Israeli Prime Minister to Be Indicted

/0 Comments/in , /by

By Daily Wire. On Thursday, Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced that his office would be formally indicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on one count of bribery and two counts of fraud and breach of trust. The indictments pertain to three different cases that spanned two years of investigations.

The timing of the indictments gives off the perception of potential political motivation — Israel will hold national elections on April 9, and Netanyahu is currently triangulating an episode of turmoil and pushback that has followed his controversial decision to welcome fringe party Otzma Yehudit into his possible Right-of-center governing coalition. (Read more from “Israeli Prime Minister to Be Indicted” HERE)

_________________________________________________

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Be Indicted on Bribery, Fraud and Breach of Trust, Pending Hearing

By Fox News. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will be indicted on corruption charges, the country’s attorney general said Thursday, just weeks before the country goes to the polls.

Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said the charges of one count of bribery and two counts of fraud and breach of trust relate to three different cases, and came after two years of investigation.

The indictments are subject to a hearing, and marks the first time in Israeli history that a sitting prime minister has been charged with a crime. Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert served time in prison for corruption, but had already resigned by the time he was charged.

Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing and calls the various allegations a media-orchestrated witch hunt aimed at removing him from office. He has vowed to carry on and is deadlocked in the polls ahead of national elections on April 9.

“The Left is on a hunting spree against me,” Netanyahu said Thursday, adding that the accusations are a political ploy because “they know they can’t defeat me at the ballot.” (Read more from “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Be Indicted on Bribery, Fraud and Breach of Trust, Pending Hearing” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Lefties Didn’t Mind When Obama ‘Reprogrammed’ Billions in Taxpayer Funds for Illegal Alien Welfare

/0 Comments/in , /by

When anti-federalists were scared that the proposed Constitution would grant the president king-like powers, Alexander Hamilton penned an essay in Federalist 69 to allay their fears. Among the paradigm differences distinguishing the power of a president from that of a king, Hamilton wrote, whereas “the one [a president] can confer no privileges whatever, the other [a king] can make denizens of aliens.”

In 2012, President Obama, after declaring, “I am president; I am not king. I can’t do these things just by myself,” proceeded to not only grant illegal aliens amnesty but to confer on them positive privileges of denizens, namely work permits and Social Security cards. Because of those cards issued to over 770,000 aliens, billions of dollars in refundable tax credits, aka welfare, were handed out to them in violation of immigration law and the welfare reform bill of 1996. Not a single Democrat protested. To be fair, not too many Republicans did either.

Now, evidently, Democrats believe it is OK for a president to unilaterally make residents of aliens and divert taxpayer funding for their welfare, but a president can’t use defense funds for our own border against the cartels who are bringing in the very aliens incentivized to come as a result of Obama’s executive action.

Obama handed out resident status to roughly 770,000 illegal aliens, of which about 683,000 are still active. Providing this primarily low-income group of individuals with Social Security cards made them all eligible to collect the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which is essentially a wealth transfer program through the tax code. While there is no definitive data on how much we spent on refundable credits for this particular amnesty, a 2015 estimate from the Joint Committee on Taxation predicted that Obama’s second executive amnesty – DAPA – would cost $2 billion in earned income tax credits (EITC) over five years just for the retroactive portion of back taxes they were eligible for until the program was halted by the courts. The CBO gave a similar estimate for a parallel amnesty proposal in 2017, concluding that the cost of the EITC accessed by this population would be $5.5 billion over 10 years. Either way, the point is that to this very day, these illegal aliens unlawfully granted Social Security cards are drawing funds from the Treasury pursuant to an illegal executive order.

And $5.5 billion is roughly the same amount Trump would transfer from other defense accounts to the border wall under the Emergencies Act, except he would be doing so pursuant to statute and in defense of our sovereignty. Obama did this in violation of statute and in violation of the sacred trust of the American people by handing out welfare to invaders. Even if one is uncomfortable with Trump’s particular decision, there is simply no comparison to Obama’s DACA amnesty. For Democrats to support DACA to this day is scandalous hypocrisy.

Just how insane was Obama’s amnesty, which is still astoundingly being implemented by Trump? Recipients were eligible to file back taxes, according to Obama’s royal edict, and could retroactively collect the refundable tax credits for previous years. In a written response to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, then IRS-Commissioner John Koskinen confirmed that “not only can an individual amend a prior year return to claim EITC, but an individual who did not file a prior year return may file a return and claim EITC” and that “a taxpayer claiming the EITC is not required to have an SSN before the close of the year for which the EITC is claimed.”

Obviously, this was designed for legal immigrants and American citizens, but by Obama unilaterally declaring 770,000 illegal aliens to be legal and issuing Social Security cards, he opened the door for them to steal from America’s treasury.

A CRS memo in 2015, in response to a query from Sens. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., and Ron Johnson, R-Wis., confirmed that illegal alien families would be eligible for tens of thousands of dollars in tax credits from this retroactive scheme. Remember, most illegal aliens are low-income and get back much more than they pay in taxes. A whopping 87 percent of illegal immigrant households benefit from at least one federal welfare program (not including refundable tax credits), primarily because of children born in America.

Talk about illegally reprogramming funds! And there was no emergency declaration or statute backing him up at the time. The only emergency was the need for more Democrat votes.

Section 401(c)(1) of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 (PRWOA), the famous welfare reform bill, bars unlawfully present aliens from receiving any “retirement, welfare, health, disability, public or assisted housing, postsecondary education, food assistance, unemployment benefit, or any other similar benefit for which payments or assistance are provided to an individual, household, or family eligibility unit by an agency of the United States or by appropriated funds of the United States.”

Refundable tax credits should definitely count as forms of payments and assistance to individuals because all government budget scoring entities, including the Treasury Department, the IRS’ parent department, count refundable tax credits as “outlays,” not just reductions in revenue. The Congressional Budget Office, the arm of Congress that wrote the welfare reform statute prohibiting programs from being doled out to illegal aliens, counts refundable tax credits among “income security” programs, such as food stamps and housing assistance. Also, the language of the 1996 statute makes clear the intent of the law: “It is a compelling government interest to remove the incentive for illegal immigration provided by the availability of public benefits.”

What Obama did is even worse when you view it from the standpoint of legal immigrants. The 1996 welfare reform law, when it is actually enforced, prevents green card holders from accessing public benefits for five years based on the principle that permanent resident immigrants who come to the U.S. should be contributing to society as a condition of entry. Yet illegal immigrants not only got a reprieve from deportation, but were paid with the refundable tax credits that are not even available to hard-working legal immigrants.

Yet to this day, both Congress and the White House continue to champion this program.

Every day, one law after another is being violated in order to accommodate people whose entire presence here is illegal. It sets off a chain reaction of illegal behavior on their part and the part of government, most prominently accommodating identity theft. But when the end goal is to help illegal aliens, it’s not just permissible, but laudatory. Conversely, when an executive action is done to protect America from very harmful effects, then it’s terrible.

But the hypocrisy of Democrats is even worse. Not only was Obama’s amnesty more out of legal bounds than Trump’s executive order by many orders of magnitude, it is also the exact reason why Trump must take action at the border today.

From the time DACA was announced, in 2012, through 2014, the number of unaccompanied minors apprehended from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras increased 490 percent, 444 percent, and 610 percent respectively. The El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC) drafted a memo in 2014 asserting that 95 percent of the border-crossers interviewed cited the promise of amnesty as the primary factor behind their migration. During the height of the UAC surge in 2014, the Washington Post admitted that it was “driven in large part by the perception they will be allowed to stay under Obama administration’s immigration policies.”

That perception is now a reality, with a gushing flow thanks to the Trump administration continuing DACA, as well as other catch-and-release policies in deference to illegal universal injunctions from district judges.

Yesterday, Speaker Pelosi declared that Trump is “asking each and every one of us to turn our backs on the oath of office that we took to the Constitution of the United States.” I think she is right. It is absolutely illegal for Trump to continue validating Social Security cards and drawing refundable tax credits for illegal aliens, pursuant to Obama’s executive action. Consequently, if she really cared about her oath to the Constitution and also wanted to serve as a check on executive power grabs, she’d propose a resolution to overturn the DACA amnesty. (For more from the author of “Lefties Didn’t Mind When Obama ‘Reprogrammed’ Billions in Taxpayer Funds for Illegal Alien Welfare” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Planned Parenthood Doctor’s Terrifying Response to Botched-Abortion Scenario

/0 Comments/in , /by

A former patient of Planned Parenthood recalled her experience with the organization and revealed the disturbing method one doctor allegedly said he used for terminating “stubborn” pregnancies. The patient alleged that the reported method involved breaking a newborn baby’s neck if it survives the abortion. . .

The woman, who was 22 years old at the time, ended up choosing life after she discovered the barbaric methods abortionists at the clinic would use to end the life in her womb. . .

The woman said that the abortionist used a long needle to inject digoxin to stop the child’s heart beating — but the baby ended up surviving. The woman said she asked the attending doctors, “If you guys were to take him out right now while he’s still, his heart rate is still, you know, going, what would you guys do?” . . .

“[S]he told me that we don’t tell women this, and a lot of women don’t even ask this question, but if we was to proceed with the abortion and the baby was to come out still alive and active, most likely we would break the baby’s neck,” the woman recalled the abortionist saying. . .

“The more I was telling them no, it was more like they were trying to sell me something, like a seller that pushes you and pushes you until you buy their item or their product. That’s how it felt, as if they were trying to sell me this abortion,” she explained. (Read more from “Planned Parenthood Doctor’s Terrifying Response to Botched-Abortion Scenario” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

YouTube Takes Drastic Steps After Pedophile Controversy

/0 Comments/in , /by

The online video platform YouTube is taking drastic steps after reports that a pedophiles were using comments sections to target children caused advertisers to abandon the site in droves.

According to Ars Technica, some videos hosted on the website were discovered to contain highly questionable and predatory images of children that pedophiles were linking to each other. . .

The company has also permanently banned comments from channels that were caught with a history of “predatory comments.”

“Based on our review of historical comments, a small number of channels that we have identified as having a high level of risk for predatory comments will not be able to re-enable comments, even with moderation,” the statement from the company read. . .

YouTube has also been criticized by parents who have discovered videos meant to be viewed by children that had secret messages encouraging suicide.

(Read more from “YouTube Takes Drastic Steps After Pedophile Controversy” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

After Trump’s Walkout, What Comes Next in the U.S.-North Korea Nuclear Negotiations?

/0 Comments/in , /by

There was no grand bargain in Hanoi between President Trump and Kim Jong-un at the second summit between the two leaders. After meeting and taking some questions from reporters in which both were optimistic (Trump was more guarded about what would be accomplished at this summit), they didn’t even go through with a planned lunch. While disappointing for some hoping for concessions from Trump and Kim that would yield at the minimum “confidence building” measures, the news of a no-deal outcome came to me as a relief. Here’s why. . .

President Trump has already been over-the-top generous towards Kim and owes him exactly nothing. The first summit in Singapore was a PR victory for Kim, who is known internationally for what he is: a cruel, ruthless dictator who sits atop a strange (though don’t confuse it for irrational) brand of Communist authoritarianism and deserves global isolation. The state’s official ideology is juche, which infuses racism and dynastic rule and has Communist influence. It’s dangerous and still deserves global isolation.

But Trump, committed to decreasing the hostility of the two countries in the hopes of making progress on the issue peacefully, has taken an unprecedented approach: give Kim the flattery and photo opps not as a reward for disarmament, but instead as an inducement for more. Trump is trying to get the young Kim drunk on praise and fame with the promise that more will follow in greater degrees, if only Kim will accept the deal of all deals with President Trump and choose economic prosperity in exchange for his nuclear missile program.

So far, Kim has rebuffed this offer. According to the president, in Hanoi, Kim demanded total sanctions relief upfront in exchange for only minimal steps towards denuclearization. It is an absurd demand and if those disappointed with the results of the summit want someone to blame, the blame rests with Kim Jong-un and him alone. . .

One, every missile and nuclear weapon that was in North Korea at the time of the Singapore Summit is still there. And just because the regime has stopped testing missiles doesn’t mean it has stopped producing them or producing nuclear (and chemical and biological) weapons. In fact, we have reason to believe the regime is doing just that. Moreover, there are reports that indicate North Korea continues to proliferate weapons outside its borders including chemical weapons technology to Assad in Syria. Recall, North Korea and Iran have a history of cooperation. (Read more from “After Trump’s Walkout, What Comes Next in the U.S.-North Korea Nuclear Negotiations?” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

You’ll Never Guess What Was Pulled out of This Man’s Nose After He Lost His Sense of Smell

/0 Comments/in , , /by

A curious case of a man’s seemingly typical nasal symptoms landed in a medical journal after doctors discovered that a tooth growing in his nose was the actual culprit. The 59-year-old had complained of a stuffy nose, and the gradual loss of his sense of smell over the last two years and had sought the help of a specialist after topical steroids failed to help, LiveScience reported.

The man, who was not identified by name, had a CT scan at Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark which revealed a mucous-covered mass in his nasal cavity. His doctors suspected a dermoid cyst, which can take on a strange appearance and have hair or other bizarre features.

But according to the study published in BMJ Case Reports on Feb. 21, when the doctors surgically removed the growth, they discovered an extremely rare instance of a stray tooth. The case is so rare, that doctors estimate it occurs in just 0.1 to 1 percent of patients. . .

According to the authors, the man’s symptoms improved after the tooth was removed, but doctors still aren’t sure what caused the tooth to grow, or for how long it had been present without him noticing. Trauma or infection to the area may result in a misplaced tooth or developmental issues, but this man had neither, LiveScience reported. (Read more from “You’ll Never Guess What Was Pulled out of This Man’s Nose After He Lost His Sense of Smell” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

State Wants Sex Ed for Kindergarteners

/0 Comments/in , /by

The Washington State Senate passed a proposal Wednesday that will require all grades, including kindergarten, to learn about sex. . .

“By September 1, 2020,” the proposal reads. “Every public school must provide comprehensive sexual health education as an integral part of the curriculum that is evidence-informed, medically and scientifically accurate, age-appropriate and inclusive for all students regardless of their protected class status.”

The proposal doesn’t define what is “age-appropriate” for each grade, but it states that the “superintendent of public instruction, in consultation with the department of health, shall develop a list of comprehensive sexual health education curricula that are consistent with the 2005 guidelines for sexual health information and disease prevention, the Washington state health and physical education K–12 learning standards, and this section.” . . .

A sponsor of the proposal, Washington State Sen. Claire Wilson (D), said that the youngest students will learn lessons such as what constitutes as “good touch” and “bad touch.” The bill doesn’t mention this.

If parents wish to take their children out of the curriculum, the bill says that they can do so, “upon filing a written request with the school district board of directors or, or the principal of the school their child attends.” (Read more from “State Wants Sex Ed for Kindergarteners” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

Meat-Bashing AOC Lashes out at Man Who Took Pic of Burger-Eating Aide

/0 Comments/in , /by

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., lashed out at an anonymous shutterbug who “creepily” snapped a picture of her at a restaurant with an aide who was feasting on a juicy burger — an image that soon made the rounds on social media, as it was taken days after she questioned whether Americans needed to eat so much meat.

“Tonight a dude was creepily (and obviously) taking a picture of me while pretending he wasn’t and I had to break his imaginary fourth wall and say ‘Hi! I’m a person! This is weird!’” she tweeted.

The picture, posted by conservative social media strategist Caleb Hull, showed Ocasio-Cortez and Chief of Staff Saikat Chakrabarti eating at an unidentified restaurant. Notably, Chakrabarti was munching on a burger, just days after Ocasio-Cortez had warned against eating too much of America’s favorite dish.

In talking up her Green New Deal, which had initially come with an FAQ that talked (presumably tongue-in-cheek) about “getting rid” of “farting cows” to help combat climate change, Ocasio-Cortez said on a TV appearance that Americans may need to eat fewer burgers.

“In the deal, what we talk about, and it’s true, is that we need to take a look at factory farming, you know? Period. It’s wild,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Showtime’s late-night “Desus & Mero” last week. “And so it’s not to say you get rid of agriculture, it’s not to say we’re gonna force everybody to go vegan or anything crazy like that. But it’s to say, ‘Listen, we gotta address factory farming. Maybe we shouldn’t be eating a hamburger for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.’ Like, let’s keep it real.” (Read more from “Meat-Bashing AOC Lashes out at Man Who Took Pic of Burger-Eating Aide” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

More Than 100 House Dems: Our Healthcare Bill Will Outlaw Private Coverage, Eliminate Up to Two Million Jobs, and Cover Abortion

/0 Comments/in , /by

More than 100 House Democrats — nearly half of the new majority — have signed on to a new single-payer healthcare bill that supporters describe as “battle ready.” If by “battle ready,” they mean, “extremely controversial, deeply politically risky, and totally bereft of any acknowledgement of the proposal’s eye-poppingly exorbitant costs,” they’re undoubtedly correct. Politico’s story on the legislation is full of extraordinary tidbits and quotes. Here are some of the most important facts we’ve learned:

(1) The bill “doesn’t include a price tag or specific proposals for financing the new system, which analysts estimate would cost tens of trillions of dollars over a decade.” The lead sponsor of the bill says her crew will release a list of “suggested funding mechanisms” at some point in the future. One of these mechanisms, we’re told, is “a tax on high earners.” If you’ve been following this debate, you’re well aware that targeted taxes on ‘the rich’ would be woefully insufficient in raising even a fraction of the expected cost. Enormous tax hikes on all Americans would be necessary. This math is not seriously disputed.

And given the comprehensiveness of the proposed ‘benefits’ in this bill (it goes even farther than Bernie Sanders’ Senate version), some experts are already estimating that its price tag (which, again, is missing entirely from the legislation) could be on the order of $40 trillion over its first ten years. This would require roughly doubling the entire federal budget, which already runs a significant annual deficit. It’s possible that they believe this plan to be “battle ready” because it hides the ball on cost, allowing proponents to mumble about hazy “investments” instead of confronting real numbers.

(2) Via NBC News, “The legislation’s most contentious provision would end private health insurance and replace it with a government system.” Yes, virtually all private coverage would be outlawed, forcing every single American into an innovation-crushing, government-run system. Approximately 177 million Americans currently receive private health insurance, either through their employers, or directly from insurers. The vast majority of these people are satisfied with their coverage, according to Gallup. All of these people would be uprooted from their existing plans and funneled into the federal bureaucracy. On the matter of ripping people away from their existing status quo, this proposal gets worse — both practically and politically:

(3) Given the party’s grim march toward abortion extremism, it should come as little surprise that this single-payer regime would require taxpayer funding of abortion. One of the few bipartisan truces on this divisive issue at the federal level has been the Hyde Amendment, under which public dollars do not flow to abortions. This would upend that precedent, mandating (unpopular) public funding of abortion. (Read more from “More Than 100 House Dems: Our Healthcare Bill Will Outlaw Private Coverage, Eliminate up to Two Million Jobs, and Cover Abortion” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE

The Democrats Just Wrote Trump’s 2020 Ads for Him

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Earlier this week, 44 Senate Democrats, including all six leftist senators running for president in 2020, voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act introduced by Senator Ben Sasse, R-Neb.

Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., all voted against requiring doctors to save and care for a new baby born after an attempted abortion. Trump should hang this heinous vote around their necks at every campaign stop from now till Election Day.

Abortion was already a key election issue during the 2016 election, but after the third and final debate between then-candidates Trump and Hillary Clinton, Clinton’s extreme stance on late-term abortion put the subject at the top of the list. In fact, it was the top candidate-related Google search on Election Day.

A majority of Americans disagree with the position that all but three Senate Democrats took in this vote. In fact, most Americans think that abortion should be limited to the first trimester of pregnancy, and that includes a majority of folks who consider themselves “pro-choice.”

Given that Donald Trump’s pro-life positions drove a substantial portion of his voters to the polls back in 2016, when the controversy about his opponent’s position was only about late-term abortion, imagine what his numbers could look like if he’s up against a Democrat who voted against banning outright infanticide.

Sure, they could make the claim – as Planned Parenthood has – that this would somehow have restricted abortion access, which is nonsensical since the bill’s text places no limits on when a an abortion may be performed or what kind of procedure could be used.

They could claim – as Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., did before the vote – that the bill would have criminalized doctors who do not go to extraordinary lengths to save babies who were “non-viable” to begin with or that mothers would be put in danger. But the bill simply and unequivocally states that doctors should give the same reasonable standard of care to babies born alive as they would to any infant needing care.

They could claim – alongside their colleague Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. – that this was a vote to criminalize something that was already illegal. But, as Alexandra DeSanctis points out over at National Review, no law specifically requires care for infants born in the context of abortion. But even if it there were one already, how much sense does it make to signal that you are against further protections for living human babies?

With a Democratic House certain to keep any pro-life legislation from making it to the president’s desk, the best hope for this week’s Senate vote was to find out where everyone in the upper chamber stands on the issue of infanticide.

Now that these 2020 candidates have made it clear that they have no intention of banning infanticide in America, the Trump campaign must never let voters forget it from here till November 2020. Then it will be up to voters. (For more from the author of “The Democrats Just Wrote Trump’s 2020 Ads for Him” please click HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE