Conservative Blogger
Friday, October 30, 2015
Grounded: New Mexico driver's licenses fail feds' test, thanks to illegal immigrant policy
Driver's licenses issued by New Mexico are about to become a lot less useful, and residents can blame the state's insistence on issuing the IDs to illegal immigrants.
The federal Department of Homeland Security informed state officials last week that a two-year effort to reconcile tough federal ID requirements with the granting of licenses to illegal immigrants based on dubious documents failed. Beginning on Jan. 10, state driver’s licenses will no longer be accepted at federal facilities, and eventually, state IDs won’t be enough to get bearers on board commercial flights.
"Although DHS recognizes the State of New Mexico's efforts to enhance the security of its driver's licenses and identification cards, New Mexico has not provided adequate justification for continued noncompliance with the REAL ID standards that would warrant granting your request for another extension," read the DHS letter sent to the state Department of Taxation. "As a result, federal agencies may not accept New Mexico driver's licenses and identification cards for official purposes in accordance with the phased enforcement schedule announced on December 20, 2013."
"With this letter, the feds are saying that they are fed up that the Legislature continues to allow the dangerous practice of giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants."In addition to New Mexico, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, Utah and Vermont, Washington, and Washington, D.C., issue driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. Washington and New Mexico are the only states that do not require proof of legal presence in the U.S. to get a state license or ID, while the others give restricted licenses to people who can't prove they are in the U.S. legally.
- Demesia Padilla, New Mexico Department of Taxation and Revenue
But New Mexico is in worse shape than Washington, which offers enhanced driver's licenses and IDs that require proof of U.S. citizenship. Those are valid under the federal law, but the standard IDs issued for years don't pass federal muster. Since 2007, more than 500,000 Washington residents have gotten an enhanced driver's license or enhanced ID card. There are about 5.4 million people with standard licenses, and about 600,000 with regular ID cards.
The REAL ID Act requires proof of legal U.S. residency for holders of government-issued identification cards who want to use them to access certain areas of federal buildings. New Mexico state law allows immigrants suspected of being in the country illegally to obtain driver’s licenses, a policy current Republican Gov. Susana Martinez has tried to get repealed. But with the policy entrenched, and officials unable to guarantee to the satisfaction of federal authorities that IDs are secure, no New Mexico-issued licenses will be recognized.
"With this letter, the feds are saying that they are fed up that the Legislature continues to allow the dangerous practice of giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants," said Demesia Padilla, secretary of the New Mexico Department of Taxation and Revenue. "An overwhelming majority of New Mexicans have been very clear on this issue, and the Legislature should start listening to them before it begins to affect the daily lives of New Mexicans."
The feds have granted New Mexico two years' worth of extensions to comply with the REAL ID Act, but has denied any further delay. The federal crackdown will extend to military bases and federal facilities such as courts, but the aspect likely to have the widest effect is air travel. Without a new solution in the coming months, New Mexico residents will likely be forced to show passports in order to board even domestic flights.
The REAL ID Act, was passed by Congress in 2005, enacted the 9/11 Commission’s recommendation that the Federal Government “set standards for the issuance of sources of identification, such as driver's licenses.”
At the core of DHS's decision is a 2003 policy implemented by then- Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson, to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants who were allowed to present the Matricular Consular card issued by Mexican consulates, as an official form of identification.
Richardson had hoped the policy would bring unlicensed drivers out of the shadows and at least have them go through the licensing process to bolster the number of insured drivers in the state.
In March, the state Senate approved a two-tiered bill that would have continued to allow licenses to be issued to illegal immigrants while taking steps to ensure security, but the measure died in the house.
Despite being the first Latina governor in U.S. history, Martinez, a former prosecutor, sees the policy as a catalyst for criminal fraud which occurred almost immediately after the policy went into place.
In 2014, Hai Gan, 57, a legal, permanent resident from China who resides in The Colony, Texas, was sentenced in federal court to 41 months in federal prison and will be deported after he completes his prison sentence for attempting to fraudulently obtain driver's licenses for 51 illegal immigrants.
Senate passes budget and debt deal, sends measure to Obama
In a rare late-night session, the Senate gave final approval to an ambitious budget and debt deal early Friday, sending it to President Barack Obama to sign.
The final vote on passage was 64-35, as Democrats joined forces with Republican defense hawks over the objections of GOP presidential candidates Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio, all of whom voted against the deal. The bill is aimed at averting a debt default, avoiding a partial government shutdown and setting spending priorities for the next two years.
Earlier in Friday's session, the Senate voted 63-35 to end debate on the measure. The vote to approve the bill was taken just after 3 a.m. EDT.
Obama negotiated the accord with Republican and Democratic leaders who were intent on steering Congress away from the brinkmanship and shutdown threats that have haunted lawmakers for years. Former Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, felt a particular urgency days before leaving Congress, while lawmakers looked ahead to presidential and congressional elections next year.
Opposition was strong in the Senate, with Paul and Cruz both leaving the campaign trail to criticize the deal as excessive Washington spending.
In an hour-long speech that delayed the start of the final vote, Paul said Congress is "bad with money." He railed against increases in defense dollars supported by Republicans and domestic programs supported by Democrats.
Meanwhile, Cruz said the Republican majorities had given Obama a "diamond-encrusted, glow-in-the-dark Amex card" for government spending.
"It's a pretty nifty card," Cruz said. "You don't have to pay for it, you get to spend it and it's somebody else's problem."
The Democratic National Committee slammed Cruz, Paul and Rubio for their opposition to the deal, with chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz saying, "There is nothing presidential about failing to pay your bills and jeopardizing our standing in the world economy. It is completely unbelievable that these reckless politicians think they deserve a promotion to the presidency."
The agreement would raise the government debt ceiling until March 2017, removing the threat of an unprecedented national default Nov. 3. At the same time, it would set the budget of the government through the 2016 and 2017 fiscal years and ease spending caps by providing $80 billion more for military and domestic programs, paid for with a hodgepodge of spending cuts and revenue increases touching areas from tax compliance to spectrum auctions.
The deal would also avert a looming shortfall in the Social Security disability trust fund that threatened to slash benefits, and head off an unprecedented increase in Medicare premiums for outpatient care for about 15 million beneficiaries.
The promise of more money for the military ensured support from defense hawks like Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, while additional funds for domestic programs pleased Democrats.
Obama and allies like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., were big winners in the talks, but GOP leaders cleared away political land mines confronting the party on the eve of 2016 campaigns to win back the White House and maintain its grip on the Senate.
The measure leaves a clean slate for new Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., as he begins his leadership of the House.
Obama had repeatedly said he would not negotiate budget concessions in exchange for increasing the debt limit, though he did agree to package the debt and budget provisions.
"I am as frustrated by the refusal of this administration to even engage on this (debt limit) issue," said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. "However, the president's refusal to be reasonable and do his job when it comes to our debt is no excuse for Congress failing to do its job and prevent a default."
The budget relief would lift caps on the appropriated spending passed by Congress each year by $50 billion in 2016 and $30 billion in 2017, evenly divided between defense and domestic. Another $16 billion or so would come each year in the form of inflated war spending, evenly split between the Defense and State departments.
The Appropriations committees will still have to write legislation to reflect the spending and Congress faces a Dec. 11 deadline to approve such a bill.
The cuts include curbs on Medicare payments for outpatient services provided by certain hospitals and an extension of a 2-percentage-point cut in Medicare payments to doctors through the end of a 10-year budget. There's also a drawdown from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and savings reaped from a Justice Department fund for crime victims that involves assets seized from criminals.
Taxpayer-backed solar plant actually a carbon polluter
Even as the Obama administration announces another $120 million in grants to boost solar energy, new reports indicate a centerpiece of the administration's green-energy effort is actually a carbon polluter.
Located in Southern California's Mojave Desert, the $2.2 billion Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System benefited from a $1.6 billion Energy Department loan guarantee, and a $539 million Treasury Department stimulus grant to help pay off the loan.
Yet it is producing carbon emissions at nearly twice the amount that compels power plants and companies to participate in the state's cap-and-trade program.
That's because the plant relies on natural gas as a supplementary fuel.
According to the Riverside Press-Enterprise, the plant burned enough natural gas in 2014 to emit 46,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide. But Ivanpah, while in the cap-and-trade program, is still considered a renewable energy source because it technically produces most its energy from solar.
Built by BrightSource Energy Inc. and operated by NRG Energy, the Ivanpah project has been mired in controversy from the start.
Taxpayer advocates object to the federal support. Environmentalists say it would hurt the endangered desert tortoise and lament that 3,500 birds were "fried" by the heat produced by the plant in its first year.
But the natural gas factor raises the fundamental question of whether this plant -- and others -- are undercutting their own green energy gains by emitting carbon pollution in the process, while not producing anywhere near the level of electricity of a regular power plant.
"This is a prime example of when good intentions go bad," said H. Sterling Burnett, a research fellow at the Heartland Institute.
Solar and wind power plants typically require some form of supplemental fuel, to deal with weather changes.
Natural gas, used at several California operations, can be used during the evenings to help protect against overnight freezing and temperature changes that can hurt equipment.
Yet while natural gas is not as environmentally damaging as coal or oil, it is a fossil fuel generally not considered "green."
Ivanpah's original license allowed it to use millions of cubic feet of natural gas with the understanding the total would not exceed 5 percent of the energy the project gets from sunlight.
BrightSource originally estimated the plant's main auxiliary boilers would use the gas for an average of an hour per day.
But in March 2014, they petitioned the California Energy Commission for permission to increase that to roughly 4.5 hours per day. In the petition, they cited a need to protect equipment and "maximize solar electricity generation."
The company defended the plant operations.
"Less than 5 percent of electricity generated is attributed to natural gas, which ... qualifies 100 percent of the plant generation as renewable," NRG spokesman David Knox wrote in an email.
Michael Ward, information officer for the California Energy Commission which provided the emissions data, confirmed that Ivanpah indeed falls below the 5 percent mark.
But the 5 percent figure does not tell the whole story -- as California does not account for emissions produced when a power plant is not generating electricity, according to Ward.
So the actual percentage of natural gas use could well be higher.
"If it were any other energy industry besides solar, the plant never would not have been built," said David Lamfrom, director of California desert and national wildlife programs at the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA).
Lamfrom said that "political pressure pushed this project through without proper input from the taxpayers and without them being adequately informed of exactly what kind of project this was."
He said officials "generated enough momentum to make this project happen in order to meet the [deadlines for] the stimulus funding."
According to Lamfrom, designers also erred in placing Ivanpah between the tallest mountains in the Mojave where there is significant cloud cover and dust which would interfere with the sunlight.
Burnett noted that low sunlight only increases the use of natural gas: "You can make solar power as cheap as you want. If the sun is not shining, or it is cloudy or rainy, it will require natural gas to ramp up [the plant] quickly when solar power goes offline. They say it is green, but that assumes that there is a power source without any environmental impact."
CNBC moderators get bipartisan drubbing for debate performance
Analysts across the political spectrum may be at odds over who won the third Republican presidential debate, but they seem to agree on one thing: the CNBC moderators had a very bad night.
The negative reaction to the debate questions and other factors has become a story unto itself, almost overshadowing the actual policy debates that broke out in between the candidate-moderator rancor Wednesday night.
The Republican candidates and observers complained the questions were demeaning, silly, and designed to provoke confrontation rather than genuine policy discussion. Others took aim at the debate format, and wondered about the moderators’ professionalism.
On several sites aggregating Twitter reaction, the moderators were declared the losers, “hands down.”
The Washington Post declared it “CNBC’s really bad debate night.”
“The moderators had a worse night than the New York Mets … this was a trainwreck,” Fox News' Howard Kurtz charged Thursday, referring to Game 2 of the World Series, and calling the debate questions “condescending, snide, hostile and borderline insulting.”
"While I was proud of our candidates and the way they handled tonight’s debate, the performance by the CNBC moderators was extremely disappointing and did a disservice to their network, our candidates, and voters,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement, calling the questioning “deeply unfortunate.”
CNBC’s John Harwood was blasted for asking Donald Trump whether he was running a "comic book" campaign, and asking Mike Huckabee if he thought Trump had “the moral authority” to be president -- a question Trump called "nasty." Moderator Carl Quintanilla later called Marco Rubio a “young man in a hurry” in reference to his age and his experience in the Senate.
Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, told Fox News Thursday morning that “it was very frustrating to be on stage.” He faulted the moderators for not sticking to the issues and promises to divvy time equally. “They lost control of the debate,” he said.
At varying times, the audience booed the moderators, giving the candidates space to draw together for the attack against what they said was their common enemy: the liberal media.
The criticism took off after Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was asked whether his opposition to raising the debt ceiling indicates he may not be the “the kind of problem-solver American voters want.” Cruz unloaded on the moderators, blasting them for asking questions like, “Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain? Ben Carson, can you do math? John Kasich, will you insult two people over here? Marco Rubio, why don’t you resign? Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?” After the cheers for Cruz died down he suggested the moderators were Democrats.
“Nobody watching at home believes that any of the moderators has any intention of voting in a Republican primary,” he charged. Cruz used the debate to send out a fundraising letter to supporters afterward, “declaring war on the liberal media,” and went on to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars overnight. As for the focus groups following the debate, the candidates who took on the media and the moderators directly -- namely Cruz, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie -- seemed to benefit the most.
“It was brutal takedown, and CNBC’s smarmy moderators had it coming. Cruz is far from the first conservative to rail against liberal media bias, but he did it about as effectively as it can be done in 30 seconds,” said the Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby. “The clip of that moment will go viral.”
Even some in the entertainment world, like comedian Patton Oswalt, began agreeing with Cruz and others on stage by the end, in spite of their fundamental dislike for the GOP candidates.
Not everyone thought the moderators went too far. Some analysts argued the questions were par for the course for the debates. And Ohio Gov. John Kasich said he “thought they did a good job,” saying he was “very appreciative of how they did their job.” He felt he had time to speak and that it “wasn't a circus."
When asked over Twitter by The Blaze about the widespread criticism, Harwood said simply, "it comes with the job."
Thursday, October 29, 2015
CNBC moderators repeatedly booed as candidates Trump, others bash ‘nasty’ questions
The CNBC debate started late and lame, and then the punches started flying.
Several candidates had very strong outings, but I must say, some of the moderators’ questions came off as downright snide, bordering on insults. One question after another was just loaded, worded to denigrate the candidates.
No wonder Ted Cruz got a big cheer from the Boulder audience when he attacked the questioners and called the debate a case study in mainstream media bias.
I’m in favor of tough and provocative questions. The Fox moderators asked tough questions. CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked tough questions. The CNBC moderators sounded condescending.
This surprised me. The network has good journalists. I thought if anything the focus on the economy might slide into dullness. But its team played into the hands of those who think the media are unfair to Republicans.
It got so bad that “Mad Money” madman Jim Cramer and Tea Party inspiration Rick Santelli sounded restrained by comparison.
After a throwaway query about biggest weaknesses, John Harwood, who also writes for the New York Times, asked Donald Trump if he wasn’t running a “comic-book version” of a campaign. Trump pivoted away from the “not very nice” question, but Harwood hammered him again: His tax plan, according to experts, had as much chance of working as The Donald flying away from the podium.
Carl Quintanilla was dismissive toward Marco Rubio by calling him a “young man in a hurry.” This was part of a long question about why he was missing many Senate votes, that ended with a preachy tone why he didn’t wait in line for his turn to run for president. Really?
Rubio punched back by saying the GOP establishment wanted him to wait, and denouncing Florida’s Sun-Sentinel (which called on him to vote more or resign) for liberal bias, since the paper hadn’t made a similar call when Democrat Bob Graham ran in 2004.
The exchange provided Jeb Bush with his one big moment in the debate, a chance to smack his fellow Floridian for supposedly not showing up for work. But Rubio effectively responded by saying someone must have convinced the former governor he had to attack Rubio.
Becky Quick asked Carly Fiorina a negative question about getting fired at Hewlett-Packard, which is fair, but rather than breaking new ground, she simply asked why the stock had plunged during her tenure. Fiorina said the Nasdaq had dropped 80 percent.
Quintanilla actually got booed during a series of questions to Ben Carson about his connection to a controversial medical supplement maker. When the doctor said the firm had put his picture on its home page without his permission, Quintanilla shot back: “Does that not speak to your vetting process or judgment in any way?” The audience unloaded.
Quick seemed befuddled when Trump challenged the premise of her question on immigration.
“Where did I read this and come up with this?” she asked.
“I don’t know, you people write this stuff,” Trump replied.
Quick wound up apologizing, but many minutes later, she found the quote (calling Rubio the personal senator of Mark Zuckerberg) that Trump had disputed.
Anyone can make a mistake, but how do you not have the backup research at hand?
The crowd also booed Harwood when he invited Mike Huckabee to slam Trump by asking whether The Donald has the “moral authority” to unite the country. Huckabee deflected it with a joke, and Trump accused Harwood of “such a nasty question.”
As the Colorado night wore on, the debate’s focus often seemed to shift from the economy to the press. When Trump was railing against Super PACs, Rubio declared that the Democrats have a Super PAC called the mainstream media. He cited the positive reports of Hillary Clinton’s House Benghazi testimony (which some conservative commentators and even GOP candidates did say was a good day for her).
And Cruz may have overreached in comparing CNBC’s questions to those asked at the Democratic debate, since that event was handled by CNN.
Rubio may have had the most breakout moments, some of them sprinkled with humor. Cruz, Fiorina, Kasich and Chris Christie had a few. Bush failed to make his mark. Trump and Carson did nothing to hurt themselves.
But my takeaway is that the candidates were the most effective and impassioned when they bashed the media—and that CNBC gave them plenty of ammunition.
Click for more Media Buzz.
Watchdog: Federal security force has more cars than officers, wastes millions
The security force that protects federal buildings has more SUVs than officers, according to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) watchdog, which found $2.5 million wasted each year due to mismanagement of its vehicle fleet.
The Federal Protective Service (FPS) had 101 more law enforcement vehicles than officers last year, and spent taxpayer funding to upgrade its SUVs with bike racks, the new audit released by the Office of Inspector General found.
"FPS is not managing its fleet effectively," the OIG said. "FPS did not properly justify that its current fleet is necessary to carry out its operational mission."
"Specifically, FPS did not justify the need for: more vehicles than officers; administrative vehicles; larger sport utility vehicles; home-to-work miles in one region; and discretionary equipment added to vehicles," they said.
The FPS has a fleet of 1,169 vehicles, the vast majority of which are SUVs. The fleet cost $10.7 million to lease last year.
"In [fiscal year] FY 2014, FPS had 101 more law enforcement vehicles than full-time equivalent law enforcement positions," the audit found.
The OIG noted that the agency does have a need for spare vehicles when an officer's vehicle breaks down, but questioned the large number of excessive vehicles in the fleet. The FPS could save $1,071,500 each year if it got rid of its spare vehicles.
US special forces reportedly in covert combat for months against ISIS
U.S. special operations forces reportedly have carried out several covert combat missions against ISIS over the past year, contrary to the Pentagon's insistence that operations like last week's raid of an ISIS-held prison in northern Iraq was a "unique" circumstance.
Bloomberg View reported that a special operations task force staffs an operations center in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil to support such missions. The report, which cited U.S. and Kurdish officials, claimed that the task force has worked in recent months to identify and locate senior leaders of ISIS. Members of the group also participated in last week's raid, during which Army Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler was killed. Wheeler became the first American to die in combat since the launch of anti-ISIS operations last year.
At a Pentagon briefing in Baghdad Tuesday, spokesman Col. Peter Warren answered a question about whether U.S. forces in Iraq were in combat against ISIS in no uncertain terms.
"We're in combat," Warren said. "I thought I made that pretty clear ... That is why we all carry guns. That's why we all get combat patches when we leave here, that's why we all receive [an] immediate danger badge. So, of course we're in combat."
Last week, Cook said the raid on the ISIS prison in the town of Hawija was "consistent with our counter-ISIL effort to train, advise and assist Iraqi forces", using a different acronym for the terror group. He also said the rescue was a "unique" circumstance, but declined to say that it was the only time U.S. forces have engaged in a form of ground combat in Iraq. Instead, he noted that U.S. troops are "allowed to defend themselves, and also defend partner forces, and to protect against the loss of innocent life."
Cook's previous comments had kept with a general avoidance on the part of administration officials to admit that U.S. troops were in combat. However, on Friday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said while discussing the raid, "This is combat, things are complicated."
Bloomberg View reported that in addition to the special operations task force, the operations center also contains so-called Joint Terminal Attack Controllers, who work with U.S. allies and the Iraqis to coordinate combat flights against ISIS over Iraq. A third group, from the Marine Special Operations Command, is in charge of training Kurdish counter-terrorism forces.
On Tuesday, Carter testified on Capitol Hill that that the military plans a "higher and heavier rate of strikes" against ISIS targets. Separately, a senior U.S. official confirmed to Fox News that President Obama is considering proposals to move U.S. troops closer to the front lines in the fight.
On Wednesday, retired Gen. John Allen told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that as the U.S. continues to build up its military options in Syrian, European nations might consider combat operations to battle extremists.
Allen said the U.S. military recently began asking its European allies to join it at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey where the U.S. is being allowed to launch fighter aircraft and surveillance missions in Syria.
"I expect that as time goes on, and as more opportunity becomes available to us, we may well see our European partners become more kinetically involved in Syria," Allen said.
"There may be opportunities in the south as well as in the north where our European coalition partners could in fact play an important role, and I'm thinking special operations," Allen said, adding that additional details could only be provided in a classified setting.
'Extremely disappointing': RNC head slams CNBC debate moderators
Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus had harsh words for the CNBC moderators of Wednesday night's GOP debate, calling their performance "extremely disappointing."
"While I was proud of our candidates and the way they handled tonight’s debate, the performance by the CNBC moderators ... did a disservice to their network, our candidates, and voters," Priebus said in a statement. "Our diverse field of talented and exceptionally qualified candidates did their best to share ideas for how to reinvigorate the economy and put Americans back to work despite deeply unfortunate questioning from CNBC."
Priebus restated his criticism on Twitter.
Priebus was not the only Republican to take issue with moderators John Harwood, Carl Quintanilla and Becky Quick, as several candidates expressed frustration with the questions posed to them.
"The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media," Texas Sen. Ted Cruz said early on.
"This is not a cage match," he added. "How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?"
Others complained the moderators' questions were hostile and based on inaccurate premises.
"That's not true," retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson objected to one moderator's depiction of his tax plans. "When we put all the facts down, you'll be able to see that it's not true, it works out very well."
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took issue with one moderator's interruption. "Do you want me to answer or do you want to answer?" he said. "Because, I've got to tell you the truth, even in New Jersey what you're doing is called rude."
In his closing statement Donald Trump chastised the network for trying to extend the debate past the two-hour mark, which he and Carson had teamed up to stop.
"In about two minutes I renegotiated it down to two hours so we could get the hell out of here," he bragged.
Trump, who had predicted the debate would be "unfair" hours before it started, told CNBC after he walked offstage that he felt the Republicans had been treated far differently than the Democrats during their first faceoff earlier this month.
"If you looked at Hillary's deal a couple of weeks ago, the questions were much softer, much easier, much nicer. It was like a giant lovefest," he said. "That did not take place over here. This was pretty tough."
Bush campaign manager Danny Diaz confirmed that he had expressed displeasure to a CNBC producer about the debate.
NBC spokesman Brian Steel responded with a one-sentence statement: "People who want to be president of the United States should be able to answer tough questions."
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Planned Parenthood doctor appears to admit to partial-birth abortions
A Planned Parenthood doctor laughs as she says she continues to “strive” to deliver an aborted baby with an intact skull and appears to admit participating in partial-birth abortions in the latest undercover video released Tuesday targeting Planned Parenthood.
A woman identified as Dr. Amna Dermish of Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas is the focus of the Center for Medical Progress’ 11th video, which is purported to have been filmed during a medical conference in October 2014.
“My aim is usually to get the specimens out pretty intact,” Dermish says at one point.
“Well this will give me something to strive for!”Dermish says in the video that she does not use the chemical digoxin, used to kill fetuses in the womb, before 20 weeks. She doesn’t say if she uses another chemical during the more than eight-minute, edited clip, and CMP asserts that means babies are delivered alive and killed outside of the womb. Dermish says she has used “ultrasound guidance” to manipulate fetuses for feet-first abortions in the video, a practice CMP describes as a “hallmark” of the illegal partial-birth abortion procedure.
- Dr. Amna Dermish, when asked if she's delivered a fetus with an intact skull
A partial-birth abortion is defined as “deliberately and intentionally vaginally” delivering a living fetus where “any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of” killing the fetus. The practice was outlawed by President George W. Bush in 2003.
Asked about harvesting intact fetal brains, Dermish says she has not been able to do that yet.
“Well this will give me something to strive for!” she says, laughing.
When discussing a colleague that is able to identify nine-week fetal hearts in the remains of aborted babies, a woman identified as being from Whole Women’s Health, another abortion clinic, interjects, “Well it’s cute. It is cute.”
Dermish adds: “It’s amazing. It’s sort of – I have so much respect for development. It’s just incredible. So she’s always at 10, 11, 12 weeks, she’s like trying to find the kidneys and any of the organs of that gestation.”
Previous CMP videos have appeared to show Planned Parenthood officials admitting the organization alters abortion procedures to procure fetal tissue, delivers intact fetuses and sells fetal tissue for profit. Each of those practices is against federal law.
Planned Parenthood has denied breaking any laws and has said payments discussed in the videos relate to reimbursement costs for procuring the tissue – which is legal. Earlier this month, Planned Parenthood announced it would stop taking money from researchers for aborted baby parts.
“These extremists show a total lack of compassion and dignity for women’s most personal medical decisions,” an Aug. 4 statement from Planned Parenthood said.
The videos have spurred investigations of Planned Parenthood's policies on aborted fetuses by several Republican-led congressional committees and numerous states. Investigators in Florida cited four Planned Parenthood clinics for violations in August. Outgoing House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, announced in September that Republicans would be leading a select committee to investigate Planned Parenthood.
House Republicans introduce measure to impeach IRS Commissioner Koskinen
House Republicans on Tuesday introduced a resolution to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, accusing him of making "false statements" under oath and failing to comply with a subpoena for evidence.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, and 18 other committee members introduced the resolution to begin impeachment proceedings. In doing so, they followed through on a threat first made over the summer, when Republicans accused the IRS leader of making inaccurate statements to Congress regarding the Tea Party targeting scandal and its aftermath.
"Commissioner Koskinen violated the public trust," Chaffetz said in a statement Tuesday. "He failed to comply with a congressionally issued subpoena, documents were destroyed on his watch, and the public was consistently misled.
"Impeachment is the appropriate tool to restore public confidence in the IRS and to protect the institutional interests of Congress."
The IRS issued a statement later Thursday saying, "The IRS vigorously disputes the allegations in the resolution. We have fully cooperated with all of the investigations."
The announcement of the impeachment resolution comes on the same day Koskinen testified before the Senate Finance Committee, and after the Justice Department on Friday decided to close its investigation of the targeting scandal without pursuing criminal charges.
But he faced questions over statements he made in the course of various investigations. The resolution containing articles of impeachment accused him of "high crimes and misdemeanors" over the following allegations:
- That he failed to preserve IRS records in accordance with a congressional subpoena; the resolution notes the IRS erased hundreds of backup tapes containing potentially thousands of emails from Lois Lerner, the former official at the heart of the controversy.
- That he made "false and misleading statements" to Congress, including claiming "nothing" had been "lost" or "destroyed."
- That he did not notify Congress of missing emails until June 2014, despite allegedly being aware earlier.
While impeachment is often thought of as a congressional weapon reserved for presidents, it can apply to "all civil officers of the United States," on the grounds of treason, bribery or other "high crimes and misdemeanors."
There was one case, more than a century ago, when articles of impeachment were brought against War Secretary William Belknap -- in 1876.
He resigned amid the proceedings.
Senators blast order barring female guards from transporting Gitmo inmates
Inmates apparently complained the female soldiers' actions were an insult to their Islamic faith, but the senators blasted the court decision as an "insult to women." Top U.S. military leaders agreed the directive is "outrageous," while suggesting they're currently bound by the order.
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., first revealed the decision at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday morning. She told Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford that on a visit Friday to the detention center, she was told female soldiers were not being allowed to transport the “9/11 five” – five inmates suspected of masterminding the 2001 terror attack -- after the court order.
“We have a situation down there where we met with women guards who are being prevented from fully performing their mission because the five 9/11 attackers who are charged with killing 3,000 Americans will not allow them to perform their duties because they're women,” Ayotte said.
“It’s outrageous,” Dunford agreed. “That’s being worked by lawyers, it’s an injunction. I’m not using that as an excuse, but that’s where it is right now.”
“I think it is counter to the way we treat service members, including female service members, and outrageous is a very good word for it,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter added.
A military judge issued the order in January prohibiting female guards from transporting the defendants, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, to and from legal proceedings after they refused to meet with defense lawyers and complained that any physical contact with unrelated women violated their Muslim beliefs.
The ruling by Army Col. James Pohl was meant to deal with their complaints, which posed a threat to legal proceedings.
At a press conference following Tuesday's Senate hearing, Sens. Ayotte; Tim Scott, R-S.C.; and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va. -- who accompanied Ayotte on the visit to the facility -- expanded on the issue.
Capito said the country is letting the "9/11 five dictate" the procedures in the U.S. military, adding that it is “amazing” a military judge would rule in such a way.
"Terrorists should not dictate to us what our men and women in uniform are permitted to do," Ayotte said. “This is not an insult to Islam, it's an insult to women.”
Groups call for censorship of popular social media app on college campuses
A new call for the federal government to crack down on a social media app popular with college students, but sometimes used to spread hate, is a study in how to violate the First Amendment, according to one legal expert.
A coalition of advocacy groups penned a letter Oct. 20 to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights demanding more monitoring and regulation of the popular free app, Yik Yak, by college administrators -- claiming the app is being used for sexual and race-based online harassment and intimidation that is prohibited on college campuses by Title IX.
Yik Yak, which launched in 2013 and is popular on about 1,600 college campuses, allows smartphone users to anonymously create and view "Yaks" within a 1.5-mile radius. The intimacy of the network allows for students in close proximity to comment on shared experiences, like a particular college course or sporting event, and write messages of support or jokes or anything related to the topic under discussion.
"The speech to which this letter objects includes a great deal of speech protected under the First Amendment.""Share your thoughts and keep your privacy on Yik Yak," the app, named after the '50s song, "Yakety Yak," promises on its website.
- Eugene Volokh, law professor
But the anonymity of Yik Yak has also created a forum for hateful, sexist and racist comments. In some instances, the speech has crossed the line to actual threats -- like those reported within the past year at the University of Mary Washington, where female students were threatened with rape and murder via the social media app. The groups' letter cites hate-filled comments, such as, "Jesus I hate black people," as well as sexually explicit speech.
In its effort to censor Yik Yak on college campuses, the coalition -- which includes the Feminist Majority Foundation and the National Organization for Women as well as the Human Rights Campaign and the National LGBTQ Task Force -- cites a 1969 Supreme Court case applicable to kindergarten through 12th grade students. In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the high court ruled that certain speech in schools could be restricted if deemed disruptive -- though that Supreme Court ruling does not apply at colleges and universities.
Eugene Volokh, a professor at UCLA School of Law, roundly criticized the letter Tuesday, saying any crackdown on Yik Yak -- now the ninth-most popular social media app -- is blatantly unconstitutional.
"The speech to which this letter objects includes a great deal of speech protected under the First Amendment," Volokh told FoxNews.com.
"The Supreme Court has repeatedly said that at the college and university level, this kind of speech is constitutionally protected," he said. "The breadth of the restriction just shows how little concern this coalition has for free speech rights."
Even racist and sexist comments are typically protected under the Constitution, said Volokh, who called the movement to chill free speech on campus "the great firewall of American higher education" in a Washington Post op-ed.
The coalition claims its purpose is to call for federal guidelines on how schools can deal with the harassment and discriminatory comments they say are pervasive on Yik Yak -- and not to bar the app. But Volokh said the letter makes suggestions that, if approved, would effectively ban the use of it on college campuses.
"As the perpetrators of harassment and intimidation on applications like Yik Yak are anonymous, OCR should also clarify the steps an academic institution can take to satisfy its civil rights obligations," the letter states. "OCR should reiterate that 'if harassment has occurred, doing nothing is always the wrong response,' and also provide concrete examples of what kinds of actions might be appropriate."
The letter goes on to state that examples of such actions could include "initiating campus disciplinary proceedings against individuals engaging in online harassment" or "barring the use of campus wi-fi to view or post to these applications."
The Oct. 20 letter by the coalition of advocacy groups is not the first time serious concerns have been raised about Yik Yak. The app has a "geo-fence" feature that disables its use around high schools and middle schools in response to bullying. In May, the student senate at College of Idaho voted to ban Yik Yak from campus after seven students reported feeling personally threatened by posts on the app.
"If someone puts a racist epithet on a Latino's door, or a black person's door, there's at least a potential evidence thread that can be investigated," college president Marv Henberg told the Idaho Statesman last May. "Not with Yik Yak."
On Sunday, a threat made via Yik Yak put administrators on high alert at the Des Moines Area Community College's Ankeny Campus. A person on the app asked for places in the area to go deer hunting, when another user suggested looking at the Ankeny DMACC Campus, a school official told the Des Moines Register. An e-mail was sent out Monday notifying students about the threat, which was investigated by the local police and the Department of Homeland Security.
Volokh said legitimate threats made over Yik Yak are another matter -- and must be investigated like any other.
"True threats of violence are not constitutionally protected and they should be punished," he said. "If there are these threats, you actually want them to be out there visible."
But, Volokh said, the threats and hateful speech made by some does not give the government or schools license to shut down the speech of all.
"Universities are places where people go in order to be exposed to a wide range of ideas and university students are expected to deal with speech that is offensive," added Volokh. "To say you can't access these materials [Yik Yak] from the university is to pretend there isn’t this big world outside the university where people will be able to post and read the same things."
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Inside the world of Donald Trump’s superfans
ANDERSON, S.C. — Paulette Del Casale and a friend drove nearly three hours last week from the Atlanta suburbs to this rural, northwest corner of South Carolina to experience a Donald Trump rally — again.
It was Del Casale’s fourth Trump event in three states, and for the first time she was going to work as a volunteer for a political campaign. She cheered through the Republican presidential candidate’s hour-long speech and, afterward, posed for photos with new friends and plugged a private Facebook group she helps moderate, “Trump Defeats the Establishment.”
“I feel, for the first time in my life, that I am not invisible,” said Del Casale, who decorated her campaign T-shirt with 14 large pro-Trump buttons. “For the first time, I feel like there’s actually somebody running for president who is speaking on behalf of myself and others like me.”
Del Casale is a prime example of the superfans who flock to Trump. They drive hours to campaign events and wait in Black Friday-like lines to get a spot close to the front. Many have never attended a political rally or regularly voted. Yet they devote hours each week to pro-Trump Facebook clubs and Twitter accounts and try to convince their relatives, friends and neighbors that the bombastic billionaire should be the leader of the free world.
“He hits the sore points that everybody kind of wants to steer around,” said Brett Hevner, a newly married 25-year-old who lives in Anderson and works for Pepsi. “That’s what I like about him — he’s not afraid to get in there and take the bullet. He’s not scared of anything, and that’s what we need.”
Trump’s campaign is not like most — and neither are Trump crowds. A recent speech in North Charleston attracted a group of middle-aged moms wearing homemade pro-Trump T-shirts and carrying elaborate signs. There was also a 71-year-old woman who said she watches cable television 15 hours a day to keep up with all of Trump’s comments. An appearance in rural Massachusetts attracted a man who has wanted Trump to run since 2012, as documented in a faded T-shirt featuring a cartoon Trump telling President Obama he is fired.
At a rally in Las Vegas, Trump invited onto the stage a star-struck fan clutching a copy of People magazine featuring his face. “I love Mr. Trump!” yelled Myriam Witcher, an immigrant from Colombia who bounced with the excitement of a teenaged girl meeting a boy-band heartthrob. “I am Hispanic, and I vote for Mr. Trump!”
At the rally in Anderson, cars in the parking lot were more likely to have a bumper sticker plugging a university, sports team or honors student than a political campaign. Inside were military veterans who were given seats of honor, high school students who won’t be old enough to vote next year and a 68-year-old retiree who attends as many Trump rallies as he can wearing a black and gold sombrero.
“I wear this in support because I feel like some Mexican people do support him and everything,” said Jim Yates of Laurens, S.C., a veteran of the Vietnam War and retired toolmaker whose favorite politicians are the ones who challenge longtime incumbents. “What I like about Trump is he tells it like it is. . . . We gonna hopefully build that wall, 25 or 30 feet. I’m gonna go down there and help him.”
Trump’s operation has been trying to identify his most passionate fans and funnel their energy into traditional campaign activities. Del Casale connected with one of Trump’s organizers on Facebook and agreed to help at last week’s rally. Wearing a laminated volunteer pass, she handed out yard signs, greeted the more than 5,500 people who arrived and cheered until she was hoarse.
When Trump said Republicans haven’t done enough to confront illegal immigration, Del Casale shouted, “We’re going to build a wall!” As he promised to get rid of the Common Core education standards, she agreed: “It’s child abuse!” And as Trump acknowledged that sometimes his tone can be a bit rough, she shouted, “We don’t need nice!” As Trump left the stage and rock music blared, she began to dance.
Thousands of Israelis join lawsuit against Facebook over pages inciting violence
Thousands of Israeli Jews took legal action against Facebook in a New York court Monday, alleging it allowed jihadists to openly recruit and train terrorists and plan terror attacks on its pages.
Some 20,000 Israelis, organized by the Israel-based non-profit Shurat HaDin -The Israel Law Center - joined a civil lawsuit filed Monday in the Supreme Court for the State of New York, seeking an injunction against Facebook.
The law center wants to force Facebook not only to remove the terrorists' pages, but also to better monitor and block users who post videos glorifying and encouraging terrorist attacks, and publish messages with instructions on how to carry out an attack.
“The terrorists do not come on their own; they write posts and encourage their friends to kill Jews,” said Israeli attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of Shurat HaDin. “Facebook has been transformed into an anti-Semitic incubator for murder.”
While Facebook is accused in the suit of “intentionally disregarding the widespread incitement and calls for murder of Jews posted on its web pages by Palestinians,” a spokesman for Facebook said the lawsuit is without merit.
“We want people to feel safe when using Facebook. There is no place for content encouraging violence, direct threats, terrorism or hate speech on Facebook,” the company said in a statement to FoxNews.com. “As a community of nearly 1.5 billion people, we have a set of Community Standards to help people understand what is allowed on Facebook, and we urge people to use our reporting tools if they find content that they believe violates our standards so we can investigate and take swift action.”
The company maintains it encourages users to report inappropriate or dangerous messages linked to pages, profiles or individual content and a team of safety experts prioritizes investigations by reviewing the most serious first.
But Israelis involved in the lawsuit believe more needs to be done, especially on the heels of a “wave of terror” that resulted in seven Israelis being brutally murdered and several dozen others victims of stabbings.
They point to lead plaintiff Richard Lankin, 76, who was shot in the head and stabbed multiple times Oct. 13, 2015 by Palestinian terrorists armed with guns and knives from East Jerusalem as he rode on a crowded Jerusalem bus.
Lankin, in critical condition, is being treated for life-threatening injuries in a Jerusalem hospital.Two other Israelis were murdered and more than 20 were wounded in that bus attack.
The lawsuit, filed by attorneys Robert Tolchin of New York, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner the director of the Shurat HaDin civil rights organization, and Asher Perlin of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, claims the plaintiffs "have been living in the crosshairs of a murderous terrorist rampage carried out by killers who attack people with knives, axes, screwdrivers, cars and Molotov cocktails for no reason other than that the attacker perceives the victims to be Jewish.
“Many of these murderers were motivated to commit their heinous crimes by incitement to murder they read on Facebook—demagogues and leaders exhorting their followers to ‘slaughter the Jews,’ and offering instruction as to the best manner to do so, including even anatomical charts showing the best places to stab a human being,” the complaint states.
Since Facebook uses algorithms that match users with personalized ads and connect them to potential “friends,” the company should have the ability to monitor and block such postings, the lawsuit said.
U.S. based software company GIPEC has developed software to monitor illegal activity on social media, which is used by law enforcement to identify terrorist-related pages and track piracy, counterfeiting and pornography.
A GIPEC company spokesman said there is no excuse for social media companies not to be pro-active in removing terrorist-related content immediately.
“Terrorist organizations are spending time and money and using American social media platforms to recruit and incite sympathizers and ‘lone wolves’ here in the United States and Israel and around the world,” said the GIPEC spokesperson. “The social media companies supported by advertising revenue have a moral responsibility to make their platforms safe from these horrific and directional posts that call for terrorist behavior that we have been witnessing over the past months.”
Hanan Yadin, an Israeli whose Texas-based company, Instinctive Shooting Int'l, LLC, trains military and law enforcement about terrorism related conflicts, said combating terrorism, both on the ground and virtually, is an ongoing challenge.
“I am not sure that anyone can stop this completely,” Yadin said, noting as one terrorist page is pulled down, another goes up. “This is a warfare game, psychological warfare – to instill fear and intimidation among the targets. It is also an effective and cheap tool to instigate and to recruit.”
Veryan Khan, editorial director of Terrorism Research & Analysis Consortium (TRAC), said Facebook is just one of many social media outlets being utilized by terrorists to spread their message of hate.
Others allegedly include YouTube, Twitter, MySpace, Instagram, Pinterest, Ask.FM, Tumblr, SendVid, Dump.to, Just Paste.it, Nasher.me, Scribid and a new web site, Telegram.
Terrorists have used these networks to release 19 different videos since Friday calling for attack on Jews in Israel, she said.
Khan believes Facebook is doing its best to monitor dangerous activity, but the challenge is that like playing the game “whack-a-mole,” as soon as one account is taken down, another opens.
Darshan-Leitner told FoxNews.com that Facebook is just the first of several social media companies that may be targets of future lawsuits by her group unless they begin to better counter terrorist postings and activities.
Business, states open legal fire on EPA’s Clean Power Plan rule
The legal barrage to halt the Environmental Protection Agency’s radical Clean Power Plan has begun.
A broad coalition of U.S. industry and business, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, and an armada of other business and industry organizations, has asked the D.C. District of the federal Court of Appeals to prevent any further action on the Plan until the court can decide its overall legal status.
The coalition filed a motion at their first opportunity on Friday to stay EPA’s long-awaited final rule governing the plan, immediately after the agency published the rule in the Federal Register—the official birth notice of the long-gestating plan to drastically remake the entire U.S. electrical system, and among other things create a nationwide trading system for carbon emissions that was blocked by the Senate in 2009.
The business coalition argues that a huge, unprecedented and illegal expansion of EPA authority over the country’s entire electrical power system will cause “irreparable harm” unless complicated planning process ordained by the rule is halted while that legal battle over the entire program is fought, a process likely to last through most of 2016, if not longer.
In support of their argument they provided testimony not only from business groups but also trade unions and even school boards to buttress their concerns about the disastrous potential effects of failing to halt the process while the legal battles continue.
CLICK HERE FOR THE BUSINESS GROUP MOTION TO THE COURT
At least 26 state Attorneys General associations and as-yet uncounted numbers of individual companies separately asked the appeals court for a stay of the rule on roughly similar grounds.
As a motion by 24 states to the appeals court puts it, an “unprecedented, unlawful attempt by an environmental regulator to reorganize the nation’s energy grid” is intended to force the States and other bodies to make “immediate” and irreversible decisions to plan compliance with EPA’s rule before courts have ruled whether the plan is legal or not.
CLICK HERE FOR THE STATE MOTION TO THE COURT
“Every American industry is affected by the rule,” declared Karen Harbert, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, at a call-in press conference today to explain the action.
The opponents argue that in broad legal terms, EPA’s plan depends on the selective misinterpretation of some 300 words in the Clean Air Act that have never previously been used to regulate carbon emissions in such sweeping fashion.
The interpretation of little-known section 111 (d) of the Clean Air Act extends far beyond the setting of standards for individual sources—which the opponents argue is the sole basis of the law—to push states and regions into enforcing the cuts on a much more sweeping basis.
Under the rule, U.S. states have until September 2016 to create plans that implement customized levels of carbon emission reductions established by EPA, or seek a 2-year extension if that proves impossible. EPA decides if they get the extension, but adds that those granted the reprieve must provide an update of their plans in 2017.
Full compliance with the emissions reductions goes into effect in 2022—two years later than EPA originally declared it would-- and they are supposed to produce 32 per cent reductions in emissions from existing power plants by 2030.
States that do not come up with plans that EPA deems satisfactory, or choose not to follow the new rules, will get EPA-designed plans instead—none of which have so far been seen.
Those deadlines, both states and business groups argue, are largely intended to force states to choose in advance to shut down at a minimum roughly 11,000 megawatts of U.S. coal-fired power states by 2016, force mammoth reliance on new and unproven sources of renewable energy, and likely undercut the stability of the entire national U.S. electricity supply—and even then force suppliers to use a cap-and-trade system of emissions reduction certificates to stave off some of the drastic changes.
As one piece of evidence, the business petitioners point out that the final version of EPA’s rule sets emission levels for existing U.S. power plants that are about 7 per cent lower, for existing coal-fired plants, and 22 per cent lower, for existing natural gas-fired plants—that for brand-new facilities of either type.
Indeed, the business groups argue that under the published rule,” a new coal or gas plant with state-of-the-art controls could not achieve the emission rate [it] demands.”
“This disparity makes clear that the ‘existing source’ ceilings cannot be achieved by existing sources themselves,” but business groups argue, but essentially are pushing energy providers into deep reliance on renewables and a cap-and-trade regime that was turned down in the U.S. Congress in 2009, something that EPA Administrator McCarthy has denied.
“Bottom line: the EPA has dramatically overstepped its authority,” said Karen Harned, executive director of the National Federation of Independent Business’ Small Business Legal Center, which joined the 300,000-member Chamber in opposing the rule.
In response to questions, Linda Kelly, senior vice-president of the National Association of Manufacturers, charged that it was “pretty clear” that the timing of EPA’s publication of the final rule was “related” to the Obama Administration’s desire to show leadership at the upcoming, United Nations-sponsored climate change summit in Paris, where world leaders intend to adopt a nation-by-nation approach to setting global carbon emission standards.
Said Kelly: “The Clean Air Act was not designed as a tool for climate negotiations.”
For its part, EPA has argued, in the words of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, that its new rule “has strong scientific and legal foundations, provides states with broad flexibilities to design and implement plans, and is clearly within EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act.”
The agency has also declared that it “provided unprecedented outreach before and after the proposed Plan was issued,” and considered 4.3 million comments in response to the proposal.
McCarthy has pointed to the two-year extension in the planning process for the huge energy makeover as proof of EPA’s flexibility and the reasonableness of the planning process.
“States and utilities told us they needed more time, and we listened,” she declared on an in-house blog.
The business groups rejoinder is that while their comments were filed, they weren’t taken into account. Evidently, a majority of U.S. states—at least 26 out of 49 affected—to a significant extent agree.
Whether the opponents get the breathing space they say they need is itself going to take time to discover. Even an expedited appeals court hearing of the arguments for a stay of EPA’s timetable of execution could spill over into early 2016.
The business opponents to EPA’s plan would not second-guess the appeals court by saying whether they would go to the U.S. Supreme Court if their plea for a stay fails.
Speaking for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, however, Institute for 21st Century Energy CEO Harbert declared that her group “preserves all legal options through the entirety of the process.”
House GOP unveils two-year budget deal with White House
House Republican leaders have unveiled a tentative two-year budget agreement with the Obama White House aimed at preventing a partial government shutdown and and forestalling a debt crisis.
The text of the deal was posted to the House Rules Committee's website late Monday, setting up a final House debate and vote on the plan Wednesday. Sources told Fox News the House GOP leadership will likely require the support of almost all House Democrats and between 90 and 100 Republicans to see the agreement through.
The budget pact, coupled with a must-pass increase in the federal borrowing limit, would solve the thorniest issues awaiting Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who is set to be elected Speaker of the House on Thursday. However, sources told Fox that conservatives opposed to Ryan as speaker may use the proposed budget as a reason to vote against the House Ways and Means committee chair. Not enough members were expected to defect to imperil Ryan's election.
The deal would also take budget showdowns and government shutdown fights off the table until after the 2016 presidential election, a potential boon to Republican candidates who might otherwise face uncomfortable questions about messes in the GOP-led Congress.
Congress must raise the federal borrowing limit by Nov. 3 or risk a first-ever default, while money to pay for government operations runs out Dec. 11 unless Congress acts. The emerging framework would give both the Pentagon and domestic agencies two years of budget relief of $80 billion in exchange for cuts elsewhere in the budget.
Outlined for rank-and-file Republicans in a closed-door session Monday night, the budget relief would total $50 billion in the first year and $30 billion in the second year.
"Let's declare success," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told Republicans, according to Rep. David Jolly, R-Fla., as the leadership sought to rally support for the emerging deal.
A chief selling point for GOP leaders is that the alternative is chaos and a stand-alone debt limit increase that might be forced on Republicans. But conservatives in the conference who drove Boehner to resign were not ready to fall in line.
"This is again just the umpteenth time that you have this big, big, huge deal that'll last for two years and we were told nothing about it," said Rep. John Fleming, R-La.
"I'm not excited about it at all," said Rep. Matt Salmon, R-Ariz. "A two-year budget deal that raises the debt ceiling for basically the entire term of this presidency."
The measure under discussion would suspend the current $18.1 trillion debt limit through March 2017.
The budget side of the deal is aimed at undoing automatic spending cuts which are a byproduct of a 2011 budget and debt deal and the failure of Washington to subsequently tackle the government's fiscal woes. GOP defense hawks are a driving force, intent on reversing the automatic cuts and getting more money for the military.
The focus is on setting a new overall spending limit for agencies whose operating budgets are set by Congress each year. It will be up to the House and Senate Appropriations committees to produce a detailed omnibus spending bill by the Dec. 11 deadline.
The tentative pact anticipates designating further increases for the Pentagon as emergency war funds that can be made exempt from budget caps. Offsetting spending cuts that would pay for domestic spending increases included curbs on certain Medicare payments for outpatient services provided by hospitals and an extension of a 2-percentage-point cut in Medicare payments to doctors through the end of a 10-year budget.
There's also a drawdown from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, reforms to crop insurance, and savings reaped from a Justice Department funds for crime victims and involving assets seized from criminals.
Negotiators looked to address two other key issues as well: a shortfall looming next year in Social Security payments to the disabled and a large increase for many retirees in Medicare premiums and deductibles for doctors' visits and other outpatient care.
The deal, which would apply to the 2016-17 budget years, resembles a pact that Ryan himself put together two years ago in concert with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that eased automatic spending cuts for the 2014-15 budget years. A lot of conservatives disliked that measure.
"It is past time that we do away with the harmful, draconian sequester cuts," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "We must also ensure that there are equal defense and nondefense increases."
Just days are left for the deal to come together before Ryan is elected Thursday to replace Boehner, R-Ohio, who is leaving Congress under pressure from conservative lawmakers angered by his history of seeking Democratic votes on issues like the budget.
The deal would make good on a promise Boehner made in the days after announcing his surprise resignation from Congress last month. He said at the time: "I don't want to leave my successor a dirty barn. I want to clean the barn up a little bit before the next person gets there."
Some of the more moderate Republican members welcomed the emerging deal and applauded Boehner.
"The outline that was presented seems like a path forward," said Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa. "He said he was going to try to clean the barn and this is a good start."
Monday, October 26, 2015
Safety concerns prompt Border Patrol to pull out of college job fair amid protests
The Border Patrol is looking for a few good men and women -- but not angry confrontation, and that concern is what prompted the agency to back out of a college job fair.
Accusing the federal agency charged with protecting U.S. borders of “unjust killings, …. racial profiling, use of force, and unjust violence,” protesters at University of California-Irvine succeeded in stopping the Border Patrol from taking part in a weekend career fair - and blocked students from learning more about a possible job opportunity.
"We regret to inform the community that out of concern for the safety of CBP Recruitment Officers, U.S. Customs & Border Protection will no longer be participating in the UCI Fall Career Fair,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Ralph DeSio told FoxNews.com, instead referring students to theagency’s recruitment website.
“If you don't like the Border Patrol, it still doesn't give you license to demand their removal."- Rob Petrosyan, UC Irvine’s College Republicans
DeSio did not say what specific threats prompted the decision. But the move followed a Change.org petition drive that some 600 people backed demanding the agency be banned from the Oct. 22 job fair at UC Irvine’s Student Center. The petition claimed “having Border Patrol agents on campus is a blatant disregard to undocumented students’ safety and well-being” and is insulting to “mixed-status families.”
UCI’s administration was “prepared to take every step necessary to ensure their safety and the safety of the attendees,” said school spokeswoman Cathy Lawhon, adding that the university never received any threats to safety.
“The Change.org petition and comments on the petition were not threatening,” Lawhon said.
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Some 30,000 students attend the Orange County campus, but a petition signed by just over 600 people was enough to prompt the pullout. (FoxNews.com)
The petition claimed the mere presence of Border Patrol representatives could prove traumatic for students.
"The fact that UCI has invited an agency known for racial profiling, use of force, and unjustified violence is an act of disrespect and insensitivity and ignores the struggles and needs of the undocumented student community on campus," it read in part.
Ironically, most of the people who signed the petition weren’t students from the university, said UC Irvine’s College Republicans President Rob Petrosyan. He said the campaign was organized by outsiders “politicizing a jobs fair aimed at helping college students find work once they graduate.”
“I haven't seen that petition distributed around the UCI class pages, and it seems like most of the signatures are from outside UCI,” Petrosyan said.
Even if the 640 people who signed the petition were in fact enrolled at the 30,000-student campus, that’s just 2 percent of the student body, some noted.
Whoever was behind the campaign to bar the Border Patrol showed ignorance about the important role the agency plays, according to DeSio, who said new recruits to the agency have an opportunity to save lives as well as protect U.S. sovereignty.
“The Border Patrol in San Diego conducted 37 rescue missions and saved 96 people from Oct. 1, 2014 to Aug. 31, 2015, rescuing them from the elements and environment when they attempted to cross into the U.S. illegally,” DeSio said.
On the UC Irvine student Facebook page, students and people unaffiliated with the public university carried on the debate.
“Students didn't want Border Patrol there because it is an immoral, human rights-violating institution,” wrote a commenter identified as Levi Vonk. “This is about denouncing an organization that has ruined literally millions of people's lives through detention and deportation, and has deported unknown thousands to their deaths in their home countries. This is a civil rights movement for everyone, regardless of citizenship. This is bravery.”
However, college is supposed to be about peaceful interaction and respect, Petrosyan countered, echoing what many others said on the UC Irvine student social media page.
“If you don't like the Border Patrol, it still doesn't give you license to demand their removal. Especially since they were there to recruit for jobs as opposed to running patrols,” Petrosyan said.
Border Patrol, which has participated in several student fairs since 2010, was refunded its $600 vendor fee. More than 90 groups posted displays at the event, including the U.S. Marine Corps, Navy and Army, agencies that have been targets of protesters at other universities, but escaped the ire of protesters this time around.
The university had refused to ban Border Patrol from the campus, saying “UCI is committed to bringing a full spectrum of employers to campus to meet with our student population.”
“It’s up to individual students to determine which employers may or may not align with their diverse talents, values and interests,” Lawhon said.
UC Irvine is the same University that garnered national attention March 3, when The Associated Students of University of California supported a resolution to ban the American flag in some spaces on campus because it represented “hate speech” and “made people feel very uncomfortable and unsafe.”
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