A Simple Question

Thomas Sowell / Townhall Columnist

 

It is amazing how a simple question can cause a complex lie to collapse like a house of cards. The simple question was asked by Bill O'Reilly of the Fox News Channel, and it was addressed to two Democrats. He asked what has Hillary Clinton ever accomplished.

The two Democrats immediately sidestepped the question and started reciting their talking points in favor of Hillary. But O'Reilly kept coming back to the fact that nothing they were talking about was an accomplishment.

For someone who has spent her entire adult life in politics, including being a Senator and then a Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has nothing to show for all those years -- no significant legislation of hers that she got passed in the Senate, and only an unbroken series of international setbacks for the United States during her time as Secretary of State.

Before Barack Obama entered the White House and appointed Mrs. Clinton Secretary of State, Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq had notified their higher ups, stationed in Pakistan, that their cause was lost in Iraq and that there was no point sending more men there.

Hosni Mubarak was in charge in Egypt. He posed no threat to American or Western interests in the Middle East or to Christians within Egypt or to Israel. But the Obama administration threw its weight behind the Muslim Brotherhood, which took over and began terrorizing Christians in Egypt and promoting hostility to Israel.

In Libya next door, the Qaddafi regime had already given up its weapons of mass destruction, after they saw what happened to Saddam Hussein in Iraq. But President Obama's foreign policy, carried out by Secretary of State Clinton, got Qaddafi removed, after which Libya became a terrorist haven where an American ambassador was killed, for the first time in decades.

The rationale for getting rid of Middle East leaders who posed no threat to American interests was that they were undemocratic and their people were restless. But there are no democracies in the Middle East, except for Israel. Moreover, the people were restless in Iran and Syria, and the Obama-Clinton foreign policy did nothing to support those who were trying to overthrow these regimes.

It would be only fair to balance this picture with foreign policy triumphs of the Obama-Clinton team.

The Many Costs of Obama's Amnesty

Phyllis Schlafly / Townhall Columnist

 

Seeing as the costs will come due only after Barack Obama has left the White House, I guess he doesn't care how high those costs are. But the costs are horrendous, as just added up by our country's foremost authority on such things, Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation.

Rector told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week that the lifetime costs of Social Security and Medicare benefits paid to the millions of immigrants to whom Obama is granting legal status will be about $1.3 trillion. Rector's calculation is based on his assumption that at least 3.97 million immigrants will receive legal status under Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, and the average DAPA beneficiary has only a 10th-grade education.

DAPA recipients, according to Rector's calculations, will receive $7.8 billion every year once they get access to the refundable earned income tax credit and the refundable additional child tax credit. Those EITC and ACTC recipients will also be allowed to claim credit for three years of illegal work, which will sock U.S. taxpayers for another $23.5 billion.

This was confirmed by IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, who told Congress on Feb. 11 that immigrants who didn't pay any taxes or who used fake Social Security numbers will nevertheless be able to claim back refunds under EITC once they get new Social Security numbers under Obama's amnesty. Koskinen said that he doesn't know how much these tax refunds will cost and that the White House never checked with him before announcing the amnesty.

The average DAPA-eligible family already receives about $6,600 a year in means-tested welfare benefits. That includes food stamps, school lunch (and breakfast), Medicaid, the State Children's Health Insurance Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children.

Many Americans labor under the false assumption that because most immigrants are hardworking, they do not depend on welfare assistance. In fact, as Rector patiently explains, most welfare benefits go to households with children headed by a low-income employed adult.

Rector estimates that the combined cost of means-tested welfare benefits the immigrants who came here illegally now receive, plus other goodies such as EITC and ACTC cash, will encourage increased illegal immigration in the future. The average American, whose children and grandchildren will end up burdened with this enormous debt, must ask whether someone is trying to destroy America.

The Government Accountability Office has already reported that even the debate over legalizing the presence of certain immigrants was "a primary cause" of last summer's surge of Central Americans crashing our southern border. Even if those teenagers were not eligible for asylum or legal status when they arrived, they knew that deportations could take years, giving them the chance to disappear into the shadows.

Look at California for a preview of our future under Obama's immigration plan. The Hispanic population is now almost equal to the white population, and almost 50 percent of babies born in California are Hispanic.

Brennan: Using term “radical Islam” gives jihadis “religious legitimacy”
 

By Robert Spencer / Jihad Watch

 

He is saying that we have to pretend, and that the Obama Administration pretends, that they’re not Islamic at all — in other words, that the Administration is determined to ignore what they state as their guiding ideology, motives and goals.

This is a recipe for disaster, as one cannot defeat an enemy one refuses […]

Read in browser »

 

BREAKING: Top Obama official calls for end to Israel ’50-year occupation’
Pamela Geller / Atlas Shrugs

The attacks from the Obama administration are not just daily now, but multiple times a day. Earlier today, I published reports that the Obama administration had abandoned Israel at the UNHRC, a veritable  snake-pit of antisemitism. Now this.

Today, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough called for the end of Israel’s “50-year occupation.” It is also telling that the Obama administration chose to make these remarks before a viciously Jewcidal, radical left group, J Street, this century’s kapo council.

These statements echo the most annihilationists on the face of the earth, Herr Obama.

The J Street political action committee has received tens of thousands of dollars in donations from dozens of Arab and Muslim...

Read the whole entry »

     

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Op-ed:
Ted Cruz Announces He's Running and the Naysayers Gather Like Vultures to a Feast
By: Diane Sori / The Patriot Factor / Right Side Patriots on CPR Worldwide Media

“I'm running for President and I hope to earn your support!"
Texas Senator Ted Cruz announces his 2016 run for the presidency

He's the first official candidate to declare out of more than a dozen high-profile Republicans considering running for president...and if we cannot have LTC Allen West, Ted Cruz is the next best thing. Announcing his intentions in a 30-second video embedded in a tweet released at 12:09 AM Monday morning, TEA Party favorite Ted Cruz is everything Republicans should be but sadly are NOT...that is if he does NOT go so far in pandering to the ubber religious right...the ones with their 'better a muslim we know than a Mormon we don't know' attitude that helped get Obama re-elected...that he actually...dare I say it...starts shaking hands with the left. (See Ted Cruz's tweet released video announcement here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulzfbe6H5qY)

Thankfully, I do NOT think he will as Ted Cruz ranks high on the list amongst true Constitutional conservatives, but unfortunately to date has NOT registered in the top five in the polls simply because he does NOT tow the so-called establishment Republican line. Instead, Ted Cruz appeals to Tea Partiers and we who are know as TEApublicans, because he has the courage to take on NOT only the Obama regime itself but the RINOS and the actual party establishment as well.

An 'ideological hard-liner' who tells voters to challenge others wanting to be the Republican nominee NOT just on their words but on their all-important actions, Ted Cruz strongly opposes ObamaCare...in fact his announcing cleverly comes on the fifth anniversary of ObamaCare's passing...opposes Common Core and the IRS, supports a balanced budget and the flat tax, knows who America's enemies are and rightfully stands strong with both our military and with Israel, along with his being more than just a wee bit willing to shut down Obama's corrupt federal government. And Ted Cruz has NO use for those who refuse to stand strong with the rule of law that is our Constitution or with those who fear standing strong against the Obama progressive liberal agenda that unfortunately seems to be overtaking our country.

And as for the polls themselves, a recent Real Clear Politics average of the latest polls...polls really taken too far out to truly matter in the end...show that Cruz must gain broader support in the GOP base if he is to get the nomination as right now they have him earning just 4.6% of the support of likely Republican voters nationwide, and just 4.3% and 4.4% respectively of the support of likely GOP voters in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire. But after the debates...and debating is a Ted Cruz strong point...these numbers will most assuredly climb upwards...way upwards...especially when an even more recent Quinnipiac University poll has 45% of Republicans seeing Cruz in a positive light, compared with only 8% who do NOT. But with 46% saying that to date they do NOT know enough about him to form an opinion...those are the ones Cruz...and we who support him...will have to court.

And while first-term Senator Ted Cruz will most likely face many questions over his experience...as did Obama in 2008...he has a more critical issue that must be addressed and then being put to rest once and for all...an issue that some 'supposedly' on our side will NOT let go of...and that is does Ted Cruz meet the presidential requirement of being a 'natural-born' citizen. I say of course he does, and so do lawyers from both parties at the U.S. Supreme Court who recently wrote in the Harvard Law Review that Cruz does indeed meet the Constitutional standard to run.

But sadly, like I said, some on our side continue to insist that Cruz is NOT eligible to run claiming over and over ad-nauseum that he does NOT meet the definition of a 'natural-born' citizen as he was actually born in Canada. And to make it worse, they refuse to budge in their stubbornness, mostly for fear of being called racists because they (rightfully) claimed America's (supposed) first black president...Barack HUSSEIN Obama...was NOT 'natural born'. Fearing the backlash from the likes of race-baiters Al Sharpton and Eric Holder, these folks would rather be politically correct than Constitutionally correct.

And that's sad as these folks clearly or willfully forget that our Constitution in NO way defines 'natural-born' citizen. And while Article 2 of the Constitution does state, “no person except a natural born citizen…shall be eligible to the Office of President,” it's the Founders and Framers very words combined with statutes enacted by the First Congress that must be the determining basis for defining 'natural-born.' And accordingly, many Constitutional attorneys and scholars contend that 'natural-born' meant and still means being born either abroad to American parents, or being born within this nation’s territorial borders regardless of parental citizenship.

In fact, the Congressional Research Service (a legislative branch agency within the Library of Congress who work exclusively for Congress providing policy and legal analysis to both houses regardless of party affiliation) supports that very view saying,“The weight of scholarly legal and historical opinion indicates that the term means one who is entitled under the Constitution or laws of the United States to U.S. citizenship "at birth" or "by birth," including any child born "in" the United States, even to alien parents (other than to foreign diplomats serving their country), the children of United States citizens born abroad, and those born abroad of one citizen parent who has met U.S. residency requirements.”

And herein lies the key to Cruz's 'natural-born' citizenship status and re-read these words very carefully, 'one who is entitled under the Constitution or laws of the United States to U.S. citizenship "at birth" or "by birth.” And in the case of Ted Cruz the words "at birth" are that key as Cruz's mother, a U.S. born American citizen, conferred citizenship to Ted under 'The Nationality Act of 1940' which states which children become “nationals and citizens of the United States at birth." Stating those born in the United States or born outside the United States to at least one parent who was a citizen at the time of the child's birth allows citizenship to go to that child “at birth” if that citizen parent spent a certain number of years in the U.S.

And this is where Ted Cruz's American citizenship is most assuredly gotten as Cruz being born to an America citizen mother, was able to assume his citizenship “at birth” because under the law in effect between 1952 and 1986...with Cruz being born in 1970...someone must have a citizen parent who resided in the United States for at least 10 years, including five years after the age of 14, in order to have American citizenship conferred to them.

So to put aside the fears of those on our side who say...for whatever reasons...that Ted Cruz is NOT a 'natural-born' citizen, the indisputable fact is that Ted Cruz's mother, Eleanor Darragh, was born and raised in the United States...in Wilmington, Delaware...did NOT go to Canada until her mid-to late 20s, and did NOT give birth to Ted until into her 30's...way beyond the Constitutionally mandated 5-year-post-age-14 residency requirement...meaning American citizenship was conferred to Ted Cruz at the time of his birth...period.

So this should hopefully end the quandary of Ted Cruz's eligibility issue once and for all, and allow us to unite behind the only true Constitutional Conservative out of the bunch that appears to be in the running.

"I believe in America and her people, and I believe we can stand up and restore our promise. It's going to take a new generation of courageous conservatives to help make America great again. And I'm ready to stand with you to lead the fight," Ted Cruz said in his declaration of candidacy and I believe in and support Ted Cruz...now we just need him to pick the right running mate...a woman perhaps.... Michele Bachmann comes to mind...just saying.