We have been discussing the extraordinary and public decision of President Barack Obama to withhold any information on his promised changes in immigration until after the election. While immigration remains one of the most important issues of this election, Obama officials have admitted to preparing for the changes while refusing to give any details or even summaries of what is being planned, as we discussed again yesterday. There has been surprisingly little hard reporting on the decision to withhold this information from voters until after they have voted. However, yesterday White House CBS reporter Major Garrett broke from the mainstream pack and pressed White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest on a report that the Administration has order material for a “surge” of immigration IDs of up to 9 million in one year. Ernest called the questions “crazy” and encouraged everyone not to speculate . . . before the election obviously.
Category: Politics
There is a new release out of Judicial Watch, which has been meeting with success in its effort to defeat extreme privilege assertions by the Obama Administration in seeking records related to the infamous Operation Fast and Furious. The Obama Administration has been repeatedly criticized for expansive claims of presidential power and privilege. I have been one of those critics. A federal court has expressed growing impatience and even anger with the Administration’s claims and obstruction — recently ordering production of evidence over the vehement objections of the Justice Department. However, nothing likely prepared them for what they claim is the privileges asserted on the “Vaughn index” produced by the Justice Department. The Administration is now reserving the claim of executive privilege over emails between Attorney General Holder and his wife Sharon Malone – as well as his mother. That’s right, executive privilege over communications with your family. It captures the lack of any sense of limitation or logic to the Obama Administration’s view of presidential power, which now overshadows the claims not just of George W. Bush but Richard Nixon.
Recently, a YouTube video caused outrage after two filmmakers showed how they were subject to raw and insulting profiling by a New York police officer as Arabs. They posted the video and called for people to rise up against such profiling. The problem is that it turns out to be a hoax. Adam Saleh and Sheikh Akbar appear to have staged the entire scene. They have now achieved the very opposite of their intentions. They have undermined efforts to show that profiling is a serious and prevalent problem. Instead, many in the future may question the legitimacy of future stories or videos — much like the equally juvenile antics of the National Report that we have discussed previously.
Continue reading “Viral Video Showing New York Police Profiling Arab Men Revealed As Hoax”
We have previously discussed the outrageous case of Asia Bibi who is the latest victim of a death sentence under the medieval Sharia law system imposed in Muslim countries — sentenced to death for insulting Mohammad. Now, a court in Lahore upheld the verdict and affirmed the death sentence for the 50-year-old motion of five. She said that her nightmare began when she took a drink of water from a bucket being used by Muslim women. As a Christian, she was viewed as unclean and the women assailed her and later accused her of saying something insulting to Mohammad. Not only did leading Muslim clerics in Pakistan support her execution but one offered a reward for any faithful Muslim to murder her.
A former Missouri police chief is publicly saying that the Justice Department is actively leaking reports that it has found insufficient evidence to support federal charges against Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. There is certainly a long and controversial history of the Justice Department leaking stories to the media to pressure targets or to prepare the public in otherwise secret or confidential investigations. While threatening witnesses and others over any disclosures, the Justice Department does not hesitate to make such leaks for political purposes. The question is whether the recent uptick in leaks is such a campaign. There has been an increase in such stories coming from unnamed Justice sources and former St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch says that the evidence has supported the officer on a number of points, including a struggle within the cruiser.
We have previously discussed the public decision of President Obama to hold back from implementing his plan for immigration until after the election — and after voters can express their opposition at the voting places. Now, the Administration is not only public reaffirming that decision but insisting that (while they are preparing to implement the plan) they will also not tell anyone what they intend to do until after the elections. Those comments came from León Rodríguez, the new head of Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) this week who tantalized an audience with the suggestion of sweeping but secret changes. It is extraordinary that politicians routinely get away with such positions. Millions are preparing to vote on the direction of the country, but one of the most important policies in this election is being openly hidden from them so that they cannot register their support or opposition.
We have previously discussed how domestic programs are being cut while the government pours billions into Iraq and Afghanistan. I have previously written about the waste of billions of dollars by the government without any significant discipline for government officials. We have become accustomed to reports of unimaginable corruption and waste in Afghanistan from bags of money delivered to officials to constructing huge buildings to be immediately torn down to buying aircraft that cannot be used. The common element to the stories is the absence of any reported prosecution or even discipline for those responsible. We now have yet another example of spending huge amounts of money on failed programs because no one has the guts to cut off the money. The latest example is our $7.6 billion eradication campaign for poppy fields which has proven an utter failure. Yet, no one wants to be accused of being soft on drugs — so officials sending kept spending as we cut educational, scientific, environmental, and infrastructure programs at home. It is better to waste billions than make a tough decision in government.
Bus riders this week found themselves under attack by dozens of ultra-Orthodox Jews who hurled stones and slashed the tires of their buses. The reason? Some buses featured ads supporting the right of women to worship at a holy site in Jerusalem. This is only the latest such attack by ultra-Orthodox Jews who have manned “modesty patrols” on the streets and attacked women who call for equal access at sites like the Western Wall.
There is an interesting case out of Idaho that could be a critical showdown between anti-discrimination laws and freedom of exercise of religion. At the heart of the controversy are two Christian ministers, Donald and Evelyn Knapp, who own a Coeur d’Alene wedding chapel. They have been told that they must either perform same-sex weddings or face a $1000 fine. It raises a legitimate claim of the encroachment of state laws into areas of faith — a question that has been previously raised in less direct ways involving bakeries, photographers and other businesses that has refused for religious reasons to service same-sex marriages. We have previously discussed the difficulty in drawing lines under the First Amendment. If this business is protected, then why is not a bakery of religious individuals? Conversely, if this business is not protected, how about all of the religions that accept payments for religious services?
Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)-Weekend Contributor
I can still remember the first time I voted in a National election. I was a young, 18-year-old student and I could finally have a say in who was going to run the country. It was a proud day for me and the countless other 18 year olds who were also voting for the first time. I can honestly say that I have not missed voting in any election since. That includes both primary and general elections. There wasn’t always a lot to vote for in some of those primaries over the years, but I consider voting a duty, so I made sure that I made it to the polls.
It hasn’t always been easy for all citizens to cast their vote. Even in my lifetime, the Jim Crow laws of the South made it difficult, at best for African-Americans citizens to register and to cast their ballots. After years of protests and legal battles, I thought the Jim Crow style of voter suppression was a thing of the past. It turns out I was wrong. Very wrong. Continue reading “Voter ID Unmasked”
By Mark Esposito, Weekend Blogger
Good afternoon folks, and welcome to the sports holy day known as NFL Sunday. We mostly all love it. The collisions, the sparkling cheerleaders, the feats of athleticism that would have made an ancient Greek Olympian proud. It’s all there – drama, excitement, pageantry, bright colors and morality. Yep there’s bad boys (think Oakland Raiders, Baltimore Ravens) and good guys (anybody named Manning or Russell Wilson) and there’s music – marching bands, pep bands, loud speakers blaring just about any rap, punk, pop, or country song you like depending on locale. Football is king! Long Live The King!
But the king has had better seasons.
From the professional gladiators to the high school gladiators-in-training, football’s morality play has come off the skids. The carefully cultivated image of athlete as hero that echoes through the centuries from the plains at Marathon to an Olympic stadium in 1936 Berlin overseen by a bad man with a bad mustache, yes, and all the way to modern day techno-proficient, thunder booming, firework blasting sports theatres, Football America is suffering.
Maybe it was avarice or a sense of invulnerability or most likely hubris. All of football was riding high early this year. The NFL was enjoying record profits even having the audacity to ask its halftime acts to pay it for the privilege of sweating it out before millions of Americans at home and in person. It was pushing the Old Man of US sports, Major League Baseball, from the headlines by moving its pre-season draft of players to prime time in … gasp … May, smack in the middle of baseball season. The colleges had just finished a game of musical chairs and chicken all at the same time and got the venerable, doting NCAA to approve a bowl championship, an acknowledgment of the 5 Big Boy Conferences, and the shunning of anything approaching governing the Big 5.
Yes football was riding high — but there were signs of looming disasters to come.
Continue reading “King Football: The Season Of Our Discontent”
Having just been in Chicago, one of the most prevalent subject of conversation (despite the football season of course) is the ever-rising number of tickets being given to drivers. The Daley administration first made Chicago the most expensive parking city in the country with a corrupt deal that bordered on the criminal. The city was also accused of corrupt dealings with the company handling red-light ticking. However, none of this has curtailed the city contractors and officials clipping motorists for revenue in the form of endless ticketing. The latest outrage was the city reducing the time of yellow lights — a small tweak of a second that resulted in nearly $8 million in new tickets. Drivers are being treated as sources for revenue and hit with the equivalent of speed traps and short lights to generate more and more tickets.
We previously discussed how the White House opened admitted that it was delayed the increasingly unpopular immigration plan until after the election. Now it appears that another radioactive issue is being slow marched until after the election. The Army has completed its investigation into Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl’s disappearance from his base in Afghanistan five years ago. However, Pentagon sources have said that any release will have to come after the election and there is no guarantee that the findings will be made public.
Continue reading “Bergdahl Report Delayed Until After The Election”
The Washington Post is reporting it as one of the most painful 40 seconds of this election cycle. Alison Lundergan Grimes (D) was asked a simple question: did you vote for President Obama. What followed in the clip below was one of the most revealing 40 seconds of how bad this election is becoming for Democrats and how radioactive the President has become. Grimes refuses to answer. She is trying to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) and these mid-term elections tend to reflect the view of the incumbent president as some voters try to either add support or resistance to a president in Congress. Obama’s popularity stands at a dismal 30 percent in Kentucky. The clip is particularly interesting given the recent public statements of the President that this election is about his policies. It was an effort to rally Democrats but candidates who have been increasingly fleeing associations with the unpopular president cringed across the country. Given Obama’s national polling, an election based his policies and Administration would magnify the already great expected losses in November, including the possible loss of both houses. Even long-time ally and former campaign manager David Axelrod said that the President’s framing of the election as a vote on his policies was a huge mistake. The deer in the headlights look of Grimes reflects that point vividly.
While President Barack Obama continues to assure the public that he is protecting privacy and the press, his Administration continues to do precisely the opposite in court with comprehensive attacks on civil liberties. A good example is the continued abuse of two-time Pulitzer prize winner and New York Times investigative reporter and author James Risen. Risen continues to be threatened by the Justice Department with arrest because he is protecting the identity of his sources. Risen spoke this weekend and observed simply that “Obama hates the press.”
Continue reading “New York Times Reporter: “Obama Hates The Press””