Congress sends Obama bill to stop Nazi benefits

AP News / Townhall.com

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bill that would block suspected Nazi war criminals from receiving Social Security benefits is heading to President Barack Obama for his signature.

By voice vote late Thursday, the Senate gave final congressional approval to a measure that would shut a loophole that allowed suspected Nazis to be paid millions of dollars in benefits, clearing it for the White House. Under the bill, benefits would be terminated for Nazi suspects who have lost their American citizenship, a step called denaturalization. U.S. law currently requires a higher threshold — a final order of deportation — before Social Security benefits can be stopped.

The legislation was introduced after an Associated Press investigation published in October revealed that Social Security benefits have been paid to dozens of former Nazis after they were forced out of the United States.

The House unanimously approved the bill on Tuesday on a 420-0 vote.

The White House and the Social Security Administration signaled support for denying benefits to former Nazis following the AP's report. The Justice Department said it was open to considering proposals that would terminate the Social Security payments.

AP's investigation found that the Justice Department used a legal loophole to persuade Nazi suspects to leave the U.S. in exchange for Social Security benefits. If they agreed to go voluntarily, or simply fled the country before being deported, they could keep their benefits. The Justice Department denied using Social Security payments as a way to expel former Nazis.

Two Republican senators — Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Orrin Hatch of Utah — have demanded that the Obama administration provide Congress with records explaining how suspected Nazis received the payments and the role the Justice Department played in the program.

Grassley and Hatch cited the AP investigation in letters sent to Attorney General Eric Holder and Carolyn Colvin, the acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

In the new Congress that begins next month, Grassley will chair the Senate Judiciary Committee and Hatch will head the Senate Finance Committee.

The Social Security Administration refused the AP's request that it provide the total number of Nazi suspects who received benefits and the dollar amounts. The AP appealed the agency's denial of the information through the Freedom of Information Act.

Former Auschwitz guard Jakob Denzinger, who fled the United States in 1989 and lives in Croatia, collects a Social Security payment of about $1,500 a month, the AP found.

Grassley and Hatch are seeking broad categories of data — such as the total number of Nazis who received Social Security benefits and the dollar amount of those payments — and details about specific cases. For example, they want to know whether a former SS unit commander named Michael Karkoc, whom the AP located last year in Minnesota, would be able to retain his benefits even if removed to another country.

Obama Sues Companies for Complying with Obamacare

Michael Schaus / Townhall Columnist

What’s the easiest way to avoid getting sued by the Obama Administration? Well… If you come up with an answer, let the rest of us know. A company that has supported the President and his Affordable Care Act, is currently being sued by Obama for following the law. (Wait… “Affordable” Care Act? Can we sue Democrats for false advertising yet?)

Welcome to Obama’s America. Where you can literally get sued for trying to comply with the law. (Boy… That’ll teach you.)

Honeywell International Inc., and two smaller firms, are being sued for taking advantage of a specific provision in the ACA that allows them to lower their out-of-pocket medical expenses. Deroy Murdock at the National Review explains:

These firms are complying with Obamacare, which lets them offer wellness programs to their employees. These activities help workers lose weight, quit smoking, receive regular checkups, and otherwise become healthier. As an incentive, Obamacare offers participating employees as much as a 50 percent reduction in out-of-pocket medical expenses… The comically titled “Affordable Care Act” requires that employees in these programs undergo medical tests to qualify for lower premiums. Unfortunately, such exams violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

So, let’s make sure we understand this: Employers can offer their workers “wellness programs”; but following the regulations for such programs result in a violations of the ADA. Well, Nancy Pelosi, I’m certainly glad we’re finally figuring out what’s in this thing; because Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission would be three case-loads lighter if we hadn’t passed this reform.

Of course, this shouldn’t be unexpected. I mean, we have a community organizer trying to run an exponentially expanding Federal bureaucracy. (Don’t get me wrong… He clearly did a great job with that south side of Chicago.) But this isn’t some sort of unforeseen complication of an incompetent government, it’s actually just the natural consequence of big government. Heck, Boston civil-liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate suggests that the average American unwittingly commits up to three felonies each day… And he made that estimate before Obamacare, Dodd Frank, the EPA’s overhaul of climate regulations, the FDA’s war on soft cheeses, and Obama’s slew of royal decrees executive orders.

So, good news Honeywell… You’re not alone. You’re just unlucky enough to have found yourself in some prosecutor’s crosshairs.

Good thing the Administration is busy crafting an executive order aimed at granting “amnesty” to people who knowingly broke Federal immigration laws… Of course, that kinda brings up the bigger issue here, doesn’t it? Our laws are so numerous, regulations so contradictory, and government so powerful, that it is merely the fickle benevolence of bureaucrats, attorneys, and politicians that keep the wrath of the judicial system at bay.

I would suggest to Honeywell that they begin to shift their politic support to more libertarian and conservative causes, but I’m sure an IRS audit would just be a nuisance right about now.

Reports: Obama Mulling Sanctions on Israel

Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

Obama has lifted sanctions on Iran, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror, but he is considering imposing sanctions on our number one ally in the region, Israel.

Apparently Obama warns the Jewish capital, Jerusalem, judenrein, cleansed of all Jews.

Unprecedented. It would be like FDR helping Hitler build the camps.

If I believed in such things, I’d say Obama was the devil himself.

Wow.

“Reports: Obama Mulling Sanctions on Israel,” AP via WFB, December 4, 2014

The Obama administration is refusing to discuss reports that emerged early Thursday claiming that the White House is considering imposing sanctions on Israel for continuing construction on Jewish homes in Jerusalem.
State Department...

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“Islamophobia” Joins the Rainbow Coalition

Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

by Andrew Harrod

“Same-sex marriage bans” and “anti-sharia/anti-‘foreign law’” bills seek “to disenfranchise historically marginalized groups,” according to the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU)’s latest “Islamophobia” study, “Islamophobia: A Threat to All.” An audience of around fifty at a recent panel discussion on the study at Georgetown University’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (ACMCU) witnessed an unconvincing attempt to integrate combatting “Islamophobia” into a broad leftist coalition.

The study’s “manufacturing bigotry” section analyzes correlations between “restrictive legislative agendas” in American state legislatures across six areas: “voter identification,” “immigration laws,” “right-to-work,” “laws restricting abortion rights and access,” and the aforementioned topics.

Assessing the study, panel moderator Dalia Mogahed—ISPU research director and longstanding anti-Israel apologist for radical Islam—proclaimed that an “injustice to one is really a threat to all.” ISPU, she added, is however “focused on the Muslim-American community.”

Lead study researcher Saeed Khan dismissed American alarm over sharia law encroachments as prejudice. This lecturer in the department of classical and modern languages, literatures, and cultures at Wayne State University, Detroit is a regular speaker at the University of California, Berkeley’s annual Islamophobia conferences. In light of Obama’s successful elections, Khan strained credulity by predicting that the future replacement of the country’s historic white protestant majority with a “majority-minority country” would cause a “moral panic that America is irreversibly changing.”

“Islamophobia within this broader demographic shift,” he argued, “is not really an isolated or unique phenomenon.” Accordingly, one of his PowerPoint presentations recommended that Muslims, “explore potential intersections with other issues,” however unrelated to Islam.

Georgetown labor historian Joseph McCartin—Jesuit employer and Catholic undergraduate education notwithstanding—portrayed anti-sharia efforts as “connected to other regressive policies,” such as opposition to abortion and homosexuality. According to McCartin, homosexuals, feminists, and others allegedly targeted by “regressive policies . . . have to stand together” with sharia’s defenders.

Laughably, in his imagination, the “things that unite us are more important than the things that divide us.” Drag queens, burka-clad Muslims, and union workers of the world unite!

In leftist jargon, McCartin described the “othering” of Islam within a “carefully orchestrated attack” on workers and voting rights, while assuming that enforced unionization and a lack of identification safeguards, respectively, best protect these interests. Referencing past animosity towards Irish-Catholic immigrants, while seemingly oblivious to modern American diversity, McCartin reiterated the worn out trope that Americans are only comfortable with minorities “as long as they don’t have power and voice.”

Rep. Yoho: House Rejected Illegal Orders Because 'Enough Is Enough'

By Todd Beamon

  / NEWSMAX

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The House of Representatives voted to slap down President Barack Obama's executive action to help as many as 6 million illegal immigrants because "enough is enough," Rep. Ted Yoho told Newsmax on Thursday.

"The Constitution is something we need to abide by, or what in the heck are we here for?" asked the Florida Republican. He introduced the legislation on Nov. 20, the day Obama announced his unilateral actions.

"If he wants to legislate with a pen, send all the Congress home," Yoho said. "My goal is to take his ink out of his pen."

On a 219-197 vote, the House voted Thursday to block the immigration orders Obama announced last month that would delay deportations for and grant work permits to millions of illegals.

Though the vote seemed like a token protest that would not go any further, it allowed House Republicans to vent their outrage over Obama's orders without jeopardizing a spending bill under negotiation between the House and Senate that would keep the government running after next week.

"It is symbolic," Yoho acknowledged to Newsmax. "It's a symbolic move that passed the House — the people's House — that says that they want the president to abide by the Constitution.

"If we are a land that honors the rule of law, and if that rule of law is the Constitution, and that Constitution signifies freedom around the world, should we not all work to preserve that?

"I think, symbolically, it probably speaks more than a bill," he said.

Seven Republicans opposed the measure and three voted "present." Three Democrats backed it, while 190 voted against it.

Op-ed:

Important Game-Changing Details Deliberately Forgotten

By: Diane Sori   

 

And the craziness that has overtaken Ferguson has made its way to New York City.

Coming on the heels of the recent grand jury decision NOT to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of thug Michael Brown, this past Wednesday, a Staten Island grand jury decided NOT to indict police Officer Daniel Pantaleo in the 'so-called' chokehold death of Eric Garner last July, in a case that included possible charges of second-degree manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, felony assault, or reckless endangerment.

And again the 'element' came out in force to protest this decision, simply because like in Ferguson the officer was white and the dead man was black. It did NOT matter that an indictment could legally only be rendered if they found malice or intention to physically hurt Eric Garner or if they found thata gross disregard for his well-being is what led to his death, meaning that even if they believed that Officer Pantaleo was careless or that this was a botched arrest it does NOT mean that it rose to the legal level of a crime.

And let's be clear right upfront...this incident was NEVER about the man's race as certain folk made it for Garner was NOT racially profiled, but was approached for a petty crime that should have stayed on a local level as a local incident. But simply because of the color of his skin it became another cause de jour for the race-baiters and white-haters and made into national sensationalism by non-stop media fodder.

Captured on video snippets by a friend of Garner's and seen around the world via the internet, one would think this case would have been cut and dry but being privy to facts the public does NOT see or know...including what happened before the friend's cellphone recorder was turned on which, by the way, was fairly late in the altercation...after viewing the video and hearing from both black and white witnesses in dozens of interviews with said witnesses that included 22 civilians, and after hearing the words of the officer who actually 'supposedly' used a chokehold on Garner, the jurors decided there was NOT enough evidence to bring an indictment against Officer Pantaleo.

In his testifying before the grand jury, Pantaleo said he had NO intention of choking Eric Garner (who like Michael Brown was a 'giant' of sorts and towered over the officers in both his 6 foot 5 inch height and his 400lb. weight) who was once again being arrested for selling 'loosies' on the city streets (which are untaxed cigarettes whose selling became an offense this past January in a law put in place by former NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg to protect tax revenues)...but that he was using a legally allowed maneuver known as a 'takedown maneuver' or 'submission hold' in an attempt to subdue the belligerent Garner who was resisting arrest. And while this maneuver did NOT...I repeat NOT...directly cause Garner's death, it did trigger off his many pre-existing conditions that together contributed to his death...serious pre-existing conditions the officers had NO knowledge of...and being that Garner did NOT directly die from choking this decision was legally just.

But as expected with this yet another NO indictment decision, once again white-hating AG Eric Holder butt in to announce that federal officials would move ahead with a civil rights investigation against Pantaleo just like he announced the same investigation would move ahead against now-resigned Officer Darren Wilson in the Ferguson case. And isn't it oh-so convenient that Holder 'forgets' that in this case the fact that Pantaleo’s actions were supervised by a black female sergeant, a civil rights case would most likely be dismissed. Bet you did NOT know that...more on that in a bit.

But NO matter as once again when race-baiters like Eric Holder do NOT like a rightful jury decision against a black man out comes the always close-at-hand race card whether it is warranted or NOT.

"This fight ain't over. It just begun. I'm determined to get justice for my husband because he shouldn't have been killed in that way. He shouldn't have been killed in any way," said Esaw Garner, the widow as she stood alongside the anything but 'Reverend' Al Sharpton.

And with words like that adding even more fuel to the fire insinuating that blacks can do NO wrong and the police are always the bad guys, it's important to repeat again that Eric Garner had been arrested eight times within this past year alone for the very same infraction, and his resisting arrest basically said 'screw you I'll do what I want' to the officers, and that helped lead to his death.

But let's again be clear here...in NO way am I saying that Eric Garner deserved to die over 'loosie' cigarettes...he did NOT...but his actions in resisting arrest did contribute to his death just like Michael Brown's actions contributed to his death.

And while Garner did indeed yell "I can't breathe," an important fact must be pointed out that does NOT meet the race-baiters and white-haters narrative, something which they want desperately to be kept hidden. And that fact is that the police sergeant 'on scene' supervising Officer Pantaleo even as he placed Garner in the 'supposed' chokehold was a BLACK female sergeant named Kizzy Adoni. This one fact alone should have taken race out of the equation right from the start, because throughout the incident Sgt. Adoni did NOT intercede to stop the actions of Officer Pantaleo. And why was that...because he did NOTHING that breached accepted police protocol.

But shhhhh...that one oh-so important game-changing fact must be kept under lock and key because then the race-baiters and white-haters would have NOTHING to stir up their 'brothers' with.

And if one looks closely at the video in question and putting emotions aside, while you will see the officer's arm around Garner's neck as he tried to subdue him you will also see that there were NO hands...I repeat NO hands...around Garner's neck choking him at any time including the four times he said the words about NOT being able to breathe. And the very fact that he could speak...and speak clearly...proves he was NOT being choked for the fact is that if one is being choked one cannot talk let alone talk clearly, and the autopsy showed that Garner did NOT die of asphyxiation which would have been the case had he been choked. And these were facts the grand jury had to rightfully consider when reaching their decision.

Also taken into account by the grand jury was Garner's belligerence towards the officers and the physical waving of his arms in what could be perceived as a threatening manner...which also can be briefly seen on the video...when told to put his hands behind his back to be handcuffed. Logic and common sense should tell one that you do NOT question or argue with an officer when they order you to do something...that is something that the jurors also had to take into account in this case, but the 'element' as always ignores that one simple important fact.

And within a few short hours after the decision was announced parts of the city were 'choked' with protesters interrupting the flow of traffic...in fact shutting down West Side Highway which in and of itself is breaking the law yet NO one was arrested...and forcing businesses to close as they yelled "No Justice. No peace. No racist police." And here's a thought worth considering... isn't it quite odd that 'miraculously' professionally made signs that corresponded with the words yelled are made, distributed, and held up all over the city...and in cities across the country... makes you wonder who exactly is NOT only financing this protest but the Ferguson protests as well for the time frame for professional signs appearing is eerily similar in both.

Need any help in guessing who's behind some if NOT all this unrest...do the names Barack HUSSEIN Obama and his cohort Al Sharpton come to mind. While in NO way part of the police action itself or in the grand jury's decision, both men are race-baiters who, like Eric Holder, hate whites and who love to spew words to inflame and encourage racial hatred and atomicity...and line their own pockets...(I believe) both figuratively and politically...in doing so.

Case in point...inserting himself dead center into the mix was Al Sharpton who held a press conference to damn the grand jury's decision...a jury made up of 14 white and nine nonwhite members with 12 jurors being in agreement needed for a decision and with leaked word being the decision crossed racial lines...and to damn the NYPD as well. After hearing the decision that was NOT to his liking Sharpton claimed that the "Grand jury systems on state level are broken," and called for a civil rights summit to be held after a planned DC march on December 13th.

Adding that “The federal government must do in the 21st century what they did in the mid-20th century — federal intervention had to come into the South to protect people’s civil rights and voting rights...Federal intervention must come now.” I just want to know from racist Sharpton does that include the civil rights for all the whites murdered in cold blood by blacks...like the sweet little baby shot point blank in the face by a black thug...or the murder by blacks of a white Marine and his pregnant wife...or when 50 blacks descended on a Minnesota white man and beat him to death just because he was white...need I go on.

Didn't think so.

And whether Obama and his ilk like it or NOT race relations work both ways...or should. We do NOT need to hear Obama's ad-nauseum words about his "concern on the part of too many minority communities that law enforcement is not working with them and dealing with them in a fair way." How about his saying that too many of his 'bros' act like 'animals' when jury decisions do NOT go their wanted way. Now those are words more truthful than his.

And we do NOT need the likes of Representative Hakeem Jeffries (who represents parts of Brooklyn and Queens) calling the decision "a miscarriage of justice" an "outrage" and a "disgrace." We do NOT need ubber leftist NY Mayor Bill de Blasio saying that he had received 'assurances' from Washington that the federal investigation of Garner's death would move forward "expeditiously and with a clear sense of independence" nor do we need his words that the grand jury decision has created "a national moment of pain, a national moment of grief and searching for a solution."

And we sure do NOT need the media's one-sided biased form of journalism that refuses to see or report on both sides of any incident involving blacks. Remember, if Officer Pantaleo had been black and the dead Garner had been white you NEVER would have heard about this at all...there would be NO protests...there would be NO calling for police retraining, and the likes of Al Sharpton, Eric Holder, and Barack HUSSEIN Obama would be forced to keep their big mouths shut.

So with the minority 'element' within the black population still behaving badly, sadly it's come time for 'so-called' white America to realize that whenever something happens to a black person that some in the black community do NOT like, the ad-nauseum narratives spoken by 'supposed' black leaders will ring louder than any truth that is fact, and that once healing race relations in America will take yet another step backwards as those same 'supposed' black leaders with a smirk on their face continue to line their pockets for political gain at the expense of those they call 'brothers.'

And that my friends is the saddest thing of all.