In his final address to the United Nations as president of the United States, President Obama said “we have to open our hearts” in welcoming refugees all around the world, and that “we have to follow through, even when the politics are hard.” Further, Obama said that “we have to have the empathy to see ourselves” in the plight of refugees, and that in welcoming refugees, “our world will be more secure.”

Oh, really?

Obama’s address at the U.N. comes on the heels of a slew of terrorist attacks in Minnesota, New York, and New Jersey this past weekend. Ahmad Rahami, the terrorist responsible for the bombings in New York and New Jersey, was originally from Afghanistan. Dahir Adan, who stabbed nine people at a Minnesota mall on Saturday, was a Somali immigrant and a suspected ISIS recruit. Both terrorists came to the United States as children.

Despite questions about the vetting process for refugees, the Obama administration is seeking to increase the America’s cap of refugees next year to 110,000, from 85,000 this year. As Conservative Review recently reported, the administration has already surpassed its target number for Syrian refugees this year by about 3,000, for a total of 13,000 refugees from Syria. More than 98 percent of these Syrian refugees are Sunni Muslim, while just 0.4 percent of them are Christian.

A new Rasmussen poll conducted after the weekend terrorist attacks shows that almost half of likely American voters do not want to let in any more refugees to the United States and 62 percent “believe that increasing the number of Middle Eastern and African refugees next year poses an increased national security risk to the United States.” Further,

Voters were similarly opposed and concerned about the national security threat of bringing Syrian refugees here this year, but Obama did it anyway, citing humanitarian concerns and the pressures these immigrants were putting on our European allies. The administration even sped the vetting process for these refugees in order to hit the president’s goal of bringing at least 10,000 here in 2016.

If President Obama is so intent on welcoming poorly-vetted refugees from ISIS-controlled regions into the United States, perhaps he should consider welcoming a few into his new home next year when he leaves office. (For more from the author of “Americans Support Restrictions on Refugees but Obama Says Screw It Anyway” please click HERE)

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It is no secret that America is deeply divided today, due in no small part to the words and actions of our president. Unfortunately, rather than drawing us together as we approach the 2016 elections, President Obama continues to divide us.

First, there was his appeal to African Americans, insinuating that if they didn’t get out and vote (meaning for Hillary Clinton) it would be a personal insult to him and a blemish on his legacy.

Next, there was his claim that the only reason Americans would not vote for Hillary was that they were sexist, not wanting a woman to lead the country, a woman who, in his eyes, was infinitely more qualified to be president than Donald Trump.

As reported by the UK’s Independent, “During an impassioned speech to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, an organisation that carries out research on issues affecting African-Americans, Mr Obama said it would be an ‘insult to his legacy’ if the black community voted for Donald Trump — or refrained from voting at all — in the upcoming election.”

The president said, “I will consider it a personal insult — an insult to my legacy — if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election.

“You want to give me a good sendoff? Go vote.”

So, black Americans who choose not to vote because they cannot, in good conscience, back either candidate, or worse still, black Americans who have had it with Democratic policies and feel that Trump is their better choice, are personally insulting the president.

And what about the many black Americans who are disillusioned with the president himself? Perhaps they’re not thinking about a sendoff. Perhaps they’re thinking about change. And perhaps the insult is in the president’s comments, as if this is all about race, not policy, as if Americans need to vote based on skin color rather than character and policy. How utterly divisive.

Viewed in that light, President Obama’s comments are borderline racist (or even blatantly racist).

Shades of Hillary Clinton’s “deplorable” category!

As for dividing on gender lines, Breitbart reports that, “President Barack Obama suggested at a New York fundraiser that American society is sexist, which is why Hillary Clinton is struggling to beat Donald Trump in the polls.”

He said, “There’s a reason why we haven’t had a woman president — that we as a society still grapple with what it means to see powerful women. And it still troubles us in a lot of ways, unfairly, and that expresses itself in all sorts of ways.”

And in the president’s judgment, while the election looks to be close, it ought not be, since Hillary is so much more qualified than Trump: “She’s been in the room where it happens, repeatedly. And her judgment has been unerring, and she has been disciplined, and she has been extraordinarily effective in every job that she’s had.”

Once again, this is a divisive tactic and a slam on the American people. Of course there are abundant reasons not to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Of course there are abundant reasons to distrust her integrity, to question her honesty, to lack confidence in her ability to lead — and none of this has anything to do with her being a woman. It has to do with who she is (or is perceived to be) as a politician, as a leader, as a human being.

We could just as easily argue that the reason people hate Trump is because he’s a man. After all, look at all the deals he has made! Why would anyone vote against him unless they were sexist? That would be an equally ridiculous argument, yet it is an argument (in reverse) that the president is making.

And does President Obama really believe that if we had the equivalent of a Margaret Thatcher running against the equivalent of a Jimmy Carter that Americans would not overwhelmingly vote for Thatcher just as they voted for Reagan?

The reality is that many Americans of all colors and sexes have strong reasons not to vote for Hillary Clinton (or even to sit out the presidential election entirely). It is a terrible shame that our president chooses to make this a matter of race and sex.

He is, sadly, proving to be divisive to the end. (For more from the author of “President Obama Continues to Divide Americans” please click HERE)

Watch a recent interview with the author below:

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As President Barack Obama’s time in office nears its end, the Senate Judiciary Committee has advanced another one of his judicial nominees toward a lifetime post. She may not get to the finish line, though.

While the Senate has entered that part of the political calendar when confirmations traditionally halt, the Judiciary Committee on Thursday voted 13-7 to advance the nomination of U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The cadence of judicial nominations customarily follows what’s known as the Thurmond-Leahy rule. The rule, a longstanding gentleman’s agreement among senators, prohibits confirmations of new judgeships in the months before a presidential election.

Even though Koh has advanced out of committee, it’s not clear the Californian will receive a confirmation vote on the Senate floor. Republicans could be sending the nomination out of committee halfheartedly, in an effort to appease the left while running out the clock before the Nov. 8 elections.

Still, Democrats seem intent on getting Koh confirmed regardless of the Thurmond rule.

Senate Panel OKs Judge Lucy Koh for Federal Appeals Court https://t.co/IQk4sKtDnv pic.twitter.com/aGiaPW1HMi

— KQED (@KQED) September 15, 2016

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has shepherded Koh’s nomination from the beginning. Before Thursday’s vote, the California senator heralded the judge as “a nominee with very strong, impeccable credentials, and a distinguished track record.”

But when a Republican was last in the White House, Democrats demanded observation of the Thurmond rule. Insisting the rule was apolitical, they pushed to apply it before both the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections.

“Not reflecting on any single judicial nominee or that person’s qualifications,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said in October of 2004, “it has been a practice and tradition in the Senate that in a presidential election year, we suspend the approval of federal judges after the nominating convention of a major party.”

This year’s Republican National Convention ended July 21.

Every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee voted to advance Koh’s nomination. Three Republicans joined them: Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

While Koh’s nomination is out of committee, she is not guaranteed a confirmation vote on the floor before the next president enters the White House on Jan. 20.

Before voting for Koh, Grassley made clear his support was only to “move her nomination out of this committee” and was without “any commitment about a floor vote.”

“Passing out of committee is only a first step,” a GOP Senate aide said of Koh’s prospects for confirmation, telling The Daily Signal that “it remains to be seen what, if anything, will happen.”

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a committee member who opposed the nomination, predicted a floor vote isn’t on the horizon.

“I don’t think we will see any more [judicial] confirmations this fall, certainly not before recess,” Sessions told The Daily Signal. “That’s just the way it’s always been. We will let the election move forward, and then confirmations will move depending on the outcome.”

Koh, the first federal district judge of Korean descent, is the fourth of Obama’s nominees to the U.S. Court of Appeals still awaiting a confirmation vote in the Senate.

The committee advanced another nominee to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Donald Schott, by a nearly identical 13-7 vote June 16. Like Koh, he has not been added to the Senate’s calendar for a vote.

If confirmed, Koh would be another feather in Obama’s already-bristling judicial cap. In almost eight years, Obama has transformed the federal judiciary, appointing two Supreme Court justices, 55 appeals court judges, and 268 district court judges.

But after a bruising confirmation hearing in the Judiciary Committee, it would be difficult for Koh to add her name to that list. The judge’s judicial philosophy opened her up to broadsides from Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., as well as Grassley.

While attending Harvard Law School, Koh wrote in its Women’s Law Journal that “minority judges still need to maintain the disguise of ‘objectivity’” in order to be taken seriously in the legal world.

“Yes, [a minority judge] is going to identify with [minorities’] experiences,” Koh wrote in 1991, “but she can’t ‘admit’ this. We’ve got to get more clever and say, look, we’re just as neutral as any 60-year-old white man.”

Pushed by Grassley for an explanation of that statement, Koh, 48, said she no longer subscribes to those views and that her experience after law school taught her that judges “must be fair and impartial to all parties in all cases.”

“I made that statement as a first-year law student 26 years ago,” she said. “I completely disagree with it.”.

After graduating law school in 1993, Koh worked as a public prosecutor and in private practice before Obama appointed her in 2010 to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The Senate confirmed her unanimously for that post.

Koh’s track record could prove a stumbling block, though.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, opposed Koh’s nomination because of her decision in a 2015 case involving the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. She ruled that the government must get a warrant before collecting data generated by mobile devices.

Ahead of the committee’s vote, Cornyn criticized her decision as “an example of judicial activism” that contradicted established law.

“Judges should not be policymakers,” Cornyn said, “substituting their views for those of the elected representatives of the American people—that would be Congress—and the written Constitution.” (For more from the author of “7 Weeks Before Election, Republicans Help Advance Another Obama Judicial Nominee” please click HERE)

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The United States made at least two separate payments to the Iranian government via wire transfer within the last 14 months, a Treasury Department spokesman confirmed Saturday, contradicting explanations from President Barack Obama that such payments were impossible.

Responding to questions at an Aug. 4 press conference about a $400 million payment delivered in cash to the Iranian government, Obama said, “[T]he reason that we had to give them cash is precisely because we are so strict in maintaining sanctions and we do not have a banking relationship with Iran that we couldn’t send them a check and we could not wire the money.”

But a Treasury Department spokesman acknowledged on Saturday that on at least two occasions, the U.S. did make payments to the Iranian government via wire transfer.

In July 2015, the same month in which the U.S., Iran and other countries announced a landmark nuclear agreement, the U.S. government paid the Islamic republic approximately $848,000. That payment settled a claim over architectural drawings and fossils that are now housed in the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art and Iran’s Ministry of Environment, respectively. Then, in April 2016, the U.S. wired Iran approximately $9 million to remove 32 metric tons of its heavy water, which is used to produce plutonium and can aid in the making of nuclear weapons. (Read more from “U.S. Wire Payments to Iran Undercut Obama” HERE)

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