Sunday, July 4, 2010

Obama Holding Border Security Hostage for Sweeping Amnesty

Newsmax

Thursday, July 1, 2010 07:48 PM

By: John Rossomando

President Barack Obama's zeal to give illegal immigrants amnesty is holding the nation's border security hostage to his political agenda, says GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe.

As Obama called on Congress to tackle comprehensive immigration reform in a speech Thursday afternoon, Inhofe told Newsmax in an exclusive interview that the president clearly is using border security as a bargaining chip to obtain amnesty for millions of illegal aliens residing in the United States.

That was the same charge made by Inhofe's friend and colleague, Arizona GOP Sen. John Kyl, who stirred controversy last week when he revealed a discussion in which Obama told him that taking action to secure the Mexican border "would remove the incentive for comprehensive immigration reform." The White House has denied Kyl's allegation.

Inhofe told Newsmax that he has total faith in Kyl's assertion because he "has never told a lie" in the almost 25 years he has known him.

Consequently, he places more confidence in Kyl's credibility than that of the White House.

Rumors in Congress suggest Obama will stop at nothing to achieve his goal of allowing millions of illegal immigrants to stay in the country, Inhofe said. The administration reportedly plans to use an executive order to circumvent Congress and block the deportation of millions of illegal immigrants.

Inhofe predicts the president will use his power to stop or delay the deportation of illegals to select a block of deportees — anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000 at a time — and prevent them from being sent home.

"This is just a way for them to accomplish their agenda in this way to allow them to do what they have failed to accomplish in the legislature," Inhofe says. "It's kind of the same they did unsuccessfully on the global warming and cap and trade.

"They tried to do it with the EPA and the Clean Air Act; they are trying to take everything over by the executive [branch]."

In his speech Thursday at American University in Washington, Obama seemed to suggest that border security isn't that important in passing immigration reform. In fact, he raised doubts that the border could be secured at all.

America's borders are "just too vast" for the immigration problem to be solved with fences and border patrols alone, Obama said. He also slammed Arizona's popular immigration law, which empowers police to arrest illegal aliens and has found majority support in polls across the country.

Obama took Republicans to task, in particular 11 GOP senators who supported recent efforts to improve the immigration system. He did not name any in particular but told his largely supportive audience at American University that those lawmakers had succumbed to the "pressures of partisanship and election-year politics."

In response, Kyl, one of the 11 Republican senators Obama alluded to, said he had a good reason for his position this time around.

"My constituents have said do everything you can to secure the border first," Kyl told Fox News Channel. "It's our job to secure the border, whether or not we end up passing so-called comprehensive immigration reform."

Regarding cap and trade, meanwhile, Inhofe tells Newsmax that he remains confident it is dead in the Senate and likely would be defeated even if the Democrats try bringing it up in a modified form during the lame-duck session following the midterms.

Nonetheless, Obama plans to do everything he can to get a carbon-emissions tax passed. He recently met with moderate-to-liberal GOP senators such as Olympia Snowe of Maine, seeking their backing for a restriction on CO2 emissions.

"Well, they can call it anything they want, but cap and trade is cap and trade," says Inhofe, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. "And these guys all know now that. Even the more mushy Republicans who used to be hard for me to deal with all realize that cap and trade is the largest tax increase in the history of America."

Democrats reportedly intend to pass some sort of "benign" sounding energy legislation before the August recess, put it into conference with Waxman-Markey — the House cap-and-trade bill — and pass it after the midterms.
Inhofe tells Newsmax.TV the senators who vote for this legislation will likely be defeated.

"It doesn't matter what they put the tax on, ultimately it's the people … who are going to pay," Inhofe says. "The costs are going to be huge."

Were cap and trade to pass, it could cost anywhere from $100 billion to $300 billion, depending on the estimate, and the Obama administration believes it could cost each household $1,761 a year.

"The whole reason for cap and trade is to masquerade how much it would cost the people," Inhofe says, regarding why the Democrats do not pass a simple carbon tax instead of cap and trade.

Even though Senate passage is unlikely, liberals such as John Kerry and Joe Lieberman keep pushing cap and trade to ingratiate themselves with the "far-left environmental extremists" and get them to contribute to their campaigns, Inhofe tells Newsmax.TV.

The senator likewise dismisses Lieberman's claim to have found additional senators to support cap and trade because he believes the Senate's moderates likely would not vote for it due to its likely economic harm.

On Afghanistan, Inhofe says "there is no greater hero than David Petraeus" to win that war, and victory hinges around his ability to pull off the same strategy he enacted in Iraq.

"I think we have the right person in there doing it, and if David Petraeus can't pull off a successful surge, no one can," he says. "David Petraeus is not going to do his job unless he has the unfettered authority through the White House to get it done, and I think the problem McChrystal had was he had all of these appointees … who were really disrupting.

"Hopefully, that's in the past."

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Kerry-Lieberman Climate Bill (aka American Power Act) Would Destroy Millions of Jobs

Typical Democraps.

Kerry-Lieberman Climate Bill Would Destroy Millions of Jobs, Cost Familes Thousands

Posted By Andrew Chamberlain On July 3, 2010

President Obama has repeatedly told Americans he has three main policy priorities — rewriting health care, overhauling the financial system, and imposing a cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He met his first goal and he's closer than ever on the second; time is running out if he wants to meet the trifecta by the end of 2010. But make no mistake, the president and his allies in Congress are working hard to pass cap-and-trade before this year is up. The problem is that cap-and-trade bills are expensive ^[1], they inevitably cost jobs, and the American people know it.

Last year, the House passed the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill. But now that 1400+ page bill is stalled in the Senate in large part because of its massive costs to Americans. To jump start the debate, Senators Kerry and Lieberman recently announced a new strategy to impose a cap-and-trade system on Americans — the inaptly named "American Power Act." Senator Kerry no longer calls his various proposals "cap-and-trade ^[2]," but changing a bill's name to disguise its intentions is a time-honored ruse in Washington.

To examine the economic impact of this plan, we performed an economic and distributional analysis of the cap-and-trade portion of the proposal. The following are some of the study's ^[3] key findings:

The American Power Act would reduce U.S. employment by roughly 522,000 jobs in 2015, a number that rises to over 5.1 million jobs lost by 2050.
Households would face a gross annual burden of $125.9 billion per year, or $1,042 per household, with costs disproportionately borne by low-income households.
On a net basis, the top income quintile will benefit financially, redistributing to these households roughly $12.3 billion per year from the bottom 80 percent of earners.
Households over age 75 bear the largest burden at 2.3 percent of income, followed by households aged 65-74 and under age 25 at 2.1 percent. By contrast, the nation's highest-earning households between age 45 and 54 years would bear the smallest percentage burden of just 1.5 percent.
Contrary to the legislation's stated goal of reducing price volatility by excluding petroleum refiners from quarterly auctions, the Kerry-Lieberman bill is likely to significantly increase allowance price volatility from quarter to quarter, compared to an ordinary auction in which all covered industries bid for allowances.

It is important to note that these impacts are only from the cap-and-trade portions of the bill. Like Waxman-Markey ^[4], Kerry-Lieberman includes hundreds of pages of non-cap-and-trade regulations which will increase the cost of energy and the cost of using energy, while at the same time introducing government micromanagement of many areas of our daily lives, from the choices we can make when purchasing products, to the type of house we live in and ultimately, to the way the government allows us to make our livings. It is a transformational and comprehensive set of mandates designed and marketed as nothing less than a plan to change the way Americans live.

Contrary to its representation, basic economics shows the American Power Act is regressive and will disproportionately impact low-income households.

Instead of distributing revenue directly to American households, the legislation filters the money through regulated utilities. If the goal were to compensate people for higher energy prices, it would make the most sense to send the money directly to people, rather than passing through electricity and natural gas companies. But to secure political support for the bill, Senators Kerry and Lieberman instead would funnel revenue through utilities. This way, utilities — and ultimately their upper-income shareholders — will be able to siphon off some of the benefits, rather than passing them on to consumers ^[5].

The numbers speak for themselves. According to the EPA's own estimates of GDP reductions, the bill would shrink the U.S. economy by $39 billion by 2015 and up to $384 billion by 2050. Some lawmakers say that's a good deal for climate policy. But with unemployment hovering near 10 percent and the economy pulling out of recession, is today a good time to impose higher energy costs on American families?

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/kerry-lieberman-climate-bill-would-destroy-millions-of-jobs-cost-familes-thousands/

URLs in this post:

[1] cap-and-trade bills are expensive: http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2010/06/30/new-study-kerry-lieberman-to-destroy-up-to-5-1-million-jobs-cost-families-1042-per-year-wealthiest-americans-to-benefit/

[2] cap-and-trade: http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/09/28/28climatewire-boxer-kerry-set-to-introduce-climate-bill-in-43844.html

[3] the study's: http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/KL-APA-Final-Study.pdf

[4] Like Waxman-Markey: http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/10/12/study-the-other-half-of-waxman-markey/

[5] passing them on to consumers: http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2010/07/01/response-to-michael-levi%e2%80%99s-council-on-foreign-relations-blog-post/

Bottom Scholars: Why the American Public Was Dumb Enought to Vote for Obama

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/539334/201007021859/Bottom-Scholars.aspx

Bottom Scholars

Posted 07/02/2010 06:59 PM ET

Academic Fraud: A new ranking of U.S. presidents has been released. No. 15 — three spots higher than Ronald Reagan — is a chief executive who's been in office less than 18 months. This would be funny if it weren't so sad.

The list was compiled by the Siena College Research Institute, which asked 238 "presidential scholars" to rank the 43 presidents in 20 categories. FDR finished first, buoyed by a No. 1 rating in "handling the economy." Theodore Roosevelt was second, then Lincoln, Washington and Jefferson. Rounding out the top 10: Madison, Monroe, Wilson, Truman and Eisenhower.

It's in the second 10, however, that things get funny. Barack Obama and his record-low approval ratings, tottering economy and feckless foreign policy somehow end up 15th while Reagan, who ended the Cold War, turned the U.S. economy around and set the stage for 20 years of unprecedented prosperity, is 18th.

John Kennedy, Bill Clinton and Lyndon Johnson also outrank the Gipper, who scored highest on "luck" and lowest on "intelligence ."

The bias in Siena's latest rankings begins with the choice of categories. Some are legitimate: economic stewardship, foreign policy accomplishment, domestic achievement, leadership ability, court appointments, integrity. But others are simply asinine.

Besides luck, "family background, education and experience" are dubious measures. Here too, Reagan ranked low (34th). No getting around that Eureka College degree. But so did George W. Bush (36th), despite his Yale B.A., Harvard MBA and a father who ranked 11th. Overall, Bushes 41 and 43 finished 22nd and 39th.

And while ability to communicate can be helpful, it's not necessarily a key to greatness or even competence. "Ability to compromise" can be a sign of weakness or lack of principle, and "party leadership" doesn't mean much if the party is led in the wrong direction.

Opinions on "handling the economy" are particularly interesting.

Here, Reagan ranks a mediocre 21st, lower than Obama, who stands 17th based on the bang-up job he's done so far, and well behind LBJ (10th), JFK (7th) and — despite two recessions in less than eight years — Harry Truman (6th).

Clinton stands a lofty third on economic stewardship, behind the two Roosevelts, and far ahead of Calvin Coolidge (30th), who only presided over the boom of the Roaring '20s.

Clinton is also considered by the scholars as our ninth-most-intelligent president, a notch behind Obama. Reagan is the seventh least intelligent, two spots behind Gerald Ford, and George W. Bush is second from the bottom in the brain department.

We are not making any of this up. You can see all the ratings at our Web site (ibdeditiorials.com). Why, if they're so silly, are we mentioning them at all? Because they're another example of the sorry state of American education. These people are teaching our kids.

Former US Congressman Indicted as Terror Supporter

http://www.newsweek.com/2008/01/15/the-laundering-lobbyist.html

The Laundering Lobbyist?

Former U.S. representative Mark Siljander is indicted on charges related to work for an Islamic charity that prosecutors say has Al Qaeda and Taliban ties.

When a U.S. Senate committee started investigating a controversial Islamic charity a few years ago, the group responded in the usual Washington way: it hired a politically connected lobbyist to get the panel off its scent. But that move may have backfired Wednesday when the lobbyist, former U.S. congressman Mark Siljander, was indicted on money-laundering, conspiracy and obstruction charges related to his lobbying work for the Columbia, Mo.-based charity known as the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA).

The indictment, handed up by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, charges that Siljander—a Michigan Republican who was once named by President Ronald Reagan as a U.S. representative to the United Nations—pocketed about $50,000 in stolen U.S. government funds to represent the interests of an organization that, according to federal prosecutors, was funneling money to an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist in Afghanistan. The new charges against Siljander and IARA are some of the most surprising and boldest yet in a Justice Department crackdown against Islamic charities that has had more than its share of setbacks of late. The charges were also vehemently denied by lawyers for Siljander and the former executive director of IARA.

Siljander served in the House between 1981 and 1987, representing a Michigan district that was previously represented by David Stockman, the former OMB director who was indicted last year for allegedly defrauding investors about an automotive firm he once headed. Siljander, who now runs a Washington-area lobbying firm called Global Strategies, is "internationally recognized for his good-faith attempts to bridge the gap between Christian and Muslim communities worldwide," according to his lawyer, James R. Hobbs. Hobbs added that his client has never engaged in any "prohibited financial transactions with any U.S.-designated terrorist" and intends to plead not guilty.

The new case is especially high-stakes for the Justice Department, because it comes after a series of acquittals and mixed verdicts against other Islamic charities accused of financing terrorism. Most notably, a recent trial against leaders of the Holy Land Foundation accused of funneling money to Hamas ended in a mistrial.

IARA, which has since ceased business, was raided by the FBI three years ago and was charged in an earlier indictment last year with violating U.S. sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq by sending money to that country. But the new charges against the group are potentially more explosive. Operating out of modest offices in the sleepy college town of Columbia (home of the University of Missouri), IARA had portrayed itself to the public as a worldwide charity that was dedicated to the "care of orphans" and other worthy causes. In fact, according to the new charges, as recently as three years ago the group was diverting up to $130,000 to bank accounts in Peshawar, Pakistan, controlled by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Afghan mujahedin leader who has vowed to wage a "holy war" against U.S. troops in Afghanistan and heads a group that has participated in terrorist acts by Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The group also employed an individual, Ziyad Khaleel, who the indictment states was a "publicly identified associate and procurement agent of Osama bin Laden."

Curtis Woods, a lawyer for Mubarek Hamed, the former executive director of IARA, disputed these charges, telling NEWSWEEK that if any of the charity's funds were provided to an "unlawful person," such as Hekmatyar, "it was inadvertent and not intended." He also said there was "no truth" to the allegation that the charity employed an agent of bin Laden.

IARA was so successful in its public relations efforts that in the late 1990s the group actually received U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) contracts worth at least $2 million to help distribute humanitarian relief funds in Africa, according to documents reported by NEWSWEEK in 2004.

Suspicions that IARA might be diverting the funds for terrorism prompted USAID—under pressure from then-White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke—to cancel the contracts. But according to Wednesday's indictment IARA improperly retained $84,922 of those funds and then used some of them to hire Siljander, funneling the money through two other nonprofits called the National Heritage Foundation and International Foundation. Siljander managed the accounts at the foundations, the indictment charges. IARA's goal in retaining the ex-congressman was to have itself removed from a list of Islamic charities being investigated by the Senate Finance Committee and to have itself restored as an approved government contractor, according to the indictment.

What exactly Siljander did for IARA is not mentioned in the indictment. A spokeswoman for Sen. Chuck Grassley, who chaired the committee at the time and oversaw the Islamic charity probe, said a former staffer does recall being contacted by a former congressman on IARA's behalf, but "there was no response to it on our part." But according to the indictment Siljander lied to the FBI about the arrangement, insisting that he had not been hired to do any lobbying or advocacy work for the group and that the monies he received from it were "charitable donations intended to assist him with writing a book about bridging the gap between Islam and Christianity," according to the indictment. He later made similar statements to a federal grand jury, the indictment says.

Obama no longer excites his base

Rougher Road for Democrats Without Obama Atop Ticket

Andrew Spear for The New York Times

Representative Steve Driehaus campaigned last weekend at a picnic for Prospect House, a substance abuse treatment center in Sharonville, Ohio.

By JEFF ZELENY

Published: July 3, 2010

CINCINNATI — The congressman was dripping with sweat, and his face was as red as a tomato as he moved through a crowded park here, passing out dozens of plastic cups bearing his name.

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Andrew Spear for The New York Times

His Republican opponent, Steve Chabot, whom he defeated in 2008, greeted potential voters at the Westfest street festival in Cheviot.

"Hi, I'm Steve Driehaus," he said, leaning down to shake a woman's hand. "I'm your congressman, and I need your help in November."

While all candidates ask voters for support, the pitch from Mr. Driehaus is more pointed than most. He is among the class of Democrats who face the challenge of running in difficult districts without the same enthusiasm and expected voter turnout that helped the party expand its Congressional majorities whenBarack Obama led the ticket two years ago.

The race highlights a central question of this election cycle: What chance do Democrats have of defending House districts, like the one here in Cincinnati and a dozen more across the country, where, by narrow margins in 2008, they captured seats held by Republicans?

To hold these seats and to protect others that are vulnerable, Democrats are trying to re-create the Obama campaign machinery and expand turnout beyond a typical midterm election to compete with a particularly motivated Republican base.

The prospects for Democrats holding on to the House, and perhaps even the Senate, could rest with whether legions of first-time or occasional voters who supported Mr. Obama, including a high percentage of African-Americans, return to the polls this year.

The contest in Ohio's First Congressional District offers one of the best case studies in the country. The campaign is among a dozen rematches in this election cycle: Steve Chabot, who was first elected in the 1994 Republican sweep, lost his seat to Mr. Driehaus by four percentage points — 14,772 votes — and is fighting to win it back.

"I think people are ready for a change from the change," Mr. Chabot said in an interview at his storefront headquarters, decorated with signs and banners from his previous races. "The change that they've seen isn't what a lot of people had in mind."

If Republicans are to win control of the House, party leaders are relying on candidates like Mr. Chabot to whittle away the 39-seat Democratic majority. Their strategy is rooted in the belief that the Republican base is significantly more energized than it was two years ago, particularly because of the influence of Tea Party activists and at least a share of independent voters who have soured on the leadership of Democrats.

Mr. Chabot is seeking to make the race a national referendum on every major element of the Democratic agenda, from health care to the economic stimulus plan to the growth of federal spending. Mr. Driehaus is working to localize the race, telling voters how they have benefited from the health care law and reminding them that road projects and development along the banks of the Ohio River are their own piece of the $787 billion stimulus package.

Their arguments have yet to hit the airwaves — both sides are rationing money for an aggressive fall campaign — but they previewed familiar lines of attack last weekend as they met voters at neighborhood fairs and sat for separate interviews.

In short, Mr. Chabot hopes to tie his opponent to the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, whom he calls "extremely unpopular here," while Mr. Driehaus believes he can be seen as his own man, a product of the West Side, who lives in his old neighborhood and still works the summer festival alongside fellow parishioners at St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church.

"But when the electorate is angry, when the electorate is anxious, they're going to look for somebody to blame," Mr. Driehaus said. "And that would be us."

As some Democratic candidates balance how closely to align themselves with the president, Mr. Driehaus believes that his best path to winning a second term is to remind voters who remain loyal to Mr. Obama of the consequences of the midterm election. He declared to a group of Hispanic voters, "I was happy to run with President Obama on the ticket."

Later, at the opening of a local office of Organizing for America, the outgrowth of the Obama campaign that works to increase voter turnout, Mr. Driehaus said: "If you believed in hope in 2008, if you believed in change in 2008, this election is about delivering on that change. It's just that simple. We can keep moving forward or we can go back."

The Congressional race, which includes most of Cincinnati and several suburbs and townships, offers a laboratory on how Democrats are working to hold their majority in the House. Two years ago, 53 percent of voters here in Hamilton County selected Mr. Obama, the first time a Democratic candidate for president won in 44 years.

Now, four months before Election Day, Democratic campaign workers are trying to follow the road map from 2008, right down to selecting the same office headquarters along Springfield Pike and at the Jordan Crossing Center on Reading Road, the first shopping mall in the largely black neighborhood of Bond Hill. The first task: re-creating their get-out-the-vote teams, block by block.

Ben Werschkul contributed reporting, and Kitty Bennett contributed research.

World News

Sunday, July 4, 2010

Obama Holding Border Security Hostage for Sweeping Amnesty

Newsmax

Kerry-Lieberman Climate Bill (aka American Power Act) Would Destroy Millions of Jobs

Bottom Scholars: Why the American Public Was Dumb Enought to Vote for Obama

Former US Congressman Indicted as Terror Supporter

Obama no longer excites his base

Rougher Road for Democrats Without Obama Atop Ticket

By JEFF ZELENY

Published: July 3, 2010

Blog

The Caucus

Andrew Spear for The New York Times

A version of this article appeared in print on July 4, 2010, on page A1 of