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Canada Warns Obama: It’s Trains or the Keystone Pipeline

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On 6 July, a Montreal, Maine & Atlantic train carrying 72 tank cars filled with oil exploded after its brakes apparently failed, sending it rolling into the small Quebec town of Lac-Megantic, where it derailed and then exploded. In the conflagration that followed, an estimated 47 people were killed.

Whether Canadians like it or not, the use of such trains has soared in recent years. The Railway Association of Canada reports that as recently as four years ago Canadian railways moved just 500 carloads of crude oil, but that number has now soared to about 140,000 carloads annually.

While currently only about three percent of Canadian crude is currently transported by rail, one industry predicts railway carriage of oil products rising to as high as 25 percent by 2035.

Now, in a breathtaking display of chutzpah, the Canadian ambassador to the U.S. is warning President Obama if he does not approve the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, then he can expect similar oil trains and even trucks to enter the U.S. Ambassador Gary Doer said, “His choice is to have it come down by a pipeline that he approves, or without his approval, it comes down on trains. That’s just the raw common sense of this thing, and we’ve been saying it for two years and we’ve been proven correct. At the end of the day, it’s trains or pipelines.”

Read more from this story HERE.

White House Now Calling Benghazi Phony Scandal

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Photo Credit: APThe White House said bluntly Wednesday that it considers the controversy over the Benghazi attack to be among the so-called “phony scandals” that President Obama has been complaining about in recent speeches — even as new questions were being raised about the lack of progress in the investigation.

Press Secretary Jay Carney was asked at the daily briefing about Obama’s repeated claim — which he asserted most recently during a speech in Tennessee on Tuesday — that Washington is getting distracted by phony scandals. Asked what the president was referring to, Carney listed the scandals over the IRS targeting of conservative groups and over Benghazi.

“What we’ve seen, as time has passed and more facts have become known, whether it’s about the attacks in Benghazi and the talking points or revelations about conduct at the IRS, that attempts to turn this into a scandal have failed,” Carney said.

Carney was specifically referring to claims by GOP lawmakers that the administration misled the public about the nature of the attack, by stressing the connection to an anti-Islam film. The administration denies this. But lawmakers continue to have concerns that extend far beyond the so-called Benghazi talking points.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama on Stupid: “More Government Workers Mean More Tax Revenue”

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Photo Credit: APPresident Barack Obama – citing the job losses since he took office — said “the economy would be much better off,” unemployment would be 6.5 percent and the national deficit would be in decline if there were more federal, state and local government workers.

“If those layoffs had not happened, if public sector employees grew like they did in the past two recessions, the unemployment rate would be 6.5 instead of 7.5,” Obama said. “Our economy would be much better off, and the deficit would still be going down because we would be getting more tax revenue.”

Obama spoke Tuesday at the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Chattanooga, Tenn., where he promoted plans he said would help the middle class such as corporate tax reform, increased federal spending on infrastructure, more education spending, public-private partnerships and rolling back the sequester.

“Instead of using a scalpel to get rid of programs we don’t need and keep vital investments that we do, the same group has kept in place this meat cleaver called the sequester that is just slashing all kinds of investments in education and research and our military,” Obama said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Idiotic Grand Bargain: ‘If GOP Raises Corporate Taxes, I’ll Spend More on Public Works and Obamacare’

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Photo Credit: Getty ImagesBy Wall Street Journal. In Chattanooga on Tuesday, the latest stop on his economic inequality tour, President Obama made himself an offer he couldn’t refuse. If Congressional Republicans agree to a corporate tax increase, he said, then he’ll agree to spend more money on his favorite public-works projects. If Republicans bargain hard, will he also offer an expansion of ObamaCare as a sweetener?

We know this sounds like an exaggeration, but that’s the essence of what the President proposed as what he called a new “grand bargain.” Mr. Obama will agree to reform the corporate tax code—a GOP priority and one even the President claims to support—but only if the reform raises more revenue and only if he is allowed to spend that windfall on his priorities.

A White House press release clarified that the President would also like to raise taxes on individuals, not just businesses, while allowing federal spending to rise still higher. But showing they retain a sense of humor in the West Wing, the press release suggests that the President is willing to forgo this tax increase for now because he wants to “work with Republicans.”

This isn’t a serious proposal, and he knows it. It also isn’t bipartisan, since he is offering a compromise with appeal to the ideological spectrum running from Elizabeth Warren to Chuck Schumer. Perhaps these are the only Members of Congress whom Treasury Secretary Jack Lew has in his iPhone.

The real bipartisan reform opportunity would be to get behind the chief Senate and House tax writers, Democrat Max Baucus and Republican Dave Camp. They’ve been holding hearings on tax reform for years, and Mr. Baucus has even invited all Senators to send him a list of tax provisions they’d like to retain and why. Read more from this story HERE.

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Take your jobs plan and shove it, Mr. President: Your policies have harmed Chattanooga enough

By The Free Press.

President Obama,

Welcome to Chattanooga, one of hundreds of cities throughout this great nation struggling to succeed in spite of your foolish policies that limit job creation, stifle economic growth and suffocate the entrepreneurial spirit.

Forgive us if you are not greeted with the same level of Southern hospitality that our area usually bestows on its distinguished guests. You see, we understand you are in town to share your umpteenth different job creation plan during your time in office. If it works as well as your other job creation programs, then thanks, but no thanks. We’d prefer you keep it to yourself.

That’s because your jobs creation plans so far have included a ridiculous government spending spree and punitive tax increase on job creators that were passed, as well as a minimum wage increase that, thankfully, was not. Economists — and regular folks with a basic understanding of math — understand that these are three of the most damaging policies imaginable when a country is mired in unemployment and starving for job growth.

Even though 64 percent of Chattanooga respondents said they would rather you hadn’t chosen to visit our fair city, according to a survey on the Times Free Press website, it’s probably good that you’re here. It will give you an opportunity to see the failure of your most comprehensive jobs plan to date, the disastrous stimulus scheme, up close and personal. Read more from this story HERE.

Defunding: The Framers’ Remedy for Presidential Lawlessness
 


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Photo Credit: American Spectator President Obama does not have the authority to choose which parts of the law are enforced. In 1975, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously against President Richard Nixon’s inflated claims that he could selectively carry out the law. But going to court to keep presidents in line is slow and necessitates finding litigants to sue the president. The framers gave Congress a more practical way to resist a power-hungry president: defunding. Defunding is precisely what members of Congress are supposed to do when a president breaks the law. It’s checks and balances in action. Two centuries ago, the chief architect of the U.S. Constitution James Madison declared in Federalist No. 58 that Congress’s authority over spending is the “most complete and effectual tool” to stop a president from grabbing more power than the Constitution allows.


Utah Senator Mike Lee is taking a page out of Madison’s playbook. On July 17 Lee urged Congress to vote against any continuing resolution to fund the federal government after September 30 so long as it funds Obamacare. “Laws are supposed to be made by Congress, not…[by] the president, who has now amended Obamacare twice. Once by saying individuals have to comply with the law during their first year but employers don’t. Then in saying we aren’t even going to require people to prove their income.” Lee said that if the administration is not prepared to fully enforce Obamacare as enacted, it should agree to delay the entire law and remove its funding from the budget. Eleven fellow Republican Senators and at least 60 Republican House members have signed on to Lee’s defunding stance.

Lee’s constitutional case is air tight. Yet the Democratic Party and Obama’s supporters in the media are trying to label the defunding strategy “government sabotage,” “radicalism,” and “obstructionism.” They need a refresher course on the Constitution.

Read more from this story HERE.

Cornel West Calls Obama The Drone President (+video)

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Photo Credit: APLiberal activist and scholar Dr. Cornel West last week called President Barack Obama “the drone president” for his administration’s controversial use of drone strikes.

“Bush was the capture-and-torture president. Now we’ve got the targeted killing president, the drone president. That’s not progress. That’s not part of the legacy of Martin King,” West said in a July 22 interview on “Democracy Now!”

West said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. would not be invited to the 50th anniversary of the slain civil rights leader’s “I Have a Dream” speech on Aug. 28, because he would want to talk about drones.

“And you know what the irony is, Sister Amy? Brother Martin would not be invited to the very march in his name, because he would talk about drones,” West said.

“Do you think anybody at that march will talk about drones and the drone president? Will you think anybody at that march will talk about the connection to Wall Street? They are all on the plantation,” West added.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sessions to Republicans: GOP Elite View on Immigration Is ‘Nonsense’

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Photo Credit: Weekly Standard In a sharp memo sent this morning to fellow Republicans on Capitol Hill, Senator Jeff Sessions argues that the GOP elite view on immigration–shared by President Barack Obama and Senator Chuck Schumer–is “nonsense.” Instead, Sessions, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, advises his fellow Republicans to adopt a “humble and honest populism.”

The Sessions memo begins, “The GOP needs to flip the immigration debate on its head. The same set of GOP strategists, lobbyists, and donors who have always favored a proposal like the Gang of Eight immigration bill argue that the great lesson of the 2012 election is that the GOP needs to push for immediate amnesty and a drastic surge in low-skill immigration. This is nonsense.”

The senator from Alabama goes on to argue that Republicans will win big elections if they can appeal to “working Americans of all backgrounds.” And he says that if this immigration bill becomes law, “Low-income Americans will be hardest hit.” Read more from this story HERE.

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Here’s a copy of the memo:

Memo: How The GOP Can Do The Right Thing On Immigration—And Win
July 29, 2013
To: Republican Colleagues
From: Ranking Member Jeff Sessions

The GOP needs to flip the immigration debate on its head.
The same set of GOP strategists, lobbyists, and donors who have always favored a proposal like the Gang of Eight immigration bill argue that the great lesson of the 2012 election is that the GOP needs to push for immediate amnesty and a drastic surge in low-skill immigration.

This is nonsense.

The GOP lost the election—as exit polls clearly show—because it hemorrhaged support from middle- and low-income Americans of all backgrounds. In changing the terms of the immigration debate we will not only prevent the implementation of a disastrous policy, but begin a larger effort to broaden our appeal to working Americans of all backgrounds. Now is the time to speak directly to the real and legitimate concerns of millions of hurting Americans whose wages have declined and whose job prospects have grown only bleaker. This humble and honest populism—in contrast to the Administration’s cheap demagoguery—would open the ears of millions who have turned away from our party. Of course, such a clear and honest message would require saying “no” to certain business demands and powerful interests who shaped the immigration bill in the Senate.

In Senator Schumer’s failed drive to acquire 70 votes, he convinced every single Democrat in his conference to support a bill that adds four times more guest workers than the rejected 2007 immigration plan while dramatically boosting the number of low-skill workers admitted to the country each year on a permanent basis. All this at a time when wages are lower than in 1999, when only 58 percent of U.S. adults are working, and when 47 million residents are on food stamps. Even CBO confirms that the proposal will reduce wages and increase unemployment. Low-income Americans will be hardest hit.

Ordinarily, this would be an act of political suicide for Democrats. How can they possibly succeed with a plan that will so badly injure American workers? Perhaps Senator Schumer, the White House, and their congressional allies believe the GOP lacks the insight to seize this important issue, push away certain financial interests, and make an unapologetic defense of working Americans. They seem, in fact, to expect the GOP House to drag their bill across the finish line. Indeed, more than a few in our party will argue that immigration reform must “serve the needs of businesses.” What about the needs of workers? Since when did we did we accept the idea that the immigration policy for our entire nation—with all its lasting social, economic, and moral implications—should be tailored to suit the financial interests of a few CEOs?

Americans broadly oppose further increases to our current generous immigration levels by a 2-1 margin, but the opposition among those earning less than $30,000 is especially strong: they prefer a reduction to an increase by a 3-1 margin. And no wonder: according to Harvard’s Dr. George Borjas, it’s the working poor whose wages have declined the most as a result of high immigration levels.

The GOP has a choice: it can either deliver President Obama his ultimate legislative triumph—and with it, a crushing hammer blow to working Americans that they will not soon forgive—or it can begin the essential drive to regain the trust of struggling Americans who have turned away. As Rich Lowry and Bill Kristol wrote in a joint op-ed, “the Gang of Eight bill unleashes a flood of additional low-skilled immigration. The last thing low-skilled native and immigrant workers already here should have to deal with is wage-depressing competition from newly arriving workers… It’s most important that the party perform better among working-class and younger voters concerned about economic opportunity and upward mobility.”

Like Obamacare, this 1,200-page immigration bill is a legislative monstrosity inimical to the interests of our country and the American people. Polls show again and again that the American people want security accomplished first, that they do not support a large increase in net immigration levels, and that they do not trust the government to deliver on enforcement. The GOP should insist on an approach to immigration that both restores constitutional order and serves the interests of the American worker and taxpayer. But only by refusing any attempt at rescue or reprieve for the Senate bill is there a hope of accomplishing these goals.

Instead of aiding the President and Senator Schumer in salvaging a bill that would devastate working Americans, Republicans should refocus all of our efforts on a united push to defend these Americans from the Administration’s continued onslaught. His health care policies, tax policies, energy policies, and welfare policies all have one thing in common: they enrich the bureaucracy at the expense of the people. Our goal: higher wages, more and better jobs, smaller household bills, and a solemn determination to aid those struggling towards the goal of achieving financial independence.

Obama Criticizes Keystone Pipeline, Takes Action to Reduce Production from Fracking

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Photo Credit: CorbisBarack Obama expresses reservations about Keystone XL pipeline project

By Suzanne Goldenberg. Barack Obama has given the strongest indication to date that he holds reservations about the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, saying the project would not create many jobs and could raise gasoline prices.

In an interview with the New York Times, the president disputed a main justification for the pipeline – its economic benefits – and reaffirmed he would reject the project if it expanded carbon pollution.

The comments were seen by campaigners as evidence that Obama, in the wake of last month’s landmark climate change speech, was leaning towards rejecting the project.

Obama has been under growing pressure from campaigners, party donors, and Democrats in Congress to reject the pipeline, which would expand production from Canada’s tar sands.

He adopted some of their arguments in his comments on Saturday, knocking down pipeline supporters’ claims of a big jobs boost, saying Keystone would register little more than a “blip” on the employment rolls. Read more from this story HERE.

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GOP lawmaker warns Interior’s fracking rule could lead to cascade of new regs

By Ben Geman. A House Republican [Rep. Bill Flores (Texas)] seeking to thwart the Interior Department’s (DOI) regulation of fracking, the controversial oil-and-gas development method, said he’s trying to prevent what he believes will become a cascade of rules from multiple federal agencies…

“What concerns me about the DOI’s proposal is that it is the nose under the tent, if they can get in and say OK, we are only going to regulate where there states have no regulations or we feel like the regulations are not strong enough, then eventually you get a national standard over an area that they really don’t have the expertise to deal with and more importantly they don’t have the federal statutory authority to do it, and again, the states do a great job,” he said in the interview broadcast Sunday.

…Flores, a former oil-and-gas industry executive, said the Obama administration is “determined to try to regulate hydraulic fracturing” through multiple federal agencies. Read more from this story HERE.

Rising State Anger Against Feds Results in Dozens of Nullification Efforts Across US

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Photo Credit: APInfuriated by what they see as the long arm of Washington reaching into their business, states are increasingly telling the feds: Keep out!

Bills that would negate a variety of federal laws have popped up this year in the vast majority of states – with the amount of anti-federal legislation sharply on the rise during the Obama administration, according to experts.

The “nullification” trend in recent years has largely focused on three areas: gun control; health care; and national standards for driver’s licenses. It’s touched off fierce fights within the states, and between the states and the feds, as well as raising questions and court battles about whether any of it is legal.

In at least 37 states legislation has been introduced that in some way guts federal gun regulations, according to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. The bills were signed into law this spring in two states, Kansas and Alaska, and in two more lawmakers hope to override a governor’s veto. Twenty states since 2010 have passed laws that either opt out of or challenge mandatory parts of Obamacare, the National Conference of State Legislatures says. And half the states have OK’d measures aimed knocking back the Real ID Act of 2005, which dictates Washington’s requirements for issuing driver’s licenses.

…In fact, the state-level anger at the nation’s capital has reached such a fever pitch that many of the bills do not even address specific federal laws, but rather amount to what is in effect “preemptive” nullification, wiping out, for instance, any federal law that may exist in the future that the states determine violates gun rights. The flurry of such efforts was spurred by fear on the part of states that in the wake of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., that Congress would pass restrictive gun control legislation.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Says Vietnamese Mass Murderer Ho Chi Minh Inspired by Founding Fathers – UPDATED

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Photo Credit: Fox News By Chris Stirewalt. It may come as some unwelcome news to the families of the nearly 60,000 Americans who died in the Vietnam War that the whole thing was just a misunderstanding.

That was the impression President Obama gave on Thursday when he spoke to the press after his meeting with Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang. Sang brought Obama a copy of a letter sent to President Harry Truman from Ho Chi Minh in which the communist dictator spoke hopefully of cooperation with the United States.

Obama, striking a wistful tone, observed that it may have taken 67 years, but the United States and Vietnam were finally enjoying the relationship that Ho once wrote of. After all, Obama said, Ho had been “inspired by the words of Thomas Jefferson.”

The message here was that if only we might have bridged our differences then – if only Ho and Truman could have done what Obama and Sang did this week, so much unpleasantness might have been avoided.

While Jefferson did get pretty fired up about “the blood of tyrants,” it’s hard to see how the Sage of Monticello inspired the murderous career of the Vietnamese dictator. Ho famously slaughtered his opponents, including the infamous butchery of peasant farmers who resisted his brutal taxation in the early days of Ho’s regime. Not particularly Jeffersonian.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Why Obama’s Comments About Ho Were Moronic

By Silvio Canto, Jr. First, it is true that we have diplomatic relations with Vietnam. We are doing business with them. We may be allies in the region. Vietnam is obviously looking for foreigners to invest and use their cheap labor. Their current leadership would rather see more “Made in Vietnam” stuff at WalMart than any discussion of Ho’s ideas!

Second, every despot in the world, including Castro in Cuba and Chavez in Venezuela, has quoted George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. They do it to enhance their arguments while they practice the exact opposite of what those wonderful men stood for.

Third, and most important, doesn’t President Obama understand that 58,000 Americans died in Vietnam?

And millions living served there? Some are disabled veterans! Some still live with the memory of watching their buddy killed in action.

Didn’t it occur to President Obama that such a remark might hit a few people the wrong way? Read more from this story HERE.