President Barack Obama's Complete List of Historic Firsts [Updated]

Yes, he's historic, alright.

Law and Justice

• First President to Violate the War Powers Act (Unilaterally Executing American Military Operations in Libya Without Informing Congress In the Required Time Period - Source: Huffington Post)

• First President to Triple the Number of Warrantless Wiretaps of U.S. Citizens (Source: ACLU)

• First President to Sign into Law a Bill That Permits the Government to "Hold Anyone Suspected of Being Associated With Terrorism Indefinitely, Without Any Form of Due Process. No Indictment. No Judge or Jury. No Evidence. No Trial. Just an Indefinite Jail Sentence" (NDAA Bill - Source: Business Insider)

• First President to Refuse to Tell the Public What He Did For Eight (8) Hours After Being Informed That a U.S. Ambassador Was Facing Imminent Death During a Terror Attack (Source: Mediate)

• First President to Lie About the Reason For an Ambassador's Death, Blaming it on an Internet Video Rather Than What He Knew to be the Case: the Al Qaeda-linked Terror Group Ansar al-Sharia (Source: House Oversight Committee, et. al.)

• First President to Have an Innocent Filmmaker Thrown in Jail After Lying About the Cause for a Deadly Attack on U.S. Diplomats, Using the Filmmaker as a Scapegoat (Source: CNN)

• First President to Use the IRS to "Unfairly Target Political Enemies" as Well as Jewish Groups (Source: Sen. Ted Cruz)

• First President to Unlawfully Seize Telephone Records of More than 100 Reporters to Intimidate and/or Bully Them (Source: Associated Press)

• First President to Witness a Single Cabinet Secretary Commit Multiple Hatch Act Violations Without Acting, Speaking Out, Disciplining or Firing That Person (Source: New York Times)

• First President to Have His Attorney General Held in Criminal Contempt of Congress For His Efforts to Cover Up Operation Fast and Furious, That Killed Over 300 Individuals (Source: Politico)

• First President to claim Executive Privilege to shield a sitting Attorney General from a Contempt of Congress finding for perjury and withholding evidence from lawful subpoenas (Source: Business Insider)

• First President to Issue Unlawful "Recess-Appointments" Over a Long Weekend -- While the U.S. Senate Remained in Session (against the advice of his own Justice Department - Source: United States Court of Appeals)

• First President to Fire an Inspector General of Americorps for Catching One of His Friends in a Corruption Case (Source: Gawker)

• First President to "Order a Secret Amnesty Program that Stopped the Deportations of Illegal Immigrants Across the U.S., Including Those With Criminal Convictions" (Source: DHS documents uncovered by Judicial Watch)

• First President to Sue States for Enforcing Voter ID Requirements, Which Were Previously Ruled Legal by the U.S. Supreme Court (Source: CNN)

• First President to Encourage Racial Discrimination and Intimidation at Polling Places (the New Black Panthers voter intimidation case, Source: Investors Business Daily)

• First President to Refuse to Comply With a House Oversight Committee Subpoena (Source: Heritage Foundation)

• First President to Arbitrarily Declare an Existing Law Unconstitutional and Refuse to Enforce It (Defense of Marriage Act - Source: ABC News)

• First President to Demand a Company Hand Over $20 Billion to One of His Political Appointees (BP Oil Spill Relief Fund - Source: Fox News)

• First President to Have a Law Signed By an 'Auto-pen' Without Being "Present" (Source: The New York Times)

• First President to Have His Administration Fund an Organization Tied to the Cop-Killing Terrorist Group, the Weather Underground (Source: National Review)

Scandals

• First President to publicly announce an enemies list (consisting of his opponents campaign contributors; and to use the instrumentalities of government to punish those on the list - Source: Heritage Foundation)

• First President to Attempt to Block Legally-Required 60-Day Layoff Notices by Government Contractors Due to His Own Cuts to Defense Spending -- Because The Notices Would Occur Before the Election. (Source: National Journal)

• First President to Intentionally Disable Credit Card Security Measures (in order to allow over-the-limit donations, foreign contributions and other illegal fundraising measures - Source: Power Line)

• First President to send 80 percent of a $16 billion program (green energy) to his campaign bundlers and contributors, leaving only 20% to those who did not contribute. (Source: Washington Examiner)

• First President to Propose an Executive Order Demanding Companies Disclose Their Political Contributions to Bid on Government Contracts (Source: Wall Street Journal)

• First President to issue an Executive Order implementing a "Racial Justice System", a system that tries to achieve "racially equivalent outcomes" for crimes (Source: Daily Caller)

• First President to Leak Confidential IRS Tax Records to Groups Aligned Politically With Him for Partisan Advantage (Source: The Hill Newspaper)

• First President to Use the EPA to Punish Political Enemies and Reward Political Allies (Source: Competitive Enterprise Institute)

• First President to Send Millions in Taxpayer Dollars to His Wife's Former Employer (Source: White House Dossier)

Economy

• First President to Preside Over a Cut to the Credit Rating of the United States Government (Source: Reuters)

• First President to Bypass Congress and Implement the DREAM Act Through Executive Fiat (Source: Christian Science Monitor)

• First President to Move America Past the Dependency Tipping Point, In Which 51% of Households Now Pay No Income Taxes (Source: Center for Individual Freedom)

• First President to Increase Food Stamp Spending By More Than 100% in Less Than Four Years (Source: Sen. Jeff Sessions)

• First President to Spend a Trillion Dollars on 'Shovel-Ready' Jobs -- and Later Admit There Was No Such Thing as Shovel-Ready Jobs (Source: President Obama during an early meeting of his 'Jobs Council')

• First President to Threaten Insurance Companies After They Publicly Spoke out on How Obamacare Helped Cause their Rate Increases (Source: The Hill)

• First President to Abrogate Bankruptcy Law to Turn Over Control of Companies to His Union Supporters (Source: Wall Street Journal)

• First President to Propose Budgets So Unreasonable That Not a Single Representative From Either Party Would Cast a Vote in Favor (Sources: The Hill, Open Market)

• First President Whose Economic Policies Have the Number of Americans on Disability Exceed the Population of New York (Source: CNS News)

• First President to Sign a Law Requiring All Americans to Purchase a Product From a Third Party (Source: Wall Street Journal)

• First President to Sue States For Enforcing Immigration Laws Passed by Congress (Source: The Arizona Republic newspaper)

• First President to See America Lose Its Status as the World's Largest Economy (Source: Peterson Institute)

• First President to redistribute $26.5 billion of the taxpayers' funds to his union supporters in the UAW (Source: Heritage Foundation)

• First President to Threaten an Auto Company (Ford) After It Publicly Mocked Bailouts of GM and Chrysler (Source: Detroit News)

• First President to Attempt to Bully a Major Manufacturing Company Into Not Opening a Factory in a Right-to-Work State (Boeing's facility in South Carolina - Source: Wall Street Journal)

Energy Policy

• First President to Endanger the Stability of the Electric Grid by Shutting Down Hundreds of Coal-Fired Plants Without Adequate Replacement Technologies (Source: National Electric Reliability Corporation - PDF)

• First President to Have His EPA Repudiated by a Federal Judge for "Overstepping Its Powers" When They Attempted to Shut Down Coal Operations in Appalachia (Source: Huffington Post)

• First President to be Held in Contempt of Court for Illegally Obstructing Oil Drilling in the Gulf of Mexico (Source: Politico)

National Security and World Affairs

• First President to Lie Repeatedly to the American People About the Murder of a U.S. Ambassador and Three Other Diplomatic Personnel for Purely Political Reasons, Rewriting a "Talking Points" Memo No Fewer Than a Dozen Times to Avoid Referencing a Pre-Planned Terror Attack (Source: ABC News)

• First President to Openly Defy a Congressional Order Not To Share Sensitive Nuclear Defense Secrets With the Russian Government (Sources: ABC News, Rep. Michael Turner)

• First President to Leak Highly Classified Military and Intelligence Secrets to Hollywood In Order to Promote a Movie That Could Help His Reelection Campaign (Source: Judicial Watch)

• First President to Terminate America's Ability to Put a Man into Space (Sources: USA Today, ABC News)

• First President to press for a "treaty giving a U.N. body veto power over the use of our territorial waters and rights to half of all offshore oil revenue" (The Law Of The Sea Treaty, Source: Investors Business Daily)

• First President to send $200 million to a terrorist organization (Hamas) after Congress had explicitly frozen the money for fear it would fund attacks against civilians (Sources: American Thinker, The Independent [UK])

Miscellania

• First President to Insert Himself into White House Biographies of Past Presidents (Source: The New York Times).

• First President to Golf 122 or More Times in His First Four-and-a-half Years in Office (Source: White House Dossier)

But remember: he will not rest until all Americans have jobs, affordable homes, green-energy vehicles, and the environment is repaired, etc., etc., etc.

CHAOS AND CORRUPTION ON THE SOUTHERN BORDER: A Texas Rancher Speaks

On the way to Blogcon, I struck up a conversation with a longtime Texas rancher who was headed home. We ended up talking about the real situation on the border. "Rancher X" owns a large ranch near MacAllen, Texas. The following is not word for word, but captured from my notes during a two hour discussion.


The entire border area is dominated by corruption. There are corrupt judges, corrupt ICE agents, corrupt sheriffs, and it's not just me saying that: you can read about indictments and convictions every week. It seems like there's a new federal indictment of a district judge, a border patrol agent, a local sheriff, etc. coming down that often.

We're one of the poorest areas in the country, so lots of federal dollars are headed here. So it's not fair to say that all of the corruption is just fueled by the drugs, humans and other stuff smuggled over the border. Also, I shouldn't say "smuggled", because it's just flowing over the border. All of the money corrupts every layer of government. Remember that officials get elected with money, and they are put into office by money.

Mexico: a Preview of the Chaos to Come Here in the U.S.

Here's something important to consider : As people lose confidence in law enforcement and judges, the civil society decays.

That's what's happened in Mexico. And we're just a couple of decades behind them.

In Mexico, I think we're seeing a preview of the United States in maybe 20 or 30 years.

Here's another important concept: don't spend more money on border security!

The money you spend on border security, getting more and more layers of law enforcement involved, is financing drug cartels. You know why? Because these layers of "human security" are corruptible by large amounts of money.

On a Physical Barrier or a Security Fence

A fence is a no-brainer. There are fences on the border in the cities. And they work. They're not perfect, but they drive smuggling traffic into the unprotected rural areas.

Do you have a fence at home? Most people do. Since when is anyone against a fence?

Only on the Mexican border do people oppose a fence.

In fact, there was an 18-foot levy built near us a while back and even that, while not for security reasons, drove smuggling traffic away.

The Hidden Secret: Oil and the Cartels

So here's the deal no one talks about with the border. The oil business and the cartels are intimately linked together. How "official" that linkage is up for debate. How high up the cartels and the oil companies are linked is up for debate.

So here's the backdrop. The whole south Texas border area is an oil field. The oil companies dominate the state. The landowner, ranchers like us, are subservient to the oil companies.

There are all kinds of right-of-ways and roads and oil infrastructure on the ranches. Which means oil tankers, maintenance trucks, all kinds of vehicles are entering and leaving our ranch every day. We might have 300 or 400 trucks coming in and out of our ranch.

Here's the deal with that: no one knows what those trucks are. Are they smuggling stuff? Or are they legitimate? No one knows, no one knows who is coming or going. Including the oil companies!

Why don't the oil companies know who's coming or going? Because they sub out the work. And the subs sub out the work. And on down the line. Who's authorized to be using the oil companies' infrastructure? No one knows who's authorized.

A Dirty Little Secret: The Border Patrol and Oil Infrastructure

Here's something crazy: the border patrol is not authorized to operate on oil company infrastructure, ostensibly for reasons of safety. So you've got heavy trucks, loaders, cranes moving heaven knows what.

A typical load might be 6,000 pounds of pot. This kind of volume demands 18-wheelers. And 18-wheelers demand oil field infrastructure.

And the oil companies do not involve themselves with the detail of these logistics. The details aren't visible to the oil companies, intentionally or unintentionally.

It's like a UPS driver on your street. How do you know whether that's a real UPS driver? Unless you had some way of authenticating and verifying that driver, you don't know if it's a legitimate UPS truck.

The oil companies have lost control of the border area. Because of the subcontracting, the oil companies appear to have some level of "plausible deniability". They can claim they don't know or don't have control of their infrastructure.

In the early 20th century, the oil companies locked up huge swaths of lands. And the infrastructure is extremely difficult to track ownership of. There are thousands of companies and joint ventures involved, and these J.V.s are "classified" as trade secrets, so you can't find out who is really responsible for the roads or whatever. There is no way for the landowners or the federal government to control oil field traffic. Under Texas law, the mineral estate (the oil company) is the dominant estate. It is actually called "Dominant Estate Law".

Why spending more on border security is nonsensical

Here's how high volume human smuggling operates. Our ranch has miles of highway frontage. These huge criminal operations run massive, sophisticated convoy operations.

They'll put a scout vehicle out on the highway to see if the border patrol is around. There are scouts and enforcers and what not. Sometimes these people are being held hostage or as sex slaves and are coming across the border against their will. The enforcers are there to prevent escapes.

But back to the scouts: if it's all clear, some Suburbans will pull up. Each Suburban can hold 30 people, seriously. So once nightfall comes, the vehicles pop open and everyone starts moving.

And a single Border Patrol unit is trying to catch 100 people? Seriously? For those 100 folks, Border Patrol might catch 7, 40 might perish, and the rest make it to the U.S.

Most of the border area is sand. And the Border Patrol can't do pursuits because the catalytic converters can cause huge brush-fires. And it's not just sand, there are huge bee colonies. Aggressive bee colonies that are crazy dangerous.

And the Border Patrol isn't like it's incorruptible. There are corrupt BP folks.

The Private Prison Scam

We have major private prisons in our area. Here's how the private prison scam works.

While Mexico has a "return treaty", meaning if we catch a Mexican national, we can return them through official channels. But OTMs [Other Than Mexicans] often don't have return treaties.

In our district, when you catch an OTM, there's a hearing with mandatory detention. Mandatory detention, which ties right into private prisons and the money used to fund those detentions.

These folks can spend 17 years in prison. And you're paying for it all.

A few years back, there were thousands of Eritreans captured trying to cross the border. I don't even know what an Eritrean is. But if there's no return treaty, they're languishing in private prisons. And you're paying for it.

Upset about illegal kids in schools?

That's a spit in the bucket compared to the private prison business. The costs are unbelievable. And the medical care is probably far better than what these folks could get in their home countries.

The federal government pays for those private prisons with your tax dollars and I guarantee private prisons are expensive. They are publicly traded companies and their stock prices have generally skyrocketed thanks to all this "homeland security" hoopla.

More Security Spending Isn't the Answer

The money you and your community sends to the border is incentivizing the wrong behavior.

All this money is being spent and it's having the consequence of just robbing legitimate citizens of their freedoms -- like no search and seizure. All of this homeland security stuff just means I am stripping down to get on an airplane - the immigrants and drug smugglers don't go through the checkpoint - they just walk around it or drive around it because it's an oilfield with roads.

More money spent down here has just made things worse. It adds more layers of government and more nooks and crannies that get corrupted. Things keep getting worse, and it's government corruption behind much of it.

Example: a while back, a bunch of sheriffs got arrested. They were literally part of the cartels. They weren't paid enough to take risks and they certainly don't have the resources to pursue the smugglers.

So the money you send to the border isn't really spent on security. How much do you hear about illegal immigration in Alabama. Well, I've got news for you: it's happening. You think the cartels can't buy some boats?

So think before you advocate for more "border security". The border security bulls*** is counter-productive.

When you send more money, think about more border patrol agents sitting on the highway and the scouts avoiding them.

That money adds layers of government, susceptible to corruption, and it takes away money to police your community.

You want to secure the border - prosecute corrupt public officials. It's much better use of our prison space.

I think the key points of the corruption issue and the actual inconvenience to law abiding citizens are the most logical and motivating things to consider. People are so quick to demand border security but they don't make the connection that putting police on the border means taking that money out of the budget of the cities around the country for police on their city streets.

Plus, 99 percent of the drugs and immigrants are just passing through to get to the cities around the country where the pay is higher and there are huge markets for drugs. We are in sparsely populated rural areas. We aren't smoking all those tons of weed--they are going to cities around the U.S.

And a border wall won't work everywhere, but it's one hell of a good start.

I'm sure there were no illegal aliens involved in this little dust-up

PoliceMag relays some startling footage from a Miami drug dealer's house.

Suspects involved in a drug trafficking operation opened fire on investigating Miami-Dade Police detectives in a deadly gunfight captured by the video surveillance cameras of a marijuana grow house.

The dramatic footage, which was played Thursday at a court hearing, shows the rapidly unfolding gunfight at the west Miami home. Plainclothes detectives had visited the home on July 31 for a "knock and talk" during their investigation.


After arriving, they began to question Luis Estevanell, 60. Estevanell's cohort, Gerardo Delgado, emerges from a parked BMW and opened fire at the officers while attempting to take cover behind a tree.

The officers returned fire striking Delgado several times as the suspect continued firing. Three rounds from Delgado struck John Saavedra, who can be seen falling outside the screen.

Thank heavens no LE folks were injured or worse.

Oh, and hey, Gang o' Eight: these folks are just doing the jobs Americans won't do, right?


Hat tip: BadBlue Guns.

National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers to Gang of Eight: How About Comprehensive Immigration Enforcement First, Geniuses?

Actually, I paraphrased their respectful and compelling open letter:



Related: National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers.

GOOD NEWS: Illegal Border Crossings Triple thanks to 'Gang of Eight'

As anyone with an IQ over 12 could have predicted, talk of "Amnesty" has touched off a veritable tidal wave of illegal immigration:

For months, Stand With Arizona has been reporting (most recently here, here and here) on the massive increase in border crossings since Obama and the ‘Gang of Eight’ started promising amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. 

And I have been interviewed by two dozen media outlets from the Washington Post and L.A. Times to CNN and even FoxNews. Each time I begged them to report the truth about what border agents were telling me – that a tidal wave of new alien arrivals was overwhelming agents and ranchers – especially in Texas.

We showed them emails and faxes, even one handwritten note from a border agent with the numbers. We even told them how DHS stopped releasing monthly statistics on apprehensions after the border crossing spike became known.

The national media ignored the evidence for 9 weeks – until now.

One of the reporters we spoke to, Anna Werner, from CBS News, is now reporting that arrests of illegal aliens crossing into the United States have nearly tripled in recent months in anticipation of the ‘Gang of Eight’ amnesty. To her credit, Werner spoke to border agents to verify the numbers we showed her back in March, and presented them on the CBS Evening News (video).

In March, 7,500 illegals were arrested in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, which includes McAllen, CBS quoted agent Chris Cabrera as reporting. That’s up from 2,800 in January. And that January number itself is up 200% over 2012. In February, nearly 4,800 illegals were arrested in the Rio Grande. 

CBS even reported (as we did at the time) how overwhelmed agents in McAllen used their station’s carport to process nearly 900 illegals caught over three days in March, as they ran out of space to handle the massive influx.

...CBS interviewed one rancher, Juan Mercado, who lives on border property his family has owned since the 1850s, and is now under seige. Illegals usually come across his property, but recently Mercado has seen a tidal wave of illegals streaming across... “I’m being invaded by people who have no permission to be on my property,” Mercado said. “By smugglers, by illegals.”

Mercado is left exposed by the failed border security policies of Obama and Napolitano’s DHS. So, as we reported last year regarding Texas ranchers turning to AK-47′s to defend themselves, Mercado is now relying on his own security system: a gun.

...Is that the best the Feds can do? Leave it to Americans on the border to fend for themselves as they concern themselves with blanket amnesty to satisfy slave-labor addicted big businesses, and ethnic intimidation groups? ENOUGH! 

Secure the border NOW. KILL THIS BILL!

Call your Senator and DEMAND it: 202-224-3121.

---

If YOU are sick and tired of hearing about a “path to citizenship” and “immigration reform” and just want to see the border secured, the rule of law upheld and amnesty for illegals stopped, then put your name where your heart is, and join the 170,000 who have signed the petition:

Gang of Eight's Stuttering Cluster of an Immigration Bill Deconstructed With a Single Infographic

Courtesy of the Heritage Foundation:


A better question is: "What's not wrong with the Gang of Eight's ludicrous bill"?

[The bill gives DHS Secretary] Janet Napolitano freedom to do pretty much whatever she wants and the authority to let in anyone she pleases... Just in case anyone is concerned that senators aren’t reading the 844-page immigration reform bill from the Group of Eight closely before returning from recess next week, note that Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) is tweeting as he goes, calling out concerning elements of the legislation:

• #Gof8Fact pg 11 of #Gangof8 bill says that Secretary of Homeland Security can alter legal immigrant status of #DREAM and ag. workers.

• #Gof8Fact pg 65 of #Gangof8 bill says Homeland Security Secretary can waive inadmissibility for humanitarian purposes and public interest

• #Gof8Fact pg 66 of #Gangof8 bill says Sec of Homeland Security gets discretion on whether to start legal proceedings to remove illegals

• Still going through #Gangof8 bill. #Gof8Fact pg 69 says Sec of Homeland Security can extend time allowed to apply for legal status

One report states that the bill would give legal status to 57 million, including non-immigra​nt visas.

This bill is utter garbage. It must be stopped. Call your Senator now at 202-224-3121 and demand they crush this bill.

GRAPHIC: 5 Ways the Immigration Bill Is Like Obamacare

From the peerless Heritage Foundation:


Here's an idea regarding outrageous bills such as Obamacare and "Comprehensive Immigration Reform". Bills so complex and so lengthy that no one, not a single legislator, is able to read or comprehend them before being forced to vote.

This idea builds upon Thomas Jefferson's suggestion to James Madison: that bills passed by Congress should lay in stasis for at least a year in order to facilitate public review and open debate. I propose:

Any bill passed by Congress shall, prior to being signed into law by the President, be published into the Congressional Record. It shall be be open to public discourse and debate for a period no less than a number of days equal to or greater than the number of pages required for publication in the Congressional Record before it may be signed into law.

A bill that requires 2,000 pages should require at least 2,000 days of public review and debate.

Someone Break the News to Marco Rubio: Amnesty Costs 70 Times More Than Enforcement

I respect Marco Rubio. I supported him in his Senate run. Most importantly, I believe he means well.

But the allure of power has proven too strong for him. Ensconced in the Beltway Bubble, Rubio's fallen for what I call "the legislation delusion". Roughly translated, it is the belief that complex, multi-faceted legislation can solve humanity's problems.

Obamacare is the quintessential example of law run amok: it represents tens of thousands of pages of regulations, arbitrary thresholds, segmentation of families into static classes, and other symptoms of a master planner's delusions.

What the Statist terms "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" is similarly -- and fatally -- flawed. It represents dizzyingly complex regulations, dependent upon arbitrary conditions, restrictions, and dictates all requiring millions of pages of flowcharts. It is the product of the proverbial "Mastermind": one who believes he or she can better orchestrate mankind than the entirety of the civil society.

And, as history has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, Masterminds must always turn a blind eye to the financial ramifications of their plans. One need only review the cost of Amnesty.

The cost of amnesty: $999 billion. The cost of attrition by enforcement: as little as $14 billion. Amnesty would cost up to 70 times as much as enforcing existing law.

$999 billion cost of Amnesty (Mass Legalization)

Source: The Heritage Foundation
Summary: The Heritage Foundation issued two studies in 2007 pointing out that the big problem with mass legalization is that (a) most illegal aliens are low-skilled and therefore do not earn enough money to pay enough taxes to cover the government benefits they receive; and (b), amnesty would eventually make them eligible for the full array of welfare and medical benefits offered by local, state and federal governments. They found the cost of allowing illegal aliens to remain in the United States, and eventually to become citizens, would be $3.7 trillion through the year 2056. That works out to a present cost of $1 trillion, at a 5 percent discount rate. In other words, immediately upon passage of an amnesty bill, the United States government would need to put $1 trillion into an investment earning 5 percent per year if it were honest about paying for the costs of amnesty.

$14 billion cost of attrition through enforcement option #1.

Source: Congressional Budget office Estimate for H.R. 4437.
Summary: This option is the bill H.R. 4437 sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner that passed the House of Representatives in 2005. This bill would have been so effective in combating illegal immigration that some 1 million illegal aliens marched in cities around the United States on May 1, 2006 to protest it. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would cost $1.9 billion over the 5 years 2006-2010, which we extrapolate out to the year 2056 using a linear model to account for cost increases. Then we use a discount rate of 5 percent to bring the future costs back to a single present cost figure. The resulting cost was actually $13.5 billion, which we round up to $14 billion to facilitate comparison to the other cost figures.

$177 billion cost of attrition through enforcement option #2.

Source: Congressional Budget Office Estimate for H.R. 4088.
Summary: This option is the SAVE Act (Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement Act) that was introduced in the House of Representatives in 2007. This is a strong attrition through enforcement bill. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would cost $40.7 billion over the 10 years 2009-2018, which we extrapolate out to the year 2056 using a linear model to account for cost increases. Then we use a discount rate of 5 percent to bring the future costs back to a single present cost figure.

We conservatives are immigrants. We are first-generation immigrants or the descendants thereof. But we, as opposed to those whom the "Gang of Eight" would legalize, have followed a lawful process. We and our forebears have come to America's shores through Ellis Island and other ports of entry, applied for citizenship, and have become the law-abiding citizens that have shaped the country.

That is not what "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" represents: it instead grants legal status to those who have broken the law, stolen their way into the country without background checks, without any vetting of their connection to drug cartels or terrorism, and without even a modicum of examination.

There is only one acceptable response to the Gang of Eight's master plans. Seal the border, prove it is sealed over a substantial period of time, and then -- and only then -- will the American people countenance "amnesty" or whatever term the Statist uses to describe legalized lawbreaking.

ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER: All 7 Billion Humans on Earth Have a Civil Right to U.S. Citizenship

If there has ever been a more malevolent Attorney General in American history, I'd like to know about it.

Attorney General Eric Holder told MALDEF, the Mexican American Defense and Educational Fund on April 24th, that he believes illegal aliens have a “civil right” to be put on a path to US citizenship.

HOLDER: Creating a pathway to earned citizenship for the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in this country is essential. The way we treat our friends and neighbors who are undocumented – by creating a mechanism for them to earn citizenship and move out of the shadows – transcends the issue of immigration status. This is a matter of civil and human rights. It is about who we are as a nation. And it goes to the core of our treasured American principle of equal opportunity.

It’s also about the law and whether it and our sovereignty mean anything or not. Holder answers in the negative — they don’t. Anyone anywhere in the world can come here by hook or by crook, and crooks like Holder will make them citizens.

Consider the import of an Attorney General refusing to enforce our nation's most important laws: those underpinning equal protection, national sovereignty and national security. We have a government that intentionally ignores its own laws in pursuit of centralizing more power. There's an adjective for governments like this: tyrannical.

Had we statesmen or real leaders running the House of Representatives -- not clownish, cowardly buffoons like John Boehner and Eric Cantor -- Eric Holder would have been impeached long ago.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

WHO NEEDS AMNESTY? Obama Administration Conspiring with Mexican Government to Rip Off American Taxpayers

If there's an award for real investigative journalism, this year Judicial Watch should win it hands down. Its investigations into rampant criminality by the Obama administration culminated this week with a truly appalling revelation: the White House and the Mexican government are working together to rip off the American taxpayer.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released documents detailing how the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is working with the Mexican government to promote participation by illegal aliens in the U.S. food stamp program.

Click to zoom

The promotion of the food stamp program, now known as “SNAP” (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), includes a Spanish-language flyer provided to the Mexican Embassy by the USDA with a statement advising Mexicans in the U.S. that they do not need to declare their immigration status in order to receive financial assistance. Emphasized in bold and underlined, the statement reads, “You need not divulge information regarding your immigration status in seeking this benefit for your children.”

...The documents obtained by Judicial Watch show that USDA officials are working closely with their counterparts at the Mexican Embassy to widely broaden the SNAP program in the Mexican immigrant community, with no effort to restrict aid to, identify, or apprehend illegal immigrants who may be on the food stamp rolls...

...“The revelation that the USDA is actively working with the Mexican government to promote food stamps for illegal aliens should have a direct impact on the fate of the immigration bill now being debated in Congress,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These disclosures further confirm the fact that the Obama administration cannot be trusted to protect our borders or enforce our immigration laws. And the coordination with a foreign government to attack the policies of an American state is contemptible.”

Who needs Amnesty? The Obama administration and the Mexican government are collaborating in bankrupting this nation. Each year, hundreds of billions of dollars are stolen through rampant waste, fraud and abuse of America's wealth redistribution programs. And the White House is actively encouraging it.

Our nation is going broke and the Democrat Party is actively trying to send it over the cliff.


Hat tip: BadBlue News Service.

IT'S COME TO THIS: Law enforcement officials now suing their bosses to be allowed to enforce the law

I refer, of course, to the most lawless administration in American history.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano does not have the authority to refuse to enforce laws that require illegal immigrants to face deportation, according to the federal judge hearing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement union’s lawsuit against DHS.

“The court finds that DHS does not have discretion to refuse to initiate removal proceedings [when the law requires it],” U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor said Wednesday, per Business Week. O’Connor asked DHS and the ICE union to offer additional arguments before he makes a final ruling on the legality of President Obama’s “deferred action on childhood arrivals” program, which invoked prosecutorial discretion as a means of allowing people to stay in the country if they would have qualified for amnesty under the Dream Act, which never passed Congress.

The judge’s comments come one day after Napolitano scolded the union, during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill, for challenging the policy she and Obama have implemented.

“There are tensions with union leadership, unfortunately,” Napolitano told Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., on Tuesday. “Here’s what I expect as a former prosecutor and attorney general: that is that law enforcement agents will enforce the law in accordance with the guidance they are given [by] their superiors.”

In response to the court, Senator Jeff Sessions reamed out Napolitano for her lawless behavior.

[The federal judge] said that the Secretary [of the Department of Homeland Security] doesn’t have the ability to direct agents not to do what Congress has explicitly required them to do...

This Secretary has proven that she’s not willing to have the laws of this country enforced. And has even been sued by her own law enforcement officers. This is just a dramatic example of the problems I’ve been hearing from federal law officers. They needed to be respected, they needed to be affirmed in their duties on a daily basis out confronting people who are unlawfully here... And they’ve been undermined in that. And their morale has plummeted. And the Secretary hasn’t even talked to them...

I’ll tell you who else hasn’t talked to them, the people who wrote this bill. Chris Crane, the head of the Association, wrote, called, publicly asked the opportunity to participate in these discussions and at least tell them what the real world is like. But no, they had the Chamber of Commerce, they had the Ag people, they had certain union officials, they even had La Raza—they’ve all been meeting and talking. But not the people who are out there struggling every day trying to make sure we have a lawful system.

This administration. Is. Out. Of. Freaking. Control.

Politico lets the cat out of the bag: immigration "reform" would give Democrats a permanent majority

Well, anyone with an ounce of sense knew this was the case, but this is the first time I've seen it in black and white. I refer, of course, to the Obama administration's press release blog, otherwise known as Politico:

Immigration reform could be bonanza for Democrats

The immigration proposal pending in Congress would transform the nation’s political landscape for a generation or more — pumping as many as 11 million new Hispanic voters into the electorate a decade from now in ways that, if current trends hold, would produce an electoral bonanza for Democrats and cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily.

...Republican Mitt Romney ... would have lost the national popular vote by 7 percentage points, 53 percent to 46 percent, instead of the 4-point margin he lost by in 2012, and would have struggled even to stay competitive in GOP strongholds like Texas, which he won with 57 percent of the vote...

...Texas, where the unauthorized immigrant population is second only to California’s, had an estimated 1.65 million undocumented immigrants in 2010, according to statistics from the Pew Hispanic Center. Romney won the state in 2012 by just under 1.3 million votes...

...In Arizona, Romney won by 212,000 votes — and there are an estimated 400,000 undocumented immigrants in the state as of 2010... Even Georgia, which isn’t a border state and doesn’t immediately come to mind when thinking of immigrant-heavy states, would be affected: Georgia had an estimated 425,000 undocumented immigrants in 2010, per Pew Hispanic Center’s estimates, and Romney won there by 308,000 votes...

If all those immigrants had voted in 2012 and President Obama had won 71 percent of them — the percentage he won among Latinos nationally — he would have come in less than 50,000 votes short in Arizona, within about a half-million votes of winning Texas and 125,000 votes shy in Georgia.

Politico quotes the quintessential loser and establishment RINO consultant Steve Schmidt -- you know, the genius behind the McCain 2008 campaign -- who says that Republicans are bound to get some Hispanic votes if they support Amnesty.

Say Steve-o, what's the track record to support this conjecture? Let's look, just for fun.

--1980 Jimmy Carter, 56% Ronald Reagan, 35% +21

--1984 Walter Mondale, 61% Ronald Reagan, 37% +24

--1988 Michael Dukakis, 69% George H.W. Bush, 30% +39

--1992 Bill Clinton, 61% George H.W. Bush, 25% +36

--1996 Bill Clinton, 72% Bob Dole, 21% +51

--2000 Al Gore, 62% George W. Bush, 35% +27

--2004 John Kerry, 58% George W. Bush, 40% +18

--2008 Barack Obama, 67% John McCain, 31% +36

--2012 Barack Obama, 71% Mitt Romney, 27% +44

In other words, over the last 9 election cycles, Democrat presidential candidates won the Hispanic vote by an average of 33 percentage points. But I'm sure the brilliant strategist Steve Schmidt can turn things around, even though a huge chunk of illegals are de facto Democrats, i.e., dependent upon government largess.

If the Gang of Idiots -- which is the phrase they prefer, I hear -- get their way, the entire United States will become a supersized version of California. Only with crappier weather.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

And now, a public service announcement on immigration from Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

Brought to you courtesy of the Sunday talk shows, which iOwnTheWorld watches so you don't have to.


As Dave Cutler wrote recently, we need comprehensive immigration law enforcement. Passing more laws -- when our current ones aren't enforced -- makes no sense, unless you're a Democrat or a miscreant. But I repeat myself.

The Gang of Eight's Immigration Deception [Cutler]

Guest post by Michael Cutler

The “Gang of Eight,” aka the “Eight Gangsters,” are concocting Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation. Purportedly this legislation is needed to address the presence of the officially-estimated population of 12 million illegal aliens.

While the legislation is referred to as being “Comprehensive,” there is nothing truly comprehensive about their approach, other than the fact that it would provide nearly all illegal aliens who are in the United States, or who will arrive in the months to come, with lawful status and ultimately, a pathway to United States citizenship. It would also increase the number of visas for many thousands of foreign workers and allow them to compete unfairly with American workers.

A History of Deception

The “one time” amnesty of 1986 was supposed to involve approximately one million illegal aliens. Over 3.5 million actually came forward. If history were to repeat itself, Comprehensive Immigration Reform would involve between 30 and 40 million aliens.

And that is just one of the deceptions inherent in the coverage of the current debate. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) was on ABC’s “This Week” last Sunday, and expressed concern that pledges to secure the border between the U.S. and Mexico won’t be kept, leading to a massive influx of illegal aliens.

“It looks like…it will give amnesty now, legalize everyone that’s here effectively today and then there’s a promise of enforcement in the future,” Sessions said about the proposed legislation. “Even if you pass laws today that appear to be effective, it doesn’t mean they’re going to be enforced.”

“And we have in this administration,” he added, a failure to enforce. So that’s a big deal right now.”

The Border Deception

Another deception is the claim that the United States has just four border states. Any state that has a seaport or international airport is as much a border state as are those states found along America’s northern and southern border. Simply stated, there are 50 border states.

The “debate” over Comprehensive Immigration Reform has, by design, centered on whether the southern border is secure. It most certainly is anything but secure, but that is hardly the only problem in our current immigration system. While that border must be secured against the illegal, un-inspected entry of aliens and cargo, it is not a more serious problem than the fact that there are millions of illegal aliens present in the United States who ran across the U.S./Canadian border, jumped ship or stowed away on vessels, or violated their terms of supposedly lawful admissions into the United States.

It is certainly not more serious than the fraud permeating the immigration benefits program.

While attention is being intentionally drawn to the U.S./Mexican border, attention is purposely being drawn away from the myriad other abysmal failures of the immigration system.

The Terror Deception

The lack of integrity in the adjudications process was the focus of clear concerns of the 9/11 Commission, and the 9/11 Commission staff noted it in their report, 9/11 AND TERRORIST TRAVEL: Staff Report of the National Commission onTerrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

This paragraph is found on page 98 under the title “Immigration Benefits:”

“Terrorists in the 1990s, as well as the September 11 hijackers, needed to find a way to stay in or embed themselves in the United States if their operational plans were to come to fruition. As already discussed, this could be accomplished legally by marrying an American citizen, achieving temporary worker status, or applying for asylum after entering. In many cases, the act of filing for an immigration benefit sufficed to permit the alien to remain in the country until the petition was adjudicated. Terrorists were free to conduct surveillance, coordinate operations, obtain and receive funding, go to school and learn English, make contacts in the United States, acquire necessary materials, and execute an attack.”

Page 47 of the above-noted report contained the following paragraph:

“Once terrorists had entered the United States, their next challenge was to find a way to remain here. Their primary method was immigration fraud. For example, Yousef and Ajaj concocted bogus political asylum stories when they arrived in the United States. Mahmoud Abouhalima, involved in both the World Trade Center and landmarks plots, received temporary residence under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAW) program, after falsely claiming that he picked beans in Florida. Mohammed Salameh, who rented the truck used in the bombing, overstayed his tourist visa. He then applied for permanent residency under the agricultural workers program, but was rejected. Eyad Mahmoud Ismail, who drove the van containing the bomb, took English-language classes at Wichita State University in Kansas on a student visa; after he dropped out, he remained in the United States out of status.”

The “Eight Gangsters” expect that there would be no way to verify material facts contained in applications for Comprehensive Immigration Reform filed by “Undocumented Aliens.” They craft legislative prerequisites for aliens to deceive their colleagues and the American people. Aliens who game the system will be able to falsely claim they meet those requirement. For example, let’s examine the requirement that aliens must have been present in the United States for a designated period of years. Without a record of their entry into the United States, and without the means to conduct field investigations, an alien could easily enter the United States well after any cutoff date, while fraudulently claiming to have been here for years.

The "Unobtainium" Deception

Engineers who are engaged in cutting-edge programs refer to materials that don’t exist but that would be essential to the construction of advanced design aircraft, spacecraft and the like, as being “unobtainium.” Where immigration is concerned, the term “unobtainium” could be used to refer to the verification of claims made in applications for immigration benefits. There is no way to verify information concerning material facts contained in those applications.

There has been no mention as to how the USCIS would process these amnesty applications. There are not enough personnel available to conduct face-to-face interviews with all of the applicants. Today, that beleaguered, inept and incompetent agency is processing alien “DREAMERS” without in-person interviews, and without the capacity to conduct field investigations to verify claims made in those applications.

Immigration fraud compromises national security and deprives hardworking Americans the opportunity to find decent jobs at a time when such jobs are already in short supply.

Yet fraud largely goes undetected and unpunished. Think of it as a case of “Mind over matter.” If the administration doesn’t mind, it would not matter if aliens lie on their applications with impunity, and, in fact, tacit immunity!

The Fraud Deception

Aliens who succeed in gaming the system provide encouragement to other aliens, who are consequently emboldened to file their own fraud-laden applications, further exacerbating the backlog of applications, applying more pressure on the over-burdened system to move the applications still more quickly. It takes minutes to approve an application, but it may take hours or days to deny an application. The only way to clear the burgeoning backlog of applications is to approve nearly every application. This encourages more fraud and further compromises not only the integrity of the immigration system, but national security and the safety and well-being of all Americans as well.

Today, record numbers of Americans, especially young Americans and members of the American minority communities, are unemployed and underemployed. It is outrageous that the “Eight Gangsters,” such as Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), are calling for more work visas for foreign workers as a “solution” to the immigration crisis. This is the equivalent of addressing drunk driving by raising the acceptable blood alcohol level for motorists. While fewer drivers would be legally drunk, the carnage on the highways would actually increase as more drivers drank more—with impunity!

As I noted at the conclusion of my prepared testimony for the hearing on immigration conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 20, 2013:

Inspiring a Flood of New Illegals

“Law enforcement is at its best when it creates a climate of deterrence to convince those who might be contemplating violating the law that such an effort is likely to be discovered, and, that if discovered, adverse consequences will result for the law violators. Current policies and statements by the administration, in my view, encourage aspiring illegal aliens around the world to head for the United States. In effect the starter’s pistol has been fired, and for these folks, the finish line to this race is the border of the United States.”

The true solution to the immigration crisis lies in addressing all of the failures that induced and enabled millions of illegal aliens to enter the United States and work illegally or, in all too many instances, acquire lawful status by committing fraud. More agents must be hired for ICE and they must be given the resources and leadership to do an effective job. Aliens must come to understand that those who commit fraud and other violations will be identified and face prosecution and deportation.

Rather than Comprehensive Immigration Reform, America really needs COMPILE (Comprehensive Immigration Law Enforcement)!

Michael W. Cutler is a retired Senior Special Agent with the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Boston Bombing Suspects: Grassroots Militants from Chechnya

Guest post by Stratfor Research

Summary

The identities of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing -- Chechen brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26 -- appear tentatively to confirm several of Stratfor's suspicions. From this profile, the simple nature of the attack, their efforts to rob a convenience store and their lack of an escape plan, we can at least say at this point in time that they were what we refer to as grassroots militants. Despite being amateurs, such militants clearly still pose a significant threat.

Analysis

Just after 10 p.m. on April 18, the Tsarnaev brothers were identified after having robbed a convenience store in Cambridge, Mass., just three miles from Boston, hours earlier. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, who responded to the robbery, was shot and killed and found in his car by fellow responding officers. The two suspects later hijacked an SUV at gunpoint, releasing the driver unharmed. Authorities later caught up to the suspects, and a car chase ensued.

Just after midnight, the car chase ended with a gunfight in Watertown, Mass. The suspects reportedly threw explosive devices at police, though it is not yet confirmed what types of explosives allegedly were used. During the firefight, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was wounded, taken into custody and later reported dead. Some press reports suggest he may have been wearing some sort of suicide belt or vest. Dzhokhar escaped by driving the stolen SUV through the police barricade [and since apprehended]. According to media reports, a third accomplice was detained earlier this morning by authorities and is being questioned.

According to The New York Times, the two men are from Chechnya. Their family also reportedly lived briefly in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, before moving to the United States in 2002. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's profile on VKontakte, a Russian social media website, said he attended school at the School No. 1 of Makhachkala, spoke English, Russian and Chechen and listed his worldview as Islam. A school administrator from the School No. 1 said the two suspects and their family had previously lived in Kyrgyzstan before moving to Dagestan.

Given that they are grassroots actors, there is likely only a small chance that the authorities will discover a formal link between the suspects and a state sponsor or a professional terrorist group such as al Qaeda or one of its franchise groups. Any link will likely be ideological rather than operational, although it is possible that the two have attended some type of basic militant training abroad. Given what we have learned about the suspects and the nature of the improvised explosive devices they constructed, it is very likely that the authorities will find that the brothers had read and studied al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's Inspire Magazine.

This case also highlights our analysis that the jihadist threat now predominantly stems from grassroots operatives who live in the West rather than teams of highly trained operatives sent to the United States from overseas, like the team that executed the 9/11 attacks. This demonstrates how the jihadist threat has diminished in severity but broadened in scope in recent years -- a trend we expect to continue.

There will always be plenty of soft targets in a free society, and it is incredibly easy to kill people, even for untrained operatives. In this case, the brothers conducted an attack that was within their capabilities rather than attempting something more grandiose that would require outside assistance -- and which could therefore have put them in jeopardy of running into a government informant as they sought help. It is thus important for citizens to practice good situational awareness and to serve as grassroots defenders against the grassroots threat.

Boston Bombing Suspects: Grassroots Militants from Chechnya is republished with permission of Stratfor.

The 20 Most Stunning Photos of the #Watertown #Manhunt

All spotted on the new mainstream media.  You may know it as Twitter...



































































































Oops. That was more than 20. Sorry 'bout that.