Friday, December 11, 2015

Trump eager for attacks from Cruz - BUT IS TRUMP REALLY A SECRET DISCIPLE OF BARACK OBAMA VOWING TO SERVE THE 1%?

WASHINGTON EXAMINER:
Trump eager for attacks from Cruz



The hourglass society: Middle-income households no longer the majority in the US

The hourglass society: Middle-income households no longer the majority in the US

By Andre Damon
11 December 2015
For the first time in more than four decades, “middle-income households” no longer constitute the majority of American society, according to a study published Wednesday by the Pew Research Center. Instead, the majority of households are either low or higher-income.

The study concluded, “Once in the clear majority, adults in middle-income households in 2015 were matched in number by those in lower- and upper-income households combined.” Pew called its findings “a demographic shift that could signal a tipping point” in American society.

The study also found a sharp fall in household incomes and wealth, particularly for low-income households, noting that only “upper-income families realized notable gains in wealth from 1983 to 2013.”

Together with the decline in the relative numbers of middle-income earners, the incomes of households in this group has fallen substantially in recent decades. The median income of middle-income households fell by four percent between 2000 and 2014, while their median wealth fell by 28 percent over approximately the same period.

The study notes that since 1983, the total share of income accruing to high-income households has grown significantly. The study found that “fully 49% of US aggregate income went to upper-income households in 2014, up from 29% in 1970.” Meanwhile the share “accruing to middle-income households was 43% in 2014, down substantially from 62% in 1970.”

These findings reflect the persistent declines in wages for US workers following decades of de-industrialization, which has been accompanied by significant increases in the yields of financial assets, helping to increase the wealth and earnings of the financial elite, along with a section of upper middle-class households.

While the study’s metrics are too broad to capture the enormous concentration of society’s wealth in the hands of the top 1 and 0.1 percent, they reflect the reality that a “middle class” lifestyle is increasingly out of reach for the broad majority of the US population.

The Pew study, an analysis of data from the Census Bureau’s current population survey, defines “middle-income” households as those earning between two-thirds and twice the US median household income, or between $42,000 to $126,000 for a household of three. Those classified as low-income made less than two-thirds the typical income, while those classified as high-income made twice the median income.

The study added that the fastest growing sections of the population were those at the extremes of the income distribution: the very rich and the very poor. “The movement out of the middle has not simply been at the margins—the growth has been at the extreme ends of the income ladder,” with “the fastest-growing numbers… in the very lowest and very highest income tiers.”

The study found that, after dividing US households into fifths based on household income, “In 2015, 20% of American adults were in the lowest income tier, up from 16% in 1971. On the opposite side, 9% are in the highest income tier, more than double the 4% share in 1971.” Meanwhile the share of adults in the lower middle or upper middle income brackets have remained unchanged.

The report added, “The growth at the top is similarly skewed,” as “the share of adults in highest-income households [has] more than doubled, from 4% in 1971 to 9% in 2015. But the increase in the share in upper-middle income households was modest, rising from 10% to 12%.”

The study further noted the impact of the 2008 crisis on the wealth of middle-income households. It stated, “Before the onset of the Great Recession, the median wealth of middle-income families increased from $95,879 in 1983 to $161,050 in 2007, a gain of 68%. But the economic downturn eliminated that gain almost entirely. By 2010, the median wealth of middle-income families had fallen to about $98,000, where it still stood in 2013.”

The wealth of higher income households has largely been protected from the 2008 financial crash. “Upper income families more than doubled their wealth from 1983 to 2007 as it climbed from $323,402 to $729,980. Despite losses during the recession, these families recovered somewhat since 2010 and had a median wealth of $650,074 in 2013, about double their wealth in 1983.”

The Pew figures also show the impact of the persistent economic slump on a broad range of households, noting, “Americans are less well-to-do now than at the start of the 21st century. For all income tiers, median incomes in 2014 were lower than in 2000. These reversals are the result of two recessions—the downturn in 2001 and the Great Recession of 2007-09—and economic recoveries that have been too anemic to fully repair the damage.”

The conclusion that the incomes and wealth of all sections of society have declined since the start of the 2008 crisis is attributable to the fact that the study’s methodology is too broad to encompass the most dramatic change in American society: the enormous concentration of wealth and income in the hands of the financial oligarchy. The handful of multi-millionaires and billionaires in this social group are wealthier than ever.

Figures published last year by professors Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman showed that the wealthiest 0.5 percent of American society saw their share of the country’s wealth double, from about 17 percent in 1978 to just under 35 percent in 2012. The top 0.1 percent (one one-thousandth of the population) now controls more than 20 percent of all wealth, up from about 8 percent in the late 1970s.

The vast growth of social inequality is not the result of an impartial and merely objective process, but is rather the result of policies pursued by the government for decades aimed at slashing the wages and benefits of American workers while enriching the financial oligarchy that dominates wealth and political power in the US. This process has been dramatically accelerated under the Obama administration.

The persistent growth of social inequality is the most conspicuous and defining characteristic of contemporary American society. It is this process, facilitated by the financialization of the economy and the continuous diversion of resources away from productive investment, that underlies the erosion of democratic forms of government and the endless promotion of war and militarism.

This process expresses, moreover, a deep social crisis to which the financial elite, obsessed with the expansion of its own wealth and social privilege, can offer no solutions.
BARACK OBAMA: AMERICA'S FIRST PSYCHOPATH!


"Barack Obama has almost single-handedly destroyed America’s standing in the world and certainly our relationship with our allies.  He has aided and abetted the rise of ISIS and other terrorist organizations as well as enemies such as Iran, Russia, and China.  And he has fomented division and unrest here at home."


It’s impossible to get through a day without hearing the name Donald Trump…over and over again.  His name is plastered across the pages of newspapers and magazines.  His speeches and interviews are continuously replayed on tele...

Trump is following 0bama's Script

It’s impossible to get through a day without hearing the name Donald Trump…over and over again.  His name is plastered across the pages of newspapers and magazines.  His speeches and interviews are continuously replayed on television, radio and the Internet.  Friends, family, and colleagues bring him up at every opportunity as if the most important topic in the world today is whether Trump will win the nomination.  And perhaps it is.

Barack Obama has almost single-handedly destroyed America’s standing in the world and certainly our relationship with our allies.  He has aided and abetted the rise of ISIS and other terrorist organizations as well as enemies such as Iran, Russia, and China.  And he has fomented division and unrest here at home. 

say “almost single-handedly” not just because his administration has been filled with accomplices to his destructive policies.  I’m referring to the American people who elected him -- twice.  Americans enabled Obama to accomplish his promised transformation of the country -- and the world -- as they bought into his false promises and messiah-like personality cult.  They are blameworthy for our situation today because they were blindly ignorant and ideological then. 
 
Some blame Obama’s rise on Bush Derangement Syndrome.  Americans were tired of war and distraught over the results of GWB’s policies, including the economic crisis, so they fell for Obama.  Today, many Americans abhor Obama and what he has wrought.  We are aware that San Bernardino, the Boston Marathon, and Fort Hood were not anomalies.  We are witnessing the changing demographics of the country, as America appears to be virtually borderless.  We are living through a deep and widening divisiveness across the nation as his policies and language incite groups like Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and CAIR to take to the streets and airwaves ranting about faux abuses and infringements on non-existent entitlements.

Enter Trump -- and the country’s newest cult of personality, driven by deep dissatisfaction, frustration, and anger at the sitting commander in chief.   Notwithstanding differences between Trump and Obama, the factors that led to each of their enormous and hastened popularity appear quite similar.  A feeling of isolation, resentment, fatigue, and disgust has taken over the GOP just as it did with the Democratic Party eight years ago.  Obama attracted massive crowds of swooning fans who melted at the sound of his voice and cheered at his empty promises.  Now Trump is attracting huge crowds of adoring supporters who see in him the personification of their desire for a radical change from a dangerous and incompetent incumbent

Just as we heard with Obama, today people exclaim that Trump is the man the country needs to turn things around.  In 2008, that resulted in the election of the narcissist and bully-in-chief.  In 2016, the best result would be a bloviating, know-it-all, bully-in-chief.  The more likely result will be President Clinton.  That the Right is about to repeat the mistakes of the Left, after witnessing the results of those naïve, idealistic hopes and dreams is incomprehensible and yet manifesting before our eyes. 

Wikipedia describes a cult of personality as something that “arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized, heroic, and at times, worshipful image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise.” Obama did not need much help to grow his messianic cult, although the media and other tools of his propaganda machine certainly helped lead to millions of voters becoming intoxicated on his Kool-Aid.  While Trump’s celebrity status is not new, he is currently worshipped by an electorate fed his vision 24/7 by a media fascinated by the cult of his persona.

The obsession with Trump however seems to be bipartisan.  Perhaps this is because it’s not even clear that he actually is a Republican.  Some argue he is a RINO at best as he previously supported Democrats including Clinton and spouts views hardly aligned with a conservative vision (especially economic policy).  Others contend he is a right-wing extremist for his stance on issues like immigration.  And serious thinkers wonder if he’s Hillary’s secret weapon -- a plant in the Republican Party who is helping to brand the GOP as a bunch of radical whack-jobs as well as her most effective WMD (weapon of mass distraction).

But no matter how one views Donald Trump, there is no doubt that he is a major distraction from the issues at hand.  While he often says something unconventional about an issue of the day that should result in a substantive debate, it seemingly never does.  Instead, the media have a field day discussing Trump as if Trump is the issue of the day. 

Announcing his intention to build a wall across our southern border is not a policy.  Promising to prevent every Muslim in the world from entering the U.S.  is not a serious policy.  Suggesting that we extra-judicially murder the families of terrorists is an un-American policy.  Promises of “Believe me,” “It’ll make your head spin,” and “I’ve thought it through in depth” are not policies.  Policies require details.  Details require knowledge.  Knowledge requires a depth of understanding on a vast array of complicated issues that the next president must be capable of addressing on day one.  There is no time for a learning curve.  There is no time for figuring out how to accomplish the impossible.  There is no room to roll the dice on hopes and dreams of another longed-for messiah saving the country.  Been there; done that; failed.

Can we afford to risk nominating the guy who will stand on a debate stage next to Hillary promising to “get stuff done” with no ability to articulate how, all the while calling her ugly and making fun of her pants suits?  Is this likely to succeed against the most skillful player of the victim card ever to run for the presidency?

More importantly, will a Trump presidency lead to “morning again in America?” Will Trump make us “prouder, stronger, and better” -- or is he just writing the script of a sequel to the story of a false messiah who led us down a path of divisiveness, chaos, and decline?
 
It’s impossible to get through a day without hearing the name Donald Trump…over and over again.  His name is plastered across the pages of newspapers and magazines.  His speeches and interviews are continuously replayed on television, radio and the Internet.  Friends, family, and colleagues bring him up at every opportunity as if the most important topic in the world today is whether Trump will win the nomination.  And perhaps it is.

Barack Obama has almost single-handedly destroyed America’s standing in the world and certainly our relationship with our allies.  He has aided and abetted the rise of ISIS and other terrorist organizations as well as enemies such as Iran, Russia, and China.  And he has fomented division and unrest here at home. 

I say “almost single-handedly” not just because his administration has been filled with accomplices to his destructive policies.  I’m referring to the American people who elected him -- twice.  Americans enabled Obama to accomplish his promised transformation of the country -- and the world -- as they bought into his false promises and messiah-like personality cult.  They are blameworthy for our situation today because they were blindly ignorant and ideological then. 

Some blame Obama’s rise on Bush Derangement Syndrome.  Americans were tired of war and distraught over the results of GWB’s policies, including the economic crisis, so they fell for Obama.  Today, many Americans abhor Obama and what he has wrought.  We are aware that San Bernardino, the Boston Marathon, and Fort Hood were not anomalies.  We are witnessing the changing demographics of the country, as America appears to be virtually borderless.  We are living through a deep and widening divisiveness across the nation as his policies and language incite groups like Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and CAIR to take to the streets and airwaves ranting about faux abuses and infringements on non-existent entitlements.

Enter Trump -- and the country’s newest cult of personality, driven by deep dissatisfaction, frustration, and anger at the sitting commander in chief.   Notwithstanding differences between Trump and Obama, the factors that led to each of their enormous and hastened popularity appear quite similar.  A feeling of isolation, resentment, fatigue, and disgust has taken over the GOP just as it did with the Democratic Party eight years ago.  Obama attracted massive crowds of swooning fans who melted at the sound of his voice and cheered at his empty promises.  Now Trump is attracting huge crowds of adoring supporters who see in him the personification of their desire for a radical change from a dangerous and incompetent incumbent

Just as we heard with Obama, today people exclaim that Trump is the man the country needs to turn things around.  In 2008, that resulted in the election of the narcissist and bully-in-chief.  In 2016, the best result would be a bloviating, know-it-all, bully-in-chief.  The more likely result will be President Clinton.  That the Right is about to repeat the mistakes of the Left, after witnessing the results of those naïve, idealistic hopes and dreams is incomprehensible and yet manifesting before our eyes. 

Wikipedia describes a cult of personality as something that “arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized, heroic, and at times, worshipful image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise.” Obama did not need much help to grow his messianic cult, although the media and other tools of his propaganda machine certainly helped lead to millions of voters becoming intoxicated on his Kool-Aid.  While Trump’s celebrity status is not new, he is currently worshipped by an electorate fed his vision 24/7 by a media fascinated by the cult of his persona.

The obsession with Trump however seems to be bipartisan.  Perhaps this is because it’s not even clear that he actually is a Republican.  Some argue he is a RINO at best as he previously supported Democrats including Clinton and spouts views hardly aligned with a conservative vision (especially economic policy).  Others contend he is a right-wing extremist for his stance on issues like immigration.  And serious thinkers wonder if he’s Hillary’s secret weapon -- a plant in the Republican Party who is helping to brand the GOP as a bunch of radical whack-jobs as well as her most effective WMD (weapon of mass distraction).

But no matter how one views Donald Trump, there is no doubt that he is a major distraction from the issues at hand.  While he often says something unconventional about an issue of the day that should result in a substantive debate, it seemingly never does.  Instead, the media have a field day discussing Trump as if Trump is the issue of the day. 

Announcing his intention to build a wall across our southern border is not a policy.  Promising to prevent every Muslim in the world from entering the U.S.  is not a serious policy.  Suggesting that we extra-judicially murder the families of terrorists is an un-American policy.  Promises of “Believe me,” “It’ll make your head spin,” and “I’ve thought it through in depth” are not policies.  Policies require details.  Details require knowledge.  Knowledge requires a depth of understanding on a vast array of complicated issues that the next president must be capable of addressing on day one.  There is no time for a learning curve.  There is no time for figuring out how to accomplish the impossible.  There is no room to roll the dice on hopes and dreams of another longed-for messiah saving the country.  Been there; done that; failed.

Can we afford to risk nominating the guy who will stand on a debate stage next to Hillary promising to “get stuff done” with no ability to articulate how, all the while calling her ugly and making fun of her pants suits?  Is this likely to succeed against the most skillful player of the victim card ever to run for the presidency?
More importantly, will a Trump presidency lead to “morning again in America?” Will Trump make us “prouder, stronger, and better” -- or is he just writing the script of a sequel to the story of a false messiah who led us down a path of divisiveness, chaos, and decline?


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/trump_is_following_0bamas_script.html#ixzz3u2bAiGDL
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook


Sen. Ted Cruz: Despite What President Obama Says, We Are at War Against Radical Islam
In an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal following his speech on national security at The Heritage Foundation, Sen. Ted Cruz talks about why President Barack Obama won’t admit we are at war with radical Islam, the debate over banning Muslims from entering the U.S., whether France has gone too far in closing mosques, and how he believes we can go after the bad guys without sacrificing constitutional liberties.

A Muslim man wielding a sword screamed that he would “die and kill for Allah” as he chased his terrified neighbor down the street.  It happened on Monday in Victorville, California, located in San Bernardino County.  The Victor ...


A deep hatred and rejection of Judaism and Christianity are hardwired into Islamic doctrine, including the Koran. Many of its chapters are incorporated into mandatory daily Islamic prayer. The very first Koranic chapter, considered the most exalted of all chapters, is a prayer directed to Allah asking him to keep Muslims away from the misguided path of Jews and Christians. This chapter is a necessary part of the five mandatory daily prayers, and is recited not once, but anywhere from 17 to 100 times a day by devout Muslims (or in a broader sense, 6200 to 36,500 times a year).

Sword-wielding Muslim chases neighbor in California, and other news from adherents of the Religion of Peace

A Muslim man wielding a sword screamed that he would “die and kill for Allah” as he chased his terrified neighbor down the street.  It happened on Monday in Victorville, California, located in San Bernardino County.  The Victor Valley News reports that the suspect, Mohamed Elrawi, was taken into custody after investigators searched his home and found a copy of the Quran and other items suggesting he had become “radicalized.”  (I happen to think the word “radicalized” is as bogus as the term “radical Islam.”  People do not become radicalized.  They become devout.)
Well, that’s creepy.
Breitbart reports that a Jordanian with an American passport proclaimed he wanted “to join Allah” while attempting to open a plane door mid-flight.  The flight crew and passengers had to restrain him until the plane was able to land.
The incident occurred ... when the man – a Jordanian with an American passport – began to scream that he wished to join Allah and had to be restrained. 

Crew and passengers, which included the Serbian national handball team, lended their efforts to keeping the man restrained on Flight 1406, an Airbus A319 before he was arrested upon landing in Serbia.

Milan Djukic, president of the Vojvodina handball team said: “About halfway into the flight he tried to open a plane door, but the cabin crew stopped him.”

Two players from the team, at the request of flight stewards, reportedly watched the man who is said to have spoken English in an American accent. He was placed in the business class section until landing, according to the Daily Mail.

A Lufthansa spokesman said: “A passenger got up and tried to do something at the door, but was stopped by crew members and other passengers.

“The passenger was then restrained for the remainder of the flight in his seat and handed over to the authorities in Belgrade.
That’s creepy, too
But as creepy as this?  The Daily Mail reports:
A Muslim convert who protested outside Parliament with a sign saying 'I am Muslim, do you trust me enough for a hug?' is facing jail for threatening to bomb an MP's house.

Craig Wallace used the sign as Stop The War protesters came to Westminster for the vote on military action in Syria last week.

It stated: 'I am Muslim, I am labelled a terrorist, I trust you, do you trust me enough for a hug?'
But the 23-year-old, of Willesden Green, north London, is now facing a possible prison sentence after he threatened Tory MP Charlotte Leslie online following the vote.

Wallace, who calls himself Muhammad Mujahid Islam online, wrote on Facebook: 'I'm going to smash her windows then drop a bomb on her house while she's tucked up in bed. You dirty f****** pig-s******* s***.'

On December 3, the day after MPs voted to authorise the air strikes, he wrote: 'I'm going to find her and show her what it's like to murder innocents. You dirty pig-f****** w****.' (snip)
His defence lawyer Abu Sayeed said Wallace had posted the messages after he had been out protesting against the Syrian bombing vote for 'two or three days and had very little sleep and had not taken his medication.' (snip)

Wallace, whose mother died when he was young and who claims his father abused him as a child, had attended an anti-war rally outside Parliament on the day of the Syria vote and was pictured carrying a giant white poppy.

Apparently many Londoners were moved to tears by the man’s action as he stood blindfolded (by a keffiya, of course) with the sign at his feet, as one needy person after another gave him hugs.

The Muslim as victim narrative just doesn’t quit, even if the person threatened to bomb the house of a member of Parliament.

Well, but after all, he was upset.  And tired (two days of protest will really take it out of you).  And off his meds.  And his mother died when he was young.  And his father abused him.  But he carried a large white poppy as a sign of peace and said he trusted everyone and everyone should trust him, so it’s all good, right?

Ashleigh Banfield, call your office.

Hat tip: Jihad Watch
A Muslim man wielding a sword screamed that he would “die and kill for Allah” as he chased his terrified neighbor down the street.  It happened on Monday in Victorville, California, located in San Bernardino County.  The Victor Valley News reports that the suspect, Mohamed Elrawi, was taken into custody after investigators searched his home and found a copy of the Quran and other items suggesting he had become “radicalized.”  (I happen to think the word “radicalized” is as bogus as the term “radical Islam.”  People do not become radicalized.  They become devout.)

Well, that’s creepy.

Breitbart reports that a Jordanian with an American passport proclaimed he wanted “to join Allah” while attempting to open a plane door mid-flight.  The flight crew and passengers had to restrain him until the plane was able to land.
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/12/swordwielding_muslim_chases_neighbor_in_california_and_other_news_from_adherents_of_the_religion_of_peace.html#ixzz3tqh6xjAE


During Sunday’s address to the nation, President Obama went to bat for Islam, as he so often does.  It matters not when, where, or how he defends it.  His compulsion to advocate for the ideology he so adores is relentless.  If he...


San Bernardino: The Answer is an Immigration Moratorium — and Muslim Expulsion

By Peter Brimelow

VDare.com, December 4, 2015
. . .
Screening DOESN’T WORK

All too obviously, Farook and his wife flew under the security services’ powerful radar [San Bernardino shooting suspects raised few red flags before ‘horrendous’ crime, by Roy Carroll etc., The Guardian, December 3, 2015), This is particularly devastating because Tafsheen Malik came here on a fiancée visa which allegedly “has one of the more rigorous security screening processes — presenting far more hurdles than other avenues for foreigners to enter the U.S.” [This Is How Suspected California Shooter Used a ‘Fiancé Visa’, by Ari Melber, NBC News, December 3, 2015].

But this “rigorous security screening” failed too.

Which is very helpful information when assessing the Obama Administration’s lying claims that the Syrian “refugees” will be carefully “screened.”
. . .
Assimilation DOESN’T WORK

Syed Rizwan Farook was reportedly born in Illinois, the son of Pakistani immigrants, graduated from college, had a career, and appeared (as the cliché has it) to be living “The American Dream.” Yet he still was overcome by “Sudden Jihad Syndrome.” Or, as Refugee Resettlement Watch’s Ann Corcoran puts it: Don’t get hung up on screening! It’s the second generation immigrant jihadists we must worry about.

The issue is not “terrorism”—it’s immigrant incompatibility.

A typically metaphysical MSM debate is currently raging as to whether the San Bernardino killings were “terrorism.” VDARE.com’s position: it doesn’t matter. Many immigrant mass murders are not by Muslims, but nevertheless reflect some profound alienation from American society. The answer: no immigration.
. . .
And the immediate answer is: an immigration moratorium (Muslims first).

The ultimate answer must be: expulsion. This was the late Lawrence Auster‘s proposal for dealing with Muslims in the West. He worked this out in considerable detail here; there’s a video version here.

Today, of course, the idea that any immigrant group should be expelled from anywhere in the West is simply unthinkable. But the unthinkable happens quite often
. . .
http://www.vdare.com/articles/san-bernardino-the-answer-is-an-immigration-moratorium-and-muslim-expulsion


"When Turkey was admitted to NATO in 1952, the Cold War was ramping up and the nation was relatively secular.  Today, however, it’s well known that Turkey has been Islamizing and that its president, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, is an Islamic supremacist.  Also note that Turkey was the location of the last great Islamic caliphate, the Ottoman Empire.  And some think that just as Benito Mussolini wanted to resurrect the glories of the Roman Empire, ErdoÄŸan and others want to reclaim the far more recent Ottoman dominance."


With NATO member Turkey

Turkey: Why Muslim Nations Shouldn't be Part of NATO

With NATO member Turkey’s recent downing of a Russian aircraft sparking fears of WWIII, a rather politically incorrect question needs to be asked: should a Muslim nation have NATO membership?

Having a country as part of the NATO alliance is no small matter.  Since an attack on one member nation is considered an attack on all, an escalation of the Russian-Turk crisis resulting in military action against Turkey by Russia could, conceivably, lead to a WWIII.  This is why it’s imperative that NATO members be rational actors. 
As to this, I have a theory about the shoot-down of the Russian plane.  It’s just a theory, and admittedly it’s “probably” not the explanation in this case.  Yet I think it’s worthy of consideration, especially since it could be a factor — and a profoundly dangerous one — at some point in the future.

When Turkey was admitted to NATO in 1952, the Cold War was ramping up and the nation was relatively secular.  Today, however, it’s well known that Turkey has been Islamizing and that its president, Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan, is an Islamic supremacist.  Also note that Turkey was the location of the last great Islamic caliphate, the Ottoman Empire.  And some think that just as Benito Mussolini wanted to resurrect the glories of the Roman Empire, ErdoÄŸan and others want to reclaim the far more recent Ottoman dominance. 

Now, let’s say you’re an Islamic supremacist regime leading an Islamizing nation.  Let’s say that, as is par for that course, you believe the whole Earth should be conquered for Islam and have an apocalyptic worldview.  You look at the geopolitical scene and see a decrepit, secularizing West on one side, a place that itself is being Islamized as it slowly descends into irrelevancy.  And opposing this you see Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the only remaining major nation unapologetically Christian, a nation that has rejected the West’s destructive leftist agenda (Putin himself, whether it’s principle or posturing, has served notice that Russia is willing to be Christianity’s standard bearer). 
Before elaborating further, it must be emphasized that an Islamic apocalyptic worldview is so foreign to most Westerners that they can’t even conceive of it.  As to this, however, it has been said that if former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had supreme decision-making power in his land, he would "sacrifice half of Iran for the sake of eliminating Israel.” Remember, we’re dealing with adherents who frequently blow themselves up in an effort to take just a few non-believers with them.  And with this suicide/homicide-bomber mentality so prevalent, it does follow that, sometime, somewhere, it would have to penetrate into Muslim halls of government. 

So let’s say this is your mindset.  Is it unfathomable to think you might want to start a war between the Christian and secular “infidels”? Might you not hope that Russia would be destroyed or at least neutered and that the already waning West, in a Pyrrhic victory’s wake, would be left teetering and all the more susceptible to a hot or cold Muslim takeover?

Even if what resulted wasn’t the sudden rise of the final and greatest caliphate, it’s logical to assume that a WWIII could lead to a new world order.  Also realize that most of Dar al-Islam (that apart from Turkey) would most probably sit on the sidelines during such an affair; thus, it would likely emerge stronger relative to the West and the rest than it had been before.  Turkey, of course, would take it on the chin as part of NATO.  But what does that matter to a “half my country for Allah” type?

Also note that it wouldn’t have to be the Turkish regime’s official policy to spark such a war for the action in question to be taken; rogue elements within the government or military could be enough.  And regardless of how it all shook out, wouldn’t the prospect of getting the “infidels” to kill each other be very attractive to a suicide-homicide-vest type? All it means for the Muslim “collateral damage” is that a lot of men get their 72 virgins far sooner.  And given that jihadists have sacrificed themselves for the sake of killing just a few non-believers, what kind of an appeal do you think wiping out millions of them would hold?

Once again, the aforementioned is just a theory, and an unlikely explanation, insofar as the downing of the Russian plane goes.  But how likely or unlikely is it that it could be a factor in the future? All we need is just one apocalyptic jihadist at the right nation’s helm.

There are two Islamic countries in NATO, Turkey and Albania.  The latter is only 58 percent Muslim and a quarter irreligious, yet even it spawns some terrorists.  And is having Muslim nations in NATO much like having Muslim individuals in the West? Is it just a matter of time before one of them takes up the sword for Allah?

Of course, many will scoff.  It’s important here, however, not to fall victim to that common human failing of mirroring, when we project our own values, priorities and mindset onto others.  As Michael Caine’s character explained in the film The Dark Knight, “[S]ome men aren't looking for anything logical, like money.  They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with.  Some men just want to watch the world burn.”


And some men want to burn it to buy the promise of Paradise. 

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/turkey_why_muslim_nations_shouldnt_be_part_of_nato.html#ixzz3t61tKaiZ
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The Danger in Islamic Prayer

It is crucial that Westerners discover what Muslims are saying when they recite the Islamic mandatory prayers before sharing their places of worship. A few days ago, an Ontario synagogue invited Muslim worshippers to lead the Friday prayer. This article explains what the Islamic daily prayers mean, with focus on the Friday prayer within the context of Islamic law or sharia. Being better informed will make Westerners think twice before opening the doors to Muslim for prayer.

Canadian Muslims in southern Ontario were invited to preach the supremacy of Islam at a local synagogue and church. In a goodwill gesture, Peterborough’s Mark Street United Church and Beth Israel Synagogue opened their doors to Muslims for prayer following the recent fire damage of the Masjid al-Salaam mosque. President of the Beth Israel Synagogue and his board of directors hosted two Islamic prayer sessions this past Friday with not even a suspicion that the underlying theme in Islamic prayer is to curse and do away with nonbelievers like them.
A deep hatred and rejection of Judaism and Christianity are hardwired into Islamic doctrine, including the Koran. Many of its chapters are incorporated into mandatory daily Islamic prayer. The very first Koranic chapter, considered the most exalted of all chapters, is a prayer directed to Allah asking him to keep Muslims away from the misguided path of Jews and Christians. This chapter is a necessary part of the five mandatory daily prayers, and is recited not once, but anywhere from 17 to 100 times a day by devout Muslims (or in a broader sense, 6200 to 36,500 times a year).

Repetition priming inculcates the notion of superiority over non-Muslims into the minds of all Muslims, instilling a deep mistrust of non-Muslims: “Guide us along the right path, the path of those whom you favored (referring to Muslims), and not along the path of those who earn your anger (referring to Jews), or those who go astray (referring to Christians). The references to Jews and Christians are in accord with Al-Tirmidhi’s authentic hadiths (or Islamic narrations attributed to Mohammed) and other venerated Islamic interpretations, as reflected in some English translations of the Koran.

Friday prayers also include recitation of Koranic chapters 62 and 63 where Jews who reject Allah’s commandments in the Torah are loathed and compared to “the likeness of a donkey carrying books but understands them not.” Jews are told to “long for death” if they pretend to be Allah’s favorite.  Nonbelievers are condemned to a state of error until Mohammed is sent by Allah to purify them “from the filth of disbelief and polytheism” with his verses or revelations from Allah.  “Hypocrites” or apostates from Islam are considered enemies, “so beware of them, may Allah destroy them!". Is it any wonder why many Muslims are prohibited from being friends with Jews and Christians? The Koran condemns them to hell (which melts their skin and bellies) in nearly 500 verses for not believing in Mohammed and for not converting to Islam.

Such are the prayers that are recited over and over again in mosques, and now in some churches and synagogue across the world as more Muslim communities continue to grow and expand. Oblivious to the ignorant Jewish and Christian hosts -- whom the Koran portrays as sons of apes and pigs and as the worst of creatures -- those very same prayers were recently recited by the Peterborough mosque’s muezzin (one who recites the Islamic call to prayer) in the local church and synagogue. His sonorous and somber voice evoked emotion and tears expressing compassion and admiration of Islam during the Islamic prayer session at the Mark Street United Church a couple of Fridays ago.
Little did these people know that he was chanting verses expressing disgust and disdain for nonbelievers, such as themselves. They appeared to be in a trancelike stupor as if undergoing a spiritual awakening -- despite not understanding one word of Arabic prayer that calls for their rejection and eradication due to their misguided behavior. If they only knew what Islamic prayers meant in English, they would not be shedding tears of ignorance, and certainly thinking twice before allowing Muslims to pray in their places of worship. Love thy neighbor should not be a one-way street.

The Peterborough mosque’s imam Shazin Khan, along with other imams and Islamic spokespeople, uses a common deceptive tactic to show the Church audience that Islam cares about people of all religious faiths. He repeats only part of a well-known Koranic verse taken from the Jerusalem Talmud, asserting that saving one human being is like saving all of humanity. However, unlike the original Talmudic verse that applies equally to all humans, the Koranic verse was modified and prohibits only the murder of Muslims. This verse in its entirety is in accord with Islamic law or sharia, which applies the death penalty for killing Muslims, not non-Muslims.

Referring to Judaism and Islam, Kenzu Abdella, president of the Kawartha Muslim Religious Association (in the Peterborough area near Toronto) who formed an alliance with Larry Gillman, President of the Beth Israel Synagogue, informed the Canadian Broadcasting Cooperation that “we have more similarities than differences. We have so much common”.

Contrary to his claim, the differences are so great that 57 Islamic states united in the highly influential Organization of Islamic Cooperation rejected the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that views all people as equal and free, and replaced it with the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam (CDHRI) that views people as neither equal nor free.

The CDHRI, being subject to sharia, limits the right to freedom of religion and expression according to what sharia permits.  Women have lesser rights than men, as do non-Muslims than Muslims. Slavery is allowed as it still has not been abolished in Islam. Human rights in Islam rely upon the most illiberal, draconian, and barbaric corporal punishments imaginable. Where are the similarities?

Mr. Abdella failed to mention that Islam considers itself the mother religion of both Judaism and Christianity, that it existed prior to those two false religions that veered away from the path of strict monotheism. They became corrupt and ignorant until Mohammed was sent by Allah as a gift to set things straight and convert all back to Islam or “the religion of true unspoiled nature”, as per the CDHRI.

The Islamic end-times, according to Bukhari, the most authentic of all hadith collections, occurs when Jesus, considered the last Muslim prophet in Islam, returns to earth to destroy Christianity (“break the cross”) and forces all to convert or die. But until such a time, radical Muslims must continue waging jihad against Christians and Jews who pay an Islamic tax called jizya that masquerades as halal products to support Islamic terrorism worldwide.
It’s long past time that Westerners familiarize themselves with Islam and think twice before rolling out the welcome mats in their places of worship, especially in light of the tens of thousands of unvetted Muslim migrants coming soon to a city near you. Westerners who remain true to their faith by reaching out to Muslim neighbors with compassion will soon find out the hard way that mutual respect can never exist amongst different religions when one views itself as the perfect and supreme religion above all others, as Islam does.



BLOG:

OBAMA-CLINTON-BUSH CRONIES, THE 9-11 INVADING SAUDIS DO NOT PERMIT PLACES OF

WORSHIP IN THEIR DICTATORS FOR CHRISTIAN OR JEWS.

LET US LOOK AT THE AMOUNT OF MONEY "INVESTED" BY THE SAUDIS IN THE CLINTON

AND BUSH LIBRARIES!

LET US LOOK AT OBAMA'S LONG HISTORY OF KISSING THE ASSES OF THE INVADING

SAUDIS!


Before sharing premises with Muslim worshippers, ask yourself the following question: would Muslims anywhere ever allow Jews or Christians into a mosque sanctuary to lead a Jewish or Christian prayer service? 

A deep hatred and rejection of Judaism and Christianity are hardwired into Islamic doctrine, including the Koran. Many of its chapters are incorporated into mandatory daily Islamic prayer. The very first Koranic chapter, considered the most exalted of all chapters, is a prayer directed to Allah asking him to keep Muslims away from the misguided path of Jews and Christians. This chapter is a necessary part of the five mandatory daily prayers, and is recited not once, but anywhere from 17 to 100 times a day by devout Muslims (or in a broader sense, 6200 to 36,500 times a year).


Before sharing premises with Muslim worshippers, ask yourself the following question: would Muslims anywhere ever allow Jews or Christians into a mosque sanctuary to lead a Jewish or Christian prayer service? 


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/the_danger_in_islamic_prayer.html#ixzz3t62SzChn
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook


Obama's grand anti-ISIS coalition has fallen apart

When President Obama began the bombing campaign against the Islamic State, he crowed that he had assembled an "unprecedented" coalition of 65 countries, including the active participation of the air forces of the Arab Gulf States.
Now, officials involved in the air campaign against ISIS say that barely a dozen countries are contributing anything at all to the fight, and the Arab Gulf States haven't carried out a bombing mission in months.
 And behind closed doors, administration and military officials admit that air support from such key Arab allies as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — something the White House once touted as an unprecedented and essential part of the coalition — has all but evaporated.
One Pentagon official directly involved in the counter-Islamic State fight told The Washington Times that the Saudis haven’t flown a mission against the group in nearly three months. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Bahrain is still involved, but confirmed that Jordan stopped flying sorties against the extremists in August and the UAE hasn’t flown one since March.
A top former Obama administration official who helped build the coalition last year, meanwhile, said that Persian Gulf Arab powers made a strategic gamble months ago to focus their military resources on helping Saudi Arabia wage war against Houthi rebels seen as Iranian proxies in neighboring Yemen — wagering that the U.S. and the European Union would lead the fight against Islamic State.
During the months leading up to last summer’s nuclear deal between Tehran and the West, Yemen had emerged as ground zero for a proxy war pitting Saudi Arabia, the Middle East’s top Sunni Muslim power, and Iran, the region’s largest Shiite power.
The months since have seen waves of Arab air and ground offensives carried out against the Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen, with a particularly deadly day occurring in early September, when 45 UAE solders and five troops from Bahrain were killed in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia – indeed, the world – will fight the Islamic State to the last dead American.  The world may scream bloody murder when American troops are deployed to fight tyrants, but most nations are secretly relieved.  They get the benefit of not having to fight a potential threat while also being able to trash the U.S., which answers a need in their domestic politics. 
In truth, only America with her vast resources would be capable of taking down the Islamic State – if we were of a mind to.  Russia's military is strained by deploying a few squadrons of bombers and fighters to Syria, along with a few combat troops.  They do not have the ability to project massive, overwhelming force overseas. 
This does not bode well.  If the Gulf States, who are threatened existentially by ISIS, won't defend themselves from the threat, why should we be forced to do the job?  This should serve as a wake-up call for the Arabs; the U.S. will not fight your battles for you anymore.
When President Obama began the bombing campaign against the Islamic State, he crowed that he had assembled an "unprecedented" coalition of 65 countries, including the active participation of the air forces of the Arab Gulf States.
Now, officials involved in the air campaign against ISIS say that barely a dozen countries are contributing anything at all to the fight, and the Arab Gulf States haven't carried out a bombing mission in months.


BLOG: BARACK OBAMA - THE MUSLIM DICTATORS' LAP BITCH!

Washington Times:
And behind closed doors, administration and military officials admit that air support from such key Arab allies as Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — something the White House once touted as an unprecedented and essential part of the coalition — has all but evaporated. 
One Pentagon official directly involved in the counter-Islamic State fight told The Washington Times that the Saudis haven’t flown a mission against the group in nearly three months. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Bahrain is still involved, but confirmed that Jordan stopped flying sorties against the extremists in August and the UAE hasn’t flown one since March.
A top former Obama administration official who helped build the coalition last year, meanwhile, said that Persian Gulf Arab powers made a strategic gamble months ago to focus their military resources on helping Saudi Arabia wage war against Houthi rebels seen as Iranian proxies in neighboring Yemen — wagering that the U.S. and the European Union would lead the fight against Islamic State.
During the months leading up to last summer’s nuclear deal between Tehran and the West, Yemen had emerged as ground zero for a proxy war pitting Saudi Arabia, the Middle East’s top Sunni Muslim power, and Iran, the region’s largest Shiite power. 
The months since have seen waves of Arab air and ground offensives carried out against the Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen, with a particularly deadly day occurring in early September, when 45 UAE solders and five troops from Bahrain were killed in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia – indeed, the world – will fight the Islamic State to the last dead American.  The world may scream bloody murder when American troops are deployed to fight tyrants, but most nations are secretly relieved.  They get the benefit of not having to fight a potential threat while also being able to trash the U.S., which answers a need in their domestic politics. 

In truth, only America with her vast resources would be capable of taking down the Islamic State – if we were of a mind to.  Russia's military is strained by deploying a few squadrons of bombers and fighters to Syria, along with a few combat troops.  They do not have the ability to project massive, overwhelming force overseas. 

BLOG: THE  WORLD'S BIGGEST FINANCERS OF GLOBAL TERRORISM AND HATE TOWARDS AMERICA ARE THE SAUDIS - AMERICA'S 9-11 INVADERS!

This does not bode well.  If the Gulf States, who are threatened existentially by ISIS, won't defend themselves from the threat, why should we be forced to do the job?  This should serve as a wake-up call for the Arabs; the U.S. will not fight your battles for you anymore.


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/12/obamas_grand_antiisis_coalition_has_fallen_apart.html#ixzz3t679pyNf
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

Sen. Sessions Wants to Defund Refugee Admissions Program

 By Warren Mass

 The New American, November 24, 2015 . . . With the rise of the refugee crisis stemming from the turmoil in Iraq and Syria, and especially since the November 13 terrorist attacks in Paris in which ISIS is suspected of playing an important role, Sessions and many others concerned about our nation’s weak or non-existent security screening of aliens have shared their concerns. In his speech, Sessions addressed the matter of security as follows:

 The President persists in this plan even though his own officials, testifying before my Immigration Subcommittee, conceded there is no database in Syria with which to vet refugees…. The FBI director tells us there are now active ISIS investigations in all 50 U.S. states.

Our subcommittee has identified dozens of examples of foreign-born immigrants committing and attempting acts of terror on U.S. soil. Preventing and responding to these acts is an effort encompassing thousands of federal agents and attorneys and billions of dollars: in effect, we are voluntarily admitting individuals at risk for terrorism and then, on the back end, trying to stop them from carrying out their violent designs.
  Sessions quoted a warning made by the former head of the Citizenship and Immigration Services union (which represents immigration caseworkers) more than a year ago: “It is also essential to warn the public about the threat that ISIS will exploit our loose and lax visa policies to gain entry to the United States.”

And Sessions is not alone in the Senate in having such reservations about the Obama refugee plan. He continued:


Senator [Ted] Cruz [R-Texas] and I sent the Administration a list of 72 individuals charged or convicted of terrorism in just the last year. We asked for the immigration histories of each individual. Stunningly, the Administration refused to respond.

It would be unthinkable for Congress to acquiesce to the President’s refugee funding request when he refuses to even publicly disclose the immigration history of these 72 terrorists, many of whom are involved with ISIS.

Cruz, a leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, has had his own run-ins with the president concerning the administration's refugee plan. On November 16, his campaign released a video highlighting Cruz’s challenge to Obama for a debate on the administration’s proposed plan to admit tens of thousands of Syrian refugees. The description of the video on Cruz’s Senate website notes that FBI Director James Comey has acknowledged that these refugees cannot be properly vetted.


 . . .
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/immigration/item/22022-sen-sessions-wants-to-defund-refugee-admissions-program?tmpl=component&print=1

One virtue possessed by all bad presidents, whether they’re evil, venal, lazy, or incompetent, is that they always reveal the weakness of the political system at the time of their tenure. In this, Obama is no different than any other bozo that ...

"His decrees range from the idiotic to the grotesque -- his order to the EPA to shut down the coal industry, the repurposing of NASA as a Muslim PR effort, the post-legislative changes to ObamaCare (the most recent requiring full coverage for sex-change operations), and perhaps the most egregious, his gift of one and a half trillion dollars to his pals in the financial industry."

Obama Versus the Separation of Powers

One virtue possessed by all bad presidents, whether they’re evil, venal, lazy, or incompetent, is that they always reveal the weakness of the political system at the time of their tenure. In this, Obama is no different than any other bozo that has inhabited the White House.

Separation of powers is the one element that distinguishes the United States from previous democratic systems. (And before people hurt themselves in their rush to point out that “the U.S. is a republic and not a democracy” -- a “republic” is any governmental system that’s not a monarchy. Nazi Germany and the USSR were “republics.” The U.S. is a republic utilizing a system of representative democracy.)
The French political thinker Montesquieu was the author of De l’esprit des loix (The Spirit of the Laws), a book from the same shelf as The Wealth of Nations and The Influence of Sea Power on History, as being  massively influential though generally unread. In this, one of the first works of serious political science, Montesquieu made three major arguments -- the one that concerns us here involves separation of powers.

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Montesquieu
Book XI, chapter 6, the most famous of the entire book -- had lain in his drawers, save for revision or correction, since it was penned in 1734. It at once became perhaps the most important piece of political writing of the 18th century.
Montesquieu’s understand of history informed him that concentration of power leads inevitably to despotism -- no matter how solidly a democratic system was founded, eventually an Augustus or a Lorenzo would show up, concentrate all power in his own person and eventually undermine senate or council. From that point on, whatever it might call itself, the state was a simple autocracy. There was never a way back, and the usual sequel was degeneration and collapse.

Montesquieu’s solution was separation of powers:
Dividing political authority into the legislative, executive, and judicial powers, he asserted that, in the state that most effectively promotes liberty, these three powers must be confided to different individuals or bodies, acting independently.
Montesquieu’s thinking proved critical both in the UK’s liberalizing constitutional monarchy and, more to the point, the infant American republic. The Founders carried out the the first experiment in true separation of powers, interwoven with a system of checks and balances, with the powers and limitations of each branch carefully delineated (a major reason why Gouverneur Morris, who had the clearest legal style, was chosen to write the Constitution).

The final touch was given by Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, which established the principle of judicial review by the Supreme Court.

This political format has served us well -- it has been abrogated rarely, the most infamous incident being Andrew Jackson’s response to the Worcester v. Georgia decision, in which Court found that the Cherokee tribe was an independent nation not subject to orders from the U.S.:  “John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.” Jackson defied the Court and the Cherokees marched west. Nobody since has ever appealed to Old Hickory.
Though often criticized -- largely by progressives who knew what had to be done and wanted what amounted to a temporary dictatorship to do it -- separation of powers has been a great success. At no point, even during the Civil War, has the United States ever been in danger of the deterioration into autocracy that plagued previous republics. But as the Obama administration has clearly revealed, separation of powers has been crippled for the better part of a century through the metastasis of the executive branch.

The source of this lies in the aforementioned progressives, in the person of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The explosion of agencies under the New Deal, each of which was touted as necessary for the salvation of the country and most of which accomplished absolutely nothing, introduced a factor unforeseen by the Founders: concentration of power in the executive through organizational hyperdevelopment. All those agencies are under direct presidential control, and subject to his orders with no effective oversight from the other branches. Fortunately, FDR had no despotic tendencies and was not tempted to abuse his power (that was left to Harry Hopkins). Not so several of his successors.

Progressive agency creation has an inherent ratchet effect: once created, no agency could ever be dissolved. Agency creation after WW II was a byproduct of the progressive effort to control the postwar world, which culminated in Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” of the 1960s.

To keep a neverending story short, this is how, eighty years later, we’ve attained our current state of a government overburdened with agencies that solve nothing while constantly spinning off sub-organizations.

This has badly skewed the balance of powers toward the executive, something that Obama has been quick to seize on in his effort at permanent transformation of the American system.

No president has more abused the power of the executive. Obama was raised in Indonesia during key formative years, a nation that in the 1960s was run as a strict military autocracy. At the time that Obama was attending school there, the state’s founder Achmed Sukarno had just been overthrown by Gen. Mohammed Suharto. Accompanying this transfer of power had been a nationwide purge that murdered at least 100,000. (The government shrugged the victims off as communists, but it was a lot more complicated than that). Afterward, Suharto merrily set about becoming what a number of sources state to be “the most corrupt leader in history,” stealing over $30 billion while his family accounted for another $4 or 5 billion. During the same period he sanctioned further massacres in East Timor and West Irian.

This is the environment in which Obama’s consciousness of the world emerged, while sitting in a classroom presided over by a portrait of Suharto in his black songkok. It’s from here, rather than any later encounter with Alinsky or Ayers, that he gets his idea of government. While his left-wing pals may have poured in the ideology, the jug had been shaped for some time. In the privacy of his head, Obama is not a president at all -- he’s a pemimpin, the Indonesian term for führer. (This can also be seen in his constant vacations, golf rounds, etc. The Indonesian rulers got their idea of a leader’s lifestyle from the sultans. Obama picked that up too.)

One of the major techniques he learned is rule by decree -- to give orders without any effort at gaining consensus. How does he get away with it? In large part because he controls the agencies. Obama has discovered that the bloated hypertrophy of the bureaucracy has effectively put him beyond the reach of our system’s constitutional safeguards.

His decrees range from the idiotic to the grotesque -- his order to the EPA to shut down the coal industry, the repurposing of NASA as a Muslim PR effort, the post-legislative changes to ObamaCare (the most recent requiring full coverage for sex-change operations), and perhaps the most egregious, his gift of one and a half trillion dollars to his pals in the financial industry. If any GOP president had done such a thing, he’d have been dropped on a desert island to chat with a volleyball for the rest of his life. With Obama, it goes utterly unnoticed.

It’s long been understood that agencies such as the EPA, the Department of Education, and the Department of Energy are useless. It’s now clear that they are a threat to the commonwealth. A loaded pistol pointed at the American Republic, awaiting the next moron… or worse.

Obama, in his inept way, has set the pattern, and created a sense of wild surmise in the minds of every potential Nero in this country.

The Democrats ought to be the most concerned. But they typically behave as if they’re going to be in office forever (an old fantasy on their part that didn’t begin with James Carville). So they create these structures, these methods of short-circuiting the political process, and are shocked -- shocked -- when somebody else takes advantage of them. (e.g., Joe McCarthy imitating Harry Hopkins’s tactics.)

Agency abuse well be self-limiting in that the liberal elite will have a sudden change of mind as soon as the GOP seizes on it. Then it’ll suddenly become taboo. Then we’ll hear all sorts of Montesquieuan rhetoric, accompanied by a flurry of laws and proposals.

But the idea of depending on a liberal reaction is nightmarish in and of itself. One of the worst elements of this development is how, amid all the debate and crosstalk concerning Obama and his methods, this has gone almost completely unmentioned. (I say “almost” solely because I haven’t read every last comment on Obama -- in truth, I haven’t seen it mentioned at all.) The real problem here is that the progressives -- and possibly a much larger segment of the country -- have simply forgotten how the American system is supposed to work. And that may well be the most lethal aspect of all.
One virtue possessed by all bad presidents, whether they’re evil, venal, lazy, or incompetent, is that they always reveal the weakness of the political system at the time of their tenure. In this, Obama is no different than any other bozo that has inhabited the White House.

Separation of powers is the one element that distinguishes the United States from previous democratic systems. (And before people hurt themselves in their rush to point out that “the U.S. is a republic and not a democracy” -- a “republic” is any governmental system that’s not a monarchy. Nazi Germany and the USSR were “republics.” The U.S. is a republic utilizing a system of representative democracy.)

The French political thinker Montesquieu was the author of De l’esprit des loix (The Spirit of the Laws), a book from the same shelf as The Wealth of Nations and The Influence of Sea Power on History, as being  massively influential though generally unread. In this, one of the first works of serious political science, Montesquieu made three major arguments -- the one that concerns us here involves separation of powers.

http://www.britannica.com/biography/Montesquieu
Book XI, chapter 6, the most famous of the entire book -- had lain in his drawers, save for revision or correction, since it was penned in 1734. It at once became perhaps the most important piece of political writing of the 18th century.
Montesquieu’s understand of history informed him that concentration of power leads inevitably to despotism -- no matter how solidly a democratic system was founded, eventually an Augustus or a Lorenzo would show up, concentrate all power in his own person and eventually undermine senate or council. From that point on, whatever it might call itself, the state was a simple autocracy. There was never a way back, and the usual sequel was degeneration and collapse.
Montesquieu’s solution was separation of powers:
Dividing political authority into the legislative, executive, and judicial powers, he asserted that, in the state that most effectively promotes liberty, these three powers must be confided to different individuals or bodies, acting independently.
Montesquieu’s thinking proved critical both in the UK’s liberalizing constitutional monarchy and, more to the point, the infant American republic. The Founders carried out the the first experiment in true separation of powers, interwoven with a system of checks and balances, with the powers and limitations of each branch carefully delineated (a major reason why Gouverneur Morris, who had the clearest legal style, was chosen to write the Constitution).

The final touch was given by Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury v. Madison, which established the principle of judicial review by the Supreme Court.

This political format has served us well -- it has been abrogated rarely, the most infamous incident being Andrew Jackson’s response to the Worcester v. Georgia decision, in which Court found that the Cherokee tribe was an independent nation not subject to orders from the U.S.:  “John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.” Jackson defied the Court and the Cherokees marched west. Nobody since has ever appealed to Old Hickory.
Though often criticized -- largely by progressives who knew what had to be done and wanted what amounted to a temporary dictatorship to do it -- separation of powers has been a great success. At no point, even during the Civil War, has the United States ever been in danger of the deterioration into autocracy that plagued previous republics. But as the Obama administration has clearly revealed, separation of powers has been crippled for the better part of a century through the metastasis of the executive branch.

The source of this lies in the aforementioned progressives, in the person of Franklin D. Roosevelt. The explosion of agencies under the New Deal, each of which was touted as necessary for the salvation of the country and most of which accomplished absolutely nothing, introduced a factor unforeseen by the Founders: concentration of power in the executive through organizational hyperdevelopment. All those agencies are under direct presidential control, and subject to his orders with no effective oversight from the other branches. Fortunately, FDR had no despotic tendencies and was not tempted to abuse his power (that was left to Harry Hopkins). Not so several of his successors.

Progressive agency creation has an inherent ratchet effect: once created, no agency could ever be dissolved. Agency creation after WW II was a byproduct of the progressive effort to control the postwar world, which culminated in Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” of the 1960s.

To keep a neverending story short, this is how, eighty years later, we’ve attained our current state of a government overburdened with agencies that solve nothing while constantly spinning off sub-organizations.

This has badly skewed the balance of powers toward the executive, something that Obama has been quick to seize on in his effort at permanent transformation of the American system.

No president has more abused the power of the executive. Obama was raised in Indonesia during key formative years, a nation that in the 1960s was run as a strict military autocracy. At the time that Obama was attending school there, the state’s founder Achmed Sukarno had just been overthrown by Gen. Mohammed Suharto. Accompanying this transfer of power had been a nationwide purge that murdered at least 100,000. (The government shrugged the victims off as communists, but it was a lot more complicated than that). Afterward, Suharto merrily set about becoming what a number of sources state to be “the most corrupt leader in history,” stealing over $30 billion while his family accounted for another $4 or 5 billion. During the same period he sanctioned further massacres in East Timor and West Irian.

This is the environment in which Obama’s consciousness of the world emerged, while sitting in a classroom presided over by a portrait of Suharto in his black songkok. It’s from here, rather than any later encounter with Alinsky or Ayers, that he gets his idea of government. While his left-wing pals may have poured in the ideology, the jug had been shaped for some time. In the privacy of his head, Obama is not a president at all -- he’s a pemimpin, the Indonesian term for führer. (This can also be seen in his constant vacations, golf rounds, etc. The Indonesian rulers got their idea of a leader’s lifestyle from the sultans. Obama picked that up too.)

One of the major techniques he learned is rule by decree -- to give orders without any effort at gaining consensus. How does he get away with it? In large part because he controls the agencies. Obama has discovered that the bloated hypertrophy of the bureaucracy has effectively put him beyond the reach of our system’s constitutional safeguards.

His decrees range from the idiotic to the grotesque -- his order to the EPA to shut down the coal industry, the repurposing of NASA as a Muslim PR effort, the post-legislative changes to ObamaCare (the most recent requiring full coverage for sex-change operations), and perhaps the most egregious, his gift of one and a half trillion dollars to his pals in the financial industry. If any GOP president had done such a thing, he’d have been dropped on a desert island to chat with a volleyball for the rest of his life. With Obama, it goes utterly unnoticed.

It’s long been understood that agencies such as the EPA, the Department of Education, and the Department of Energy are useless. It’s now clear that they are a threat to the commonwealth. A loaded pistol pointed at the American Republic, awaiting the next moron… or worse.

Obama, in his inept way, has set the pattern, and created a sense of wild surmise in the minds of every potential Nero in this country.

The Democrats ought to be the most concerned. But they typically behave as if they’re going to be in office forever (an old fantasy on their part that didn’t begin with James Carville). So they create these structures, these methods of short-circuiting the political process, and are shocked -- shocked -- when somebody else takes advantage of them. (e.g., Joe McCarthy imitating Harry Hopkins’s tactics.)

Agency abuse well be self-limiting in that the liberal elite will have a sudden change of mind as soon as the GOP seizes on it. Then it’ll suddenly become taboo. Then we’ll hear all sorts of Montesquieuan rhetoric, accompanied by a flurry of laws and proposals.

But the idea of depending on a liberal reaction is nightmarish in and of itself. One of the worst elements of this development is how, amid all the debate and crosstalk concerning Obama and his methods, this has gone almost completely unmentioned. (I say “almost” solely because I haven’t read every last comment on Obama -- in truth, I haven’t seen it mentioned at all.) The real problem here is that the progressives -- and possibly a much larger segment of the country -- have simply forgotten how the American system is supposed to work. And that may well be the most lethal aspect of all.


Read more:
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/12/obama_versus_the_separation_of_powers.html#ixzz3tfRCfVj9

AMNESTY: THE HOAX TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND PASS ALONG THE REAL COST IN WELFARE TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

"The U.S. now ranks at, or near, the top of developed countries for income inequality. Job creation has lagged far behind population growth. Automation has erased some jobs, but corrupt, inept government leadership is responsible for the deplorable job- deficit-low wage situation."

"It is clear that the overarching goal of a succession of administrations and many members of Congress, irrespective of political party affiliation, is to keep our borders open and take no meaningful action to stop that flow of aliens into the United States."

326,000 Native-Born Americans Lost Their Job in November: Why This Remains the Most Important Jobs Chart

 By Tyler Durden

 ZeroHedge.com, December 5, 2015
. . .
We are confident that one can make the case that there are considerations on both the labor demand-side (whether US employers have a natural tendency to hire foreign-born workers is open to debate) as well as on the supply-side: it may be easier to obtain wage-equivalent welfare compensation for native-born Americans than for their foreign-born peers, forcing the latter group to be much more engaged and active in finding a wage-paying job.

However, the underlying economics of this trend are largely irrelevant: as the presidential primary race hits a crescendo all that will matter is the soundbite that over the past 8 years, 2.7 million foreign-born Americans have found a job compared to only 747,000 native-born. The result is a combustible mess that will lead to serious fireworks during each and every subsequent GOP primary debate, especially if Trump remains solidly in the lead.

 . . .
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-05/326000-native-born-americans-lost-their-job-november-why-remains-most-important-jobs

Placating Americans with Fake Immigration Law Enforcement

 How our leaders create fantasy 'solutions' for our immigration-related vulnerabilities.

 By Michael Cutler

 FrontPageMag.com, December 4, 2015
. . .
Therefore the Visa Waiver Program should have been terminated after the terror attacks of 9/11 yet it has continually been expanded.

It is clear that the overarching goal of a succession of administrations and many members of Congress, irrespective of political party affiliation, is to keep our borders open and take no meaningful action to stop that flow of aliens into the United States.
. . .
The obvious question is why the Visa Waiver Program is considered so sacrosanct that even though it defies the advice and findings of the 9/11 Commission no one has the moral fortitude to call for simply terminating this dangerous program.

The answer can be found in the incestuous relationship between the Chamber of Commerce and its subsidiary, the Corporation for Travel Promotion, now doing business as Brand USA.

The Chamber of Commerce has arguably been the strongest supporter of the Visa Waiver Program, which currently enables aliens from 38 countries to enter the United States without first obtaining a visa.

The U.S. State Department provides a thorough explanation of the Visa Waiver Program on its website.

Incredibly, the official State Department website also provides a link, “Discover America,” on that website which relates to the website of The Corporation for Travel Promotion, which is affiliated with the travel industries that are a part of the “Discover America Partnership.”
. . .
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261005/placating-americans-fake-immigration-law-michael-cutler



Lawless: The Obama Adminstration’s Uprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law


 12:00-1:00 p.m., Tuesday, November 17, 2015


The Heritage Foundation, Lehrman Auditorium
214 Massachusetts Ave NE
Washington DC 20002-4999


http://www.heritage.org/events/2015/11/lawless

Overview: In Lawless, George Mason University law professor David E. Bernstein offers a scholarly and unsettling account of how the Obama Administration has undermined the Constitution and the rule of law. He documents how the President has presided over one constitutional debacle after another – from Obamacare to unauthorized wars in the Middle East to attempts to strip property owners, college students, religious groups, and conservative political activists of their rights, and more.

Respect for the Constitution’s separation of powers has been violated time and again. Whether in amending Obamacare on the fly or signing a memorandum legalizing millions of illegal immigrants, the current Administration ignores not only Congress, but also the Constitution’s critical checks and balances.

In Lawless, Professor Bernstein shows how the Constitution as well as the President’s own stated principles have been betrayed. In doing so, serious and potentially permanent damage has been done to our constitutional system and repairs must be addressed by the next President of the United States.


A Pattern of Executive Overreach



Commentary By

Recently, the Justice Department announced it would not be indicting anyone for his or her role in the most serious domestic political scandal since the Nixon years.

Starting in 2010, the IRS, under pressure from congressional Democrats and the White House, engaged in blatant ideologically motivated discrimination against conservative organizations applying for non-profit status.

That the most feared bureaucracy in Washington was making decisions based on illegal political criteria should send a chill down the spine of any American who cares about the First Amendment and the rule of law.

Yet the Department of Justice has refused to indict even IRS official Lois Lerner, who invoked her Fifth Amendment right to silence to avoid incriminating herself in testimony before Congress.

Unfortunately, the failure to prosecute anyone responsible for abusing the IRS’s authority reflects the Obama administration’s broader contempt for the Constitution and the rule of law.
Consider just a few examples:
  1. Going to war in Libya in blatant violation of the War Powers Resolution, and in defiance of the legal advice of the president’s own lawyers, based on the ridiculous theory that bombing the heck out of Libya did not constitute “hostilities” under the law
  1. Appointing so-called policy czars to high-level positions to avoid constitutionally-required confirmation hearings
  1. Modifying, delaying, and ignoring various provisions of Obamacare in violation of the law itself
  1. Attacking private citizens for engaging in constitutionally protected speech
  1. Issuing draconian regulations regarding sexual assault on campus not through formal, lawful regulation but through an informal, and unreviewable, “dear colleague” letter
  1. Ignoring 100 years of legal rulings and the plain text of the Constitution and trying to get a vote in Congress for the D.C. delegate
  1. Trying to enact massive immigration reform via an executive order demanding that the Department of Homeland Security both refuse to enforce existing immigration law, and provide work permits to millions of people residing in the U.S. illegally
  1. Imposing common core standards on the states via administrative fiat
  1. Ignoring bankruptcy law and arranging Chrysler’s bankruptcy to benefit labor unions at the expense of bondholders
  1. Trying to strip churches and other religious bodies of their constitutional right to choose their clergy free from government involvement.
More generally, the president has abandoned any pretense of trying to work with Congress, as the Constitution’s separation of powers requires. He prefers instead to govern by unilateral executive fiat, even when there is little or no legal authority supporting his power to do so.
Presidents trying stretch their power as far as they can is hardly news. What is news, however, is that top Obama administration officials, including the president himself, see this not as something to be ashamed of, but as a desirable way of governing, something to brag about rather than do surreptitiously.
Obama behaves as if there is some inherent virtue in a president governing by decree and whim, as if promoting progressive political ends at the expense of the rule of law is proper not simply as a desperate last resort but as a matter of principle.
After all, Obama says, democracy is unduly “messy” and “complicated.” “We can’t wait,” the president intones, as he ignores the separation of powers again and again, ruling instead through executive order.
“Law is politics,” and only politics, according to a mantra popular on the legal left, and therefore the law should not be an independent constraint to doing the right thing politically. Obama seems to agree.
As Obama’s lawlessness has received increased attention from Congress, the (conservative) media, and the general public, the president has been defiant, even petulant. When confronted by allegations of lawlessness, Obama takes no responsibility, and doesn’t even bother to defend the legality of his actions.
Harry S. Truman famously said “the buck stops here.” Obama responds to serious concerns about his administration’s lawlessness with a derisive “so sue me.”
As George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley writes, Obama “acts as if anything a court has not expressly forbidden is permissible.” And in many situations, no one has legal standing to challenge the president’s actions in court—which means that no judge can stop the administration’s lawbreaking.
So sue me? If only we could.
On Tuesday, Nov. 17, David Bernstein will be at The Heritage Foundation at noon for an event about his book, “Lawless: The Obama Administration’s Unprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law.” More details here.


THE WEEKLY STANDARD:


Obama's 'Shameful' Policy Toward Middle Eastern Christians | The Weekly Standard


America is at War Right Now, With or Without Obama | The Weekly Standard


America is at War Right Now, With or Without Obama | The Weekly Standard



THE BLOG ALSO SUGGESTS:

What ISIS Really Wants

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

To take one example: In September, Sheikh Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the Islamic State’s chief spokesman, called on Muslims in Western countries such as France and Canada to find an infidel and “smash his head with a rock,” poison him, run him over with a car, or “destroy his crops.” To Western ears, the biblical-sounding punishments—the stoning and crop destruction—juxtaposed strangely with his more modern-sounding call to vehicular homicide. (As if to show that he could terrorize by imagery alone, Adnani also referred to Secretary of State John Kerry as an “uncircumcised geezer.”)

NOW ADD UP THE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS THAT THE BUSH LIBRARY AND HILLARY AND BILLARY FOR BILLARY'S PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND PHONY FOUNDATION HAVE TAKEN IN BRIBES FROM MUSLIM DICTATORSHIPS.

WATCH OBAMA GO GROVELING FOR DIRTY MUSLIM MONEY NOW FOR HIS PHONY FOUNDATION.

Lawless!

The Obama Administration’s Unprecedented Assault on the Constitution and the Rule of Law


November 17, 2015

 The Heritage Foundation, Lehrman Auditorium


 214 Massachusetts Ave NE
Washington DC 20002-4999


http://www.heritage.org/events/2015/11/lawless

Overview: In Lawless, George Mason University law professor David E. Bernstein offers a scholarly and unsettling account of how the Obama Administration has undermined the Constitution and the rule of law. He documents how the President has presided over one constitutional debacle after another – from Obamacare to unauthorized wars in the Middle East to attempts to strip property owners, college students, religious groups, and conservative political activists of their rights, and more.

Respect for the Constitution’s separation of powers has been violated time and again. Whether in amending Obamacare on the fly or signing a memorandum legalizing millions of illegal immigrants, the current Administration ignores not only Congress, but also the Constitution’s critical checks and balances.

In Lawless, Professor Bernstein shows how the Constitution as well as the President’s own stated principles have been betrayed. In doing so, serious and potentially permanent damage has been done to our constitutional system and repairs must be addressed by the next President of the United States.


Obama to Wannabe Illegals: Do as I Say, Not as I Do
By Mark Krikorian

 CIS Blog, October 30, 2015

http://cis.org/krikorian/obama-wannabe-illegals-do-i-say-not-i-do

In response the surge of Central Americans sneaking into Texas in the summer of 2014, the Obama administration launched an ad campaign in the sending countries earlier this year to stem the flow. The radio and TV spots assert that "there are no permits for the people trying to cross the border without papers" and promise "the immediate deportation of those trying to cross the border without documents."

None of it is true. There are permits for illegal-alien minors and families. Formally known as Notices to Appear but known colloquially in Spanish as permisos, they require the aliens to present themselves to immigration authorities by a certain date, until which they have temporary legal status. That gives them time enough to travel to join their relatives and disappear into the existing illegal population. And disappear they do, since, despite the tough promises, virtually none of them are deported, immediately or otherwise.

So it should come as no surprise to read today's AP report, which begins this way:




Once again, President Obama is looking to defy Congress in implementing its immigration reform proposals. This time, his administration is looking to also defy a federal court to achieve it. A judge sitting on the 5th Circuit in Texas issued an...



NO PRESIDENT HAS HAD MORE CONTEMPT FOR LEGALS, OUR LAWS AND BORDERS THAN MEXICO'S LA RAZA SUPREMACIST, BARACK OBAMA!

NOT ONLY DOES OBAMA FUND THE MEX FASCIST MOVEMENT OF LA RAZA "The Race"
BUT IT OPERATES OUT OF THE AMERICAN WHITE HOUSE UNDER LA RAZA V.P. CECILIA MUNOZ!


he immigration system Marco Rubio wanted



Saturday | November 14, 2015







The immigration system Marco Rubio wanted
The 2013 Gang of Eight comprehensive immigration reform bill is the signature achievement of Marco Rubio's four years and ten months in the U.S. Senate. Yet in the first four Republican presidential debates, in which Rubio has played an increasingly prominent role, he has not been asked even once about the specifics of the legislation.
Despite that omission, it seems likely that if Rubio continues to rise in the GOP race, someone, somewhere will pay attention to his most important accomplishment. The 1,197-page Gang of Eight bill is so far-reaching, and at the same time so detailed, that it provides a sharp picture of where Rubio would like to take the U.S. immigration system. Rubio has renounced parts of his own work, but it's not clear which parts, and it's not clear if he has renounced them for good or only until he determines they are more politically practicable.
Related Story: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2575923
So until Rubio faces the inevitable questioning about his work, here are some features of the Gang of Eight legislation that might attract discussion as the Republican race goes forward.

1.) More immigration
 Comprehensive immigration reform means more immigrants coming to the United States, and with the Gang of Eight Rubio would have dramatically increased that number. "The legislation would loosen or eliminate annual limits on various categories of permanent and temporary immigration," the Congressional Budget Office wrote in its 2013 assessment of the legislation. "If [the bill] was enacted, CBO estimates, the U.S. population would be larger by about 10 million people in 2023 and by about 16 million people in 2033 than projected under current law."
Those numbers are wildly out of touch with the wishes of Republican voters — and of all voters, for that matter. Recently Pew Research asked Americans whether immigration should be "kept at its present level, increased or decreased." Among Republicans, just 7 percent supported increasing the level of immigration, which is at the heart of the Gang of Eight. Among independents, 17 percent supported increased immigration, along with 20 percent of Democrats. So while huge majorities do not support increasing immigration, the gap is particularly large among Republicans, whose presidential nomination Rubio is seeking.

2.) Immediate legalization of illegal immigrants

A fundamental and, as it turned out, fatal flaw of the Gang of Eight was apparent the first day Rubio and his fellow lawmakers announced the reform project, on Jan. 28, 2013. "On day one of our bill, the people without status who are not criminals or security risks will be able to live and work here legally," Rubio's co-author, Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, said in a press conference with Rubio and the rest of the Gang.

Conservatives — the ones who remembered the debacle of the 1986 immigration deal, in which legalization of illegal immigrants came first but promised border security measures never happened — were stunned. They demanded that new border security and interior enforcement measures be in place and running before legalization.


oughout the months of writing and promoting the Gang of Eight bill, Rubio reassured skeptics the legislation would be very tough on illegal immigrants who are criminals. They wouldn't be allowed to stay. "They will have to come forward and pass a rigorous background check," Rubio said in April 2013. "If they're criminals, they won't qualify."

When the bill's language was made public, Rubio's promises didn't seem so tough. The legislation forbade the legalization of immigrants who had been convicted of a felony or of three or more misdemeanors. But there were some big exceptions.
First, if breaking the immigration laws was an "essential element" of any criminal conviction, it wouldn't count.
Second, the bill said the three misdemeanors that could disqualify an immigrant would count as three misdemeanors only "if the alien was convicted on different dates for each of the three offenses."
That meant that in the case of a person accused of multiple misdemeanors, and convicted of them during a single court session — a fairly common occurrence — the multiple convictions would count as just one conviction for the purposes of the Gang of Eight bill. Given that in some U.S. jurisdictions, some cases of vehicular manslaughter, drunk driving, domestic violence, sex offenses and theft are all categorized as misdemeanors, an illegal immigrant could be convicted of multiple serious crimes and still stay in the country.

Finally, Rubio gave the Secretary of Homeland Security broad authority to issue waivers to criminal immigrants. "The secretary may waive [the misdemeanor and other requirements] on behalf of an alien for humanitarian purposes, to ensure family unity, or if such a waiver is otherwise in the public interest," the bill said. That could mean almost anything

4.) An unclear enforcement guarantee
During the selling of the Gang of Eight, Rubio pushed back against skeptics who suggested the executive branch — whether the Obama administration or any other administration — would actually enact tough border security. Rubio's trump card was the bill's provision for something called the Southern Border Security Commission. Made up of border state governors plus representatives appointed by the president, the House and the Senate, the commission, according to Rubio, would take charge of border security if an administration failed to do so.
Rubio promised conservatives that the commission would have actual authority to enact security. The bill "requires if the Department of Homeland Security does not achieve 100 percent operational awareness and 90 percent apprehensions on the border, they lose control of the issue, to a commission, not a Washington commission, to a local commission, made up of the governors of the four border states ... where they will then finish the job of securing the border, including the fencing plan," Rubio told radio host Mark Levin in April 2013. Rubio told many other people the same thing.
It wasn't true. When the bill came out, it said the commission's "primary responsibility ... shall be making recommendations" to the president and Congress on "policies to achieve and maintain the border security goal." The bill said the commission would have six months to write a report with security recommendations; after giving its advice, it would be disbanded within 30 days.
The commission was, in other words, just another Washington commission. It had no actual power to do anything, regardless of what Rubio said.


5.) An imbalanced work force
Almost all immigration reformers, Rubio included, argue that the current American immigration system allows in too many unskilled immigrants and too few skilled ones. Rubio used that argument for the Gang of Eight. "I'm a big believer in family-based immigration," he told The Wall Street Journal in January 2013. "But I don't think that in the 21st century we can continue to have an immigration system where only 6.5 percent of people who come here, come here based on labor and skill. We have to move toward merit and skill-based immigration."
When the Gang of Eight bill was released, it became clear that Rubio and the Gang, while increasing high-skilled immigration into the United States, increased low-skilled immigration even more.
"[The bill] would allow significantly more workers with low skills and with high skills to enter the United States — through, for example, new programs for temporary workers and an increase in the number of workers eligible for H-1B visas," the CBO noted. "Taking into account all of those flows of new immigrants, CBO and [the Joint Committee on Taxation] expect that a greater number of immigrants with lower skills than with higher skills would be added to the workforce."


6.) The legalization trigger loophole
Many conservatives worried that the legalization for illegal immigrants, once offered, would inevitably become permanent. Rubio sought to reassure them by explaining that the Gang bill would require a "trigger," by which registered provisional immigrants could attain permanent status only after a long set of border security measures were put into place.


The actual bill, however, directed the secretary of Homeland Security to start the permanent legalization process even if the conditions had not been me. The Gang bill specified that permanent legalization would begin 10 years after passage of the legislation, whether or not the border provisions were in place. Even if the delay was the result of lawsuits tying up progress on border security, the bill said permanent legalization would go forward.


7.) Government micromanagement and special favors
The Gang of Eight bill included page after page of new laws governing the agricultural sector of the economy. After months of delicate negotiations between labor and business, Rubio and his colleagues decided to dictate wages, to the penny, for millions of agricultural workers. The bill specified a number of categories — agricultural products graders and sorters; animal breeders; farmworkers and crop, nursery and greenhouse laborers; agricultural equipment operators, etc.
For each, it laid out specific pay rates for 2014, 2015, 2016 and beyond. For example, farmworkers would be paid $9.17 an hour in 2014, $9.40 an hour in 201, and $9.64 an hour in 2016. Agricultural equipment operators would be paid $11.30 an hour in 2014, $11.58 an hour in 2015 and $11.87 an hour in 2016. And so on. Rubio and the Gang then set out a detailed formula for determining wages in the years after 2016.
As for special favors, Rubio and the Gang gave a number of breaks to specific business areas — tourism, cruise ship operators, meat packing plants and more. Perhaps the most famous is what might be called the Snowboard Exception. The original version of Rubio's bill extended the time limit for visas for "a ski instructor seeking to enter the United States temporarily to perform instructing services."
Not long after the bill was released, an amended version appeared, changing the language to "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 ... seeking to enter the United States temporarily to perform instructing services." The snowboard instructors, ignored in the original bill, got their break in the final version.


8.) Fast tracks on the road to citizenship
During the selling of the Gang of Eight, Rubio repeatedly emphasized that newly-legalized illegal immigrants would have to go through years of procedures — maintaining a clean record, learning English, etc. — and still have to wait 10 years before even having a chance to apply for permanent legal residents, and only then if the border has been certified secure. Citizenship might lie many years beyond.
As it turned out, Rubio's bill contained some much quicker ways for illegal immigrants to gain permanent legal status. A provision in the Gang of Eight allowed immigrants with even a limited connection to the agricultural economy to gain legal status in half the time Rubio said. This is from a piece I wrote in April 2013:

The Gang of Eight bill creates something called a blue card, which would be granted to illegal immigrant farm workers who come forward and pass the various background checks the bill requires for all illegal immigrants. Instead of the 10-year wait Rubio described in media appearances, blue card holders could receive permanent legal status in just five years.

How does an illegal immigrant qualify for a blue card? If, after passing the background checks, he can prove that he has worked in agriculture for at least 575 hours — about 72 eight-hour days — sometime in the two years ending Dec. 31, 2012, he can be granted a blue card. His spouse and children can be granted blue cards, too — it can all be done with one application ...

[After five years], the legislation requires the Secretary of Homeland Security to change the blue card holder's status to that of permanent resident if the immigrant has worked in agriculture at least 150 days in each of three of those five years since the bill became law. A work day is defined as 5.75 hours.

Also, the immigrant can qualify for permanent residence with less than three years, of 150 work days each, if he can show that he was disabled, ill or had to deal with the "special needs of a child" during that time period. He can also shorten the requirement if "severe weather conditions" prevented him for working for a long period of time, or if he was fired from his agricultural job — provided it was not for just cause — and then couldn't find work.
So for many illegal immigrants, there was no 10-year wait. And Rubio and the Gang granted similar fast-track five-year status to so-called Dreamers who came to the U.S. before age 16 — and also to their spouses and children.



9.) An all-powerful Secretary of Homeland Security
For all its specificity, the Gang of Eight bill granted enormous discretionary powers to the secretary of Homeland Security; it would not be much of an exaggeration to say that for many of the seemingly hard-and-fast requirements in the bill there is a provision giving the secretary the authority to grant a waiver.
One way to see that is to search the bill's text for the phrase "the secretary may," which generally means the secretary has been given the authority to ignore or waive some requirement in the bill. The misdemeanor waiver earlier in this article is just one example. Waiving the blue card requirements is another.
There are more. For example, the secretary can re-admit to the United States an illegal immigrant who has been deported if the secretary determines it is in the "public interest." And in some cases, Rubio and the Gang gave "sole and unreviewable discretion" to the secretary to decide when an illegal immigrant may stay in the country legally.

THE TAX FREE MEXICAN UNDERGROUND ECONOMY IN LA RAZA-OCCUPIED LOS ANGELES IS ESTIMATED TO BE MORE THAN $2 BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR! THIS SAME COUNTY HANDS MEXICO'S ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS MORE THAN A BILLION IN WELFARE!

10.) A disappearing back taxes requirement

During the sales period for the Gang of Eight, Rubio said many times that the bill would require immigrants to pay back taxes. "They would have to ... pay back taxes," Rubio told The Wall Street Journal in that January 2013 interview. But when the bill was released, the requirement wasn't much of a requirement. The legislation did not require illegal immigrants to pay back taxes in order to be given registered provisional immigrant status.
It did say that when, after five or 10 years, that immigrant applied for permanent legal status, he or she would have to have "satisfied any applicable federal tax liability," which the Gang defined as "all federal income taxes assessed." That meant the immigrant had to pay any existing IRS liability — except that as illegal immigrants, many had never filed paperwork with the IRS to pay taxes in the first place and thus had no existing liability in IRS files. No matter what Rubio said, the bill did not require all illegal immigrants to pay back taxes.
The Gang of Eight bill passed the Senate on June 27, 2013. The vote was 68-32; the winning total was reached by unanimous support of the Senate's 54 Democrats, plus 13 of Rubio's fellow Republicans, and of course Rubio himself. After the vote, Rubio turned on his own handiwork, with a spokesman saying he opposed passage in the House. The bill was stopped when Speaker John Boehner rejected efforts to bring it up for a vote and House Republicans declined to pass their own version of comprehensive immigration reform.
This year, Rubio refused to answer the question of whether he would sign the Gang of Eight bill if he were president. Future immigration reform, Rubio now argues, must be done piecemeal, with legalization measures coming after the implementation of security. But the Gang of Eight was a big bill. For many Republicans, and indeed for many in the public at large, its problems went far beyond sequencing. If Rubio continues to play a leading role in the Republican presidential race, those problems will receive renewed attention.



Obama set to defy federal court on amnesty

By Rick Moran


Once again, President Obama is looking to defy Congress in implementing its immigration reform proposals.
This time, his administration is looking to also defy a federal court to achieve it.
A judge sitting on the 5th Circuit in Texas issued an injunction last June against the administration's regulatory plans to legalize millions of aliens in the U.S. illegally.  The injunction was upheld by a federal appeals court in Louisiana, and the president's plan is now stalled while the administration works through the federal court system.
Except now there are plans afoot to change the regulations pertaining to green cards that would accomplish almost everything the president can't get from Congress or the courts.  A leaked memo from DHS outlines four plans the administration is considering.
Ian Smith of the Immigration Reform Law Institute:
The internal memo reveals four options of varying expansiveness, with option 1 providing EADs to “all individuals living in the United States”, including illegal aliens, visa-overstayers, and H-1B guest-workers, while option 4 provides EADsonly to those on certain unexpired non-immigrant visas. Giving EADs to any of the covered individuals, however, is in direct violation of Congress’s Immigration & Nationality Act and works to dramatically subvert our carefully wrought visa system. 
As mentioned, the first plan the memo discusses basically entails giving EADs to anyone physically present in the country who until now has been prohibited from getting one. A major positive to this option, the memo reads, is that it would “address the needs of some of the intended deferred action population.” Although DHS doesn’t say it expressly, included here would be those 4.3 million people covered by the president’s DAPA and Expanded DACA programs whose benefits were supposed to have been halted in the Hanen decision. On top of working around the Hanen injunction, this DHS plan would also dole out unrestricted EADs to those on temporary non-immigrant visas, such as H-1B-holders (their work authorizations being tied to their employers) and another 5 to 6 million illegal aliens thus far not covered by any of the President’s deferred action amnesty programs. By claiming absolute authority to grant work authorization to any alien, regardless of status, DHS is in effect claiming it can unilaterally de-couple the 1986 IRCA work authorization statutes from the main body of U.S. visa law. While DHS must still observe the statutory requirements for issuing visas, the emerging doctrine concedes, the administration now claims unprecedented discretionary power to permit anyone inside our borders to work. 
Get a load of what the DHS bureaucrats think about illegals working in the U.S.:
The anonymous DHS policymakers state that a positive for this option is that it “could cover a greater number of individuals.” In a strikingly conclusory bit of bureaucratese, they state that because illegal aliens working in the country “have already had the US labor market tested” it has been “demonstrat[ed] that their future employment won’t adversely affect US workers.” The labor market, in other words, has already been stress-tested through decades of foreign-labor dumping and the American working-class, which disproportionately includes minorities, working mothers, the elderly, and students, is doing just fine. Apparently, the fact that 66 million Americans and legal aliens are currently unemployed or out of the job-market was not a discussion point at the DHS “Retreat.” 
Smith concludes: "Bottom line: The memo foreshadows more tactical offensives in a giant administrative amnesty for all 12 million illegal aliens who’ve broken our immigration laws (and many other laws) that will emerge before the next inaugural in January 2016."
I'm not sure that judge in Texas will let the administration get away with this.  When the government began handing out green cards anyway in defiance of the injunction, the judge, Andrew Hanen, threatened to arrest the lot of them for contempt.  He forced the government to recall the green cards immediately.  There will be no circumventing the law in his court.
But the plans may be untouchable because they don't directly stem from the series of executive orders currently being adjudicated.  Of course, any plan to blanket the country in work permits for illegals will be challenged in court.  But eventually, the administration may find a friendly judge who gives it the go-ahead.
Once again, President Obama is looking to defy Congress in implementing its immigration reform proposals.
This time, his administration is looking to also defy a federal court to achieve it.
A judge sitting on the 5th Circuit in Texas issued an injunction last June against the administration's regulatory plans to legalize millions of aliens in the U.S. illegally.  The injunction was upheld by a federal appeals court in Louisiana, and the president's plan is now stalled while the administration works through the federal court system.
Except now there are plans afoot to change the regulations pertaining to green cards that would accomplish almost everything the president can't get from Congress or the courts.  A leaked memo from DHS outlines four plans the administration is considering.
Ian Smith of the Immigration Reform Law Institute:
The internal memo reveals four options of varying expansiveness, with option 1 providing EADs to “all individuals living in the United States”, including illegal aliens, visa-overstayers, and H-1B guest-workers, while option 4 provides EADsonly to those on certain unexpired non-immigrant visas. Giving EADs to any of the covered individuals, however, is in direct violation of Congress’s Immigration & Nationality Act and works to dramatically subvert our carefully wrought visa system. 
As mentioned, the first plan the memo discusses basically entails giving EADs to anyone physically present in the country who until now has been prohibited from getting one. A major positive to this option, the memo reads, is that it would “address the needs of some of the intended deferred action population.” Although DHS doesn’t say it expressly, included here would be those 4.3 million people covered by the president’s DAPA and Expanded DACA programs whose benefits were supposed to have been halted in the Hanen decision. On top of working around the Hanen injunction, this DHS plan would also dole out unrestricted EADs to those on temporary non-immigrant visas, such as H-1B-holders (their work authorizations being tied to their employers) and another 5 to 6 million illegal aliens thus far not covered by any of the President’s deferred action amnesty programs. By claiming absolute authority to grant work authorization to any alien, regardless of status, DHS is in effect claiming it can unilaterally de-couple the 1986 IRCA work authorization statutes from the main body of U.S. visa law. While DHS must still observe the statutory requirements for issuing visas, the emerging doctrine concedes, the administration now claims unprecedented discretionary power to permit anyone inside our borders to work. 
Get a load of what the DHS bureaucrats think about illegals working in the U.S.:
The anonymous DHS policymakers state that a positive for this option is that it “could cover a greater number of individuals.” In a strikingly conclusory bit of bureaucratese, they state that because illegal aliens working in the country “have already had the US labor market tested” it has been “demonstrat[ed] that their future employment won’t adversely affect US workers.” The labor market, in other words, has already been stress-tested through decades of foreign-labor dumping and the American working-class, which disproportionately includes minorities, working mothers, the elderly, and students, is doing just fine. Apparently, the fact that 66 million Americans and legal aliens are currently unemployed or out of the job-market was not a discussion point at the DHS “Retreat.” 
Smith concludes: "Bottom line: The memo foreshadows more tactical offensives in a giant administrative amnesty for all 12 million illegal aliens who’ve broken our immigration laws (and many other laws) that will emerge before the next inaugural in January 2016."
I'm not sure that judge in Texas will let the administration get away with this.  When the government began handing out green cards anyway in defiance of the injunction, the judge, Andrew Hanen, threatened to arrest the lot of them for contempt.  He forced the government to recall the green cards immediately.  There will be no circumventing the law in his court.
But the plans may be untouchable because they don't directly stem from the series of executive orders currently being adjudicated.  Of course, any plan to blanket the country in work permits for illegals will be challenged in court.  But eventually, the administration may find a friendly judge who gives it the go-ahead.


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/11/obama_set_to_defy_federal_court_on_amnesty.html#ixzz3qSG6XCr3
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Obama’s Secret Destruction of Our Immigration System

 By Arnold Ahlert

 Canada Free Press, November 4, 2015

A newly-leaked memo from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reveals the Obama administration is seeking to sidestep a federal court injunction that suspended portions of the president’s amnesty-based initiatives known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). In short, Obama is determined to impose his transformational agenda on the nation by any means necessary.

According to the Hill, the document outlining the administration’s attempt to thumb its nose at the rule of law was prepared at a DHS “Regulations Retreat” last June, four months after a preliminary injunction was initially imposed by Texas Judge Andrew Hanen and subsequently left in place by a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit’s final ruling on that injunction, either confirming or reversing it, is expected to occur in a matter of days.Apparently the Obama administration couldn’t care less.
. . .
http://canadafreepress.com/article/76535

TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND BUILD THEIR LA RAZA "The Race" MEXICAN ILLEGAL PARTY BASE, THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HAS RUTHLESSLY ASSAULTED THE AMERICAN WORKER, OUR LAWS ON HIRING ILLEGALS AND OUR BORDERS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED.

"The U.S. now ranks at, or near, the top of developed countries for income inequality. Job creation has lagged far behind population growth. Automation has erased some jobs, but corrupt, inept government leadership is responsible for the deplorable job- deficit-low wage situation." 

"The federal government encourages the massive illegal and legal immigration that plays a huge role in job scarcity and income suppression for American workers. To paraphrase Milton Friedman, a viable economy cannot exist with open borders and unrestricted immigration. An oversupply of workers willing to work for less pay, the outsourcing of jobs, and visa-immigrant hiring allow companies to replace American workers with immigrants for reduced labor and benefit costs."



Income inequality has risen during the last several decades to heights last seen in the 1920s. Most of the income growth has gone to a small fraction of the population, the ultra-rich elites, while real wages for the bottom 90 percent ...



The Causes of Income Inequality

Income inequality has risen during the last several decades to heights last seen in the 1920s. Most of the income growth has gone to a small fraction of the population, the ultra-rich elites, while real wages for the bottom 90 percent has been stagnant since the 1980s. The U.S. now ranks at, or near, the top of developed countries for income inequality. Job creation has lagged far behind population growth. Automation has erased some jobs, but corrupt, inept government leadership is responsible for the deplorable job- deficit-low wage situation.    

Trade agreements are one cause of job and wage reduction. Over the last twenty years, we’ve amassed $10 trillion in trade deficits and exported 12 million manufacturing jobs, forcing workers to move into lower-wage service jobs. Government brags about the free trade agreements, CAFTA, NAFTA, KORUS, and TPP. But the “free” applies only to the foreign trading partners, which manipulate their currencies, pay sweatshop workers low wages, manufacture under environmentally-toxic conditions, and restrict U.S. imports. We hand over our technology, good-paying jobs, product labeling, and safety guarantees -- all to enrich multinational corporations and foreign industry. Industrial research and development have been decimated as companies move overseas or outsource jobs, leaving the nation a future of little technological innovation. The U.S. is left with hollowed-out industries and service jobs. 
The federal government encourages the massive illegal and legal immigration that plays a huge role in job scarcity and income suppression for American workers. To paraphrase Milton Friedman, a viable economy cannot exist with open borders and unrestricted immigration. An oversupply of workers willing to work for less pay, the outsourcing of jobs, and visa-immigrant hiring allow companies to replace American workers with immigrants for reduced labor and benefit costs. A well-known example is that of Disney IT workers who were forced to train their cheaper immigrant replacements. It is no coincidence that the rise in immigration has occurred simultaneously with the rise of the welfare state. People unemployed, or in low-wage and part-time jobs, rely on government subsidies. The result is larger national debt, more corporate wealth, and declining wages.

ObamaCare influences, and will influence to greater degrees, the lowering of incomes for Americans as healthcare costs rise. Higher premiums and deductions for health insurance are being shifted to employees, reducing benefits and wages. Medical care costs already have risen much faster than wages, leaving many struggling to pay for necessities. Ever-higher deductions mean that people can’t afford to use the insurance they are forced to buy because they can’t even pay the deductions.        

Another contributor to job deficiency and wage stagnation is the increased regulation and taxation of small businesses instituted by Obama’s executive orders, EPA overreach, and ObamaCare. Small businesses traditionally have created two-thirds of new jobs annually. The bright spot in the economy, small businesses have created 78.7 percent of new jobs since the recession. Today, faced with these government anti-business policies, small businesses are closing their doors at a faster rate than new businesses are opening. The small businesses that remain open often don’t expand because of Obamacare and government regulations.

Income inequality is greatly impacted by the Federal Reserve’s policies of money-printing and zero interest rates, which have led to the funding of the financial and corporate markets while ignoring the needs of smaller businesses. The money supply and cheap lending has gone to the government, large corporations, and Wall Street, leaving the rest of the economy to sputter along with little capital and fewer jobs. The Fed’s policies of crony capitalism favor big business and big banks over that of smaller entities and are responsible for the increasing number of big business deals such as Walgreen's purchase of Rite Aid.


DEATH OF THE AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS

This government-driven, crony-capitalist economy defined by job scarcity and wage stagnation is the reason college graduates are burdened by $1.3 trillion debt, living with parents, can’t afford to marry or buy homes, and working as waitresses and bartenders. Job scarcity and low wages are the reasons we’re becoming a nation of renters rather than homeowners. They are the reasons that 51 percent of workers earn less than $30,000 a year. They are the reasons for the demise of the middle class and the burgeoning welfare rolls, the modern-day equivalent of slavery.    

Income inequality and its devastating consequences are seldom mentioned on the nightly news. The media and bogus government statistics paint rosy pictures about economic recovery, and government masks the bad economy with welfare so that we don’t see Great Depression bread lines. But the only recovery has been in the Federal Reserve’s inflated stock market, not in the main street economy, where 94 million working-age adults are unemployed and 47 million are on some welfare program. The “Made in America” displays weekly touted by ABC news are the few exceptions, rather than the rule, in an American economy of boarded-up stores and factories.    
The political implications of income inequality are most evident in the increasing rise and entrenchment of career politicians, supported by big donor funding and media favoritism. The integrity of the electoral process is endangered as election propaganda, funded by big money and hyped by corporate media bias, become more prominent in spreading lies, distortions, and innuendos to the voting public. Unrestricted campaign funding has given the moneyed elites first access to elected officials. At the same time, private-sector unions, small businesses, and citizens find their influence dwindling or irrelevant. This crony capitalism, resembling dictatorships and communist oligarchies, seriously threatens our democracy because money, power, and media control are consolidated in the hands of a few at the top. Voter apathy prevails, as voters feel increasingly powerless to change the course of events. 

The United States, a once great economic powerhouse and the largest creditor nation, has become the largest debtor nation, and is fast becoming a banana republic. Past and present elected authorities and public officials have stripped bare our industries, put the nation under a mountain of debt, and turned the U.S. into a welfare depository. Government leaders have intentionally failed to protect our borders, jobs, and freedoms. These public “servants” and the wealthy elites have garnered riches for themselves, and purposely impoverished citizens and future generations. The greatest threats to our economy and national security are not foreign countries or terrorists; they are the enemies inside, corrupt government leaders and the money masters they serve. 
Income inequality has risen during the last several decades to heights last seen in the 1920s. Most of the income growth has gone to a small fraction of the population, the ultra-rich elites, while real wages for the bottom 90 percent has been stagnant since the 1980s. The U.S. now ranks at, or near, the top of developed countries for income inequality. Job creation has lagged far behind population growth. Automation has erased some jobs, but corrupt, inept government leadership is responsible for the deplorable job- deficit-low wage situation.    

Trade agreements are one cause of job and wage reduction. Over the last twenty years, we’ve amassed $10 trillion in trade deficits and exported 12 million manufacturing jobs, forcing workers to move into lower-wage service jobs. Government brags about the free trade agreements, CAFTA, NAFTA, KORUS, and TPP. But the “free” applies only to the foreign trading partners, which manipulate their currencies, pay sweatshop workers low wages, manufacture under environmentally-toxic conditions, and restrict U.S. imports. We hand over our technology, good-paying jobs, product labeling, and safety guarantees -- all to enrich multinational corporations and foreign industry. Industrial research and development have been decimated as companies move overseas or outsource jobs, leaving the nation a future of little technological innovation. The U.S. is left with hollowed-out industries and service jobs. 
The federal government encourages the massive illegal and legal immigration that plays a huge role in job scarcity and income suppression for American workers. To paraphrase Milton Friedman, a viable economy cannot exist with open borders and unrestricted immigration. An oversupply of workers willing to work for less pay, the outsourcing of jobs, and visa-immigrant hiring allow companies to replace American workers with immigrants for reduced labor and benefit costs. A well-known example is that of Disney IT workers who were forced to train their cheaper immigrant replacements. It is no coincidence that the rise in immigration has occurred simultaneously with the rise of the welfare state. People unemployed, or in low-wage and part-time jobs, rely on government subsidies. The result is larger national debt, more corporate wealth, and declining wages.

ObamaCare influences, and will influence to greater degrees, the lowering of incomes for Americans as healthcare costs rise. Higher premiums and deductions for health insurance are being shifted to employees, reducing benefits and wages. Medical care costs already have risen much faster than wages, leaving many struggling to pay for necessities. Ever-higher deductions mean that people can’t afford to use the insurance they are forced to buy because they can’t even pay the deductions.        

Another contributor to job deficiency and wage stagnation is the increased regulation and taxation of small businesses instituted by Obama’s executive orders, EPA overreach, and ObamaCare. Small businesses traditionally have created two-thirds of new jobs annually. The bright spot in the economy, small businesses have created 78.7 percent of new jobs since the recession. Today, faced with these government anti-business policies, small businesses are closing their doors at a faster rate than new businesses are opening. The small businesses that remain open often don’t expand because of Obamacare and government regulations.

Income inequality is greatly impacted by the Federal Reserve’s policies of money-printing and zero interest rates, which have led to the funding of the financial and corporate markets while ignoring the needs of smaller businesses. The money supply and cheap lending has gone to the government, large corporations, and Wall Street, leaving the rest of the economy to sputter along with little capital and fewer jobs. The Fed’s policies of crony capitalism favor big business and big banks over that of smaller entities and are responsible for the increasing number of big business deals such as Walgreen's purchase of Rite Aid.

This government-driven, crony-capitalist economy defined by job scarcity and wage stagnation is the reason college graduates are burdened by $1.3 trillion debt, living with parents, can’t afford to marry or buy homes, and working as waitresses and bartenders. Job scarcity and low wages are the reasons we’re becoming a nation of renters rather than homeowners. They are the reasons that 51 percent of workers earn less than $30,000 a year. They are the reasons for the demise of the middle class and the burgeoning welfare rolls, the modern-day equivalent of slavery.    

Income inequality and its devastating consequences are seldom mentioned on the nightly news. The media and bogus government statistics paint rosy pictures about economic recovery, and government masks the bad economy with welfare so that we don’t see Great Depression bread lines. But the only recovery has been in the Federal Reserve’s inflated stock market, not in the main street economy, where 94 million working-age adults are unemployed and 47 million are on some welfare program. The “Made in America” displays weekly touted by ABC news are the few exceptions, rather than the rule, in an American economy of boarded-up stores and factories.    
The political implications of income inequality are most evident in the increasing rise and entrenchment of career politicians, supported by big donor funding and media favoritism. The integrity of the electoral process is endangered as election propaganda, funded by big money and hyped by corporate media bias, become more prominent in spreading lies, distortions, and innuendos to the voting public. Unrestricted campaign funding has given the moneyed elites first access to elected officials. At the same time, private-sector unions, small businesses, and citizens find their influence dwindling or irrelevant. This crony capitalism, resembling dictatorships and communist oligarchies, seriously threatens our democracy because money, power, and media control are consolidated in the hands of a few at the top. Voter apathy prevails, as voters feel increasingly powerless to change the course of events. 

The United States, a once great economic powerhouse and the largest creditor nation, has become the largest debtor nation, and is fast becoming a banana republic. Past and present elected authorities and public officials have stripped bare our industries, put the nation under a mountain of debt, and turned the U.S. into a welfare depository. Government leaders have intentionally failed to protect our borders, jobs, and freedoms. These public “servants” and the wealthy elites have garnered riches for themselves, and purposely impoverished citizens and future generations. The greatest threats to our economy and national security are not foreign countries or terrorists; they are the enemies inside, corrupt government leaders and the money masters they serve. 


Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/11/the_causes_of_income_inequality.html#ixzz3qSBDYQVs
Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook



Obamacare open enrollment: A widening health care disaster for workers

Obamacare open enrollment: A widening health care disaster for workers

3 November 2015
“All of Obama’s policies have been geared toward increasing social inequality. … The claim that the health care overhaul is an oasis of progress in this desert of social reaction is simply a lie”— World Socialist Web Site, March 22, 2010


Open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) began November 1 for plans taking effect January 1. The coming year will be the third in which the ACA, signed into law by President Obama in March 2010, will be operational. The World Socialist Web Site’s assessment five years ago that the “reform” commonly known as Obamacare would usher in a frontal assault on the health care available to working people is being richly confirmed.
The ACA has nothing in common with universal health care. That was merely the slogan initially advanced to disguise a corporate-designed scheme to dramatically shift health care costs onto the working class.
The central component of the scheme, the “individual mandate,” requires that individuals and families without health insurance through their employer or a government program such as Medicare or Medicaid obtain insurance or pay a tax penalty. Low-income people can qualify for modest tax subsidies to go toward premiums.
The uninsured are required to purchase coverage from private, for-profit insurance companies on the health care “exchanges” set up under the law. This vastly increases the market for private insurance firms without placing any real restraints on the prices they charge—a formula for windfall profits.
By the government’s own forecast, enrollees will face a 7.5 percent average premium rate increase in 2016. Other sources project rate hikes in excess of 20 percent. A recent study showed that many insurers are requesting double-digit rate increases next year and state insurance commissions are approving them.
A frenzy of mergers in the health care industry will fuel further premium increases. In the space of a few weeks in July, Aetna Inc. and Humana Inc. merged in a $37 billion deal, and Anthem Inc. agreed to acquire Cigna Corp. for $54 billion. As a result, the five largest health insurers in the US were consolidated into three.
Drug makers Allergan and Pfizer are in the advanced stages of talks to merge and form the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, valued at $330 billion. The price of top brand name prescription drugs are already surging, having increased by 12.9 percent in 2013, the last year for which data is available.
Last week the giant drug store chain Walgreens announced a deal to take over one of its main competitors, Rite Aid, creating a mega-chain to compete with CVS for total domination of the market.
Premiums and drug costs are only one aspect of the burden to be borne by those purchasing coverage under the ACA. The average deductible for the lowest tier “bronze” plans on the exchanges was $5,200 in 2015, and the prevalence of such “high-deductible” plans is sure to expand in 2016. This means that aside from mandated “essential services,” such as certain forms of wellness care and screenings, no medical care is covered until the entire deductible is paid out of pocket. Co-payments for doctor visits and other services are also required.
Research published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at 135 health plans in 34 state marketplaces available during last year’s open enrollment period. The study found that as of April 2015, 18 plans in nine states lacked in-network specialists for at least one specialty. These included obstetricians/gynecologists, dermatologists, cardiologists, psychiatrists, oncologists, neurologists, endocrinologists, rheumatologists and pulmonologists.
What all of this means is that a substantial portion of the 12 million people who have purchased coverage on the health care exchanges will be forced to self-ration medical care due to economic necessity. Workers and their children will forego doctor visits, prescriptions for life-saving medicines will go unfilled, needless suffering and deaths will occur.
This appalling state of affairs is not an unfortunate byproduct of the ACA. By design from its inception, the legislation has been crafted to cut costs for the government and corporations and boost the profits of the health insurers, pharmaceutical corporations and health care chains.
According to the big business parties and their corporate sponsors, Americans are living too long and health care costs are sucking up too much of the national wealth. There is a calculated drive to lower life expectancy for working people.
That is why the introduction of Obamacare has been accompanied by a concerted drive to restrict access to basic medical tests—that is, to ration health care for workers. In recent months, official bodies have called for reducing or delaying mammograms, pap smears, prostate tests and other standard screening procedures.
One indication of the catastrophic implications of the assault on health care is a recent study showing that since 1998, the death rate for middle-income white Americans age 45-54 has risen sharply, resulting in half a million deaths, comparable to the 650,000 Americans who have lost their lives from AIDS since 1981. Researchers point to suicides and substance abuse, driven by increasing financial stress, as the main contributing factors. The ACA will only increase the number of such tragedies.
The implications of Obamacare go far beyond those buying insurance on the ACA exchanges and extend to all segments of health care. The legislation is serving as a model for the assault on employer-sponsored health care coverage as well as the bedrock government-run programs Social Security and Medicare.
Today, approximately half of all Americans receive their health care coverage through their employers. Employer-paid health benefits was an important social gain wrested from the corporations by the struggles of workers in the aftermath of World War II and has been central in raising the living standards of working class families.
But the workings of Obamacare aim to destroy these gains. As Ezekiel Emanuel, a close ally of Obama and key architect of the ACA, predicted in 2009: “By 2025, few private-sector employers will still be providing health insurance.” These plans will give way to vouchers handed out to employees to purchase coverage on insurance exchanges, either those set up under the ACA or others.
In the current contract struggle of US autoworkers, the drive by the auto companies and their union partners to dismantle the “cradle-to-grave” medical coverage won by autoworkers and retirees is in line with the Obama administration’s policy of shifting health care costs to workers.
The recent budget deal between Obama and congressional Republicans rolls back a significant provision in the ACA, the requirement that businesses with more than 200 workers automatically enroll their employees for health insurance. And while employers are basically absolved of responsibility for providing insurance, fines for individuals for not obtaining insurance will rise substantially in 2016—to $695, or 2.5 percent of income, whichever is higher.
Paul Ryan, the newly elected speaker of the House of Representatives, has advocated transforming Medicare into a voucher program and partially privatizing Social Security. That he is now presented as a “moderate” unifying force by the ruling elite and the media is an indication of how far to the right the political establishment in America has veered. The foundations are already being laid for the dismantling of Medicare and Social Security.
As the real content of Obamacare becomes clear to millions of workers and middle class people, who suddenly discover that they cannot get access to drugs or doctors and standard medical procedures are no longer covered by their insurance plans, there will be an explosive growth of social opposition.
The third year of the Affordable Care Act is the occasion to call the reactionary legislation by its rightful name: a health care counterrevolution. The only rational and progressive solution to the health care crisis in America is to replace the privately owned and controlled system with socialized medicine, in which the health care industry is nationalized, restructured, and placed under the democratic control of a workers government. This will make possible the provision of quality health care for all as a basic social right.
Kate Randall

"Amazon became a byword this year for savage treatment of 

employees. Bezos joins several others in the top 15 notorious 

for low-wage exploitation, including four heirs to the Wal-

Mart retail empire, James, Alice, Christy and Samuel Robson 

Walton, and Phil Knight, chairman of Nike Inc., whose $24.4 

billion fortune is extracted from his international network of 

sports apparel-producing sweatshops."


OBAMA-CLINTONomics is a simple device - Serve the super rich and pass the cost of their looting and Wall Street crimes on to the backs of the last of the American middle-class!


"Of course, the wealth of the financial elite cannot come from nowhere. Ultimately, the continual infusion of asset bubbles is the form taken by a massive transfer of wealth, from the working class to the banks, investors and super-rich. The corollary to rise of the stock market is the endless demands, all over the world, for austerity, cuts in wages, attacks on health care and pensions."


“As a result, the share of wealth held by the richest 0.1 percent of the population grew from 17 percent in 2007 to 22 percent in 2012, while the wealth of the 400 richest families in the US has doubled since 2008.”

OBAMA-CLINTONomics and the final death of the American middle-class

"Obama expanded the Wall Street bailout, handing trillions of dollars to the criminals who wrecked the economy. He then utilized the financial meltdown to restructure the auto industry on the basis of brutal pay cuts, setting a precedent for the transformation of the US into a low-wage economy."

"In the midst of the deepest slump since the Great Depression, the administration starved state and city governments of resources, leading to the destruction of hundreds of thousands of education and public-sector jobs and the gutting of workers’ pensions. Obama’s Affordable Care Act set in motion the dismantling of employer-paid health insurance and massive cuts in the Medicare insurance system for the elderly."

Wealth of America’s super-rich grows to $2.34 trillion

By Nick Barrickman 
3 October 2015
The wealth of the 400 richest Americans 
continues to soar, according to the results of 
the new Forbes 400 list, published annually 
by the business magazine of the same name. 
At $2.34 trillion, the total net worth for the multi-billionaires on the list set new records, displacing last year’s all-time high of $2.29 trillion.

 
OBAMA-CLINTONomics: MELTDOWN!

Did their crony banksters ultimately destroy the global economy?





Richest one percent controls 

nearly half of global wealth

 

In 2009, the total net worth of the Forbes 400 was $1.27 trillion. Today, nearly six years into the so-called economic “recovery” fostered by the Obama administration, the wealthiest Americans have nearly doubled their hoard. The total wealth of the richest 400 Americans managed to reach new heights even while financial markets have been roiled by tumultuous swings.

The Forbes report notes that in 2015, “It was 
harder than ever to join the 400. The price of 
entry this year was $1.7 billion, the highest

it’s been in the 33 years that Forbes has

racked American wealth.” Forbes makes note

that the wealth threshold was so high this year that 145 billionaires failed to make the list.
While a majority of billionaires have prospered, their wealth underwritten by the massive government bailouts of financial institutions and near-zero interest rates from the Federal Reserve, a significant fraction of the wealthy elite have lost ground in the turbulent stock markets of recent months.
The ratio of winners and losers among the billionaires was ten to one last year, but this year was much closer to 50-50. Forbes noted that the top three position-holders on the list, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett and Oracle’s Larry Ellison, each saw a drop in their total net worth of at least 5 percent in the last year. This did nothing to threaten the position of Gates, number one at $76 billion, or Buffett, number two at $62 billion, but Ellison’s third-place position, with $47.5 billion, left him “only” $500 million ahead of the fourth-place multi-billionaire, Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com.
The majority of those on the Forbes list were associated with some form of financial speculation, or with computer software and the Internet. According to the industry breakdown supplied by Forbes, its 400 include 126 engaged in investment, real estate and finance, 81 from computer technology and media, 36 from food and beverage, 32 from retail and fashion (including five members of the Walton family, owners of Wal-Mart), 31 from oil & gas, 20 from health care, 19 from miscellaneous services (including six members of the Pritzker family, owners of Hyatt Hotels), and 19 from sports and gaming.
This left only 35 listed as making their fortunes in manufacturing, automotive, construction, and logistics. The largest manufacturing fortune is the $7.4 billion of Harold Kohler, whose company makes toilets and other plumbing fixtures. Perhaps that is symbolic, given the state of manufacturing in the United States, once the world leader in industry, but no longer.
The growth of financial parasitism has underwritten the wealth of many on the Forbes 400. In 1982, the first Forbes 400 list saw figures directly involved in finance making up only 4.4 percent of the total wealth on the list. As of today, this group now makes up more than 21 percent of billionaires on the list.
Former Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, who has held the number one spot on the Forbes 400 for 22 years, has less than 13 percent of his fortune in stock in the company he founded. According toForbes, the majority of Gates’ wealth is bound up in Cascade, the software mogul’s investment firm, which specializes in “investing in stocks, bonds, private equity and real estate.”
Besides the well-known super-rich of Silicon Valley like Google’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin (with $33.3 billion and $32.6 billion, respectively) and Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the social media web site Facebook, the seventh wealthiest man in America with $40.3 billion in total assets, there are numerous other newly minted Internet billionaires, including the owners and co-owners of Uber, Airbnb, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Twitter, SnapChat, GoPro and GoDaddy.com.
Jeffrey Bezos, owner of the online retailer Amazon, saw the largest gain in wealth for the year, making $16 billion in 2015, placing his total net worth at $47 billion and catapulting him to fourth place. Nearly half of Bezos’ gains came within a single day last July, when his company announced gains in the second quarter, leading to a speculative frenzy which bid up stock values for Amazon by over 18 percent.
Amazon became a byword this year for savage treatment of 

employees. Bezos joins several others in the top 15 notorious 

for low-wage exploitation, including four heirs to the Wal-

Mart retail empire, James, Alice, Christy and Samuel Robson

Walton, and Phil Knight, chairman of Nike Inc., whose $24.4 

billion fortune is extracted from his international network of 

sports apparel-producing sweatshops.
While safeguarding the ill-gotten wealth of the Forbes billionaires remains an ironclad principle of both the Republican and Democratic parties, working people throughout the US continue to suffer the brunt of attacks on their living standards. A US Census report released earlier this month shows that 14.8 percent of the US population lives in poverty; a figure that is unchanged from a year earlier. The Census findings show that 6.6 percent of the population lives in “deep poverty,” or less than half of the already unrealistically low official poverty line in the US.