Not so fast Washington: Americans want Bills on Guns and Immigration Read Before You Vote on Them

Photo Credit: IrishCentral

Last time there was a headlong rush to pass legislation in Washington, Obamacare was birthed. 2,500 pages of excruciating small print, plopped on legislators desks just days before they were expected to vote on it. 2,500 pages purchased with “sweeteners,” “arm twisting” and coercion. Almost all of it done behind closed doors.

Speaker of the House at that time, Nancy Pelosi, brazenly told Congress and the American people, that we could get to know what was in Obamacare after they passed Obamacare,….egregiously misnamed “The Affordable Healthcare Act.”

Pelosi was right, Obamacare has proven to be full of surprises as the 2,500 pages of “Frankenstinian” details and regulations get exposed to the reality of actually trying to implement the law. Hidden taxes and fees, miles of red tape and special dispensation to Obama supporters are just some of the “surprises.”

The new immigration bill is reportedly 1,500 pages long already and it too has been negotiated in secret behind closed doors, by the gang of 8 bi partisan Senators.

How much devil is hidden in these details? No one in the media has seen it to report on the good, bad or ugly that lies within.

Reportedly it will be sprung on the Senate Tuesday and leader of the Senate, Harry Reid, has uncharacteristically promised a swift vote.

Why? What’s the rush Harry? Shouldn’t the public and the Senate have plenty of time to read through and debate these 1,500 pages of proposed legislation? This legislation can profoundly affect the very make up of our country.

Under Reid’s leadership the Senate has turned into a very “deliberative body,” remember it took 4 years to produce one budget.

The same can be said for gun control legislation. The knee jerk response from the politicians is to attack America’s 2nd Amendment rights, in order to look like they are doing something. When in reality, they are really just putting a band aid on an arterial wound.

The root cause of violence is too difficult for them to tackle because it will affect their base of support in big cities and Hollywood. So instead, they go after the guns and not the mental health issues, the street violence and violence in films.

Ask the Obama Justice Dept why it isn’t enforcing the laws already on the books? Out of 15,700 fugitives and felons who tried to illegally purchase a firearm, the Obama Justice Department prosecuted only 44. Perhaps if they just enforced the existing laws, there would be far less violence.

The American people don’t want anymore surprises sprung on them hidden within benign sounding legislation.

___________________________________________

Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Left-wing Democrats Push Norquist-Style No-Cuts Budget Pledge

Photo Credit: Getty

Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist has been skewered by the media and the left for his Taxpayer Protection Pledge, but now some Democrats seem to be imitating him with a budget pledge of their own.

Left-wing Democratic Reps. Alan Grayson of Florida and Mark Takano of California are circulating a letter addressed to President Obama for members of Congress to sign. Signers of the letter pledge to vote against any substantive changes to America’s entitlement programs, including President Barack Obama’s proposal to use a different formula for Social Security cost of living increases.

“We will vote against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits — including raising the retirement age or cutting the cost of living adjustments that our constituents earned and need,” the letter reads, in part.

The letter, which was drafted in February, is backed by liberal groups such as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America and MoveOn, among others. Thirty Members of Congress have signed onto it as of April 9, according to the latest update on Grayson’s website.

Read more from this story HERE.

Illegal Alien Propaganda: A Critical Lesson in Terminology and Tactics

Photo Credit: AIM

As we once again face the specter of illegal alien amnesty, and the permanent Democratic majority it will guarantee, it is critical to understand how the Left plays. They are unethical to the core, but we are so frequently deluded by their tactical use of language and emotion, that we are unequipped to deal with them effectively. The result: they win. This cannot happen again, unless we are all willing to start calling Obama “President for Life,” and Democrats, the “Commissars.”

Introduction

Changes in public perception happen gradually. This is a natural human survival strategy that mistrusts the unfamiliar. A campaign of public education is necessary to help convince a wary public to accept new ideas or policies that might otherwise take too much time. But there is a difference between education and propaganda.

Our society relies for its security, stability and prosperity, indeed, its survival, on the rule of law. So the idea of giving special privileges to individuals whose very presence is prima facie evidence of lawbreaking, is instinctively rejected. It cannot be otherwise. To grant special privileges to criminals upends and subverts the rule of law on which we depend.

Our nation’s laws constitute a contract that every citizen implicitly agrees to respect. Those who violate it face sanctions of corresponding severity. If certain individuals can avoid sanction and gain special privilege through political power—despite their blatant violations—then the rule of law becomes meaningless, and is replaced by a society based on political power alone. That is called dictatorship. Yet this is what the illegal immigration lobby wants us to accept.

When individuals or organizations attempt to introduce ideas that are self-evidently destructive, like Nazism or communism, for example, a campaign based on propaganda is necessary. Unlike factual information, propaganda manipulates, using fear and instinct in combination with known psychological reactions. It is evident that the illegal alien lobby uses these methods.

Re-setting Definitions

Maryland’s illegal alien advocacy group CASA de Maryland inadvertently provides a good starting point for this discussion. CASA’s resource page references a study by the Equal Rights Center titled “10 Harmful Misconceptions About Immigration.” It is an artful weave of straw man arguments, half-truths and outright lies. Every single “misconception about immigration” is not really a misconception at all. But they are able to argue it as such by revising or re-setting definitions.

Definition of Immigrant

First we have Immigrants:

Any foreign-born individual, including naturalized U.S. citizens, documented immigrants, and undocumented immigrants.

Then we have “Undocumented” Immigrants:

Foreign-born individuals who (1) entered the country illegally, (2) overstayed their visas, or (3) work without authorization

Illegal aliens, in other words. But using their terminology, all of these categories come under the neutral heading “immigrant.” So now they can conflate the two categories without discriminating between legal and illegal immigrants and ascribe the positive characteristics of the one to negative characteristics of the other. Thus we have:

Foreign born scholars, scientists and engineers make this country more prosperous and more secure.

How many illegal aliens are “scholars, scientists and engineers?” Here’s another screecher:

One of every four engineering and technology companies started in the United States between 1995 and 2005 had immigrant founders.

Surely these were all illegals, too?

Overall, the fiscal impact of immigration on public-sector budgets is small and likely to be positive in the long run.

Once again, a large number of highly-trained legal immigrants are taking advantage of the high demand for jobs in technology. They do make a significant positive contribution, as legal immigrants always have.

But illegals are almost entirely low-skilled. The Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector estimates that federal, state and local governments spend three dollars in welfare benefits for every dollar received from low-skilled immigrants. It will get even worse if amnesty is granted to these people because they will have access to even more benefits, but will likely not improve their earning capabilities commensurately.

Rector claims that retirement costs for illegals granted amnesty could run to $2.5 trillion. Providing amnesty for illegals would result in chain migration of as many as 100 million people, he argues. The vast majority of those would have the same profile as illegals currently here with the result of added budgetary, legal and cultural strains.

Regardless, according to the Associated Press and USA Today, among others, illegal aliens must now be referred to as “undocumented immigrants.” Calling them anything else can lead to charges of racism, or worse. Logic and truth are out the window.

Definition of Hispanic

The term “Hispanic” represents a category of people who do not exist in the real world. It became official with congressional enactment of Public Law 94-311 in 1976. As explained in Social Contract:

…the word “Hispanic” is devoid of meaning and legitimacy. It does not denote a racial, ethnic, linguistic, or cultural group. It is an artificial term created to maximize political power for extremist elements within the Spanish-speaking minority.

This law, which was endorsed by several “Hispanic” organizations including the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and La Raza, contained two significant elements: (1) the subject: “Americans of Spanish origin or descent,” and (2) the legal status: “American citizens.” Both qualifiers were soon dropped in an effort to maximize political influence by maximizing numeric size.

In 1977, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) adopted the shorter title of “Hispanic”… Since then, “Hispanic” is defined as “A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.” The new definition sought to further inflate the numerical size of the “Hispanic” community.

According to Mark Lopez of the Pew Hispanic Center:

[A]bout two-thirds of Hispanic-Americans identify themselves not as belonging to the general Latino culture, but to their specific country of origin or their parents’ homeland.

“The notion of a pan-ethnic identity is actually an American concept,” said Lopez, an American citizen whose grandparents emigrated from Mexico. “If I go to El Salvador and I say I’m Hispanic, they’re going to think I’m from Spain, or they’re not going to know what that means. They don’t see a pan-ethnic identity. They see themselves as Salvadoran.”

Activists can’t even decide if they should use the world “Hispanic” or “Latino.” A study called “Latino or Hispanic Panic” said 75 percent of activists don’t like either term. Of those that do:

In Texas, a Pew Hispanic Center poll found that 45% of Latinos prefer the term Hispanic and 8% prefer Latino. Note this leaves 47% of Latinos in Texas who prefer neither term. In the other four most populous Latino states—California, New Jersey, Florida and New York—the Pew poll found that people are more likely to prefer “Latino.”

Finally, not every Hispanic is a Hispanic! At a Swarthmore College lecture titled, “Is Antonio Banderas Latino?,” Professor Rodolfo Francisco Acuña asserted that being “Latino” is a function of “life experience,” meaning that one had to experience racial or class discrimination to earn the title “Latino.” “No matter what people may think of Banderas as a person, he is European and not part of a class that has historically suffered discrimination.”

So, in other words, you are only a Hispanic/Latino if you are the “right kind;” one who will ascribe to the ideological goals of the Left. What does this mean for all those “economic migrants?”

CASA, however, sees it for the political advantage:

Casa of Maryland, which advocates for immigrant rights, views the Hispanic community as a single bloc “because together they have greater power as a community to address issues that are affecting one particular nationality or all,” advocacy specialist Helen Melton said in an email.

So does one of CASA’s biggest political supporters, Maryland Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez: “Everybody is feeling the need to come together because it’s only larger political forces that are going to be able to change the negative climate we’re facing.”

Smear Tactics

Next comes intimidation. CASA and the other open borders advocates subscribe to the all-too-familiar tactic of painting their opponents as racists. However, these groups have all demonstrated themselves to be distinctly racist in their adamant demands for illegals. They also frequently resort to intimidating hate speech. In their own words:

Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) founder Mario Obledo said: “California is going to be a Hispanic state, and anyone who doesn’t like it should leave. They should go back to Europe.” “Eventually,” he said the following month, “we [Hispanics] will take over all the political institutions of California.”

Former NCLR [National Council of La Raza] President (1974-2004) Raul Yzaguirre called proponents of California proposition 187, which would have denied budget-busting social services to illegals, “racists” and “xenophobes.” Prop 187 won but was blocked by a judge. They got their way and California is now bankrupt.

He also said, “US English is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks.” Hillary Clinton appointed Yzaguirre to co-chair her presidential campaign.

When Minutemen volunteers declared they would monitor CASA’s day labor centers for illegals, CASA president Gustavo Torres said: “We are going to target them in a specific way. Then we are going to picket their houses, and the schools of their kids, and go to their work…”

Read more from this story HERE.

Congressmen Push Back Against Michelle Obama's Scrawny Federal School Lunch Program

Photo Credit: Getty

Republican Reps. Steve King of Iowa and Tim Huelskamp of Kansas continued their fight against the Agriculture Department’s recent public school meal regulation overhaul on Friday.

The congressmen have argued that the new regulations imposed by the USDA, as required by the Michelle Obama-backed Healthy and Hunger Free Kids Act, are overly restrictive for growing and active children, largely due to calorie caps on meals.

“The voluminous menu that’s good enough for the federal bureaucrats’ cafeteria should be good enough for our children’s school lunchroom,” Huelskamp said in a statement Friday. “If USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack thinks the federal government should dictate what local governments put on their school lunchroom menus, why isn’t he leading by example? Secretary Vilsack should impose his ‘Nutrition Nanny’ standards on the USDA buildings’ cafeteria menus before the USDA seizes control of lunchroom menus in 100,000 school districts.”

King and Huelskamp introduced legislation Friday that would repeal the regulation that imposed the meal mandates. Their “No Hungry Kids Act” would eliminate upper calorie restrictions on public school meals.

To see the viral YouTube that Kansas Students made regarding Michelle Obama’s “healthy” school lunch program, click HERE.

Read more from this story HERE.

Ex Justice of the Peace is Suspect in Texas DA Killings (+video)

Photo Credit: Getty

On April 13, 2013, Eric Williams, a former Kaufman County, Tex. justice of the peace, was arrested on a terroristic threat charge, following a search of his home and a storage unit. The Dallas Morning News reports that he is expected to be charged with capital murder for the deaths of Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse in January, and District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife Cynthia last month.

Williams, 46, was charged with stealing equipment from the county in 2012 and was aggressively prosecuted by both Hasse and McLelland for the crime. He was found guilty, but instead of serving jail time, Williams was sentenced to probation, and lost his health insurance, his job, and his law license, reports the Morning News.

He is appealing the case, but also faces a second theft charge related to the “misuse of money from a law library fund,” writes the Dallas publication.

Watch video here:

Read more from this story HERE.

Rubio Works on Selling Conservative Skeptics on 'Secret' Immigration Bill

Photo Credit: Andrew Harnik

Immigration draft lays out contentious points plan to reward, select immigrants

By Stephen Dinan and David Eldridge. The immigration reform bill that senators are writing in secret would move U.S. policy to a points-based system that would reward immigrants who are taking care of disabled parents at the same level as those who have earned master’s degrees in high-tech fields, according to a draft of the legislation reviewed by The Washington Times.

The eight senators writing the bill plan to announce provisions this week, ahead of a major hearing in the SenateJudiciary Committee on Wednesday, but some details already have been leaked. Among them is the points system to select immigrants.

Sen. Marco Rubio, Florida Republican, said his plan would make illegal immigrants wait years to gain citizenship. Republican leaders are counting on Mr. Rubio to sell the plan to skeptical conservatives.

“This is not amnesty. Amnesty is the forgiveness of something,” Mr. Rubio said on “Fox News Sunday.” “We’re going to create an alternative that says, ‘OK, you want to stay here, you’ll have to wait more than 10 years, you’ll have to pay this fine, you’ll have to pay your registration fee, you’ll have to be gainfully employed, you won’t qualify for any federal benefits, and then after all of that you don’t get to apply for anything until the enforcement mechanisms are in place.’”

Mr. Rubio made the rounds of all of the major Sunday political talk shows to pitch the legislation. His appearances marked what one immigration rights advocate called “opening day” for what is expected to be a bruising fight on Capitol Hill. Read more from this story HERE.

Rubio: Illegal immigrants won’t get welfare

By Joel Gehrke. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said that the gang of eight’s immigration proposal will not allow legalized immigrants to receive federal benefits such as welfare or the Obamacare coverage.

“[T]hey don’t qualify for any federal benefits,” Rubio said on Fox News Sunday of the current illegal immigrants slated for legalization under the proposal he helped write. “This is an important point. No federal benefits, no food stamps, no welfare, no ObamaCare. They have to prove they’re gainfully employed. They have to be able to support themselves, so they’ll never become a public charge.”

Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee had suggested that the proposal would add trillions in federal spending because “there is nothing in the framework to apply federal public charge law to those in the country illegally before they are granted legal status.” The committee staff also recalled that Immigrations and Custom Enforcement union president Chris Crane said that officers “are not permitted to enforce that statute.” Read more from this story HERE.

Senators Uncertain how Vote on Gun Bill Will Swing; Co-Sponsors Look for GOP Support

Photo Credit: AP

Lawmakers on both sides of a proposal to expand gun-purchase background checks to sales online and at gun shows said Sunday that they don’t know whether it will pass — a hurdle that, if not cleared, likely would kill the prospects of significant gun control legislation on Capitol Hill.

The circumspect posturing underscores the sensitivity of negotiations on the issue and flies in the face of a long tradition of predetermined outcomes on Capitol Hill, even on high-profile legislation.

“I think it’s an open question as to whether or not we have the votes,” Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, Pennsylvania Republican and co-sponsor of the amendment, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I think it’s going to be close.”

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, said his party hasn’t started formally counting votes on the measure, which was crafted by Mr. Toomey and Sen. Joe Manchin III, West Virginia Democrat.

“We haven’t whipped it,” Mr. Durbin said on “Fox News Sunday.” “I can tell you this: When it gets down to it, we’ve got to ask the basic question, ‘Should we try to keep guns out of the hands of felons and people so mentally unstable they shouldn’t own a firearm?’ If the answer is ‘yes,’ Manchin-Toomey is a step in that direction.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Abortionist's Case Raises Troubling Questions

Photo Credit: Washington Examiner

Until late last week, almost nobody outside of Philadelphia or the pro-life activist community had heard of Gosnell or his trial, which began two weeks ago. The New York Times had one story at the start of the trial in March, and then nothing.

Conservative media critic Mollie Hemingway of the blog GetReligion spent a good part of last week asking reporters who normally cover such issues why they were clamming up on this trial. Washington Post writer Sarah Kliff, who covers abortion extensively, responded that she didn’t cover “local crime.”

Many conservatives noted that the Newton, Conn., school massacre and the killing of Trayvon Martin could be described as “local crime,” yet they warranted national media attention. Why not an alleged serial-killing abortionist?

It’s a good question, especially because the policy debate Gosnell stirs up could give ammunition to either side. Abortion defender Katha Pollitt, for instance, wrote after Gosnell’s arrest last year, “What fueled Gosnell’s business were the very restrictions the legislature was so keen on passing. …”

On the other side, Gosnell’s crimes are also relevant to President Obama’s abortion record. As a state senator, Obama repeatedly voted against legislation requiring hospitals to care for babies born during abortions. Such laws might somehow be used in the future to infringe on abortion’s legality, Obama argued.

Read more from this story HERE.

Turncoat: Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms Endorses Compromise Gun Control Bill

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

In anticipation of Senate votes this week on a proposed expansion of criminal background checks for firearms sales, one gun rights organization broke with the powerful National Rifle Association on Sunday to urge support for a compromise drafted by Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.).

The endorsement by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms — which calls itself the second-largest gun rights organization in the country, behind the NRA, claiming 650,000 members and supporters — is one of several moves over the past few days that have provided a boost to the hopes of proponents of background checks.

While leading gun-control advocates — including President Obama and New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (I) — back the bipartisan proposal, the announcement of support Sunday from the Citizens Committee reveals that substantial parts of the bill are viewed as “wins” for the gun lobby, including provisions that would prohibit a government registry of gun ownership and make it easier to transport and market weapons across state lines.

Though news of a split in the usually unified gun lobby cheered gun-control advocates, the gun lobby can count other probable wins in the current debate, such as the likely defeat of legislation to limit military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines. Now, an expansion of background-check requirements for gun sales is considered the most likely major achievement.

Initially, gun-control advocates hoped for a requirement for background checks of individuals purchasing a gun under most any circumstance. Currently, background checks are conducted only for purchases made from licensed gun dealers. The compromise measure, drafted by Toomey and Manchin, would require background checks for currently exempt online and gun-show sales but not for most other private transactions.

Read more from this story HERE.

'DC Intervention': Tea Party Group to Pressure Rubio on Immigration, Toomey on Guns

The Tea Party Patriots organization is planning protests on Tuesday at the home state offices of several Senators that the group argues are in need of an “intervention” for being sucked up into inside-the-Beltway politics, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA).

The group is targeting Rubio on immigration reform and Toomey on gun control.

“Two Senators in particular are facing Tea Party pressure, as they should–Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Pat Toomey (R-PA),” Tea Party Patriots said in a release. “Both of these men were elected thanks to Tea Party support, yet Senator Rubio is the star spokesman for a secretive, small group working on a bill that purports to address illegal immigration and the entire US immigration system as a whole. This bill is already 1,500 pages and no one outside the small working group has read it, meaning legislation that will affect our security, spending, taxes, culture, education, welfare, jobs, etc. is being crafted without input from most of our Senators or the American people. Not only might the legislation be bad policy, it has already gone outside of the normal process.”

“Meanwhile, Senator Toomey is the man who gave opponents of the 2nd Amendment the best chance they’ve had in decades to violate the Constitution,” Tea Party Patriots added.

Read more from this story HERE.