qaeda but we did not know the full extent of their involvement,” he said. “So we pleaded for U.S. restraint. With bombing in their heart and radical Islamists whispering in their ears, the Obama-Clinton team would not even entertain offers of a ceasefire and peaceful transition of power. While acting under U.N. approval to prevent atrocities, it appears the Obama-Clinton bombing barrages caused atrocities that sent a country into chaos which is continuing today.”
* GEEZUS...
The Times series about the Libyan intervention was also picked up across the Atlantic. Britain’s Daily Mail described the story as “stunning” declaring that, “Secretary Clinton will face tough questions about her march to war against Moammar Gadhafi if she runs for president.”
Mr. Poe said that he believes the series will prompt new questions, especially with the current state of military and political affairs in Libya.
“As far as I’m concerned Benghazi is not going away,” Mr. Poe said. “That the U.S. would give in and arm rebels and criminals to overthrow Col. Gadhafi, and then mislead the world on that is shameful. We now have chaos in Libya… it’s the U.S. undoing of a country. Gadhafi was no saint, but what we have now are gangsters and jihadists running the country. We have chaos because the US intervened in a deceitful way."
“Unfortunately, the administration is making more of an effort to protect Hillary Clinton’s involvement than they are in finding out the truth about what was really behind the overthrow of Gaddafi by the U.S.”
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/02/02/report-5-5-million-additional-work-permits-issued-since-2009-in-shadow-authorization-system/
The Obama administration has been issuing millions of work permits over the limits set by Congress, according to a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies.
In the report released Monday, the anti-amnesty group explains data it obtained from U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services (USCIS) via a Freedom of Information Request.
Federal records show, the CIS finds, that from 2009-2014 the agency issued 5,461,568 new work permits to immigrants, beyond the 1.1 million legal immigrants and 700,000 guest workers admitted to the U.S. each year.
CIS laid out three categories of immigrants who received work authorization under what the group is calling a “shadow” system:
Approximately 1.8 million new work permits were issued to aliens with temporary visas or who entered under the visa waiver program. Of these, about 1.2 million (67%) had a visa status for which employment is not authorized by law, such as foreign students and independents of guest workers.
About 982,000 new work permits issued to illegal aliens or aliens unqualified for admission. Of these, 957,000 were aliens who crossed the border illegally (Entered Without Inspection).
Inexplicably, 1,200 new work permits were issued to aliens who were denied asylum, were suspected of using fraudulent documents, were stowaways, or were refused at a port of entry.
About 1.7 million, were issued to aliens whose status was unknown, not recorded by the adjudicator, or not disclosed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the agency that processes the applications.
“I was astonished at the huge number of work permits that are being issued by the Obama administration outside the legal immigration system through executive "discretion," especially at a time of high unemployment and stagnant wages,” Jessica Vaughan, CIS’ director of policy studies, said Monday. “Besides the effect on the American worker, it encourages and rewards more illegal immigration.”
The report comes a day before the Senate is set to take its first vote on a House-passed Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill that defunds President Obama’s executive amnesty — the president’s attempt to grant legal status and work permits to millions of illegal immigrants.
* THREE-PARTER... (Part 1 of 3)
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/03/nyregion/in-christies-career-a-fondness-forluxe-benefits-when-others-pay-the-bills.html?_r=0
* SUBTITLE: CHRISTIE IS A SCUMBAG.
As Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey waited to depart on a trade mission to Israel in 2012, his entourage was delayed by a late arrival: Mr. Christie’s father, who had accidentally headed to the wrong airport.
A commercial flight might have left without him, but in this case, there was no rush. The private plane, on which Mr. Christie had his own bedroom, had been lent by Sheldon G. Adelson, the billionaire casino owner and supporter of Israel. At the time, he was opposing legislation then before the governor to legalize online gambling in New Jersey.
Mr. Christie loaded the plane with his wife, three of his four children, his mother-in-law, his father and stepmother, four staff members, his former law partner and a state trooper.
King Abdullah of Jordan picked up the tab for a Christie family weekend at the end of the trip. The governor and two staff members who accompanied him came back to New Jersey bubbling that they had celebrated with Bono, the lead singer of U2, at three parties, two at the king’s residence, the other a Champagne reception in the desert. But a small knot of aides fretted: The rooms in luxurious Kempinski hotels had cost about $30,000; what would happen if that became public?
It did not, for the moment. But it would not have been the first or last time that Mr. Christie’s desire for celebrity access and expensive trips has raised eyebrows.
The governor, a Republican now preparing a run for president, shot to national prominence as a cheese-steak-on-the-boardwalk Everyman who bluntly preached transparency and austerity as the antidote to bloated state budgets. But throughout his career in public service, Mr. Christie has indulged a taste that runs more toward Champagne at the Four Seasons.
He has also quietly let others pay the bills.
That tendency — the governor himself says he wants to “squeeze all the juice out of the orange” — has put him in ethically questionable situations, taking benefits from those who stand to benefit from him.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 3)
Mr. Christie is hardly the first politician, in either party, whose embrace of luxury travel has prompted criticism. Hillary Rodham Clinton, for example, a potential Democratic candidate for president, is known for her dependence on private planes often paid for by others.
Last month, Mr. Christie prompted a state ethics inquiry after he flew to at least three games of the Dallas Cowboys, his team since boyhood, on the plane of the owner, Jerry Jones, whose company had received a contract with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey after the governor recommended it.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Christie, who is currently on a three-day trip to London, did not dispute the details of the trip to Israel and Jordan, which were described in interviews with several people close to the administration or involved in the trip, and in documents seen by The New York Times.
But the spokeswoman, Maria Comella, described King Abdullah as “a friend” the governor met at a salon-style dinner in New York hosted by Michael R. Bloomberg, who was the mayor at the time. “King Abdullah invited the governor and his family to Jordan as his personal guest so the two families could spend time together,” she said on Sunday.
Early in his tenure, Mr. Christie set up a group to entice foreign businesses to New Jersey. That group, Choose N.J., is financed by companies that are forbidden by pay-to-play laws to donate to the governor, because they have business before the state, including legal work, and contracts for roads and infrastructure.
(Last month, Choose N.J. announced that it had appointed as its president and chief executive Michele Brown, one of Mr. Christie’s closest confidantes and a neighbor, who has worked for him since his days as a United States attorney.)
The group partly financed the 2012 trip to Israel, as well as three trips the governor has taken over the last year, to Mexico, Canada and his current destination, London.
While previous New Jersey governors have flown commercial for trade missions, Mr. Christie flew privately for three. (His spokeswoman said he flew commercial to London.) He has taken family on all. He stays in five-star properties: the King David in Jerusalem, the Intercontinental in Mexico City.
Letting the king pay for his three-day weekend in Jordan back in 2012 would not have been allowed if Mr. Christie were, say, president or a United States senator; it is illegal for federal employees to accept gifts of more than nominal value from agents of foreign governments. An executive order Mr. Christie signed in 2010 allows New Jersey governors to have travel and related expenses paid by foreign governments; it does not specifically address gifts such as the parties the king held for him, but the governor’s staff said it was covered under a provision that allowed gifts from personal friends.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 3 of 3)
Mr. Christie has described it as a matter of opportunity. “I relish these experiences and exposures, especially for my kids,” he told a reporter for The Times last summer. “I try to squeeze all the juice out of the orange that I can.”
As he has traveled more widely, particularly during the last year, when he led the Republican Governors Association, Mr. Christie’s first-class tastes have become well known. He made it clear when he campaigned for Mr. Romney in 2012 that he would do out-of-state events only if he was given a private plane, even during the primary, when the candidate’s wife was still flying commercial to save money. The Romney campaign came to understand that he preferred a Cessna Citation X, which, its manufacturer boasts, has exotic wood interiors and a Rolls-Royce engine.
While many high-profile Republican politicians resist insinuating themselves into celebrity circles, Mr. Christie seeks them out — Howard Stern in the Hamptons; Donald J. Trump at Jean-Georges in Manhattan, where the menu begins at $128 per person. He danced onstage with Jamie Foxx at a celebrity benefit at the Hamptons in August before a crowd that included Barbra Streisand, Paul McCartney, Jack Nicholson and Robert De Niro.
State taxpayers paid for Mr. Christie, his wife and two aides to travel to the 2013 Super Bowl in New Orleans, as New Jersey prepared to host the 2014 game. Airfare for four passengers came to $8,146; Mr. Christie’s hotel for three nights cost $3,371.
He has fought to shield the cost of his travel. The Super Bowl expenses were revealed only after a judge’s order in a lawsuit brought by The Record, a newspaper in northern New Jersey. In response to other lawsuits and public records requests, the governor’s office has argued that he is not subject to disclosure laws regarding travel, or that it does not have the records.
Groups like Choose N.J. and the Republican Jewish Coalition, which also contributed to the Israel trip, do not have to disclose their expenses.
As United States attorney for New Jersey, Mr. Christie developed a reputation for flouting the rules on travel. A Justice Department report after he left office found that he was the prosecutor who most often exceeded the charges allowed for hotel stays in different cities, without properly searching for a cheaper alternative, or justifying any exemption from the rules. He stayed at a Four Seasons in Washington and a new boutique hotel in Boston, for example, at more than double the cost allowed for those cities.
The report concerned hotel stays, but Mr. Christie’s preference for car services over taxis earned a footnote: He paid $236 to travel four miles from the airport in Boston, and $562 for a round-trip between Central London and Heathrow. Mr. Christie, who by then was governor, declined to be interviewed by investigators preparing the Justice Department report.
The revelations in the report prompted the Justice Department to tighten rules about exemptions to stay in costly hotels.
* CHRISTIE IS A SCUMBAG.
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