Congress Must Reassert its Authority and Preserve our Constitution

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120114_hn_immigration_640It’s unconstitutional.

It’s reckless.

It’s lawless.

All these things have been said about President Obama’s executive action on immigration—a breathtaking order that not only changes laws passed by Congress, but will likely send millions of mostly low-skill workers flooding into a workplace that is already struggling to raise wages and find room for all those needing jobs.

Immigration is a remarkably complex subject, and not just as a matter of policy. Our nation’s immigration laws can be difficult to understand. Our Constitution, however, isn’t complicated. Our system of government is simple.
Congress writes the law, the president executes the law, and the judiciary interprets the law. The president does not make new law.

That concept is called the “separation of powers,” and it’s of core importance to our democracy. As a bulwark against tyranny, our Founders determined that no single branch of government could perform all the functions of government—making, enforcing, and interpreting the law. In other words, our Founders took the classic powers of a king and divided them between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.

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Why Did Disney Block God?

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Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

It turns out you can give thanks for a lot of different folks on the Disney Channel website – but you can’t thank God.

I received a Facebook message on Sunday from Julie Anderson, of Angier, North Carolina, a town located about 30 miles from Raleigh. Julie was writing to tell me about her daughter, Lilly.

Lilly celebrated her 10th birthday on Sunday. After church and a delicious lunch at the Golden Corral, the Andersons headed home – and Lilly made a beeline for the computer.

Now, Lilly loves the Disney Channel – and as she was browsing the channel’s website she noticed a question. The Disney Channel wanted to know what she was thankful for. So Lilly typed in her answer.

“God, my family, my church and my friends,” the 10-year-old wrote. Lilly pressed the return key and waited for her answer to appear on the website. But her response did not appear. Instead, a message written in red popped up on the screen.

“Please be nice!” the message read.

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Sebelius: Americans Don’t Like Obamacare Because their “Financial Literacy is Low”

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Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Photo Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

Well, she may claim to not know who Jonathan Gruber is, but she sure did get a copy of his talking points.

Discussing Obamacare with a USA Today reporter, former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius blamed many of the law’s problems on the fact that Americans lack her sophisticated understanding of insurance:

Still, Sebelius didn’t dispute the point that many Americans don’t fully understand how health insurance and the Affordable Care Act work, including the trade-offs involved in expanding coverage.

“A lot of Americans have no idea what insurance is about,” she said. “I think the financial literacy of a lot of people, particularly people who did not have insurance coverage or whose employers chose their coverage and kind of present it to them, is very low — and that has been a sort of stunning revelation. It’s not because people hid it from folks. It’s because this is a complicated product.”

Sebelius served as insurance commissioner for the state of Kansas before epically botching the roll-out of a federal entitlement program in historic and ostentatious fashion. So, she knows a thing or two, America.

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Hillary Clinton: I Want $300,000 And A Bowl Of Hummus

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Over the Thanksgiving week, the Washington Post obtained rare email exchanges between Hillary’s representatives and UCLA regarding her planned speech appearance. When the fee was being discussed, UCLA asked if there was a special rate after being given the $300k figure.

Her representatives said that is the special rate, but don’t you dare forget Madam Secretary’s hummus (via WaPo):
At UCLA, efforts to book Clinton and then prepare for her visit were all-consuming, beginning almost immediately after she left her job as secretary of state on Feb. 1, 2013, until she delivered her Luskin Lecture for Thought Leadership speech on March 5, 2014.

The documents show that Clinton’s representatives at the Harry Walker Agency exerted considerable control over her appearance and managed even the smallest details — from requesting lemon wedges and water on stage to a computer, scanner, and a spread of hummus and crudité in the green room backstage.

Top university officials discussed at length the style and color of the executive armchairs Clinton and moderator Lynn Vavreck would sit in as they carried on a question-and-answer session, as well as the kind of pillows to be situated on each chair. Clinton’s representatives requested that the chairs be outfitted with two long, rectangular pillows — and that two cushions be kept backstage in case the chair was too deep and she needed additional back support.

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Proposed Bill Would Mandate High School Seniors Pass Citizenship Test to Graduate

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Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Here’s an interesting piece of proposed legislation in the Peace Garden State: a bipartisan bill recently unveiled to the North Dakota legislature would require high school students to take and pass the same citizenship exam given to immigrants seeking naturalization in order to graduate.

North Dakota’s first lady Betsy Dalrymple and state School Superintendent Kirsten Baesler unveiled a proposed bipartisan legislation on Monday that would require every high school students to get a passing grade on the civics exam to graduate.

Initiative spokesman Sam Stone says the goal is to enact similar laws in all states by 2017, when the Constitution turns 230 years old.

He says that eight states, including the Dakotas, are supporting the idea so far.

Backers say the goal is for North Dakota high school students to learn more about how American government works before they graduate.

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Milwaukee Sheriff: DOJ Profiling Guidelines Don't Mean Anything to Me

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke (D) said that new anti-racial profiling guidelines announced by Attorney General Eric Holder “aren’t going to mean anything to me” on Tuesday’s “Your World with Neil Cavuto” on the Fox News Channel.

“Those guidelines aren’t going to mean anything to me. He’s not in a position to tell local law enforcement anything about training or standards. That’s nothing more than a scurrilous charge. I’m not going to let him get away with it. I’m going to continue to push back on behalf of the men and women all across this country who go out and risk their lives in service to the community” he stated.

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Report: Al Qaeda Planning Five-Plane Terrorist 'Spectacular' For Christmas

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Al Qaeda jihadists, possibly using plans organized by a Khorasan group bomb-maker, are planning what the Sunday Express called a Christmas “spectacular” in a report released by the British newspaper this week.

Citing anonymous sources including a “well-placed security insider,” the report suggests that European officials are preparing to enhance their security at airports to prevent what many see as an “almost inevitable” attempt at a terrorist attack by sleeper cells in the UK and elsewhere. One source working within the airport security industry told the paper that officials have “been waiting for the big one” and described the threat as “real and alive”: “We’ve been told that five planes are being targeted in a high profile hit before Christmas.”

As officials decide how to handle the threat, it is possible that multiple European flights may ban electronic devices and, possibly, all hand luggage, though such decisions have yet to be taken. Express cites one source as explaining that major European cities will likely be the targets, and those used to carry on the attacks may be members of sleeper cells that would not arouse suspicion. Targeting Europe rather than America seems a deliberate choice, said one source, because “the U.S has improved their security over the summer but we have not.”

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Gorbachev Accuses US of Stoking ‘New Cold War’

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Photo Credit: VASILY MAXIMOV / AFP

Photo Credit: VASILY MAXIMOV / AFP

Mikhail Gorbachev has claimed that American “triumphalism” is stoking a new Cold War and called for “avid militarists” to stop dragging Europe into conflict.

The former Soviet leader spoke out as Ukrainian forces and separatist rebels agreed to a partial ceasefire in the civil war in the east of the country, which has killed at least 4,300 people since a Moscow-backed uprising broke out in April.

Mr Gorbachev said there was still time to defuse the standoff between Moscow and the West, as he and his western counterparts had done during the Perestroika period.

“Now there are once again signs of a Cold War,” he said in an interview with Tass, the state-owned news agency. “This process can and must be stopped. After all, we did it in the 1980s. We opted for de-escalation, for the reunification (of Germany). And back then it was a lot tougher than now. So we could do it again.”

Mr Gorbachev, 83, who has run a civil society foundation since he retired from politics, said he thought the United States was largely to blame for the confrontation today. “I don’t want to praise our government too much,” he said. “It has also made quite a few errors, but today the danger comes from the American position. They are tortured by triumphalism.”

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Obama's Dangerous Legacy for Democrats

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Photo Credit: Getty / John Gres

Photo Credit: Getty / John Gres

Now that the 2014 elections are over and national politics is all about 2016, Democrats have good reason to worry that, for all his success at the polls, President Obama will leave his party with a toxic legacy.

The Obama damage is two-fold. First, his success relied on a coalition that likely will not survive, or at least survive at full strength, without Obama himself on the ticket. Secondly, Obama drove a significant portion of white voters away from the Democratic Party.

Put those two things together — smaller Obama coalition and more alienated whites — and the result could be huge trouble for whoever the Democratic presidential nominee is in 2016.

First the coalition: Obama’s powerful appeal to minorities, women, and young people propelled his decisive wins in 2008 and 2012. But those voters didn’t show up at the polls in 2010 and 2014.

Some Democrats are confident the coalition will be back in 2016, when interest in a presidential race is far greater than during midterms. But will it return in the strength it showed in ’08 and ’12? Or will Democratic voting return to pre-Obama patterns?

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Obama Calls for $263M Federal Spending in Response to Ferguson

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Photo Credit: NY Post

Photo Credit: NY Post

Spurred by the Ferguson, Missouri, shooting, President Barack Obama is calling for $75 million in federal spending to get 50,000 more police to wear body cameras that record their interactions with civilians. However, Obama is not seeking to pull back federal programs that provide military-style equipment to local law enforcement.

The president made the announcement Monday from the White House during a series of meetings with his cabinet, civil rights leaders, law enforcement officials and others. At least for now, Obama is staying away from Ferguson in the wake of a racially charged uproar over a grand jury’s decision last week not to charge the police offer who fatally shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Obama is proposing a three-year, $263 million spending package to increase use of body-worn cameras, expand training for law enforcement and add more resources for police department reform. The package includes $75 million for the small, lapel-mounted cameras to record police on the job.

The White House has said the cameras could help bridge deep mistrust between law enforcement and the public. It also potentially could help resolve the type of disputes between police and witnesses that arose in the Ferguson shooting.

After the shooting and resulting protests in August, Obama ordered a review of federal programs that fund military gear for local police after critics questioned why police in full body armor with armored trucks responded to dispel demonstrators. Obama seemed to sympathize when announcing the review over the summer.

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