Conservative Blogger
Thursday, June 30, 2016
Did Obama White House bully anti-Muslim preacher?
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| Why did White House bully Anti-Muslim Preacher? |
According to the report -- the White House directed Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to call Preacher Jones.
There were also discussions that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton might “issue another statement to distance the United States from the Pastor Jones video.”
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It was one of several action items involving the Obama administration’s efforts to blame the attack on a YouTube video that mocked Islam.
It’s not exactly clear why they were reaching out to Preacher Jones – because he had nothing to do with the YouTube video. And the report does not indicate whether they actually followed through with the telephone calls.
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If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were trying to find a fall guy – someone to blame other than the true culprits – Islamic radicals.
It was not the first time the Obama administration tried to strong-arm Preacher Jones.
The Washington Post reported that former Defense Secretary Robert Gates called the minister in 2010 to complain about a Koran burning event. Gates said the preacher was putting military lives in jeopardy.
A Defense Department spokesperson described the conversation to NPR:
"Secretary Gates reached out to Pastor Jones this afternoon. They had a very brief phone conversation during which the Secretary expressed his grave concern that going forward with the Quran burning would put at risk the lives of our forces around the world, especially those in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he urged the Pastor not to proceed with it."
Folks, I believe a very dangerous line separating church and state has been breached. The government has no authority to involve itself in the business of a church.
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Is burning a Koran despicable? Absolutely. But so is burning the American flag. And both are protected forms of free speech.
Did the Secretary of Defense call Black Lives Matter and tell them to stop burning the American flag?
Did anti-Christian artists get a phone call from the White House-- urging them not to submerge a crucifix in a jar of urine?
Now some of you might say Preacher Jones deserved to get that phone call. He deserved to be intimidated by government officials. Perhaps. But where does it stop? Where do you draw the line?
Because one day it might be your pastor who gets a phone call -- maybe from the attorney general -- telling him to stop preaching sermons about traditional marriage -- telling him those kinds of sermons put people in harm's way.
Where does it stop, folks? Where does it stop?
Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. His latest book is "God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values." Follow Todd on Twitter@ToddStarnes and find him on Facebook.
Democratic draft platform seeks DOJ probe of fossil fuel companies
The Democratic Party's draft platform calls for the Justice Department to join several state prosecutors in investigating whether fossil fuel companies misled the public on global warming -- marking an escalation in a controversial campaign that critics liken to censorship.
As first reported by Inside Climate News, the committee drafting the party platform inserted the measure last Friday.
The measure called on “the Department of Justice to investigate alleged corporate fraud on the part of fossil fuel companies who have reportedly misled shareholders and the public on the scientific reality of climate change," according to the committee website.
The proposal is the latest shot fired in a broader battle being waged by environmental groups and their allies in government against oil companies and others.
Oil giant ExxonMobil is the target of several investigations being led by state attorneys general. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman subpoenaed Exxon’s financial records and emails last year, and has indicated ExxonMobil is not the only energy company in his office’s crosshairs. Other state AGs -- including those in Massachusetts and California -- have launched different probes against the company, seeking to replicate the success of the federal government’s 1999 case against Big Tobacco.
The U.S. Virgin Islands Attorney General Claude Walker, an independent, also issued a subpoena in March seeking 40 years' worth of Exxon communications with 90 conservative groups “and any other organizations engaged in research or advocacy concerning Climate Change or policies.”
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Fox News Poll: Clinton up by 6 points, 89 percent say 'hot-headed' describes Trump
Donald Trump has had a few rocky weeks on the campaign trail, and it shows in the latest Fox News Poll. Just over half of Republicans would rather have someone besides Trump as their nominee, and his support in the presidential ballot test has dropped seven points since May.
Democrat Hillary Clinton is up 44-38 percent over Trump in a head-to-head matchup. Earlier this month, Clinton had a three-point edge (42-39 percent). In May, Trump was up by three (45-42 percent). Clinton’s current lead is just inside the poll’s margin of sampling error.
The national poll, released Wednesday, finds she has a similar advantage when voters are asked about confidence in the candidates to make the “right” decisions for the country if they were president: 48 percent are at least somewhat confident Clinton would. It’s 42 percent for Trump.
In the matchup, Clinton is the choice among blacks (87-3 percent), women (51-32 percent), voters under age 45 (45-35 percent), and those earning less than $50,000 annually (52-30 percent).
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL POLL RESULTS
Trump leads among white evangelical Christians (66-18 percent), whites without a college degree (51-33 percent), gun owners (52-30 percent), whites (48-34 percent), men (46-36 percent), and independents (39-31 percent).
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The race is almost even among just those “extremely” or “very” interested in the election (45 Clinton to 43 Trump). This group went for Trump by four points in early June (45-41 percent).
Party unity is a trouble spot for Trump. Just 74 percent of Republicans back him over Clinton, down from 82 percent in May. For comparison, Mitt Romney lost despite garnering 93 percent support among Republicans in 2012. In addition, just over half of Republicans would prefer a different nominee (51 percent someone else vs. 48 percent Trump). And while most GOP voters describe Trump as intelligent, more than 7-in-10 feel he’s hot-headed and obnoxious. More on that later.
Eighty-three percent of Democrats support Clinton in the ballot test. That’s better than Trump does among Republicans, yet worse than the 92 percent backing President Obama received in 2012. By a 21-point margin, Democrats want Clinton (58 percent) as their party’s nominee over Bernie Sanders (37 percent).
Some 66 percent of Democrats who preferred Sanders are backing Clinton over Trump. By comparison, only 52 percent of Republicans who want someone else to lead their party support Trump over Clinton.
Twenty-four percent of Republicans lack confidence that Trump would make the right decisions for the country. Fourteen percent of Democrats feel that way about Clinton.
"The results here aren't disastrous for Trump given the troubles he's encountered the past few weeks,” says Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducts the Fox News Poll along with Democratic pollster Chris Anderson. “He's within striking distance. But he absolutely must combat the growing perception that he is temperamentally unsuited and intellectually unprepared to be president."
What words best describe the candidates? There are a couple things voters generally agree on, and that’s both Clinton and Trump are patriotic -- and lack honesty.
Clinton outperforms Trump by the widest margin on “experienced,” as 77 percent say that describes her, while just 34 percent feel the same of Trump.
Far more see Clinton (82 percent) than Trump (66 percent) as “intelligent,” and “sensible” (54 percent Clinton vs. 35 percent Trump).
About six-in-ten think “patriotic” fits each.
Clinton is still dogged by low honesty numbers, as a record low 30 percent think she’s “honest and trustworthy,” and 58 percent describe her as “corrupt.”
Trump doesn’t have much to brag about here either: just 34 percent describe him as “honest and trustworthy” and 45 percent say “corrupt” fits.
Most voters feel Trump is “hot-headed” (89 percent) and “obnoxious” (83 percent), while far fewer say those apply to Clinton (35 percent “hot-headed” and 45 percent “obnoxious”).
Less than half say the phrase “cares about people like me” describes Clinton (45 percent) and only about one third say it fits Trump (35 percent).
“While our polling shows a clear positive trend for Clinton, her six-point lead is notably small considering voters almost universally think Trump is hot-headed and obnoxious, and most think he’s inexperienced,” says Anderson.
“This race is nowhere close to breaking open, despite some huge perceived deficiencies in Trump’s character.”
Pollpourri
Libertarian Gary Johnson captures 10 percent in a hypothetical three-way vote. That causes both Clinton and Trump to lose ground, although for the most part she maintains her edge (41-36 percent). Another 14 percent is up for grabs.
Fully 92 percent of those backing Clinton in the two-way race also back her in the three-way matchup. For Trump, 89 percent stick with him.
The contest for the Congress looks similar to the presidential race. When voters are asked to choose between the Democratic and Republican candidates in their district, Democrats are up by five points, 46-41 percent.
The Fox News poll is based on landline and cellphone interviews with 1,017 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from June 26-28, 2016. The poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all registered voters.
FEC Democrats voted to punish Fox News over debate changes
Democratic members of the Federal Election Commission, in a decision to be made public on Thursday, voted last month to punish Fox News over criteria changes for the network’s first Republican presidential primary debate – but were blocked by Republican commissioners.
Commissioner Lee Goodman, one of those who voted to block the move, confirmed the details of the vote to FoxNews.com.
He called the attempt to punish Fox News over the debate changes “astonishing” and described it as a move toward censorship.
“All press organizations should be concerned when the government asserts regulatory authority to punish and censor news coverage,” Goodman said in a statement.
The vote concerned changes made to the criteria for the Fox News-hosted GOP primary debate on Aug. 6, 2015 in Cleveland. For that debate, Fox News decided to alter the format – hosting two debates instead of one and expanding the first debate to include lower-polling candidates, as well as any candidate identified as such in national polls. Seven candidates ultimately participated in the first debate, and 10 participated in the prime-time event.
A complaint subsequently was filed with the FEC claiming those changes were tantamount to an illegal corporate contribution to the candidates on stage.
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The case ended on a split 3-3 vote, resulting in no action. Three commissioners concluded Fox News violated election law; two of the Democratic commissioners went a step further and voted to penalize the network. But because any enforcement action requires four votes, the case was dismissed.
While political debate rules have come before the FEC in the past, rarely has the commission come so close to penalizing a news outlet over the issue.
The commission in 2002 dismissed a complaint about debate rules that had been lodged against the Boston Globe and WBZ-TV. And years earlier, in 1980, the commission threatened an injunction against the Nashua Telegraph over a planned debate between George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan that excluded other candidates. Reagan then stepped in to pay the costs – and during that debate, famously said, “I am paying for this microphone.”
Until recently, the FEC had steered clear of threatening action over press-sponsored debates.
Goodman argued that such “editorial decisions” regarding debate rules should be free from FEC regulation. He suggested there is “no practical or logical difference” between hosting a debate with 17 candidates and interviewing 17 candidates.
“How could expanding debate news coverage from 10 to 17 candidates be against the law?” he said.
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Supreme Court declines to hear religious liberty case
The Supreme Court on Tuesday narrowly rejected an appeal over whether a private pharmacy can be forced by the state to dispense the so-called "morning after" pill, in effect refusing to expand its look into a religious liberty fight and certain reproductive health services.
At issue is a 2005 Washington state order that a family-owned pharmacy in Olympia provide so-called emergency Plan B contraception -- including morning-after and week-after pills -- that the business owners equate to abortion, in violation of their closely-held religious beliefs.
While the official vote total was not released, at least three justices dissented on the decision not to intervene. Justice Samuel Alito strongly dissented, saying the signal from the court was clear: “Violate your sincerely held religious beliefs or get out of the pharmacy business.”
“If this is a sign of how religious liberty claims will be treated in the years ahead, those who value religious freedom have cause for great concern,” he wrote. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Clarence Thomas would also have granted the case for review.
The pharmacists say, as a proposed accommodation, when a customer asks for one of these drugs, they would be referred to one of more than 30 pharmacies within a five-mile radius that willingly offer these drugs.
Washington officials say their law -- similar to ones in eight other states -- ensures patient access to the medication, regardless of an individual pharmacist's personal beliefs.
The justices earlier punted on a separate but related issue over the federal ObamaCare health coverage law.
In that case a group of religious nonprofits -- including a Catholic charity run by nuns -- sought an exemption to a mandate in the Affordable Care Act to pay for, or indirectly allow, birth control and other reproductive health coverage in their employee health plans.
The high court threw the case back to the lower courts for further review without deciding the larger legal and constitutional questions.
The Washington state case had been pending at the Supreme Court for several months.
The case is Stormans v. Wiesman (15-862).
Obama administration pressed to deport illegal immigrant ex-cons
More than 2,000 illegal immigrants were turned loose on American streets after serving prison sentences last year - often because their home countries refused to take them back - and many subsequently committed crimes including rape and murder, a key lawmaker charged Monday.
The claim, by Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, comes a week after a federal audit blamed the Department of Homeland Security and an uncooperative Haiti for an illegal immigrant being freed to kill a Connecticut woman.
Grassley, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, called on the Obama administration to put renewed pressure on countries that won’t take back their own criminals after they have been ticketed for deportation.
“Dangerous criminals, including murderers, are being released every day because their home countries will not cooperate in taking them back,” Grassley wrote in a June 27 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson.
“Many times, these individuals have criminal histories in addition to entering the country illegally or overstaying their visa.”
Illegal immigrants convicted of crimes typically must serve all or part of their prison sentences in the U.S., and then are sent home under diplomatic agreements between the U.S. and other countries.
In 2015, said Grassley, some 2,166 individuals were released in the United States and not deported either because their countries would not readmit them or the U.S. government did not even try. In the two preceding years, more than 6,100 inmates slated for deportation were released within the U.S., Grassley said.
Some 23 countries are labeled as uncooperative, with the five worst being Cuba, China, Somalia, India, and Ghana, and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is monitoring another 62 nations where cooperation is strained, Grassley said.
“This is a serious problem that has been festering for years, but is getting worse as countries realize that they can get away with just refusing to accept back their citizens who are criminals,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of Policy Studies for the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies.
“What is equally frustrating is that the Obama administration has continuously refused to use the tools that Congress has provided and the leverage that we have with many of the recalcitrant countries, even as the roster of victims from these criminal aliens grows longer every month.”
There are a number of horrific cases involving victims of criminal aliens, Vaughan noted, including one highlighted by The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General last week. That report examined the circumstances that led to the murder of 25-year-old Casey Chadwick by Haitian national Jean Jacques, and found the agency’s overwhelmed Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau should have booted Jacques from the U.S. prior to the killing.
In Jacques’ case, Haiti denied his entry three times when Immigration and Customs Enforcement tried to deport him, claiming there was no proof he was a Haitian citizen.
Haiti refused to allow U.S. officials to obtain his birth certificate, and a 2001 U.S. Supreme Court decision limits how long immigration officials can detain people without deporting them. Jacques, who was held for a total of 205 days, was released.
A second high-profile case highlighted by both Grassley and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., demonstrates the Obama administration’s failure to deport criminal illegal immigrants to cooperative nations. It occurred June 13, when Johnny Josue Sanchez allegedly murdered five people in Los Angeles by intentionally setting fire to the building where they were sleeping.
Border Patrol agents had apprehended Sanchez, a Honduras citizen in the U.S. illegally, in November 2012, and transferred him to the custody of ICE, but he was released a week later after ICE noted Sanchez did not have a criminal history or previous immigration violation.
Since entering the country, Sanchez has been arrested on multiple charges, including in January 2016 for domestic violence, and again in May and June 2016 just days before the murders, but ICE did not detain him or place him in removal proceedings, Grassley and Goodlatte said. Sanchez has been charged with five counts of murder and could be sentenced to the death penalty.
Asked for comment by FoxNews.com, ICE Western Regional Communications Director/Spokesperson Virginia Kice said, ”Following his arrest by local authorities earlier this week, ICE conducted a follow-up review of Mr. Sanchez’s case. The review showed that, for unknown reasons, Mr. Sanchez was never placed in immigration proceedings, although the others arrested with him were. ICE’s inquiry into to matter is continuing.”
“These are preventable, needless crimes that American communities should not have to put up with,” Vaughan said.
One of the worst offending countries is Cuba. More than 35,000 Cubans, including 28,000 who are convicted criminals, have been ordered deported but remain on U.S. soil, a higher number of non-departed criminals than any other country except for Mexico, according to Vaughan.
She suggested that DHA could work with the State Department, which could withhold visas for offending countries until they cooperated.
Keeping illegal immigrants who have already committed violent crimes puts Americans at unnecessary risk, said Claude Arnold, retired special agent in charge for ICE's Los Angeles bureau of Homeland Security Investigations, who also was a deportation officer handling a high volume of criminal alien cases involving countries that did not want to take back their citizens.
“We have enough problems with our own criminals. We should not have to hold on to criminals from other countries indefinitely,” Arnold said.
Grassley said Congress addressed this problem when it amended the Immigration and Nationality Act to require the Secretary of State to discontinue granting visas to a country upon receiving notice from the Department of Homeland Security that the country has denied or is unreasonably delaying accepting a citizen, subject, national or resident of that country.
“This tool has been used only once, in the case of Guyana in 2001, where it had an immediate effect, resulting in obtaining cooperation from Guyana within two months,” Grassley said.
Grassley told Johnson he wants answers as to why the DHS is not using the sanctions authority to get full cooperation, saying he is frustrated with the “inadequacy” of the Department of Homeland Security’s efforts to persuade recalcitrant countries to cooperate.
“Lives are being lost, the public’s safety is at risk, and American families are suffering,” Grassley said. “It cannot continue.”
“Although the majority of the countries in the world adhere to their international obligation to accept the timely return of their citizens, ICE has confronted unique challenges with those countries that systematically refuse or delay the repatriation of their nationals,” ICE spokesperson Jennifer Elzea told FoxNews.com.
“Despite ICE’s continued efforts, a number of factors constrain ICE’s ability to improve the level of repatriations to those nations. Such factors include: limited diplomatic relations with some countries; the countries’ own internal bureaucratic processes, which foreign governments at times rely upon in order to delay the repatriation process; and foreign governments that simply do not view repatriation as a priority.”
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