Rubio Evolves on Immigration, Qualifies

By JAVIER MANJARRES / The Shark Tank

Florida U.S. Senator Marco Rubio is now the official ‘tip-of-the-spear’ for the illegal immigration reform bill that is expected to come out of the U.S. Senate. Rubio appeared on NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ with host David Gregory, where he got right into the weeds of the immigration reform debate.

Rubio’s evolution on immigration reform continues, as the Senator is now using the term “undocumented” instead of illegal to identify immigrants who have come here illegally.

This bill once introduced as agreed to, I think, will show a broad base of enforcement measures unlike this country has ever seen. And what it does is create a way for us to address millions of people that are here undocumented , in a way that is compassionate, but also in a way that is responsible.-Senator Marco Rubio

He then qualifies his support of the  immigration bill, by stating that these illegal immigrants who are granted the chance to get on the pathway to citizenship, will not be awarded any special privileges, once they have applied.

It (the bill)will allow them to ultimately earn access to our legal immigration system, they will still have to apply, it doesn’t award them anything, but it does give them access to our legal immigration system to a process that will not encourage people to come here illegally in the future and though a process  that isn’t unfair for people who have done it the right way.

The status quo is horrible for America. The only people benefiting from the Status quo are in immigration today, are the people trafficking human beings across the border and the people hiring illegal labor for purposes.

Amnesty is the forgiveness of something, and there will be consequences for having violated the law, and their will be reasonable consequences, but the type of consequences that ensure there is no incentive to do it this way again.

Rubio reiterates his point that those who are already waiting in line to enter the US legally, that “no one who has done it the wrong way will get it before you.”

But then Rubio’s own words are used to put him in a bit of a bind. Host David Gregory asked Rubio what has changed in his immigration messaging since  his 2010 Senatorial campaign. Gregory reminded Rubio that during one of the Senatorial debates, Rubio stated that to earn a pathway to citizenship, “you have to leave this country if you are here illegally, go back home and then come back.”

Rubio answered that during his campaign, he was against “blanket amnesty” and this bill is not blanket amnesty, because “you pay serious consequences for having violated the law.”

The existing law does not prohibit someone who has violated the immigration laws from getting a green card it simply says you have to leave the US and wait ten  years.  What we have done is created an alternative to that.

Forces you to wait more than ten years, forces you to pay an application fee, forces you to pay a significant fine, forces you to not qualify for any federal benefits of any kind.

Rubio then says that there would be “no access to anything until there is a universal E-Verify system in place.”

Gregory then asked Rubio what we here at the Shark Tank have also asked of Rubio, in respect to the almost certain possibility that this immigration bill will eventually morph into a bill that would force him to back off.
 
Rubio said that if the bill changed for the worse and abandoned his principles, he “would not support it, but doesn’t think that will happen.

Again, when President Obama, who is in favor of amnesty for illegal immigrants, is the biggest cheerleader for this immigration bill, expect his agenda to be addressed.

Media-Enabled Psychopathic Elected Class Launches Full-On Assault

by Bob Livingston / Personal Liberty Digest

PHOTOS.COM

When members of the psychopathic elected class get busy mixing campaigning, legislating sop to their corporatist partners in crime, talking the Constitution out of existence and expanding tyranny from that sewage pit that is our Nation’s capital, the assaults on liberty can seem almost dizzying. Enabled by their propagandists in the mainstream media, they manufacture and then gin up crises, propose freedom-robbing legislation to “save” you from the evils they’ve manufactured and then create yet another crisis to distract you from the last.

Their goal is to overwhelm your senses and hit you from all sides, beating you down so that they can move the bar of tyranny gradually but inexorably leftward. They are content with incremental steps. They use gradualism in their self-created maelstrom of chaos.

With myriad assaults on liberty and our senses occurring now, it seemed impossible to focus on just one this week. So I decided to touch on several at once. Hopefully, this helps make some sense of the chaotic paradigm in which we find ourselves today.

Laws And The Constitution Are Meaningless To The Elected Class

On Thursday, 16 Republicans joined 52 Democratic Senators to override a possible filibuster and begin a treasonous assault on the 2^nd Amendment. Two Democrats joined with 29 Republicans and attempted to prevent a gun-control bill from coming up. Unfortunately, the traitors had the 61 votes (68, actually) to override the veto. The two Democrats who stood for the Constitution were Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.

These traitorous Republicans proved themselves to be big-government statists and voted against the Constitution along with the statist/progressive Democrats: Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Richard Burr of North Carolina, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Susan Collins of Maine, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John Hoeven of North Dakota, Johnny Isakson of Georgia, Dean Heller of Nevada, Mark Kirk of Illinois, John McCain of Arizona, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Roger Wicker of Mississippi.

The bill, deceptively called the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act, does just the opposite of what its name implies. By getting the bill onto the floor, gun grabbers have pushed open the door for the registration of gun owners. The amendment process will turn it into a Frankenstein monster that could include a ban on so-called “assault weapons” and high-capacity magazines.

Any provisions inserted into the bill that would preclude registration or setting up a database of gun owners will be ignored. Proof of this is found in Missouri, where the State’s database of concealed weapons permits was twice given to Federal LEOs (legally entitled to oppress) investigating Social Security disability fraud. This is just one example among many of the Feds getting their hands gun records.

Recently released cables by WikiLeaks reveal the mindset of those who intentionally and over the long term inhabit the Washington cesspool. Globalist Henry Kissinger is quoted as saying: “Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, ‘The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.’ [laughter] But since the Freedom of Information Act, I’m afraid to say things like that.” But he is not afraid to mean it.

Leading gun-grabber Senator Diane Feinstein told 60 Minutes that she would ban and confiscate all weapons from “Mr. and Mrs. America” if should get the 51 votes needed to do so. And President Barack Obama, in so many words, said on April 4 that the only thing standing between him and gun confiscation is the Constitution.

Meanwhile, the unConstitutional gun grab is aided and abetted by the mainstream media. (See here and here).

How To Spot A Politician

It’s a simple thing, really, to spot a politician. His stripes change to spots at election time. Take Senator Mitch McConnell as a perfect example.

He’s up for re-election in 2014. As a result, he’s trying to convince Kentuckians that he’s Rand Paul.

First, he hired former Paul campaign manager Jesse Benton to run his campaign.

Then he endorsed Rand Paul’s filibuster over the regime’s drone policy. Now, he’s lurching right in the gun-control and immigration debates.

Under normal circumstances, McConnell would have joined with the treasonous batch of 16 that voted to move gun-control legislation to the floor for debate. But he’s trying to protect his right flank.

Don’t be fooled — as Arizonans apparently were in 2012 with John (the fascist) McCain — by politicians who move right and change to spots at election time. Judge them on the entirety of their terms.

Not to pick on just McConnell, but you can also spot politicians when they speak out of both sides of their mouths. The Senator has repeatedly voted to renew the USA Patriot Act and voted for the National Defense Authorization Act, two unConstitutional, amendment-destroying provisions that enable the government to spy on Americans, rifle through financial records, listen in on their private communications and throw them into gulags, never to be heard from again. He says nothing about the Internal Revenue Service’s claim that it can read private emails and text messages without a warrant.

But he was apparently so offended when someone bugged his campaign office that he called the FBI to investigate who leaked a recording of him and his campaign team talking about opposition research on Ashley Judd, who was once thought to be a possible general election opponent.

Now you know how we all feel, Mitch.

The War On Terror

Obama’s conduct of the “War on Terror” would be a comedy if so many innocents weren’t dying because of it.

The regime is admittedly arming al-Qaida-related terrorist groups fighting in Syria, including one named the Al Nusra Front. Some of these fighters have shot at Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Al Nusra Front is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. regime. But it shares the regime’s goal of bringing down Syrian President Bashar Assad.

American Eric Harroun is now imprisoned in the United States, charged with using a weapon of mass destruction (a rocket-propelled grenade) in Syria. It was likely an America-supplied weapon and he used it while fighting alongside the Al Nusra Front against Assad forces. Now Harroun is considered by the U.S. to be a terrorist.

The prosecutor in the case says Americans fighting for the Free Syrian Army or who purchase weapons for them are breaking the law. No word from the prosecutor on why this doesn’t apply to Obama as he continues to funnel weapons to terrorists.

Senator Ted Cruz recently pointed out that Obama’s views about Federal power “knows virtually no bounds.” That must explain why he (Obama) thinks it’s perfectly OK for him and his Justice Department to decide which American will be the next drone target, what type of health insurance coverage a business or institution must provide, which minister a church can appoint, which laws and sections of the Bill of Rights are relevant and that Bible-believing, Constitution-supporting Americans are potential terrorists who should be subjected to additional surveillance.

More Lies About An Improving Economy

If the economy is improving, as the regime continues to maintain, where have all the workers gone?

Why have 16 million people gone on food stamps under Obama’s tenure? Why are almost 9 million Americans of working age on disability? Why is the Federal government feeding kids three meals a day — even during the summer?

Why are tunnel “cities” being found in and around major U.S. cities.

Why are the globalist-controlled media intentionally trying to drive down the price of gold with fake stories about the sale of Cypriot gold reserves in another effort to force down its price. Why are big banks saying it’s time to sell all gold while they are buying it at almost unprecedented levels? Why are countries (and Texas) asking for the Federal Reserve for their gold back?

Why did consumer confidence just plummet to a nine-month low? And why are retailers eliminating stores and cutting jobs like never before?

Free speech victory: Pamela Geller defies Leftist and Islamic supremacist defamation, speaks at two synagogues

From Jihad Watch / Posted by Robert Spencer

 

After Leftists and Islamic supremacists succeeded in getting Pamela Geller's talk at the Great Neck Synagogue canceled, two other synagogues stepped up to counter the escalating campaign of smears and defamation directed against anyone and everyone who dares to speak out against the global jihad and Islamic supremacism. 

The Chabad event this morning was astonishing, with 300 people inside and another 400 to 500 watching outside on the jumbotron.

Pamela Geller gives the details:

"Her April 14 appearance at Great Neck Synagogue was canceled amid liberal protests, but anti-Islam blogger Pamela Geller got the last laugh: The next morning, two other area synagogues invited her to speak the same day as the canceled speech." -- Shul Axes Pamela Geller, and 2 Others Invite Her, Jewish Daily Forward

Note the "anti-Islam" smear. They always have to get that in, even when admitting defeat.

Overwhelming. What a day. I must dash to New Jersey to speak at Temple Beth-El in Edison, but I had to share with Atlas readers and freedom lovers the triumph that you all had a hand in making happen.

The Chabad event in Great Neck was a great victory! Hundreds came out to hear my talk and to stand for free speech. The rooms at the Chabad House were all jammed, with people standing in the aisles. It was an overflow crows: another 400 to 500 people watched the event on a jumbotron set up outside in an outdoor theater that had been set up for this event.

Luminaries in attend included Robert Spencer, Dr. Andrew Bostom, Charles Jacobs, Dov Hikind, David Wood, Ashraf Ramelah of Voice of the Copts, Helen Freedman of AFSI, and many others. Introducing me was David Yerushalmi of the American Freedom Law Center, the indefatigable pro-freedom lawyer who has represented me in my free speech cases around the country.

It was divine: defiant, happy, confident freedom warriors standing up the face of Islamic supremacist and Leftist intimidation, and refusing to bow down. It was one for the ages.

Pamela Geller has more photos here.

Dangerously rewriting history

Exclusive: Pamela Geller exposes manufactured Muslim myths presented as fact

Pamela Geller / WND Commentary

 

Today we are at a point where history and facts must be “erased” and rewritten, because truth is racist-Islamophobic-anti-Muslim bigotry. Historical revisionism has taken on a new life, as history is scrubbed and manufactured Muslim myths are presented as fact.

Pioneering historian Bat Ye’or recently visited the British Museum and found that “Palestinian propaganda and its cohorts of EU bowdlerizing troops have also visited the Museum – which is why all the information notes pertaining to the artifacts that mention the history of the Kingdoms of Judea and Israel now also mention the word “Palestine” – even 3,000 years B.C. – while the name was only given to the land in 135 A.D. by Roman Emperor Hadrian when he incorporated it into the Roman Empire.”

This is beyond depressing; it’s shocking. The “Big Lie” Nazi-esque narrative has been thrust upon every corner of culture, education and “dialogue” in the weak and subdued West. There is no escape from this Islamic imperialism. Shariah enforcement extends far beyond the obvious attempts to silence critics of jihad and Shariah. The scrubbing of the 270 million victims of jihadi wars, land appropriations, cultural annihilations and enslavements from academic texts has been going on for well over a decade. The demonization and smearing of politicians who dare speak against the most extreme and radical ideology on the face of the earth is virtually automatic at this point, as is the self-enforcing Shariah compliance of the mainstream media. And now, history itself is being rewritten.

There is no “historical” Palestine – it’s Israel. The Romans wanted to punish the Jews after their defeat at Masada in the first century. The Roman emperor Hadrian meant to erase the name of Israel and Judah, so that there would be no memory of the country that belonged to that Jewish people. He wanted a name that would humiliate the Jews, and found that in an extinct people called the “Philistines,” the enemies of the Israelites.

Some things never change – but it is fitting that the namesake of today’s “Palestinians” is the Philistines. And they do indeed mirror the savagery of that ancient and now-extinct people.

Nor is the British Museum alone. 1001 Muslim Inventions, a traveling museum exhibit, has appeared all over the West to huge acclaim. (A half-million visitors attended it in Los Angeles alone.) It has indoctrinated hundreds of thousands of children into a rosy and romanticized view of Islam that makes them less appreciative of their own culture’s achievements and more complacent about Islamization in the West.

J. Christian Adams visited this exhibit. He recounted that the exhibit presents a Muslim inventor, Abbas Ibn Firnas, as one who “dared to dream man could fly 1,000 years before the Wright Brothers.” Firnas didn’t actually succeed in flying, of course, or come close to inventing the airplane. Adams writes:

Notice all of the tricks of language. He was the first “who tried to fly,” and “passed into legend,” “more or less unharmed,” the “flying machine,” (implying moving parts), and “apparently gliding for some distance.”

But Adams’ 8-year-old daughter, seeing the exhibit, did not notice all the weasel words:

She was convinced that the Wright Brothers were not the first to fly, and instead it was Firnas launched from the mosque at Cordoba a millennium ago. This would not be the only instance when thought corrupted the language of the exhibit, which in turn corrupted thought, at least among the more impressionable.

By creating a children’s attraction, the exhibit is fostering a subliminal brainwashing that has moved into the public schools as well.

The exhibit is almost unfailingly dishonest. As Adams explains, even if everything it says about Muslim inventions were true, it does not and cannot explain why Muslims never followed up on these inventions. If Firnas were really the first to fly, why did it fall to the Wright Brothers 1,000 years later to follow up on what he supposedly discovered about how to do it? Why weren’t Muslims flying around in airplanes centuries before the Wright Brothers were born?

The British Museum and the 1001 Muslim Inventions exhibits are not history. They are propaganda, and the foolish infidels keep lining up enthusiastically for more.

Obama Has Your Pension Plan in His Sights

By Morgan Brittany / Townhall Columnist

 

Now that the push has started to go after gun-owners, with legislation working its way through Congress, Obama isn’t wasting any time in making his next grab.  Now he has your retirement money in his site!  With the long-awaited release of his budget, the ugly specifics are emerging.

We knew that he was going to include more spending, (which we can’t afford), and we knew that he would insist on the “rich” paying their fair share, which they already do many times over.  No, now he wants to go after retirement accounts, and that will affect the middle class who have worked years to build up a nest egg for their golden years.

Obama is right on track in pushing his Marxist agenda. He has succeeded in getting the poverty level up with more people on food stamps than ever before.  He has succeeded in driving the unemployment stats through the roof with more people out of work or leaving the work force than ever before, and he has succeeded in hooking Americans on the dependency drug of entitlements that will eventually bankrupt this country.

I can just imagine the conversation with Obama and Jack Lew, his new Treasury Secretary.  “Bernanke isn’t printing fast enough, we need more money.  Where can we get it?”  Aha!  Look no further than that luscious stash of cash that is just sitting there in people’s retirement accounts!

So now he has decided that he knows just how much money YOU will need when YOU retire and anything over that amount he will just take.  In other words, the Obama budget proposal will lower the amounts Americans can put away in retirement accounts without a tax penalty.  You make contributions in pre-tax dollars thus lowering your taxable income.  Capping the contributions will raise your taxes and cut into the dollars available for retirement.

His proposal limits accounts to $3 million in accumulated savings, enough to fund an annual retirement annuity of $205,000 a year.

Ok, some may say.  That’s a lot of money, but not so fast.  First of all, it will be taxed at whatever rate is set, inflation will be eating into its value and who knows what kind of costs people might be looking at in the future relating to health care and such.  After taking all of that into consideration, how much is really left?
 
This is just more redistributionist nonsense.  An appalling statement came out of the White House last week that stated, “Under current law, some wealthy individuals can amass substantially more than is needed to fund reasonable levels of retirement savings”.  Excuse me???  So now the government has decided that it has the moral authority to decide what the reasonable level of YOUR retirement savings should be.  This should scare the wits out of everyone who is reading this.

It is out and out theft.  How long are we going to play this game with these maniacs?  How many times are we going to watch the bank account seizures in Cyprus, shrug and say it could never happen here?  Well, news flash…it’s happening here.

In a great article from Bull Market Thinking, Quantum Fund manager Jim Rogers was interviewed and he spoke with amazing foresight.  He didn’t anticipate Obama’s out and out theft plan, but when asked what the governments can take after the Cyprus event, he said; ”401k plans, IRA’s, andpensions plans which the government knows about [may be next]… They know where all the pension plans are because we have to report it, so they’re easily accessible by governments. They know where they are, what they are, and they’ll be able to snatch them away. Who knows what they’ll do, but they’ll certainly find some way to take our money when things get worse, they always have.”

This is where we are headed folks, so start making plans now.

Blow Off Pampered Greenies, Build Keystone XL

By: Katie Kieffer / Townhall Columnist

 

 

Recycling is fine. Conservation is fine. But sometimes greenies cross the line. They expect you and me to go jobless and hungry so they can save a porcupine.

President Obama has been pampering his radical greenie friends for far too long. Even the Presidents’ State Department has thrice declared Keystone XL to be environmentally safe. Let’s build it already.

Keystone XL is a well-thought-out project that has been in the hopper since 2005 when TransCanada Corp. initially proposed it. Canada’s National Energy Board approved the project on its end in 2007. Five years later, in April of 2013, Canada is still patiently waiting for us to approve this no-brainer, win-win $7 billion jobs and energy infrastructure project.

Here are the facts. Keystone XL would mean:

• A daily surge of between 700,000 and 800,000 barrels of crude oil for America.
• Stronger relations with our neighbor and ally, Canada.
• No significant negative impact on the environment.
• Employment for individuals in the construction sector, which has been hard-hit by the recession (the construction unemployment rate is over 16 percent).

The Keystone XL pipeline would initiate in Alberta and then traverse across six states in the contiguous U.S. to its final destination of Texas Gulf Coast refineries. One of these six states is Nebraska, home of Obama’s dear friend Warren Buffet.

Buffett opposes Keystone XL because it means that he will lose some of the profit he’s pulling from his $26 billion 2009 investment in Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company.

Railroads are highly dangerous, inefficient and unreliable as a means of transporting crude oil. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that pipelines transport more crude at less risk of incurring a leak or spill than railroads and that railroad spills are up more than tenfold. Plus, pipelines take routes that are located further from dense population zones, making them safer, even if there is a spill.

Luckily for you, Buffet does not represent Nebraska in the U.S. Senate. Rep. Lee Terry (R-NE) recently authored H.R. 3, which would bypass President Obama’s unconstitutional and unreasonable use of executive authority (known as a “presidential permit” in this case) to block Keystone XL.

This month, Robert E. Hogfoss and Catherine D. Little published a piece in the National Law Journal explaining that: “… permits are a creation of the executive branch alone, with no legislative authorization and limited judicial review to date. Presidential permits are intended to provide executive branch review of trans-border facilities and commercial activities between the United States and either Canada or Mexico. No statute authorizes their creation or use, and few regulations govern their review or issuance.”

In other words, there is no hard constitutional or statutory basis for presidential permits. The President really has no business controlling or blocking free enterprise in America or the development of America’s natural resources. But, U.S. Presidents have become quite savvy at finding legitimate-sounding ways to grant themselves whatever power the Constitution does not give them.

President Roosevelt was the first U.S. President to use his executive authority to claim that Congress would need a so-called “presidential permit” in order to approve trans-border natural gas or electric operations. And the rest is history. President Obama now appears to be contemplating using a “presidential permit” to stall Keystone XL.

I recently asked Canadian writer Alex Snyder to give me his take on Keystone XL:

“Canada relies on America for 97 percent of its energy exports, so to say this deal is important for our country would be accurate. The main environmental concerns from certain groups in America is the fact that there is a risk of an oil spill… First, there's risk of a spill in any oil transportation method, so the argument is invalid. Second, tar sands are becoming more environmentally friendly due to stricter environmental regulations from the Canadian government. American environmental groups show little understanding of Canadian politics when they question production methods. Additionally, most companies in the oil sands are continually improving extraction methods to limit their environmental impact, and have incentive to do so. No oil company enjoys the negative publicity that arises from environmental carnage. …Canadians realize Keystone XL… should be approved; it’s just embarrassing that it’s being held up by environmental fanatics.”

The bottom line is that we risk jeopardizing our relationship with Canada and losing economic growth opportunity out of false fears of environmental repercussions. Let’s stop pampering the greenies and build Keystone XL.