Friday, July 11, 2014
From: Gary L. Bauer
Border Blame Game
As the backlash grows to the massive wave of illegal immigration that is taking place along our porous southern border, the Obama Administration and its pro-amnesty allies are desperately trying to pin the blame on someone else.
One line of attack is to say “Well, we wouldn’t have this problem if we had a comprehensive policy in place.” As I discussed yesterday, there is nothing in the so-called “comprehensive immigration reform” bill that would stop this. Now the president is arguing that unless Congress rubberstamps his demand for an additional $4 billion, it’s all their fault.
Obama said in Texas this week:
“Are folks more interested in politics, or are they more interested in solving the problem? …The challenge is: Is Congress prepared to act to put the resources in place to get this done? …There’s a very simple question here, and that is Congress just needs to pass the supplemental.”
But just look at a few recent developments. A Mexican “death train” derailed Wednesday, leaving 1,300 people stranded. These were not paying riders, but illegal immigrants who jumped on top of the cargo train bound for the U.S. border.
On his show today, Rush Limbaugh noted that Mexico and Guatemala, where many of the unaccompanied minors are coming from, have negotiated an agreement — the Southern Border Program to Improve Passage — making it easier for migrants to travel between the two countries. Of course, many of those migrants are headed to the U.S., and Mexico knows Obama isn’t doing anything to secure the border, which would keep them in Mexico. So it’s just making it easier for them to get through its territory.
For years, all we have heard from Obama is that illegal immigrant children can stay in the U.S., “The Dreamers, the Dreamers, the Dreamers.” So why are we shocked that tens of thousands of women and children are streaming across our border?
Here’s some good news: The left’s arguments aren’t working. A new poll finds that 60% of Americans, including 40% of Democrats, want these illegal immigrants sent home. Just 28% agreed that the children “should be allowed to stay in the U.S. and eventually become citizens.”
IRS Scandal Heats Up
This week we got a better understanding of why Lois Lerner is refusing to testify about her role in the IRS Tea Party targeting scandal. At a hearing Wednesday, it was revealed Lerner sent the following message to an IRS information technology specialist:
“I had a question today about [internal instant messages]. I was cautioning folks about email and how we have had several occasions where Congress has asked for emails and there has been an electronic search for responsive emails — so we need to be cautious about what we say in emails. Someone asked if [instant message] conversations were also searchable — I don’t know but told them I would get back to them. Do you know?”
The IT specialist responded that instant messages were not stored. Lerner’s reply: “Perfect.”
This exchange took place in April 2013 — one month before the scandal broke into the headlines.
First, why would Lois Lerner feel compelled to warn her colleagues to “be cautious about what we say in emails” if she wasn’t doing anything wrong? Second, why was she seemingly pleased that internal instant messages were not stored?
In a separate development, a federal judge yesterday gave the IRS 30 days in which to explain under oath how it lost so many of Lerner’s emails. According to the Associated Press, the judge “is also appointing a federal magistrate to see whether the lost emails can be obtained from other sources.”
Fox News reports today that a second judge is also demanding answers from IRS officials who handled Lois Lerner’s crashed hard drive. Stay tuned!
The Left’s War On Religion
Senate liberals introduced legislation this week to effectively undo the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Hobby Lobby case. The left is so unhinged in its pro-abortion radicalism that it will stop at nothing to force men and women of faith to pay for abortions. That is exactly the issue at stake here, and it is so important to them that Harry Reid has promised to fast-track the legislation, bypassing the committee process.
Talk about misplaced priorities! Rather than debate border security, Senate liberals are working overtime to make sure people of faith are forced to subsidize abortions.
The left is very good at distorting the Constitution. But there are parts of the Constitution that are as clear as can be. Here’s one: ” Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” That sentence is appropriately found in the First Amendment.
While many on the left would like to interpret the First Amendment to mean freedom from religion, that is not what it means. It means you are free to live your life in accordance with your religious beliefs.
In the Hobby Lobby case, Christians were coming forward to say, “My faith teaches that the taking of innocent life is wrong. While we generally think contraception is acceptable, we do not want to be forced to pay for drugs that kill a baby already conceived.”
The left insists that the Hobby Lobby decision allows business owners to force their religious beliefs on women. That’s absurd. Hobby Lobby was not forcing its employees to attend a specific church. The issue of “force” in this case was big government forcing men and women of faith to pay for abortion-inducing drugs.
And, yes, the Obama Administration actually tried to argue before the Supreme Court that it had the authority to force Christians to pay for abortions. Thankfully, the Supreme Court rejected that radical position when it found that Obamacare’s abortion mandate violated the First Amendment.
But liberal politicians evidently believe that abortion trumps religious liberty. Forty-two of them are co-sponsoring this legislation.
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