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Black Americans Angry at Obama

Democrats are facing criticism from an unexpected source: black Americans.  The issue prompting the rift is the policy move, led especially by President Obama, to liberalize illegal immigration.

Charles Butler, an astute political observer and radio personality who is a black American, is outraged over Chicago’s Democrat mayor and former Obama advisor Rahm Emmanuel’s encouragement to illegal immigrants. Emmanuel has proposed providing access to 23,000 jobs for illegals. Butler recently wrote:

“No longer do I want to hear the claim humanitarian issues, racism, and other excuses for not enforcing the laws of our land on illegal aliens.  The Civil Rights Movement was about JOBS, freedom was a secondary objective.  In 1963, Dr. King lead the Marched on Washington against President Kennedy because he failed to end job discrimination with the stoke of a pen, as he had promised Dr. King…No taxpayer-funded job should go to an illegal alien when Americans are available to work…Illegal Immigrants are taking jobs from Black Americans, and negatively impacting Black Americans according a study from the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. ”

Many believe, with a significant degree of accuracy, that the current large upswing in illegal immigration is a direct result of President Obama’s 2012 Executive Order mandating Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Programs. A Newsmax  report noted that the Executive Order “ended the threat of deportation for as many as 670,000 illegals between the age of 15 and 31 who were brought to the U.S. before their 16th birthday.” The program has been extended for two years.

With unemployment an ongoing crisis throughout the nation that is particularly onerous for black Americans, who are almost twice as likely to be unemployed as whites, the introduction of illegals into the work force is a particularly troubling issue.  Newsmax reports that Peter Kirsanow, a member of the Civil Rights Commission, recently noted that “in many low-skilled or unskilled occupations, in large swaths of the country, illegal immigrants have supplanted blacks—throwing lots of blacks out of work.”

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Arctic Ice Expands

Former vice President Al gore predicted in 2007 that the Arctic would experience ice-free summers by now.  Instead, NASA-funded research by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, first reported by the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail,  reveals that Arctic ice has expanded for two successive years. The 5.62 Million square kilometers covered by ice this year represents the highest ice coverage since 2006.

The Daily Mail study also found that statistics from the Danish Meteorological Institute, which uses an alternative measuring system, indicate a 63% per cent rise over the past two years.

In addition to covering a greater area, the ice cover is also denser.

Gore has been joined in his apocalyptic predictions by current U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

The international environmental climate discussion has been hampered by analyses that have been slanted to omit data that contradicts the view that the planetary weather is warming in a harmful manner, and that the warming is a result of human activity. A number of political interests with vested interests in allowing governments to exert greater control over their national economies and energy production efforts have impeded objective examinations.

Thoroughly biased actions, including harsh criticism and ostracizing researchers with contrary views, renders discussion on this vital issue a more political than scientific debate.

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Schools spending more, accomplishing less

Students are back to school this week.  Increasingly, educational costs are becoming an increasingly troubling burden to both government and parents. The problem affects elementary and high schools, as well as colleges.

The U.S. ranks fifth in spending per student. Only Austria, Luxembourg, Norway, and Switzerland spend more per student. Despite all that spending, the results are disappointing. Recently, an Atlantic Magazine  study noted that despite that, American students ranked 26th out of the 34 ranked countries in math.

The argument made by many that increased spending leads to better results has been repeatedly discredited.

A 2011 Fox News study noted that “A 2009 comparison between public and Catholic school SAT scores show that public school students had an overall average of 496 points on the critical reading portion of the test while Catholic school students scored 533 points on the same portion.  Catholic school students outscored their public school counterparts by an average of 23 points…what makes the numbers more impressive is that Catholic high schools spend more than $2,000 less per student than public schools.”

There are a number of reasons for these increased costs accompanied by poor results. Demands for increased salaries and larger staffs is one factor.  In fact, the growth in education staffing has outpaced student enrollment.  But it would be incorrect to assume that those increased dollars are going solely to teachers.  A heritage/Fordham study reported by the Daily Signal  found that non-teaching staff comprise 50% of all staff in school districts, and, indeed, teachers comprise only half of all education jobs.

The spending spree extends to colleges, as well. According to the Huffington Post,  “The inflation-adjusted price for undergraduate tuition, room, and board at public institutions rose 42 percent between the 2000-2001 academic year and 2010-2011, according to federal data. When comparing the inflation-adjusted price for 2010-2011 to the cost in 1980-1981, the cost has almost doubled. … The recession only further fueled the rising costs — with prices in some cases jumping by as much as 40 percent in a year.” Similar to grammar and high schools, some of that increase in spending results from the growth in non-teaching staff.  Those non teachers aren’t practical positions such as janitors or maintenance men. They include lavishly paid bureaucrats whose salaries can range into the quarter-million dollar range.

A 2012 Bloomberg news study found that In the past decade, the number of administrative employees jumped 54 percent, almost eight times the growth of tenured and tenure-track faculty.

A Forbes study also lays blame on lenders, particularly the U.S. Department of Education, who have made significant profits on loans  provided to students seeking to pay high tuition rates. Since these loans have none of the traditional consumer protections and can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, there have many defaults for which the Education Department recovers $1.22 for every dollar paid out in default claims.  According to the Forbes study, “This is a critical, unambiguous link that is never pointed out, but which is key…to explaining the rampant inflation we have seen in academia over the years.  Congress and the President should be demanding to know why key personnel at the Department so badly neglected to fulfill their duties, and take a hard, hard look at the corporate culture that has enabled this sort of gross neglect of basic functions…”

 

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ISIS Attack on U.S. Border Imminent

Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron has increased the United Kingdom’s threat level to severe. Similar measures have not yet been taken by the United States.

In a significant address to the British people, he clearly identifies Islamic Extremism, in whatever form it takes and wherever it appears, as threat to the rest of the world. His American counterpart has failed to respond to this growing danger in any similar manner.

That lack of action on Washington’s part could lead to disastrous consequences, most imminently on our southern border. According to information obtained by the Judicial Watch  organization: “Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle born improvised explosive …Specifically, Judicial Watch sources reveal that the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is confirmed to now be operating in Juarez… Intelligence officials have picked up radio talk and chatter indicating that the terrorist groups are going to ‘carry out an attack on the border…It’s coming very soon,’ An attack is so imminent that the commanding general at Ft. Bliss, the U.S. Army post in El Paso, is being briefed…”

There is a fundamental, almost childlike, failure on the part of the current White House to acknowledge the very real and very extensive threats facing the American people. This unprecedented incompetence is leading to consequences that will shake the very foundations of the nation.

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Can Obama Change Course?

The increasing crisis brought about by the depredations of ISIS presents an opportunity for the White House to undo the damage resulting from its prior foreign policy decisions.

In the wake, and partially as a result of Mr. Obama’s early withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, the most powerful, well-funded and organized terrorist organization yet seen emerged. In the President’s own words,

“They have rampaged across cities and villages — killing innocent, unarmed civilians in cowardly acts of violence.  They abduct women and children, and subject them to torture and rape and slavery.  They have murdered Muslims — both Sunni and Shia — by the thousands.  They target Christians and religious minorities, driving them from their homes, murdering them when they can for no other reason than they practice a different religion.  They declared their ambition to commit genocide against an ancient people.”

The need to defeat ISIS is not just based on its actions in Iraq. General Dempsey, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently noted that the group has a “apocalyptic, end-of-days” vision that will eventually have to be defeated …We actually have groups that now kind of are loosely connected, in some cases affiliated, that run from Afghanistan across the Arabian Peninsula into Yemen to the Horn of Africa and into North and West Africa…Some of those groups are local, some are regional, and some are global threats and that means it is going to be a very long contest …”

But Dempsey has apparently been forced to soft pedal his remarks, leading to concerns that the Administration’s record of foreign policy failures—in the Middle East, in the Clinton/Obama “reset” with Russia, in contending with China’s belligerence—has not convinced the President to change course.

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Labor Day: Betrayal of a Legacy

Happy Labor Day!

The American labor movement played a vital role in establishing the nation’s middle class. But have large labor unions turned this once vital movement into something more harmful than helpful to U.S. workers?

The first hint that big labor unions are no longer the friend of working men and women comes from the concept of forced dues paying.  When individuals must be forced to fork over dues, it generally means that the accomplishments of the organizational leadership are too inadequate to inspire loyalty.  Recently, one of the most prominent union states, Michigan, adopted a right-to-work law, which prohibits this practice.

Another sign of a split between union membership and union leadership is the divergence between the political views of union officials and union members.  Union leaders use their organizational assets to donate mostly to left-wing candidates, regardless of the views of their members.  That’s both arrogant and inappropriate.

In a development that even some of the most prominent of the early heroes of the labor movement never favored,  many if not most government workers are now largely unionized.  That gives excessive influence to institutions that are not part of the constitutional system of government.

the extraordinary power government unions play in elections is harmful.

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Government Regulations Brew Problems

Americans have become aware of the extraordinary overreach of government, and a recent event in Washington, D.C. highlights why they can’t even have a good drink to escape their misery.

This week, an event in the nation’s Capital entitled “How Government affects your Beer” caught the attention of the Competitive Enterprise Institute think tank.  The discussion at the so-called drinking seminar, reported by CEI, detailed the ridiculous and unjustified meddling of various laws in the brewing business.

The DC Beer publication notes that “From taxes, which make up about half the cost of a beer, to the one man in the Treasury Department who approves every beer label, to the laws that dictate how brewers can sell their beer, rules and regulations have a huge impact on the cost, availability, and variety of beer in the market.”

Part of the problem can be traced all the way back to Prohibition, when limits of all sorts were placed on brewing.  Proving that even comparatively unsuccessful presidents can still accomplish some good, Jimmy Carter signed legislation overturning some of that lingering impact in 1978.

But the beer industry continues to be hampered by ongoing, absurd regulations. There are, for example, prohibitions against  direct sales to the public by breweries, which must first go through distributors, an industry which has shrunk from 3,250 in 1990 to less than 1,500 in 2013, according to the  Beer Institute data.

The overlarge and overbearing nature of government profoundly affects every facet of American life, and has generally produced far more harmful than helpful results.

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Obama’s Stunning Press Conference

It was, arguably, one of the most stunning Presidential press conferences in U.S. history.

As ISIS continues its rampage throughout Iraq and Syria, pillaging, raping and murdering on a massive scale, and threatening to launch a major terror attack on American soil, Mr. Obama openly admitted yesterday that his Administration had not developed any strategy for dealing with the crisis.

At this extreme late date, the President wants his advisers to provide “a range of options,” and admits that his decision is not immediately forthcoming. Various reports indicate that information was available for his review for up to four years.

Now that he cannot escape public knowledge of his negligence, what is his plan going forward? He stated that he plans to meet with his national security team.  This begs the question: Why hasn’t he been meeting with these experts all along? This is a central part of his duties as Commander in Chief.

This isn’t a conservative or liberal, Democrat or Republican question.  If, at this very late venture, the President hasn’t already engaged in numerous, intensive discussions with his key personnel on this deadly problem, then he hasn’t just made an incorrect decision on a particular challenge; he has utterly failed to do his job.

House Armed Services Chair Howard McKeon  noted “We need the President to explain to the American people what is at stake, what our objectives are, and the strategy for how to achieve them.”

One would hope that after his frightening admission of inattention, Mr. Obama would spend the rest of this week in the White House making up for lost time. But that is not occurring.  He will spend today attending Democrat fundraisers in several states.

Intelligence officials and military affairs commentators note that ISIS’s rise was not unexpected: They emphasize that this disaster had been brewing since 2009.

Mr. Obama’s premature withdrawal of American forces from Iraq directly led to the vacuum ISIS filled. The President’s own defense personnel, including both uniformed members of the military as well as the Secretary of Defense, have voice alarm at ISIS’s progress.  Why has the President ignored these key figures?

What has the President been doing during this period? There is a disturbing pattern discernable in the Oval Office.  We still do not know where the President was during the Benghazi attack. His reaction to Russia’s expansionism in Eastern Europe has been strangely muted. He has yet to admit that the Obama/Clinton “Reset” strategy was a dismal failure, as Moscow arms to the teeth and displays no reluctance to employ its vast military machine.  As this article goes to press, Russian tanks have invaded Ukraine, with no credible reaction from Mr. Obama. (Important note: Mr. Obama withdrew all American tanks from Europe this year; NATO no longer has a credible deterrent to the Kremlin’s military.) He has barely discussed the growing Russian, China, and Iranian influence in Latin America, just as he has failed to address Beijing’s growing aggressiveness and military might in any manner other than the most marginal ways.

The American people face an urgent question. What steps can be taken to deal with a commander in chief who clearly fails to take his duties seriously?

One question can be answered—how the President escapes public rebuke for his complete failure to perform his duties.  Most of the major media, which strongly supported Mr. Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaigns, has abandoned its journalistic ethics and has, essentially, served as a protective shield for this White House.

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Obama’s Jurisdictional Confusion

The Obama Administration is displaying a deeply disturbing, fundamental lack of comprehension concerning the role of the federal government, and the dominion of its various agencies. The problem is reflected in issues both foreign and domestic, and is profoundly changing the relationship between Washington, the states, and individual American citizens.

The White House response to the recent beheading of an American journalist, as well as the 9/11/12 attack on the U.S. facility in Benghazi is illustrative of this deep confusion.  Each of these actions were military in nature, the former performed under the aegis of an adversarial armed force, the latter by organized terrorists using the weapons and tactics of war.

Rather than allow the appropriate organization, The Department of Defense, to timely respond, the Justice Department was absurdly given jurisdiction.  This is an irrational move for two key reasons. First, enemy military organizations are not vulnerable to nor concerned with American jurisprudence. Second, DOJ simply doesn’t have the capability to bring a foreign military to heel. Indeed, as has been amply demonstrated, even the heroic arrest or elimination by Special Forces of individual culpable leaders, Osama bin Laden being a prime example, does nothing substantive to reduce the threat.  Bin Laden is dead, but Islamic extremism is stronger than ever. Removing major figures has only strengthened the resolve of the movement, which now controls more territory than ever, a direct consequence of the Obama Administration’s decision to prematurely remove U.S. forces from Iraq and its announcement of a departure date from Afghanistan.

Domestically, the Department of Justice has failed to prosecute the tidal wave of illegal aliens flooding through America’s southern border, but has not hesitated to move against state and local officials seeking to do this vital task that the White House has abandoned.

It’s bewilderment over what it is supposed to do—and what it has no jurisdiction over– can also be seen in the events that occurred in Ferguson, Missouri. The proper course of action in the wake of the shooting of a black robbery suspect by a white police officer was to have the Missouri state legal system investigate and take appropriate action. No evidence of a civil rights violation was established before Attorney General Eric Holder became involved, sending numerous FBI agents to the area and travelling there himself. Since a civil rights violation had not been established, DOJ lacked jurisdiction and its presence was inappropriate.

In contrast, The Department of Justice has repeatedly refrained from investigating fairly obvious actions which affected Americans’ fundamental rights, including acts of voter intimidation, the harassment of journalists, and the abuse of the Internal Revenue Service involving partisan political attacks. It has also consistently interfered with states seeking to insure that their voter registration rolls are accurate.

While the Department of Justice is a key problem, other federal agencies have, during the tenure of the current White House, also been responsible for numerous, dramatic and frequently unwarranted and constitutionally inappropriate increases in Washington’s authority, endangering the rights and property of individual citizens and enterprises. The expansionist policies of the Environmental Protection Agency has caused significant harm and raised constitutional issues.

Washington’s overreach has created a regulatory climate that is Kafkaesque.

In his 2013 testimony before the Congressional Committee on over-criminalization, John G. Malcolm of the Heritage Foundation Stated: “… buried within the 51 titles of the United States Code and the far more voluminous Code of Federal Regulations, there are approximately 4,500 statutes and another 300,000 (or more) implementing regulations with potential criminal penalties for violations.  There are so many criminal laws and regulations, in fact, that nobody really knows how many there are, with scores more being created every year.  And that’s just federal offenses.”

It is clear that the Constitution never envisioned this vast and direct role for the federal government. The Bill of Rights’ Tenth Amendment clearly states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

This combination of confused jurisdiction between individual federal agencies, combined with Washington’s constitutionally inappropriate overreach into the jurisdiction of the states, reflects a government badly at odds with both common sense and its own founding principles.

 

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Moscow Moves Again

Following its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow appears to be playing a hostile role in yet another regional dispute by delivering and servicing ballistic missiles and launchers to Armenia, which is using them to threaten neighboring Azerbaijan. The weapons include SCUD-B and potentially Iskander-M (SS-26 Stone) short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM).  Transfers of such weapons are banned under the Missile Technology Control Regime and The Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation.

Armenia’s President, Serzh Sargsyan, recently threatened to unleash those short-range ballistic missiles against several Azerbaijani cities, according to Denis Jaffe, the military analyst for the U.S. Azeris network. 

Armenia and Azerbaijani have a history of antagonistic relationships.

President Sargsyan, according to an  ArmenPress, state news agency, recently stated: “the Azerbaijani leadership is well aware of the capacities and abilities of the Armenian Armed Forces. They are well aware that we have ballistic rockets, the radius of action of which exceeds 300 km and which, in a very short period of time, can turn any flourishing region into ruins. They are well aware that we have ballistic rockets, the radius of action of which exceeds 300 km and which, in a very short period of time, can turn any flourishing region into ruins, like the ruins of Agdam now.”

Jaffe’s analysis of the Armenian leader’s comments notes that it:

“1) threatens its neighboring country, Azerbaijan, with even greater aggression against its sovereignty and territorial integrity – on top of the continuing illegal military occupation of 16% of Azerbaijan for the past 20 years and ethnic cleansing of 800,000 Azerbaijanis;

2) takes pride in previously destroying the city of Agdam, with population of 153,000 whose residents were all ethnically Azerbaijani, in 1993, making it a ghost town, and

3) circumvents the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), and The Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (HCOC), by acquiring and using ballistic missiles with a range of over 300 kilometers.”