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ICE Ex-Chief: Obama’s Nondeport Rules Would’ve Protected 9/11 Hijackers

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Photo Credit: APThe former chief of deportations in the Bush administration will testify to Congress on Tuesday that President Obama’s new nondeportation policies would have let the Sept. 11 hijackers remain in the country even if they had been picked up in the months before their deadly attacks.

And the current chief of the union that represents Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will tell the House Judiciary Committee that ICE agents are now required to wait until most illegal immigrants have three misdemeanor convictions before they can be arrested and put in deportation proceedings.

“Most Americans would be surprised to know that immigration agents are regularly prohibited from enforcing the two most fundamental sections of United States immigration law,” said Chris Crane, president of National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council. “According to ICE policy, in most cases, immigration agents can no longer arrest persons solely for entering the United States illegally.”

As momentum builds in the Democrat-controlled Senate to pass a broad bill legalizing illegal immigrants, House Republicans kick off their side of the debate Tuesday with a two-part hearing looking at the need for legal immigration and reviewing Mr. Obama’s record on enforcement and border security.

Mr. Obama’s first four years were characterized by record deportations of aliens with criminal records, but fewer rank-and-file illegal immigrants being deported.

Read more from this story HERE.

Sierra Club Chief ‘Confident’ That Kerry, Obama Will Scuttle Pipeline

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Photo Credit: Center for American Progress Action FundSierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune predicted victory Tuesday in activists’ battle against the proposed Keystone XL oil sands pipeline, calling President Obama’s vow to focus on climate change in his second inaugural speech a good omen.

“We are confident that [new Secretary of State John] Kerry will advise the president and the president will decide to reject this pipeline because it is such a clear first test of the president’s commitment to actually fighting climate change and … moving beyond these extreme sources of energy,” Brune said on WAMU’s “The Diane Rehm Show.”

In addition to Obama’s speech, the arrival of Kerry – a longtime advocate of emissions curbs – at the State Department has bolstered environmentalists’ hopes that Keystone will not receive a federal permit.

The State Department is heading the federal review. Kerry, in his Jan. 24 confirmation hearing before a Senate committee, kept his cards close to the vest on Keystone.

Stopping TransCanada Corp.’s proposed pipeline to bring oil from Canada’s oil sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries has become a top priority for environmental groups.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Misses 4th Consecutive Budget Deadline

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Photo Credit: U.S. Embassy Jakarta, IndonesiaPresident Obama missed the Monday deadline for submitting a budget to Congress, marking the fourth time in five years he has been late — and in a town where missing deadlines is routine, this one is beginning to get noticed.

The Budget Act requires that he submit a blueprint for taxes and spending by the first Monday in February, but only once, in 2010, has he met that deadline. This year, the White House hasn’t yet said when it will have a plan.

“Focus on substance over deadlines,” White House press secretary Jay Carney urged reporters aboard Air Force One as the president jetted to Minnesota to campaign for stronger gun controls.

But in an ironic twist, the president missed the deadline the same day he signed the aptly named “no budget, no pay” act, which withholds pay from members of Congress if they don’t pass a budget by their own legal deadline of April 15. That was attached to a bill that waives the federal debt limit through mid-May.

Republicans are trying to turn Washington’s focus toward the budget process and what they hope will be a renewed debate on spending cuts.

Read more from this story HERE.

Secret Memo Reveals Obama Justification for US Drone Strikes

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Photo Credit: The TimesPresident Obama is using the British government’s Iraq war-era legal arguments as part of the secret justification for the United States drone programme.

A leaked memo drafted by the US Department of Justice cites a legal argument given by Lord Goldsmith, Tony Blair’s Attorney General in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq.

The 16-page memo makes the case that America’s drone programme is legally justified in targeting US citizens as part of wide-ranging extra-judicial powers granted to the President.

The emergence of the document, which was obtained by NBC News, is the first time the Obama Administration’s secret legal justification for deadly drone strikes against US citizens has been published.

The Department of Justice argues that Mr Obama can order the killing of senior al-Qaeda operatives even if there is no evidence they are planning an attack against the United States.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Embraces ‘Dark Money’

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Photo Credit: APThe creation of the dark-money group Organizing for Action is a sign President Barack Obama has no intention of repudiating the role of corporate money in political life during his second term, campaign finance experts suggest.

Advocates for reform, which Obama has previously claimed to support, are disappointed by his reversal.

“Organizing for Action marks a complete retreat for President Obama from his pledge to try to change the way we finance elections,” said Craig Holman, a government-affairs lobbyist at Public Citizen, a nonprofit organization opposed to corporate money in politics. “It makes a total mockery of any effort to try to limit corporate money.”

Organizing for Action, which will replace Obama’s Organizing for America campaign apparatus, will attempt to channel the grassroots energy from the 2012 election into support for the administration’s policy agenda. OFA already has started wooing corporate donors, according to Politico, and will not be required to disclose its funding sources as a 501(c)4.

Politico reported that corporate representatives were asked for contributions at OFA’s unveiling event in January. A spokesperson for Walmart stressed that the company was invited to the event by a group called Business Forward, not Organizing for America.

Read more from this story HERE.

Biden Says Obama Agrees With French Socialist On Climate Change

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Photo Credit: U.S. Embassy Jakarta, Indonesia

Vice President Joe Biden says President Barack Obama and France’s new socialist president share the same ambition to regulate carbon emissions.

“I could have been sitting in a private meeting with President Obama [and] he would have not said it in French, he’d say it in English, but you said the same thing,” Biden told President Francois Hollande during a brief Feb. 4 public appearance at the French presidential palace in Paris, France.

“The [French] President pointed out that there … is a need to set out a vision for the young people in both our countries [and] a rallying cry that can be a call for a united effort and support in both our countries to deal with Global Warming,” declared Biden, who is buffing his foreign-policy credentials prior to a possible run for the presidency in 2016.

In his Jan. 21 presidential inauguration address, Obama touted his support for an extremely expensive wave of “Global Warming” regulation.

“We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations … we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God,” he claimed in his controversial speech . . .

Read more from this story HERE.

It Took America’s Oldest President To Make Her Feel Young Again

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Chas CancellareRonald Reagan’s birthday will be commemorated this week. He took office just a few weeks shy of his 70th birthday in 1981 making him the oldest man elected to serve as our Chief Executive and Commander-in-Chief, that is until he stood for re-election in 1984. In fact, one of the most well-known lines in Presidential debate history came in response to Reagan being questioned whether his age would be an important factor in his re-election campaign. Reagan, in his famous Irish wit, said, “I am not going to exploit for political purposes my opponent’s youth and inexperience,” which drew a roar of laughter from the crowd and even his opponent, Walter Mondale. Reagan won the election 49 states to 1.

The irony is that it would take America’s oldest President to remind her what it means to be young again. The lessons he taught hold some key insights into not only renewing the American economy (showing strong signs of lethargy), but the American spirit.

A youthful spirit, which Reagan clearly possessed in great measure, has been described as “a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life” and manifests in a “temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease.” The former California Governor displayed this vitality when he made his announcement that he would seek the Presidency in 1980. He exhorted, “Someone once said that the difference between an American and any other kind of person is that an American lives in anticipation of the future because he knows it will be a great place.”

But, Reagan contrasted, “There are those in our land today, however, who would have us believe that the United States, like other great civilizations of the past, has reached the zenith of its power; that we are weak and fearful, reduced to bickering with each other and no longer possessed of the will to cope with our problems.” He continued, “They tell us we must learn to live with less, and teach our children that their lives will be less full and prosperous than ours have been; that the America of the coming years will be a place where – because of our past excesses – it will be impossible to dream and make those dreams come true. I don’t believe that. And, I don’t believe you do either. That is why I am seeking the presidency.”

Read more from this story HERE.

The President Shoots??

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Photo Credit: Bruce KrastingAnyway, I know a thing or two about skeet shooting. In this sport you have beginner shooters who don’t really know what they are doing, you have amateurs that are “regular” shooters who take it seriously, and you have guys and gals that shoot 25 out of 25, again and again.

The following is a picture of a person who has not shot skeet before. This person doesn’t know how to hold the gun properly. This person is going to get a big recoil in the arm that will hurt. No one has bothered to show this person how to hold a gun. This person has not been taught how to position the body to make a successful shot. This person has no chance of hitting a moving target. This person is not wearing the proper clothing for a skeet range (padded vest that has pockets for 25 shells). This person is pretending to shoot skeet. This is a photo-op:

I don’t mean to make fun of the President’s shooting skills. New shooters are always welcome on skeet ranges. I’m glad to see the Prez give this sport a shot, so to speak.

But the spin from the White House on this story is that Obama is banging away every weekend and he is an avid shooter. The president was quoted:

“I do it all the time”

Read more from this story HERE.

Source: Obama ‘Couldn’t Have Been More Uncomfortable’ at Skeet Shooting Event

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Photo Credit: jurvetsonIn a recent interview with The New Republic, President Obama claimed that he goes skeet shooting “all the time” while at Camp David. But a source who said he has been to the retreat on a half-dozen visits with the president said that’s not the case, Fox News reported Wednesday.

“The only time he shot skeet was for President’s Cup,” the unnamed source told Fox News, referring to a shooting competition tradition involving the president’s Marine guards. “I was there. He stayed for about five minutes, and couldn’t leave fast enough.”

The source told Fox that shooting skeet “is very hard.”

“Especially for someone not used to guns … He couldn’t have been more uncomfortable,” the source said.

Complicating matters is a report at the Washington Post fact-checker that noted Obama’s silence on his alleged fondness for the sport.

Read more from this story HERE.

FDR: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”; Barack Obama: “I am not a Dictator” (+video)

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Back when being an American meant believing in America, FDR rallied the nation in his first inaugural speech in 1933 with his famous admonition that

“the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Fast forward to today when an economic malaise grips our nation, and the words choked out by our current president are: “I am not a dictator.” Translation: “I am not a leader.”

In the nadir of the Depression, FDR spoke solemnly to the nation:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.

In Obama’s world, his message to the nation is “I am not a leader dictator”. Here’s the text of this portion of his lecture to discussion with the press:

“Uh, ye ye ye you know . . . the uh . . . ih ah I mean Jessica, I . I . . I am not . . uh . . ah ah a dictator. I’m the President. So, ultimately if Mitch McConnell or John Boehner say, uh, we need to go to catch a plane, uh, I can’t have Secret Service block the doorway, right?”

FDR continues to elevate the nation’s morale despite what seemed like a hopeless situation:

In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

Meanwhile, President Obama invokes Star Trek Star Wars:

“Most people agree that I’m being reasonable, that most people agree that I’m presenting a fair deal. The fact that they don’t take it means that I should somehow, uh, you know, do a Jedi mind-meld with these folks and convince them to do what’s right.”

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If only Barack Obama had studied FDR’s speeches, or possibly JFK, who in his inauguration uttered his famous challenge:

And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.

My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.

Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on earth God’s work must truly be our own.

FDR’s “nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance” now has a name – Barack Hussein Obama.

God help us.