12/12/14

CROmnibus: a $1 trillion betrayal; updated

By: James Simpson
DC Independent Examiner

Update: The votes are in and the massive spending bill known as “CROmnibus” has passed the House of Representatives. The Senate has been given two days to consider. Cannot imagine a successful GOP challenge there so it will be come law of the land. Democrats call this massive bill one of the best deals they’ve gotten with the GOP in decades. Congressman James Moran (D-VA) said:

In 20 years with appropriations bills, I haven’t seen a better compromise in terms of Democratic priorities. Implementing the affordable care act, there’s a lot more money for child development…We got virtually everything Democrats tried to get.

This was a massive, premeditated betrayal of the American people and the Leadership’s own party. Before the vote on Cromnibus, there was a vote on a procedural rule whether or not to allow the bill to be considered at all. A vote against the rule would have killed the bill. One congressman claimed leadership lied to him, telling him that Cromnibus was dead and if he voted for the rule it would be to clear the way for a vote on a simple short term continuing resolution funding government until the GOP took charge. So he voted for the rule. It won 214 to 212. CROmnibus then went on to pass with significant support from Democrats and way too many Republicans. Finally, GOP leadership chose the December 11 expiration date for a continuing resolution passed in September to temporarily fund government. They did this knowing full well that if the GOP won the Senate in November, it would offer Democrats one last chance to pass something in the lame duck session. Speaker Boehner, McConnell and other GOP leaders deliberately disenfranchised their fellow Republicans.

Original article posted at American Thinker yesterday:

Flush from an unprecedented nationwide GOP victory in this November’s elections, House and Senate GOP leadership determined that their essential first course of action should be to snatch defeat from its jaws. They have brought forth a spending bill for 2015 that gives President Obama almost everything he wants, while disenfranchising the very voters who delivered the GOP victory.

The $1.014 trillion Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act, 2015, (HR 83), has been dubbed “CROmnibus” as it is a combined continuing resolution (CR)[1] and Omnibus spending bill. It will provide full funding for 11 of the 12 annual appropriations bills to the end of FY 2015 (September 30th), and a short term continuing resolution to February 27 for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Speaker Boehner has said he would ensure members a minimum of 72 hours to read legislation. Instead, following former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s innovative “pass the bill so that you can find out what’s in it” policy, there will only be a tiny window of no more than 52 hours to read, analyze and vote on a trillion dollar spending bill that is 1,603 pages long. For reference, the Bible (NKJV) is only 1,200 pages. In 2010, incoming Speaker Boehner sang a different tune, “I do not believe that having 2,000-page bills on the House floor serves anyone’s best interests, not the House, not for the members and certainly not for the American people,” he said. But he also said he was going to cut spending…

Well, since this monstrosity went public at around 8:30 Tuesday night, countless eyes have been poring over its provisions to make sure we don’t have to pass it to find out what’s in it. Following are some of the worst:

1. Explanatory Statement

Right from the start, the very first provision indicates this is a new animal:

Sec. 4 Explanatory Statement (P 4.) “The explanatory statement regarding this Act, printed in the House of Representatives section of the Congressional Record on or about December 11, 2014 by the Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations of the House, shall have the same effect with respect to the allocation of funds and implementation of divisions A through K of this Act as if it were a joint explanatory statement of a committee of conference.”

What it says in plain English is that the appropriations committee chairman could have authority to write in changes to any of the appropriations bills after the bill is passed. Usually this is done by a conference committee before the vote and indicates how and where they would like to see monies spent. This provision could allow the chairman to sneak in something or make other changes after the vote!

2. Executive Amnesty Is Fully Funded

The bill withholds funding for 451 separate activities, but none for executive amnesty. It provides at least $2.5 billion to handle this year’s influx of approximately 252,600 illegals. Most of the programs existed beforehand, but the legislation makes clear that increases have been provided to cover the additional costs:

Health and Human Services: $948 million for HHS’s Unaccompanied Alien Children program, $80 million more than fiscal year 2014, specifically to accommodate the “more than 57,000 children” apprehended in 2014. According to the Democrats, “It will also support legal services for children as they seek safety in the United States from extreme violence and abuse in their home countries.” This mantra is part of the Democrats’ effort to reclassify illegal aliens as “refugees,” a classification they clearly do not warrant. See p. 34 of Democrat bill summary.

Social Security: The following convoluted language actually gives illegals greater access to Social Security. By limiting denials to individuals whose actions have “formed the basis for a conviction…” implicitly everyone else is eligible, including those 4.5 million amnestied illegals. Virtually no one will be denied:

“None of the funds appropriated in this Act shall be expended or obligated by the Commissioner of Social Security, for purposes of administering Social Security benefit payments under title II of the Social Security Act, to process any claim for credit for a quarter of coverage based on work performed under a social security account number that is not the claimant’s number and the performance of such work under such number has formed the basis for a conviction of the claimant of a violation of section 208(a)(6) or (7) of the Social Security Act.” (PP. 958-959).

Department of Education: “$14 million for grants to all State educational agencies within States with at least one county where 50 or more unaccompanied children have been released to sponsors since January 1, 2014…” (P. 910) Furthermore, local agencies will be given subgrants for “supplemental academic and non-academic services and supports to immigrant children and youth.”

Department of State: $932 million. Includes a provision to assist Central American countries in improving their border security. (PP. 1303 – 1306). No funds appear to be allocated specifically to this activity but the Democrat’s bill summary identifies $260 million “to respond to a surge of unaccompanied children from Central America coming to the U.S. The funds will be used to implement a prevention and response strategy focused on border security and the reintegration of migrants, as well as the causes of the migration, including programs to improve education and employment, support families, counter gangs, coyotes and drug cartels and professionalize police forces.” See p. 53.

Note that the above does not refer to U.S. border security but that of Central American countries – an absurd gesture. The three Northern Triangle states of Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador facilitated this year’s migration. Their borders are much tighter than ours. If they wanted to shut them down, they could. Flush $260 million.

Providing a short-term CR for DHS was supposed to make it appear that the GOP was going to challenge Obama’s illegal executive amnesty next year, because DHS agencies are to process new applicants under the executive order. But there is no language in the DHS CR defunding amnesty. Bill writers claimed they could not insert defund language into the DHS CR because affected programs are self-funded with user fees. Yet the bill had language restricting other user-fee based programs in other agencies. And if they couldn’t defund it now, how could they next year when the CR expires?

Between now and February 27, Obama’s executive action is fully funded, and the CR expires after the program kicks in. Meanwhile, DHS is rushing to hire new personnel to process the illegals expected to apply for the amnesty. There were so many lies and deceptions in this exercise it was almost impossible to keep up.

The GOP House leadership wants amnesty. Rep. Pete Sessions has said publicly that Republicans did not intend to repatriate the illegals who overwhelmed the border in 2014. Regarding any immigration “reform”, Sessions emphasized that the plan, “even in our wildest dream, would not be to remove any person that might be here, unless they were dangerous to this country and had committed a crime.” They structured the CROmnibus specifically to give Obama what he wants, allowing him to take the heat for it while they pretend to oppose it. Their real goal is to pass comprehensive immigration “reform” in 2015 that will look much like George W. Bush’s failed effort in 2007.

Daily Caller’s Neil Munro quoted a GOP Hill aide: “GOP leaders want to block and complicate the anti-amnesty fight because the GOP might win the fight against Obama… That victory would derail their plans for an GOP-designed amnesty in 2015, and complicate their efforts to keep immigration out of the 2016 election…”

The Leadership’s amnesty goals defy all logic. Those illegals brought with them a dictionary of new diseases, including most likely, the Enterovirus outbreak responsible for at least 8 deaths and numerous cases of serious paralysis. Illegals commit heinous crimes in disproportionate numbers. A major reason the GOP swept elections nationwide is that most Americans – including democrats and Hispanic Americans – do not like Obama’s open borders policies and want illegals sent home, not to remain here stealing jobs and overburdening our welfare system – already stressed to the max. Poll after poll indicates this.

On Wednesday, an amendment was proposed that would block funding for Obama’s executive amnesty. One of the amendment’s co-sponsors was Dave Brat, the Virginia legislator who threw Eric Cantor out of office. The amendment probably won’t get a fair hearing but good on him for trying.

3. Full Funding for Obamacare

Clever language says “no new funding” for Obamacare. But Obamacare was fully funded in the CR passed in September to keep the government open until December 11, including the contentious abortion funding and other issues. Now funding will be provided for the full fiscal year. This means no Obamacare repeal this year, and as it gradually sinks its tentacles into our Nation’s heart, it will be increasingly difficult to rip out. If a Republican becomes president in 2016, by then it will be so entrenched they won’t dare risk political capital to remove it. Difficult to believe, but the GOP Leadership appears to want Obamacare almost as much as the Democrats.

4. Millions More Muslim Refugees from Terrorist Countries

Syrian Refugees $3.06 billion has been provided, $1.01 billion above the President’s request for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons. (P. 52 Democrat summary). Recall that in September Simon Henshaw, deputy assistant secretary of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, announced: “Next year, you will see thousands [of Syrians] entering the US. We are committed to a large program on a par with other large [refugee resettlement] programs in the past… Our commitment is to do thousands a year over many years,” he said. There are over 1 million Syrian refugees in Turkey who have fled Syria’s civil war. “Our resettlement program from Turkey is one of our largest in the world, and it will continue to grow,” he added. Refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran will also benefit. So if you like Dearbornistan, prepare for many more towns like it.

5. Aid to Syrian Rebels

Half a Billion to Nice Terrorists “$500,000,000 … to provide assistance, including training, equipment, supplies, sustainment and stipends, to appropriately vetted elements of the Syrian opposition and other appropriately vetted Syrian groups or individuals for the following purposes: defending the Syrian people from attacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and securing territory controlled by the Syrian opposition; protecting the United States, its friends and allies, and the Syrian people from the threats posed by terrorists in Syria; and promoting the conditions for a negotiated settlement to end the conflict in Syria.”. Weren’t our friends in Libya “appropriately vetted” too? The bill denies use of these funds for “procurement or transfer of man portable air defense systems.” But how does DoD plan to enforce that? (PP 426-427).

6. A Bunch More Objectionable Provisions

EPA gets to keep on imposing “greenhouse gas” regulations that are strangling coal, while provisions reining in EPA were stripped from the bill.
Provisions supporting gun rights were removed.
$5.4 billion for Ebola efforts in Africa – more than provided to fight ISIS.
The bill contains phony budget gimmicks, but still violates spending caps
Too many others to list

Club for Growth is urging all members of Congress to vote “NO” on the Cromnibus (HR 83), as is Heritage Action for America, the political action arm of the Heritage Foundation. Conservatives may have an unlikely ally in Senator Elizabeth Warren. Warren has become the Democrat’s latest lunatic folk hero following the ignoble flameout of Wendy “Abortion Barbie” Davis. Warren has called on Democrats to deny support until one objectionable provision regarding the Dodd-Frank law is removed. The Teamsters have weighed in as well, asking members not to support Cromnibus because of changes to multi-employer pension legislation. Both sides may be willing to consider a short term 90 day CR should the CROmnibus fail to pass, but the White House understandably prefers the monster.

This bill sets horrible precedents; most importantly it blatantly dismisses overwhelming popular opposition to both executive amnesty and Obamacare. The GOP majority was elected to take action, and not the action preferred by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Obama and the Democrats, but that demanded by taxpaying voters. If allowed to stand, these two policies will rip our country apart and ensure that the GOP majority, as usual, is very short-lived.

[1] A continuing resolution simply funds the government at current levels for a certain specified period without making any programmatic changes.

12/12/14

Why the 2013 FBI Hate Crime Statistics are bogus and biased

By: Renee Nal
New Zeal

FBI Seal

The newly-released FBI Hate Crime Statistics for 2013 have some major issues, rendering them vastly useless to researchers and the public.

According to the FBI, there were a total of 6933 hate crime offenses that took place during 5,928 incidents “because incidents may include more than one offense type.” Of those, the FBI asserts that there were 4430 victims, and of those, 2685 attacks included actual physical harm. The breakdown is: Murder and non-negligent manslaughter (5), rape (including those that fit under the revised definition) (21), aggravated assault (734), simple assault (1925).

According to the reporting guidelines, simple assault is “an unlawful physical attack by one person upon another where neither the offender displays a weapon, nor the victim suffers obvious severe or aggravated bodily injury involving apparent broken bones, loss of teeth, possible internal injury, severe laceration, or loss of consciousness.” So, a simple assault could conceivably be a shove or a slap in the face; intrusive and awful for the victim, but would not result in a scar or permanent injury.

This article focuses only on those “hate crime” offenses that resulted in physical harm, including simple assault. Here are some of the reasons why the FBI Hate Crime Statistics do not measure up to scrutiny:

Convicted crimes carry the same weight as anonymous graffiti, for example, which is counted as a “hate crime” despite the fact that the perpetrator(s) could be unknown.
According to the Hate Crime Data Collection Guidelines and Training Manual, “reporting agencies must examine each case for facts which clearly provide evidence that the offender’s bias motivated him/her to commit the crime.” However, FBI spokesperson Stephen G. Fischer Jr. told the author last year that convictions are not tracked. More information about how the reporters make this determination should be available.
The source information is not provided, so it is impossible to match the data with the actual statistics. Considering the abundance of “hate crime hoaxes,” source information is necessary.
In 1800 out of 5928 incidents, according to the report, the offender’s race is “unknown.” This begs the question: If you cannot locate the perpetrator, how could the reporting agency possibly know his or her intent?
Regarding the “known offenders,” the FBI cautions: “The term known offender does not imply that the suspect’s identity is known…” (you may need to read that again). The FBI continues, “rather, the term indicates that some aspect of the suspect was identified, thus distinguishing the suspect from an unknown offender.” The question is, if the known offender is only known based on a description from the alleged victim, how can bias intent be effectively determined?
White people are considered to be the “original peoples of Europe, the Middle East, or North Africa.” Arab Americans who commit a hate crime, therefore, are considered to be “white.”
For the first time, as reported at the Examiner, FBI spokesperson Fischer said that the FBI will be “collecting offender Hispanic information starting 2013.” Perpetrators who happened to be Hispanic were previously lumped in with white people as offenders, but not as victims. But according to the 2013 statistics, only 13 “Hispanic or Latino” individuals committed a hate crime. Consider: according to the hate crime statistics for Los Angeles County alone, there were 57 incidents of Latino-on-Black hate crimes.
Of the violent hate crimes, there were five incidents of “Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter.” Of those, four were committed by white people and one was of an “unknown” race. Of the aggravated assaults, 443 were committed by white people and 188 were committed by black people. Groups of “multiple races” committed 32 aggravated assaults and 31 were of an “unknown race.” Of the simple assaults, 845 were committed by white people and 451 were committed by black people. Groups of “multiple races” committed 119 aggravated assaults and 177 were of an “unknown race.”
Interestingly, if one combines simple and aggravated assault, American Indians/Alaska Natives account for 32 offenses, 21 offenses can be attributed to “Asians,” and 9 can be attributed to those who are classified as Hispanic/Latino.
If one removes simple assault from the equation, a total of 760 people were physically harmed during a hate crime in 2013, based on the statistics. The rest of the 6933 hate crimes can be attributed to other offenses, most prominently would be intimidation (1528), and “Destruction/damage/vandalism” (1783).

Starting in 2015, the FBI “will begin formally tracking hate crimes against Sikhs, Hindus and Arabs.” It is unclear if Arabs will still be considered as white people as offenders. This year, data on gender and gender identity biases has been added to the statistics.

The most troubling aspects of the report in a nutshell:

Convictions are not tracked, i.e., a conviction is not needed to label a “hate crime.”
The offender, even the “known offender,” is not necessarily known.
Historically, Hispanic/Latinos were lumped in with white people as offenders, but not as victims. That changed for the first time this year. However, the 2013 report inexplicably reported that only 13 instances of hate crime were perpetrated by Hispanic offenders.
People of Middle Eastern and North African descent are combined with white people.
The most infuriating thing about the fuzzy statistics is that the hate crimes themselves are not available for public scrutiny, rendering the statistics vastly useless. FBI spokesperson Fischer told the author that source information “is law enforcement sensitive and not available other than for law enforcement purposes.”

Without having the ability to review the source data, however, it is very difficult to confirm the information in the report.

This article has been cross-posted from Broadside News.

12/12/14

Boehner Betrays His Conservative Base by Passing the CRomnibus and ‘It Stinks to High Heaven’

By: Terresa Monroe-Hamilton
Hat Tip: BB

Richard A. Viguerie is absolutely right when he calls most of the Republican leadership “boneless wonders.” And as Senator Rand Paul correctly labeled the CRomnibus, it is an “abomination of a bill,” and it passed narrowly last night thanks to the betrayal of John Boehner. Boehner lied himself silly as he did exactly what I predicted he would do… he claimed that the Republicans didn’t dare shut down the government and had to pass the CRomnibus to find out what was in it, a la Pelosi. He also claimed the good in the bill, outweighed the bad. So many lies in such a short time. He went all the way with Obama, knowing that the President would kick him out of bed in the morning. Conservatives were Grubered by Boehner and the other Progressive RINOs who wanted everything they passed – they also gave Obama ALL he asked for and oh, so much more.

Every Republican who voted for the CRomnibus must be targeted in primaries and gotten rid of. They are cancerous to the Republic – they are Progressives on the Right side of the aisle and are every bit as much a danger to our country as the Progressive Liberals are. Every one of these Republicans owns this. They weren’t ‘forced’ into anything… they chose this because of money and power. It’s as simple as that.

You can start with House Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions of Texas as one of your primary targets. He was one of the key architects of the CRomnibus. Hear that sound, Sessions? That’s you being voted out in 2016. You can join your Marxist buddies in the unemployment line or jail, whichever comes first. Then you can add Majority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, for his pushing this monstrosity. He was spanked by Governor Jindal and Senator Vitter over his naughty doings, but to no avail. Let’s not forget the truth-challenged House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers of Kentucky – he has earned target status as well. America needs to hold these guys and every other who voted for the betrayal of the Republic with this CRomnibus bill accountable for their actions. We won’t forget. Not a chance.

Did you know this bill gives Social Security to illegal aliens? Were you aware of the massive earmarks/pork in the bill – giving goodies all around? There’s also $250 million more than Obama requested for the Environmental Protection Agency in the “CRomnibus” and no policy rider to stop the destruction of America’s coal industry, or restrain the resulting increase in consumer electricity costs. The bill also gives $575 million to international family planning – that’s right… abortion. It funds Obamacare too. Is this what you voted for? Are these conservative principles? The whole thing stinks to high heaven as Sarah Palin astutely put it.

From Sarah Palin:

It stinks to high heaven. Did arrogant politicians not get the memo that Obama’s agenda was decisively defeated in last month’s historic midterm landslide? Good Lord, America said loud and clear not just “no” but “hell no” to Obama’s failed policies. Americans who pay attention said absolutely no to Obama’s amnesty for illegal aliens.

We also said no to the mother-of-all unfunded mandates, Obamacare, and voters believed promises that they would ratchet down the $18 trillion debt. Well, our bad for apathetically trusting politicians. No, on second thought, it’s not “our bad.” Some of us warned and worked hard to elect candidates who would buck the status quo. Many conscientious Americans did all they could to open the eyes of low-information voters. It was tough going up against Obama’s lapdogs in the media and the power liberals have to play their politics of personal destruction against commonsense conservatives.

But really how out-of-touch do these politicians have to be to misunderstand our recent mandate to stop Barack Obama’s fundamental transformation of the greatest nation on earth?

RINO season is officially open. Lock and load.

Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, evidently agrees with me as well. Right after this atrocious bill went through, she tweeted: “Speaker Boehner & House GOP leadership have found a way to needlessly squander political capital, after being handed a historic majority.” Not to be trite, but the deal was literally brokered in back rooms full of cigar smoke and with bourbon flowing – this time it wasn’t an SNL skit either. In that room, a devil’s pact was made over Amnesty and the RINOs enthusiastically signed their souls away.

The bill passed with just a couple of hours left before the deadline – 219 to 206. Over 1,700 pages that no one had time to read, but they had time to spend over $1 Trillion on it. Oh, yes they did. The celebration of winning the election for Republicans came to an abrupt halt – none in the Tea Party expected these corrupt birds to change the color of their feathers, but hope dies hard. I take no joy in saying ‘I told you so’ over all this.

One last minute rider in particular – a provision that would effectively raise the amount that high net-worth donors can contribute to political party committees from $97,250 to $777,600, was an egregious slap in the face to the Tea Party and conservatives. It basically ensures that fat cats are the only ones who can afford to run and it is a blatant attempt to shut out Tea Party candidates. The rider would give the Republican and Democrat Party establishments huge advantages in battles with primary challengers to incumbents.

From Rush Limbaugh:

Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh railed against provisions in the cromnibus that relaxed campaign finance rules on Friday, saying that it was designed to “basically eliminate [the Tea Party] as a viable threat,” and “how corporate America is going to defeat the Tea Party.”

He explained “that campaign finance stuff…I’m going to tell you exactly what that is…the limits have practically been obliterated which means that corporate donors can just start giving left and right.”

Limbaugh continued “This is how corporate America is going to defeat the Tea Party. By allowing limitless donations from that crowd under the rubric that its campaign finance and money is speech and freedom of speech and 1st Amendment, the theory is that Main Street, Tea Party people can’t come close to competing with corporate money and so it is a Republican Establishment ploy that kind of dovetails nicely with Obama siccing the IRS on the Tea Party to basically eliminate them as a viable threat by relaxing a regulation in Dodd-Frank that pretty much permits corporations to spend any kind of money they want on politics.”

Earlier, he declared “our Speaker of the House [got] in bed with Obama and advances the Obama agenda, takes care of it, amnesty, Obamacare, fully funded, done deal, the election must not have mattered.”

The heroes in the House who voted against this betrayal deserve to be listed here:

Congressman Amash of Michigan
Congresswoman Bachmann of Minnesota
Congressman Brat of Virgina
Congressman Brooks of Alabama
Congressman Broun of Georgia
Congressman Gohmert of Texas
Congressman Gosar of Arizona
Congressman Huelskamp of Kansas
Congressman Jones of North Carolina
Congressman Jordan of Ohio
Congressman King of Iowa
Congressman Labrador of Idaho
Congressman Massie of Kentucky
Congressman Posey of Florida
Congressman Salmon of Arizona
Congressman Stockman of Texas

These individuals should be looked up to and thanked for their bravery, honesty and courage. Now, the CRomnibus goes to the Senate where it is sure to pass given its current political makeup.

Are the Republicans so deaf, dumb and clueless that they can’t battle corrupt Democrats even when they control the House and the Senate? Or are they just as corrupt as the Progressive Liberals? Both is the answer. Just more arrogant elitist bull crap… slapping each other on the back, wallowing in their greed for power and money – they feel as though the party will never end. But walking on the wild side always has a price and Americans won’t take this much longer. The RINOs are going to find themselves on the wrong dance card after waking with a major hangover and the realization that the tab has come due and Obama doesn’t love them in the morning. Suckers. All the back room deals, lies and manipulations, just simply delay the demise of the Republican Party. But an accounting is coming and soon.

Boehner’s dirty deals with Obama have increased spending by $3.8 Trillion in 3.8 years. It’s just flat out criminal what they are doing to this nation. It is suicide and they know it and just can’t seem to care evidently. The arrogance of Boehner and his cronies is stunning. He wouldn’t work with conservatives at all on the CRomnibus. That pretty much says it all, folks. We had a view to a kill last night in America and Boehner strangled the Republic while high-fiving his Progressive buds.

Listen to Louie Gohmert:

Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) said that conservatives in the House heard “not one word” from House GOP leadership on compromises to make changes to the cromnibus in order to get conservatives to vote for it even though “we were willing to work with them to compromise” on Thursday’s “Hannity” on the Fox News Channel.

“There was no encouragement to conservatives. The Speaker and Majority Leader, these folks knew there’s money for abortion, money for the EPA to hurt states like Texas, Arizona. There’s just all kinds of money in there for things we don’t support. and, Sean, you and I know some of us had gone to our leadership and said, ‘look, we can do this very easily. Let’s do it together with conservatives. That’s the bulk of our conference, don’t make them take a wrong vote. Let’s fund everything for two months. Let us have a vote on defunding Obama’s amnesty, and we’ll even agree that the Senate can take it out if they take the hard vote to do that and let it go from there to the president.’ We were willing to work with them to compromise, and not one word, as you know, the calls went to the white house when in a time that the speaker needed votes he turned to somebody that he really identifies with, the president and liberal Democrats and got them to help him pass this vote” he stated.

This is what it has come to – one party… the Progressive Party. Where Boehner and the RINOs identify more with Obama and the Liberals than conservatives, the Tea Party and America in general. Let America eat cake. Never mind the smell.

12/12/14

Sheriff David Clarke on Worsening Race Relations: Obama Built That

12/12/14

Planned Parenthood’s Disgusting School Lessons

Parents are angry after a school tells 13-year-olds they can have sex, choose gender

12/12/14

What Does The CIA Torture Report Mean For America?

John Yoo: I Was Never Asked to Testify for Torture Report

12/12/14

Congress Avoids Government Shutdown

The Appalling Surrender of Democrat House Speaker John Boehner.

12/12/14

The Council Has Spoken!! This Weeks’ Watcher’s Council Results – 12/12/14

The Watcher’s Council

UnsavoryAgents – American Pinata

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match-up.

Agitators are a set of interfering, meddling people, who come down to some perfectly contented class of the community and sow the seeds of discontent amongst them. – Oscar Wilde

Rioting and looting are the tools of those without a voice… There is no revolution without violence. – Agitator at the Ferguson riots, as quoted by Reuters.

“You are hard at work madam,” said the man near her.
“Yes,” Answered Madam Defarge; “I have a good deal to do.”
“What do you make, Madam?”
“Many things.”
“For instance —”
“For instance,” returned Madam Defarge, composedly,
“Shrouds.”
The man moved a little further away, as soon as he could, feeling it mightily close and oppressive. – Charles Dickens in his novel about the French Revolution, A Tale Of Two Cities.

We’re liberators, not looters. – Al Sharpton

This week’s winning essay, The Noisy Room’s The Movers and Shakers Behind the Ferguson Riots, explores the Ferguson protests and riots and is pretty much about what the title implies it is, a well written in-depth examination about a subject not much covered in the media… the plethora of very well organized groups who organized it and orchestrated it. Here’s a slice:

The Ferguson riots are not what they seem and those behind them are professionals. One of the top organizers of the protesters for the Ferguson riots is Lisa Fithian, someone who was intimately involved in the Occupy Wall Street movement. She has been deemed “Professor Occupy.” In 2005 and 2008, Lisa Fithian, Root Activist Network of Trainers, (2005), Alliance for Community Trainers Inc. (2008), was voted onto the Steering Committee for United for Peace and Justice. United for Peace and Justice is a partner organization of the George Soros linked Institute for Policy Studies. Several Marxist organizations are involved in the UFPJ leadership, but the most influential has been the Communist Party USA.

Lisa Fithian joined the labor movement through the AFL-CIO Organizing Institute in 1993. She is considered a legendary organizer. She also served as a human shield in actions conducted by the International Solidarity Movement in the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Nablus and has accused Israel of “slaughter[ing] Palestinians every single day in Gaza and the Occupied territories.” These are just a few of her credits.

Fithian is known for her statement: “create crisis, because crisis is that edge where change is possible.” Sound familiar? It should, it is straight out of Holder’s and Obama’s playbook, as well as Marxism in general. Fithian was a lead organizer in the infamous 1999 Seattle riots against the World Trade Organization that devolved into violence. She is known for teaching violent tactics as well as community organizing. She specializes in aggressive “direct action” tactics. Fithian previously provided training and support for the controversial ACORN group, National People’s Action, the new version of the Students for a Democratic Society and other radical organizations. She trained somewhere around 600 protesters for Ferguson.

The following video shows anti-capitalist radical Lisa Fithian training Chicago union teachers on how to stage their arrests for the camera in 2011:

Fithian is far from alone in her Revolution organizing. She is joined by the likes of Code Pink, RevCom, the New Black Panthers, Socialist Party USA, etc. The ACLU has been in the mix from the beginning as well, along with SEIU. The UN also became involved, along with national LGBT organizations, climate environmentalists, amnesty groups, pro-Palestinian organizations, Christian social justice groups and Planned Parenthood.

LGBT organizations represented include the Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal, National Black Justice Coalition, National Center for Lesbian Rights, National Center for Transgender Equality, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, National Center for Lesbian Rights Action Fund and PFLAG National.

Amnesty International sent a “13-person human rights delegation” to the town to “examine” potential human rights abuses, in what they refer to as an “unprecedented” move by deploying in the United States. Many other groups joined in, such as Tauheed Youth Development Life, the Organization for Black Struggle (OBS), the Moorish Science Temple, the Coalition Against Police Crimes and Repression and the Universal African Peoples Organization (UAPO). No radical party would ever be complete without the Socialist Workers Party as well.

CNN Won’t Stop Lying About “Police Violence”

By: Cliff Kincaid
Accuracy in Media

CNN’s Carol Costello on Thursday highlighted yet another report on the “chokehold death” of Eric Garner before noting, in passing, that the police officer in the case has confirmed to New York Police Department (NYPD) internal affairs investigators that it wasn’t a chokehold. All of the available evidence, including videos reviewed by the grand jury, says it wasn’t a chokehold. The takedown maneuver he used on Garner, who was resisting arrest, was taught at the police academy.

CNN keeps repeating a lie. The network has no regard for the facts. It has no regard for the truth.

One has to conclude that CNN is deliberately creating the impression that the officer lied. It may be the case that CNN went with the liberal narrative about the “chokehold” and decided it had to stick with it despite the evidence to the contrary. Whatever the reason for repeating the lie, it is still a lie.

But the lies have a purpose—to undermine respect for the police and increase the chances for anti-police violence.

This already has begun to happen. CNN is now showing film footage of a Ferguson protester punching a New York City police officer in the head. What was missing from the CNN discussion about the assault was the blame the media bears for spreading lies about alleged police brutality.

After repeating the lie about the “chokehold death,” Costello presented a clip of Jeralynn Blueford at an event in Washington, D.C. tearfully insisting that her son, Alan Blueford, was wrongly killed by the police and that he hadn’t done anything wrong. CNN knows, or should know, this claim is false.

A report released on the case by the Alameda County (California) District Attorney’s office more than two years ago found that Alan Blueford was a marijuana distributor who was carrying a gun, ran from the police, and then pointed his gun at Oakland Police Officer Miguel Masso. That is when he was shot and killed. Blueford’s fingerprint was found on the gun, which was stolen.

The report makes the following points:

“…there was sufficient basis for the officers to detain Mr. Blueford.”
“Officer Masso had probable cause to believe that Mr. Blueford posed a threat of serious harm to him and to others present during the incident.”
“Officer Masso’s description of the material facts leading up to the shooting of Mr. Blueford and the shooting itself, is uncontroverted by the evidence. Moreover, his version of events is corroborated by numerous percipient witnesses and the physical evidence in the case.”
“The evidence is clear that Mr. Blueford was, in fact, in possession of a loaded handgun and had the handgun out when he was shot by Officer Masso.”

But CNN presented none of this evidence to its viewers.

CNN is being used by a special interest group, Mothers Who Have Lost Children to Police Brutality, which is in Washington, D.C. this week. The group’s publicity is being handled by Fitzgibbon Media, a left-wing firm. Fitzgibbon Media arranged for the coverage by CNN.

Fitzgibbon Media says Code Pink, the DC Hands Up Coalition, Mothers Against Police Brutality and the National Congress of Black Women are organizing several public and private events for this new front organization. Not surprisingly, Fitzgibbon Media also does public relations for several of these groups.

The services of Fitzgibbon Media don’t come cheap. Big money is being put into this anti-police movement. Other clients of the firm include the British Guardian, Islamic Relief, the Julian Assange Defense Fund, the AFL-CIO, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), and the dead Communist Howard Zinn. The firm is named for its president, Trevor Fitzgibbon, who dropped out of Hampden Sydney College to become an environmental organizer.

The Hands Up Coalition is based on another lie—that Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson as he was trying to surrender. Brown was a pothead who robbed a convenience store and tried to steal Wilson’s gun.

According to the advance publicity for this week’s events, “Alan Blueford was shot and killed by a police officer in East Oakland.” It says nothing about the circumstances surrounding the shooting—that Blueford was shot and killed after running from, and then threatening, the police with his own gun.

Did CNN just run with the distorted information provided by the paid mouthpiece for this far-left coalition? It’s likely. But being manipulated is not an excuse for spreading lies.

The delegation of mothers is said to be “endorsed” by the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Lawyers Guild, the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Popular Resistance, World Beyond War, CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities, DC Campaign Against Police Abuse, UltraViolet, Defending Dissent and the No Fear Coalition.

Much could be said about these groups, but the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) deserves special mention. It is an offshoot of the National Lawyers Guild, which was officially designated a Communist front. To show their solidarity with the Marxist terror networks that bombed police stations and killed police officers in the 1970s and 1980s, the CCR’s board and staff took out a full-page ad in a “commemorative solidarity booklet” distributed at a memorial service for the dead communist terrorist Marilyn Buck. It described her as a “fierce warrior, human rights defender and fighter for justice.”

When I began taking a look at another one of the groups, Popular Resistance, one name popped out at me—Dennis Trainor, a former media consultant to the Dennis Kucinich-for-president campaign now involved with Acronym TV, an outlet for such titles as “Just Say Yes” to the use of psychedelic drugs.

He gave me an interview in 2011 and spoke about “homicidal capitalism,” among other things. He was involved in the Marxist takeover of Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. when the “Occupy” movement was in full swing.

When you sign up for the group’s newsletter, the image “Capitalism isn’t working” appears.

You can count on Trainor and his comrades to be present at this Saturday’s National March Against Police Violence, sponsored by Al Sharpton.

And you can be sure that CNN will also be there, giving Sharpton more unwarranted publicity.

12/12/14

Tragic Boehner Boners Abound in ‘CROmnibus’ Funding Bill!

By: Arlen Williams
Gulag Bound

What is John Boehner thinking?

Perhaps I’ll take time to expound upon the answer (below) to my own question a bit later, but look at the loopholes in a CROmnibus that deserves to be thrown over the fiscal cliff.

Republicans leaving anti-rights restoration provision in appropriations bill
Holey cow, the loopholes! It’s a golden calf for amnesty. The big, central bankster financed, transnational tycoons who butter the Republican bosses’ bread want it bad. Think cheaper labor. Think North American Union/Integration; the plans have been in the works for years, semi-secret, semi… not. Think Great American Bring-down, as the wealthiest 1% of 1% float their money in overseas markets (and in the hoarding of United States resources). Eliana Johnson – Lee: Executive Action Contains Citizenship Loophole for Illegals

Katie Pavlich – Cruel Reality: Obama Paying for Illegal Amnesty With Fees Paid by Legal Immigrants

Ostensibly, @johnboehner‘s job is to please the bankocracy’s phony “right-wing” transnational tycoons. @Johnathangull @GOP @HouseGOP @NRCC

— Arlen Williams ? (@ArlenWms) December 11, 2014