A New Beginning - Trump's Bold Action Plan

Trump's Bold Action Plan For A New Beginning

Donald Trump, on YouTube, unveiling his six-part plan of action for his first days in office. (Kyodo/Newscom)

• 11/23/2016

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Election 2016: President-elect Trump this week put forward a list of things he planned to do right away upon taking office. While we might have quibbles with one or two items, it's a bold plan that will go a long way toward immediately setting a new tone in the nation's capital.

As we noted in an earlier piece, some things on Donald Trump's bigger agenda might not be so easy to put in place. Anything requiring congressional budget action, for instance, will move at a glacial pace.

That said, we're impressed with the energetic and focused plan he's put together for his first days in office after taking the oath on January 21, 2017.

"Whether it's producing steel, building cars, or curing disease, I want the next generation of production and innovation to happen right here, in our great homeland: America — creating wealth and jobs for American workers," Trump said in a message he released on YouTube Monday evening.

"As part of this plan, I've asked my transition team to develop a list of executive actions we can take on day one to restore our laws and bring back our jobs. It's about time," he added.

Here are the top six items on his to-do list upon becoming president:

• Trade: Trump vows to pull out of the Trans Pacific Partnership, which he says will be a job-killer. Instead, he said, he'll negotiate "fair" trade deals bilaterally with nations that will be more to the U.S.' advantage.
• Energy: Trump wants to immediately get rid of onerous restrictions on the U.S. energy industry, especially shale ad clean coal. He also will open up U.S. lands to energy exploration.
• Regulation: The new president plans to put in a new rule: For each new regulation put in place, two regulations must be killed. The dynamic would create a significant reduction in the soaring number of regulations that now strangle businesses, both big and small.
• Defense/National Security: Trump will create a plan to protect U.S. infrastructure from cyberattacks, a problem he claimed during the 2016 campaign that has been largely ignored by President Obama. He has also promised to significantly bolster the military.
• Immigration: Trump said he'll of the Labor Department look into abuses of visa programs. This may eventually include greater restrictions on businesses using illegal immigrant labor.
• Ethics Reform: Trump vowed repeatedly to "drain the swamp" of corruption and cronyism in Washington, D.C. He'll start by imposing a 5-year ban on those in the executive branch working for a lobbying firm. The idea is to end the revolving door between positions of power and business, which Trump believes has led to a sometimes-corrupt relationship between government and big business.

All in all, this would be a very promising start to a new administration. At the very least, it begins the process of reversing President Obama's eight-year trend toward bigger, less accountable government and dramatic slowdown in U.S. long-term economic growth that took place under his watch.

We only hope that Trump will get the political cooperation he deserves to enact his new agenda. Unfortunately, so far, the childish tantrums from the left side of the political spectrum don't bode well for political compromise.

Where Did All The Young Workers Go?

Obama's Economy: Where Did All The Young Workers Go?

By STEPHEN MOORE
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY 

 

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Economists are scratching their heads trying to figure out a puzzle in this recovery: Why are young people not working? People retiring at age 60 or even 55 in a weak economy is easy to understand. But at 25?
The percentage of adult Americans who are working or looking for work now stands at 62.8%, a 36-year low and down more than 3 percentage points since late 2007, according to the Labor Department's May employment report.
This is fairly well-known. What isn't so well-known is that a major reason for the decline is that fewer and fewer young people are holding jobs. This exit from the workforce by the young is counter to the conventional wisdom or the Obama administration's official line.
The White House claims the workforce is contracting because more baby boomers are retiring. There's some truth to that. About 10,000 boomers retire every day of the workweek, so that's clearly depressing the labor market. Since 2009, 7 million

Americans have reached official retirement age. The problem will get worse in the years to come as nearly 80 million boomers hit age
65.

But that trend tells only part of the story. The chart above shows the real problem: The largest decline in workforce participation has been those under 25.

Idle Youth

The percentage of young Americans earning a paycheck or looking for work has fallen by 4 percentage points over the course of the recovery, and those between 16 and 25 have experienced the largest decline.

Those over 65, by the way, are more likely to be working today than five years ago. This shift has cushioned the blow of young people not working.

Why is this trend so troubling? Studies show that teens who start working at a job at a young age have higher earnings later in life. One study found that those who work as teenagers have earnings that are about 10% higher at age 27 than those who did not work.

"When we hold young Americans out of jobs," explains Michael Saltsman of the Employment Policies Institute, "that makes it more difficult for them to get higher-paying jobs later."

The minimum-wage hikes that started in 2007 didn't help. The chart below shows what happened to teen unemployment as the federal minimum wage rose: The young were priced out of the job market. The overall teen jobless rate skyrocketed. For black males, it topped 40%.

The teen unemployment rate remains at 19.2%, so it would be hard to imagine a worse time to raise the minimum wage again.

Minimum Wage Impact

Saltsman's research shows that a 10% rise in the minimum wage could mean a 2% or 3% decline in young Americans working. Seattle is raising its minimum wage to $15 an hour. A $10.10 federal minimum wage is being pushed by the White House. The current minimum wage is $7.25.

"When wages are held artificially high," says Ohio University economics professor Richard Vedder, "jobs are a lot more scarce. Unemployment is negatively associated with the wage rate."

High teen unemployment is a big problem in Europe, where wage floors are very high. In nations such as France and Spain, the young delay their entry into the workforce until their mid- or even late 20s. These workers' wages rarely catch up to those who start working earlier. Europe has traditionally had a much smaller share of young adults in jobs.

"Where have the workers been going in the U.S.?" asks Louis Woodhill, an economist in Houston. "They have been fleeing into the arms of the welfare state." Since 2007, 2 million more Americans have started receiving Social Security disability payments, and food-stamp rolls have increased by 20 million. This has substituted for jobs.

Student Loans

One possible reason that the young are staying away from the labor force is student loans. Since 2007, student loans have risen by more than $500 billion, a subsidy that may be giving college-age students an incentive to take aid instead of look for work to become financially self-sufficient and acquire marketable skills.

We do no favors to the young by teaching them that they can consume or have a good time without first earning the money they spend.

The decline in young workers couldn't come at a worse time. At the other end of the spectrum, as the 80 million boomers move swiftly out of the workforce in the decade ahead, who will support them? Mick Jagger isn't going to be playing forever.

• Moore is chief economist at the Heritage Foundation.

Who's Gridlock in the congress - (NOT Republicans)

Whose Gridlock Is It?

Posted 01/16/2014 06:39 PM ET

Politics: If there's one truism in the world today, it's that Republicans are the cause of all the partisan gridlock in Washington. It must be true, since everyone constantly says so. Turns out, however, it's just a big fat lie.

A few months ago, Quinnipiac University asked voters to choose between Republicans "determined to block any President Obama initiative" or Obama's lack of negotiating skills for gridlock in Washington.

More than half (55%) blamed Republicans. Makes sense, since every Democrat, every liberal pundit, and almost every reporter has repeated the claim ad nauseam since the GOP took control of the House in 2011.
Obama routinely blames "hyperpartisanship" by "a faction of Republicans in the House" for failure to make progress.

CNN ran a story earlier in the year — headlined "Gridlock in Congress? Blame the GOP" — which quoted a Washington Post op-ed claiming Republicans are now "an insurgent outlier in American politics."

Even some Republicans point the finger of blame at their own party, as did California Rep. Buck McKeon when he announced his retirement this week.

But what the good folks at Quinnipiac — as well as most of the public — seemed to have overlooked is that there's another possible cause of gridlock.

It's called the Senate. You know, the other house of Congress. The one run by Democrats.

When the liberal Brookings Institution decided to look at the facts, they came to the stunning conclusion that it was the Democratic-run Senate, not the Republican House, that's largely to blame.

The Brookings scholars note that the 113th Congress passed just 56 bills out of the 5,700 introduced, making it the least productive of any since 1947.

What they found, however, was that the Republican-run House actually passed bills at nearly twice the rate as the Senate under Harry Reid's leadership.

"The Senate," the authors wrote, "is not serving its intended function." And that's not because Senate Republicans keep filibustering bills.

The authors found that the vast majority of Senate bills — 87% to be exact — were killed in committees that are — you guessed it — chaired by Democrats.

"While the filibuster may grab all the headlines," the authors note, "committees are a far deadlier weapon."

So if you want to grouse about Washington gridlock, direct your post cards, letters, emails or phone calls to the real cause: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Or try reid.senate.gov/contact.

2014: How bad for Obama?

A political primer for 2014: How bad for Obama?

By Andrew Malcolm
Posted 01/03/2014 09:04 AM ET

We didn't want to jump the gun on 2014 midterm election coverage. So we waited until the third day of the first month.

With the Nov. 4 balloting only 305 days away and the president still playing golf on an island, the shape of at least one major campaign theme is crystal clear: ObamaCare, disaster or calamity?

Much is at stake politically across the country in the second midterm elections of any presidency that rarely go the president's way. Not just 435 House seats are up. But 36 of 50 governor's offices, of which the GOP now controls 29. A myriad of state and local races.

And probably most importantly, 36 of the Senate's 100 seats. Republicans need only add six more to make Happy Harry Reid an unhappy former majority leader. Now, you know why Harry and Barack chose the nuclear option this past fall to jam through as many of the White House's judicial and other nominations as possible on a simple majority vote.

Although Obama probably cannot claim further credit for killing Osama bin Laden, other things can go wrong.

But barring a major macfunkerlee by D.C. Republicans, one year from now that party will likely be resuming control of that chamber for the first time in nine years. Way back when that Chicago pol first began skipping roll-call votes to raise money and campaign for his next job.

Additionally, by the time Americans cast their votes 10 months from tomorrow, ObamaCare could be a politically terminal pre-existing condition with its soaring premiums, exorbitant deductibles, loss of family doctors and, coming to a workplace near you this summer, layoffs and more policy cancellations.

The political percussion has already begun. In Democrat-friendly Oregon, first-term Sen. Jeff Merkley, an ex-state legislator who rode into office on Obama's rented coattails, finds himself in trouble for his explicit support of ObamaCare.
Republican Monica Wehby, a doctor herself, is already running ads showing Merkley reiterating Obama's deceit about keeping your doctor and health plan.
Her tagline: "Keep Your Doctor -- Change Your Senator."

In New Hampshire, another first-termer, incumbent Democrat Jeanne Shaheen must bear her outspoken ObamaCare support and pay the thankless price so many have over the years for trusting Obama and his convenient promises.

One devastating new ad links her with Obama's "Lie of the Year." Scroll to the bottom to watch this one: "If you like your senator, you can keep her. If you don't, you know what to do." Our friend, Chris Stirewalt, as usual has an insightful and comprehensive rundown of the most critical Senate races.


Perversely, what's helped to save Obama's south side is that his policies have chased millions of Americans out of the job market.

He's promised to focus his laser vision on creating jobs again this year, much as he did after his party's 2010 shellacking that cost

Nancy Pelosi her speaker's gavel.

But millions of discouraged job-seekers are no longer looking for work. Which means they are no longer counted as unemployed, allowing the unemployment rate to artificially dip to 7%.

If the U.S. labor force had the same participation rate today as it did when the country's top-ranking shaved-ice aficionado was elected, George Will calculates the genuine unemployment rate now would be 11.3%.

Enough for Democrats to plead with Obama to stay golfing on that island.

As it is, you'll likely see Obama doing his little fundraisers while local candidates find their schedules just impossible to appear on the same stage. Can you say George W. Bush 2006?

That year Democrats won Congress by tagging Republicans with the Iraq war and the country's general disaffection with Bush and GOP incumbents. Republicans lost six Senate seats and 31 in the House.

True, Congress' approval is worse than Obama's, according to polls. But Americans are worse hypocrites than their politicians; they routinely reelect 80% to 90% of those folks.

At the moment, it's hard to imagine better conditions for Republicans. They're defending fewer Senate seats. The economy is improved slightly, but polls show people don't believe it. Obama's approval is at its lowest point ever. His trustworthiness has tanked, a hard one to repair.

Disapproval of ObamaCare is at its highest. Young people are realizing their one-time hero Obama has tipped the insurance payment scales against them. One poll last month showed 67% of Americans wanted it delayed a year, while 53% would repeal it.

Anyway, midterms tend to favor Republicans, who are more diligent voters than Obama's cool crowd.

The party of only one president in the last century has gained congressional seats in his second midterm. And right now that ex-president's wife, who presided so poorly over Benghazi, is trying to separate herself from her Obama partnership, not embrace him.

Hillary Clinton's Presidential Aspirations May Die From ObamaCare (View From the Left)

Hillary Clinton's Presidential Aspirations May Die From ObamaCare

By RICHARD COHEN
Posted 12/31/2013

It is incumbent on me as a columnist to do one of those year-end things — the 10 best of this, the 10 worst of that or, as you will see, who had the worst year in politics.

That distinction goes, with some reluctance on my part, to Hillary Rodham Clinton. As has sometimes happened in her life, events got away from her.

A good politician, as Napoleon once said about military men, has to have luck — and this has not been a lucky year for Clinton.

If she's the next Democratic presidential candidate, she will have to follow a Democratic president whose approval ratings — once as high as 76% — are now scraping 40%.

As a former member of Barack Obama's Cabinet, she has to defend the indefensible, kiss the ugly baby of ObamaCare and smile for the cameras. She can do it — no one soldiers better — but ugly is ugly and the rollout of ObamaCare has been just that.

Maybe time will prove ObamaCare a success — I suspect this will be the case.

But until that distant day, it will remain emblematic of governmental overreach and (supposedly arrogant) liberalism run amok.

The catastrophic rollout has been followed by even more bad news — higher-than-expected premiums, lower-than-expected coverage or, worse, no coverage at all.

Things will get better — especially if more young people sign up — but the program has left an indelible impression of ineptitude and dishonesty. In short, it has become a vindication of everything conservatives say of liberal programs.

Even liberals are wondering if the government can ever make such an extensive contraption work — and do so at a reasonable cost.

Atypical Leftist

Of course, Hillary Clinton is not a conventional liberal — not nearly liberal enough for some people on the Democratic left.

Among other things, her foreign policy — as much as it can be discerned — has been robust and muscular, not shying from the use of force. That's not terribly liberal, but it won't matter in a general election.

She will still be caricatured as the classic lefty, the architect of her own failed health insurance program.

That was a dreadnought of a bill (1,000 pages!) dubbed Hillarycare that was torpedoed by Republicans and even some Democrats and sank — but not quite without a trace.

The GOP will refloat it for the next campaign, bringing those two frauds, Harry and Louise, back from retirement.

By the time the malicious generalizers of the GOP are through, it will sound like Stalin's Five-Year Plan.

It remains to be seen if gender will play the role for Clinton that race did for Obama. Probably not.

The prospect of a woman becoming president has the air of inevitability about it — not the gleeful surprise that accompanied Obama's stunning rise. She, like him, would be a first — not to mention an about-time.

But Obama was otherwise an unknown. It was easy to vote for him, hard to vote against him.

He stood for all things good and opposed all things bad. (Who knew that, like a surgeon who can't stand the sight of blood, Obama is phobic about politicians?)

Ready For Her Closeup?

Clinton in contrast is no ingenue. She has been around for a very long time. She's been a senator from New York. She's been secretary of state. What she has — and has in abundance — is experience and knowledge, plus a vast network of friends and associates, who could in a moment fill every available slot in the government.

Hillary Clinton comes fully assembled, White House-ready.

She been her husband's go-to person in times of crisis and she possesses — even her critics would have to concede — a daunting intellect. The only politician I know who is smarter than her is also named Clinton.

Alas, in American politics the good can be bad. Recent Democratic presidents, with the exception of the exceptional Obama, have come from statehouses — Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. They proclaimed themselves Washington outsiders and ran their campaigns down the middle of the road — Clinton even ran over Sister Souljah.

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, is the quintessential Washington insider, a former secretary of state whose portfolio is empty of a soaring triumph and whose name is attached not to some diplomatic doctrine but to a failed health insurance plan.

She might make a wonderful president, but she's following a man who, by virtue of his failures, had made that harder. As in 2008,  

Barack Obama could wind up defeating her again.

© 2014 Investor's Business Daily,

2013 by the Numbers

Intriguing Year-End Data Show A Nation In Flux

By ROBERT J. SAMUELSON
Posted 12/27/2013 

It's a journalistic ritual. At the end of the year, we do lists and rankings. There's the year's biggest news stories, the best photos, the most notable deaths, the best books, the funniest cartoons, the best (and worst) movies.

Now let me add another item: the year's most interesting statistics.

Truth be told, the idea comes from my friend Ben Beach, a recovering journalist who, for years, has included some of the year's intriguing stats on the back of his family holiday card.

This year, Ben's list had six items. I've added four more. They appear below in no particular order. (The sources are in parentheses.)

• On a typical day, 3,300 American teenagers smoke their first cigarette (Washington Post, Dec. 10).

• Only 13% of two-year college students graduate in two years (New York Times, Sept. 8).

• David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox batted .688 in the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals (Washington Post, Oct. 31).

• A low-end iPhone has 240,000 times the memory of the computers on Voyager 1, which is now nearly 12 billion miles from Earth (New York Times, Sept. 13).

• The stock market has risen 30% for the year (through Dec. 24), representing a gain in paper wealth of $5.2 trillion. That's produced    all-time highs, second only to 1995, which had 91 (Wilshire Associates).

• A leaf blower with a two-stroke engine emits 299 times the hydrocarbons of a Ford Raptor pickup truck (Washington Post, Sept. 17).

• In October, there were almost 5.7 million "missing workers" — people who had dropped out of the labor force but, under trends prevailing before the Great Recession, would have had jobs or been looking for work. Counting them would have raised October's unemployment rate to about 10% instead of the reported 7% (the Economic Policy Institute).

• Half the Republicans in the House have served three years or less (Wall Street Journal, Sept. 23).

• After climbing steadily between 1990 and 2010, sales of diet soda took a 6.8% dive in 2013 (Wall Street Journal, Dec. 9).

• Almost three-quarters (72%) of online Americans use social networking sites, up from 8% in 2005. There are few differences by educational attainment: 67% of high-school dropouts are users vs. 72% of college graduates (Pew Internet & American Life Project).

For all of us numbers-lovers, 2013 was a very good year.

Pirates get Annihilated - Benghazi Swept Under the Carpet

Obama Too Busy For Benghazi But Not Capt. Phillips

By BETSY MCCAUGHEY
Posted 10/15/2013 06:22 PM ET

In 2009 Somali pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama, a cargo ship flying the American flag, and took the ship's captain, Richard Phillips, for ransom.

The United States Navy dispatched three warships, two helicopters and a surveillance drone and parachuted in the famous Navy SEAL Team 6 to rescue Phillips in a six-day feat portrayed in the newly released movie "Captain Phillips."

Anyone watching this real-life thriller will ask: Why wasn't a similar rescue mounted at Benghazi, Libya, where Ambassador Christopher Stevens and other Americans were attacked on Sept. 11, 2012?

On day six of Phillips' captivity at sea, Navy SEAL marksmen positioned on the fantail of the USS Bainbridge were given the go-ahead to shoot the three pirates holding Phillips, because one of them had a AK-47 pointed at Phillips' back. That authorization came from President Obama.

But where was the president on the night of Sept. 11, 2012? According to congressional testimony from administration officials, Obama stayed uninvolved. He was told about the attack at 5:15 p.m. during a routine meeting with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

But the president left it up to others to decide what to do, and never once in the ensuing hours asked for an update of the fate of the besieged Americans. That's either a lie or a dereliction of duty.

Stevens made two calls for help, as the firefight began. Former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty also called for military assistance. But no military response of any sort was attempted.

Panetta later explained to Congress that there wasn't time to get forces to Benghazi. How did he know there wasn't time? No one could have known at 5 p.m. how long the fighting would last.

At a hearing earlier this year, Congressman Adam Kinsginger, a former Air Force pilot and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, suggested F-16 planes could have been dispatched from Aviano Air Base in Italy (a three-hour flight) to buzz the consulate and disperse the attacking jihadists.

The most damning testimony, which backed up Kinsginger's view, came from Gregory Hicks, who was deputy chief of mission in Libya. On May 8, 2013, Hicks told Congress that if the U.S. had sent fighter jets after the first incident in what turned out to be an eight-hour deadly ordeal, it would have prevented the mortar attacks on the CIA annex that killed Americans.

Instead, CNN got to Benghazi before military backup.

For more than a year, members of Congress have tried to get to the truth about the failure to attempt a military rescue at Benghazi.

Where did the order for the military to stand down originate? So far, the administration has stonewalled.

The other festering question is what Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state and Stevens' boss, knew on the night of the attack, and why she failed to protect him and the other Americans serving at the consulate.

In the movie, Phillips is a hero. Maybe not so in real life. In fact, 11 crew members from the Maersk Alabama are suing, claiming Phillips needlessly exposed them to danger by piloting the ship too close to the Somali coastline.

But the heroism of Phillips' rescuers is not disputed. Go see "Captain Phillips." When the USS Bainbridge and the USS Halyburton appear on the horizon, and Navy SEALS start parachuting from the sky, you'll feel proud the Yanks have come to the rescue.

That's the way it has always been, in the movies and in real life. Except on Sept. 11 in Benghazi. Woods' father, Charles Woods, told a Citizens Commission on Benghazi that "this is the first time in our history that the military hasn't come to the rescue when called."

Muslim Attacks on Christins

Muslim Persecution of Christians: June, 2013

September 13, 2013 3:08 pm / victorhanson

by Raymond Ibrahim // Gatestone Institute 


The degradation of Christian women living in the Islamic world continued in the month of June.  In Syria, after the al-Qaeda linked rebel group conquered Qusair, a city of the governate of Homs, 15-year-old Mariam was kidnapped, repeatedly gang raped according to a fatwa legitimizing the rape of non-Sunni women by any Muslim waging jihad against Syria’s government, and then executed.

According to Agenzia Fides, “The commander of the battalion ‘Jabhat al-Nusra’ in Qusair took Mariam, married and raped her. Then he repudiated her. The next day the young woman was forced to marry another Islamic militant. He also raped her and then repudiated her. The same trend was repeated for 15 days, and Mariam was raped by 15 different men. This psychologically destabilized her and made her insane. Mariam became mentally unstable and was eventually killed.”

In Pakistan, Muslim men stormed the home of three Christian women, beat them, stripped them naked and tortured them, and then paraded them in the nude in a village in the Kasur district.  Days earlier, it seems the goats of the Christian family had accidentally trespassed onto Muslim land; Muslims sought to make an example of the Christian family, who, as third-class citizens, must know their place at all times.

The rest of June’s roundup of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed by theme and country in alphabetical order, not according to severity:

Attacks on Christian Worship: Churches and Monasteries 

Iraq: During the middle of the night, armed gunmen attacked St. Mary’s Assyrian Catholic Church in Baghdad; they wounded two Christian guards, one seriously.  Later the same day, bombs were set off at two Christian-owned businesses, both near the church; they killed one Christian shop owner who was a parishioner at St. Mary’s.  Since the U.S. “liberation” of Iraq in 2003, 73 churches have been attacked or bombed, and more than half of the country’s Christian population has either fled or been killed.

Kenya: Motorbike assailants hurled an explosive device into the Earthquake Miracle Ministries Church in Mrima village church compound during the Sunday of June 9,injuring 15 people, including one pastor who had both his legs broken, another pastor who sustained serious injuries, and a 10-year-old child.  Said another church leader, “The Christians living around the scene of the incident are still in shock and are wondering as to the mission behind the attack, while several pastors looked demoralized.  But others said prayers will help them stand strong in sharing the Christian faith.”  Islamic extremists from Somalia’s jihadi organization Al Shabaab are suspected of this and other attacks on Christians in the coastal areas of Kenya.

Nigeria: Four churches were burned in an attack committed by members of the jihadi group Boko Haram in Borno State in the Muslim-majority north of the country. According to Agenzia Fides, “A group of armed men with improvised explosive devices and petrol bombs attacked the Hwa’a, Kunde, Gathahure and Gjigga communities on Gwoza Hills, burning the 4 churches, raiding and looting cattle and grain reserves belonging to the population.”  Discussing the ongoing terrorism Christians in the north are exposed to, one pastor lamented, “There are Christian villages that have been completely wiped out by these Muslim terrorists…  Christian fellowship activities and evangelism outreaches are no longer possible….  For a number of years, the attacks on Christians in these three local government areas have caused the displacement of thousands of Christians there.  There is a very lamentable problem, as we are no longer able to worship God as Christians in this part of Nigeria.”

Syria: An Islamic jihadi rebel wearing a suicide belt reportedly detonated himself outside the Virgin Mary Greek Orthodox Church in an old Christian quarter in Damascus; the attack left four people dead and several injured.  Rebel sources confirmed the attack but said it was caused by a mortar bomb.  Around the same time, jihadi rebels massacred the Christian village of al-Duwair near Homs, while destroying its churches.  Also, according to Agenzia Fides, a Belgian Catholic priest, Fr. Daniel Maes, 74, of the religious Order of Canons Regular Premonstratensian, was last reported as being “in the sights of jihadi groups who intend to eliminate him and invade the monastery of San James mutilated in Qara,” which dates back to the fifth century. Earlier the priest had denounced the “ethnic cleansing” carried out on Christians in Qusair, after the town was taken by the rebels and jihadi groups: “The surrounding Christian villages were destroyed and all the faithful who were caught were killed, according to a logic of sectarian hatred…  For decades, Christians and Muslims lived in peace in Syria. If criminal gangs can roam and terrorize civilians, is this not against international laws? Who will protect the innocent and ensure the future of this country? …  Young people are disappointed, because foreign powers dictate their agenda. Moderate Muslims are worried, because Salafists and fundamentalists want to impose a totalitarian dictatorship of religious nature. The citizens are terrified because they are innocent victims of armed gangs.”

Attacks on Christian Freedom: Apostasy, Blasphemy, Proselytism 

Indonesia: The Indonesian Ulema Council in Tegal issued a fatwa against Catholic schools, saying they are “forbidden” and “morally unsound” for young Muslim students, despite its pupils, both Muslim and Christian, routinely scoring higher than in other schools.  “For the schools,” reported Asia News, “the fatwa is a great blow, coming in the wake of attacks from Muslim extremists and local governments that included threats of closure that were however eventually dropped…  [M]any Muslim families have come to the defence of the two schools, claiming their right to a quality education. In fact, many schools run by nuns, priests and lay Catholics offer such excellence in education that they are sought after by non-Christians.”  Earlier the influential Indonesian Ulema Council lashed out during flag-raising “because Mohammed never did it;” before that announcement, the Islamic clerics “launched anathemas against Facebook for its ‘amoral’ nature, as well as yoga, smoking and voting rights, in particular for women.”

Pakistan: A 16-year-old boy who converted to Christianity from Islam a year ago, and began attending Bible lessons in a Protestant community, was abducted in Peshawar.  Local sources said he was kidnapped by Taliban-linked Islamic militants “and his fate may already be marked, as he is considered ‘guilty of apostasy,’” the penalty of which is death.  As one Pakistani pastor explained: “If a young Muslim converts to Christianity in Pakistan, he is forced to live in hiding. Every Muslim might feel compelled to kill him. The change of religion is not punished by the civil law, it is punishable by Islamic law. For this reason cases of Muslim conversion to Christianity are very rare and some convert in secret.”

Somalia:  Islamic terrorists from Al Shabaab (“The Youth”) publicly executed a 28-year-old man after determining that he had in fact become a Christian.   Aiming at his head, he was shot “to death.”  As Morning Star News explains, “Somalis are considered Muslim by birth, and apostasy, or leaving Islam, is punishable by death.” After the execution, the man’s parents, widow and son fled the region.  The Al-Qaeda linked Al Shabaab has vowed to cleanse Somalia of all Christian presence, and its members have murdered dozens of Muslim converts to Christianity.

Uzbekistan:  Four police officers raided the home of a 76-year-old Christian woman, ill with Parkinson’s disease.   After removing her from her bed and without producing a search warrant, they “turned everything in the home upside down,” and confiscated her Bible and other Christian materials.  Since then, the woman has been subjected to innumerable legal proceedings.  Most recently, she was convicted of “Illegal production, storage, or import into Uzbekistan with a purpose to distribute or distribution of religious materials by physical persons.”  The judge ordered that her Bible, 14 Christian books, six DVDs and a video be destroyed. She was told by court officials, “This is a Muslim country and all of your Christian books including the Bible are outlawed.”   Because these proceedings have caused her extreme anxiety, after one hearing an ambulance was called for her.

Dhimmitude: A Climate of Hate and Contempt 

Bangladesh:  A mob of some “60 extremists” raided a predominantly Christian village.  According to the group, Barnabas Aid, “they plundered the residents’ livestock and other possessions and threatened to return to burn down homes. The attackers then moved on to nearby Bolakipur and targeted a Christian seminary. Battering down the doors, they forced their way into the building and severely beat the rector and a number of students.  The previous day, two church leaders from Tumilia were beaten and robbed.”

Egypt: “Unknown persons” kidnapped a 7-year-old Christian girl in Dakhaleya Province in northern Egypt. The girl, Jessica Nadi Gabriel, was attending a wedding ceremony with her family when she was seized and torn away. Her father later revealed that the 7-year-old girl’s abductors called him demanding a ransom of 650,000 Egyptian Pounds (nearly $100,000 USD).  Two weeks earlier, a 6-year-old Coptic boy who was kidnapped and held for ransom, was still killed and discarded in the sewer—even after his family paid the Muslim kidnapper the demanded ransom.   Also, a Coptic Christian man named Milad, living in Tanta, said that “unknown persons” invited him and his family to renounce Christianity and submit to Islam and convert.  According to widely-read Egyptian newspaper Youm7, “They alsosnatched at the crucifix he was wearing around his neck, and threatened to kidnap his children and wife if he refused to convert to Islam.”  As they wore the trademark white robes and long beards, the man identified them as members of the Salafi movement in Egypt.  Meanwhile, U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson was urging the Coptic pope to forbid the Copts from protesting against Muslim Brotherhood rule—even though they, as Christians, were to suffer under it the most — while Al Azhar, the world’s oldest Islamic University, and based in Cairo, called on new Catholic Pope, Francis I, to declare that “Islam is a peaceful religion.”

Iran:  According to a June 19 Morning Star News report, “Six more Christians were sentenced for practicing their faith last week, while Iran’s presidential election of a moderate politician was not expected to soften the regime’s persecution of religious minorities.”  The same six Christians had been arrested earlier in February 2012, when police raided their house-church meeting. Officials rejected their appeal for release on bail; they are being held in Adel Abad Prison in Shiraz, which houses hardened criminals and often lacks heating or health facilities, and where officials routinely deny medical treatment to prisoners.

Pakistan:  Three months after a mob of 3,000 Muslims attacked a Christian neighborhood in Lahore, burning down two churches and 160 Christian homes, few of the perpetrators are in prison.  Hundreds of those detained immediately after the incident were released; of the 83 who were arrested, 31 have been released on bail.  “Most of the people who were stopped after the attack were declared innocent by the police and immediately released, for corruption or political pressure,” said a Christian lawyer.  Meanwhile, the Christian whose arrest on blasphemy charges was the occasion for the rampage has gone on trial, even as he insists he never insulted Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

Palestinian Authority:  Five schools in Gaza—two Catholic and three Christian—face closure if the Hamas government follows through on an order forbidding co-educational institutions.  According to Fr. Faysal Hijazin: “This will be a big problem. We hope they will not go through with it, but if they do, we will be in big trouble. We don’t have the space and we don’t have the money to divide our schools.”  In addition to finding additional space, he said, the schools face having to hire more teachers. Under Islamic law, men and women teachers would not be allowed to teach classes to members of the opposite sex older than the age of 10.  “It is a concern that in education things are getting more conservative,” said the priest. “It reflects the whole society. This is of concern to both Christians and moderate Muslims. It is not easy to be there.”

Tanzania: Two Christian pastors were attacked by Muslims.  On the night of Sunday, June 2, a Muslim mob broke into the home of Robert Ngai, the pastor of the Evangelical Assemblies of God Church in northeastern Tanzania, and attacked him with machetes.  The pastor received serious cuts on his hands and arms when he raised them to protect his head from the blows; when last heard of, he was in the intensive care unit.  Two nights earlier, the home of  Daudi Nzumbi, Pastor of the Free Pentecostal Church of Tanzania congregation in Geita, also came under attack. However, the attackers fled after they were confronted by Pastor Nzumbi’s large, barking dogs. When Nzumbi called police, the officer in charge told him, “I cannot protect every pastor!”

About this Series

Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching pandemic proportions, “Muslim Persecution of Christians” was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of persecution that surface each month. It serves two purposes:

1) To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.

2) To show that such persecution is not “random,” but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.
Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws that criminalize and punish with death those who “offend” Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like dhimmis, or second-class, “tolerated” citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination.

Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to India in the East, and throughout the West wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.

OCare and UPS (Goodbye Spouses)

ObamaCare's Latest Outrage

Posted 08/21/2013 06:40 PM ET

Health Reform: Thousands of UPS workers have found out what's actually in that Obama-Care package Democrats shipped out in 2010. Their company decided to drop coverage for spouses to avoid the law's added costs.

President Obama has been claiming lately that most of his signature law is already in place, and that all the fuss about delays and premium hikes is over parts of the law that don't go into effect until next year and are relevant only to the small share of uninsured.

"For the 85% to 90% of Americans who already have health insurance," he says, "they don't have to worry about anything else."

Tell that to the 15,000 UPS workers who recently learned that the shipping giant is dropping coverage for husbands and wives who can get insurance from another employer.

A chief reason for the change? The added costs ObamaCare is imposing, including the mandate that plans cover children up to age 26, its ban on lifetime spending limits, and the $65 in ObamaCare fees that will be imposed on every enrollee starting next year.

Rising medical costs, "combined with the costs associated with the Affordable Care Act, have made it increasingly difficult to continue providing the same level of health care benefits to our employees at an affordable cost," UPS told its employees in a memo.

As Kaiser Health News reports, many of these spouses will end up on worse health plans.

This is just the beginning. While almost no large companies excluded spouses from coverage three years ago, 6% did last year, according to Mercer. And many others are making such coverage exorbitantly costly in the hope that spouses will drop it on their own.

Once the ObamaCare exchanges are open, the incentive to dump spouses will be even greater. After all, why should companies bear such costs when they know spouses can get coverage "guaranteed" — and likely subsidized by taxpayers — in one of the exchanges?

This is, of course, just the latest revelation about the ill effects ObamaCare is causing among the 85% who Obama says have nothing to worry about from the law.

Companies are already cutting part-time worker hours to get below the new 30-hour workweek rule imposed by Obama's regulators. Or they're moving full-time workers to part time to avoid the eventual employer mandate.

As IBD reported last week, four industries that employ lots of low-wage workers have seen an historic drop in the workweek, thanks to ObamaCare.

In other evidence of harm, a recent Chamber of Commerce survey found that nearly three quarters of businesses it queried say

ObamaCare will make it harder to grow their businesses, and the American Action Forum calculates that ObamaCare will impose $30 billion in compliance costs on businesses — money that will eventually come out of workers' pockets.

Despite what the president claims, there is no escape from ObamaCare's punishing effects. Don't think so? Just ask your UPS delivery man the next time he drops off a package.

Fed's Ownership of Debt - Breaks $2 trillion

$2,001,093,000,000: Fed’s Ownership of U.S. Debt Breaks $2T for First Time
August 19, 2013 - 2:08 PM

By Terence P. Jeffrey


(CNSNews.com) - The Federal Reserve’s holdings of publicly traded U.S. Treasury securities—federal government debt—pushed above $2 trillion for the first time last week, hitting approximately $2,001,093,000,000 as of Aug. 14, according to the Fed’s latest weekly accounting.

The Fed’s accounting for the previous week showed that it had owned approximately $1,993,375,000,000 in U.S. Treasury securities as of Aug. 7.

Back on Dec. 31, 2008, before the Fed began its strategy of “Quantitative Easing," the Fed owned only $475.9 billion in U.S. Treasury securities. Since then, the Fed’s holdings of U.S. government debt have more than quadrupled.

Launched in 2009, the Fed's Quantitative Easing (QE) efforts have attempted to stimulate the economy.

“Under QE,” explains a February 2013 Congressional Research Service report, “the Fed attempts to lower long-term Treasury and MBS [mortgage-backed security] yields directly through purchases that drive down their yields, in the hope that lower Treasury and
MBS yields will indirectly filter through to reductions in other private long-term yields. (Lower Treasury yields do not directly stimulate economic activity—they are only stimulative if other yields fall as a result.) This could occur because Treasury securities are considered a ‘benchmark’ against which other private securities are priced, so that other securities are automatically repriced when Treasuries are repriced (although the change is unlikely to be one-to-one).”

(In its latest weekly accounting, the Fed also said that as of Aug. 14, it owned approximately $1.299831 trillion in mortgage-backed securities that had been issued by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae. Back on Jan. 14, 2009, the Fed owned only $5.6 billion in mortgage-backed securities.)

By law, the Fed is not permitted to buy U.S. Treasury securities directly from the Treasury. Instead it buys them in the secondary market. However, when the Fed buys U.S. government debt even on the secondary market it creates a closed circle: The Treasury pays the Fed the interest owed on that part of the federal government’s debt, and almost all of that interest--considered “profit” by the Fed--is paid back to the Treasury.

“Monetizing the deficit refers to financing the budget deficit through money creation rather than by selling bonds to private investors,” said the CRS. “Hyperinflation in foreign countries has consistently resulted from governments’ decision to monetize large deficits.

“According to this definition, the deficit has not been monetized,” said CRS. “Section 14 of the Federal Reserve Act legally forbids the Fed from buying newly issued securities directly from the Treasury, and all Treasury securities purchased by the Fed to date have been purchased on the secondary market from private investors.”

“Nonetheless," said CRS, "the effect of the Fed’s purchase of Treasury securities on the federal budget is similar to monetization whether the Fed buys the securities on the secondary market or directly from the Treasury. When the Fed holds Treasury securities, Treasury must pay interest to the Fed, just as it would pay interest to a private investor. These interest payments, after expenses, become profits of the Fed. The Fed, in turn, remits about 95 percent of its profits to the Treasury, where they are added to general revenues. In essence, the Fed has made an interest-free loan to the Treasury, because almost all of the interest paid by Treasury to the Fed is subsequently sent back to Treasury.

“The Fed could increase its profits and remittances to Treasury,” said CRS, “by printing more money to purchase more Treasury bonds (or any other asset)."

As of Aug. 15, according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, the total value of Treasury securities held by the public was $11,952,073,953,024.85. (The rest of the federal government’s debt is “intragovernmental” debt—n.b. money that the Treasury owes to federal trust funds, such as the Social Security trust fund.)

The $2,001,093,000,000 in Treasury securities now owned by the Fed equals 16.7 percent of the U.S. government’s debt held by the public. Another $5.6006 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities is owned by foreign entities, according to the Treasury's latest report on foreign holders of U.S. debt. The combined $7,601,693,000,000 in U.S. Treasury securities owned the Fed and foreign entities equals about 64 percent of all extant U.S. Treasury securities.

After the Fed, entities on Mainland China are the largest owners of U.S. government debt, holding $1.2758 trillion as of the end of June.

MSM Hypocracy : Bob Filner

Media Bias In Two Words: Bob Filner

Posted 08/08/2013 06:18 PM ET

Media Bias: From a news perspective, the saga of San Diego's Democratic Mayor Bob Filner has it all. Abuse of power. Serial sexual harassment. Rank hypocrisy. Refusal to step down.

So far, 14 women have come forward accusing Filner of blatant sexual harassment. Much of it took place during Filner's 20 years in Congress. And several involve military personnel.

This from a guy who had cast himself as an advocate for female veterans while serving in the House.

The only thing lacking that would give the story full life on network news, across newspaper front pages, and among pundits endlessly discussing "What It All Means," is the word "Republican."

Filner, you see, is a liberal Democrat. Not that you'd know it, since when the media do bother to cover the story, they tend to leave that fact out or play it well down in the story.

It's not as though there aren't important national angles or bigger issues to this story.

Did any of the "pro women" Democratic leaders, for example, know about Filner's abuses while they were endorsing him for mayor or handing him a committee chairmanship in the House? Instead, the press treats this as little more than a local news item, while often portraying Filner as some sort of tragic figure.

Worse, journalists covering Filner knew or suspected that he was up to no good. They just refused to report it.

"We never really tried to find out what was behind the near-incessant rumors that always floated around Filner," columnist Doug Curlee admitted on ScoopSanDiego.com.

"We never tried to confirm any of those rumors, or, if we did, we quickly gave up when presented with the denials, or refusals to talk about it."

Try to imagine a reporter making a similar confession involving a Republican politician. It wouldn't happen.

Yet even Curlee can't seem to understand why reporters were willing to run interference for Filner at the expense of the women he was serially abusing.

Why didn't we do our jobs, he asks himself? "I honestly don't know," he answers.

But the answer couldn't be more obvious. The mainstream press covered for Filner because he's a Democrat. Period. End of story.

Until reporters are willing to openly admit this, they will never overcome their blatant one-party bias.

PC = "SHUT UP" Terrorism Krauthammer

Inability To Call Terrorism What It Is Dooms U.S. Policy To Incoherence

By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
Posted 08/08/2013 06:18 PM ET

Jen Psaki, blameless State Department spokeswoman, explained that the hasty evacuation of our embassy in Yemen was not an evacuation but "a reduction in staff."

This proved a problem because the Yemeni government had already announced (and denounced) the "evacuation" — the word normal folks use for the panicky ordering of people onto planes headed out of country.

Thus continues the administration's penchant for wordplay, the bending of language to fit a political need.

In Janet Napolitano's famous formulation, terror attacks are now "man-caused disasters." And the "global war on terror" is no more. It's now an "overseas contingency operation."

Nidal Hasan proudly tells a military court that he, a soldier of Allah, killed 13 American soldiers in the name of jihad. But the massacre remains officially classified as an act not of terrorism but of "workplace violence."

The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three others are killed in an al-Qaida-affiliated terror attack — and for days it is waved off as nothing more than a spontaneous demonstration gone bad.

After all, famously declared Hillary Clinton, what difference does it make?

Well, it makes a difference, first, because truth is a virtue.

Second, because if you keep lying to the American people, they may seriously question whether anything you say — for example, about the benign nature of NSA surveillance — is not another self-serving lie.

And third, because leading a country through yet another long twilight struggle requires not just honesty but clarity. This is a president who to this day cannot bring himself to identify the enemy as radical Islam.

Just Tuesday night, explaining the U.S. embassy closures across the Muslim world, he cited the threat from "violent extremism."

The word "extremism" is meaningless. People don't devote themselves to being extreme. Extremism has no content. The extreme of what? In this war, an extreme devotion to the supremacy of a radically fundamentalist vision of Islam and to its murderous quest for dominion over all others.

But for President Obama, the word "Islamist" may not be uttered. Language must be devised to disguise the unpleasantness.

Result? The world's first lexicological war. Parry and thrust with linguistic tricks, deliberate misnomers and ever more transparent euphemisms. Next: armor-piercing onomatopoeias and amphibious synecdoches.

This would all be comical and merely peculiar if it didn't reflect a larger, more troubling reality: The confusion of language is a direct result of a confusion of policy — which is served by constant obfuscation.

Obama doesn't like this terror war. He particularly dislikes its unfortunate religious coloration, which is why "Islamist" is banished from his lexicon. But soothing words, soothing speeches in various Muslim capitals, soothing policies — "open hand," "mutual respect" — have yielded nothing.

The war remains. Indeed, under his watch, it has spread. And as commander in chief he must defend the nation.

He must. But he desperately wants to end the whole struggle.

This is no secret wish. In a major address to the National Defense University just three months ago he declared "this war, like all wars, must end." The plaintive cry of a man hoping that saying so makes it so.

The result is visible ambivalence that leads to vacillating policy reeking of incoherence. Obama defends the vast NSA data dragnet because of the terrible continuing threat of terrorism. Yet at the same time, he calls for not just amending but actually repealing the legal basis for the entire war on terror, the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force.

Well, which is it? If the tide of war is receding, why the giant NSA snooping programs? If al-Qaida is on the run, as he incessantly assured the nation throughout 2012, why is America cowering in 19 closed-down embassies and consulates? Why was Boston put on an unprecedented full lockdown after the marathon bombings?

And from Somalia to Afghanistan, why are we raining death by drone on "violent extremists" — every target, amazingly, a jihadist? What a coincidence.

This incoherence of policy and purpose is why an evacuation from Yemen must be passed off as "a reduction in staff."

Why the Benghazi terror attack must be blamed on some hapless Egyptian-American videographer. Why the Fort Hood shooting is nothing but some loony Army doctor gone postal.

In the end, this isn't about language. It's about leadership. The wordplay is merely cover for uncertain policy embedded in confusion and ambivalence about the whole enterprise.

This is not leading from behind. This is not leading at all.

Poor Jay Carney (Bagdad Bob) Thomas Sowell

June 25, 2013 12:00 AM

Feeling Sorry for Jay Carney

And other random thoughts on the passing scene.
 

By  Thomas Sowell

Edmund Burke said, “There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men.” Evil men do not always snarl.

Some smile charmingly. Those are the most dangerous.

If you don’t think the mainstream media slants the news, keep track of how often they tell you that the Arctic ice pack is shrinking and how seldom they tell you that the Antarctic ice pack is expanding. The latter news would not fit the “global warming” scenario that so many in the media are promoting.

Someone has referred to Vice President Biden as President Obama’s “impeachment insurance.” Even critics who are totally opposed to
 Barack Obama’s policies do not want anything to cut short his presidency, with Joe Biden as his successor.

People who refuse to accept unpleasant truths have no right to complain about politicians who lie to them. What other kind of candidates would such people elect?

Given the shortage of articulate Republican leaders, it will be a real loss — to the country, not just to the Republicans — if Senator 
Marco Rubio discredits himself this early in his career, by supporting “comprehensive” immigration reform that amounts to just another amnesty, with false promises to secure the border.

Ever since I learned as a teenager that the Saturday Evening Post magazine was actually published on Wednesday mornings, I have been very skeptical about words. “Gun control” laws do not control guns, “rent control” laws do not control rent, and government “stimulus” spending does not stimulate the economy.

It is hard to think of two people with more different personalities than New York mayor Michael Bloomberg and President Barack 

Obama. But they are soul mates when it comes to thinking that they ought to take a whole spectrum of decisions out of citizens’ hands, and impose the government’s decisions on them.

Maybe the reason for the New York Yankees’ low batting averages has something to do with the fact that so many of their batters seem to be swinging for the fences, even when a single would score the winning run.

President Obama’s denial of knowledge about the various scandals in his administration that are coming to light suggests that his titles should now include Innocent-Bystander-in-Chief.

It has long been my belief that the sight of a good-looking woman lowers a man’s IQ by at least 20 points. A man who doesn’t happen to have 20 points to spare can be in big trouble.

When Attorney General Eric Holder argued that a “path to citizenship” for illegal immigrants was a “civil right” and a “human right,” he epitomized the contempt for the public’s intelligence that has characterized so much of what has been said and done by the Obama administration.

You know you are old when waitresses call you “dear.”

Although many people have been surprised and disappointed by Barack Obama, it is hard to think of a president whose policies were more predictable from his history, however radically different those policies are from his rhetoric.

When any two groups have different behavior or performances, that plain fact can be turned upside down and twisted to say that whatever criterion revealed those differences has had a “disparate impact” on one of the groups. In other words, the criterion is considered an injustice to those who failed to meet the standard.

Have you heard any gun-control advocate even try to produce hard evidence that tighter gun-control laws reduce murder rates? Does anyone seriously believe that people who are prepared to defy the laws against murder are going to obey laws against owning guns or large-capacity magazines?

I may be among the few people who want Attorney General Eric Holder to keep his job — at least until the 2014 elections. Holder epitomizes what is wrong with the Obama administration. He is essentially Barack Obama without the charm, so it should be easier for the voters to see through his lies and corruption.

Despite political differences, it is hard not to feel sorry for White House press secretary Jay Carney for all the absurdities his job requires him to say with a straight face. What is he going to do when this administration is over? Wear a disguise, change his name, or be put into a witness-protection program?

— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. © 2013 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

His Name is David Ubben / Lost in Benghazi

Will David Ubben Blow Roof Off 'Phony' Benghazi Scandal?

Posted 08/01/2013 06:36 PM ET

Scandal: The former commander of special operations in North Africa says he, like our president, was incommunicado during the Benghazi attack. We may soon hear from the hero who survived 20 hours waiting for help.

During the second wave of attacks on Benghazi, diplomatic security agent David Ubben was on the roof of the CIA annex with two former Navy SEALS. Eventually, several rounds of mortar attacks found their mark, killing Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty while shredding Ubben's right leg.

Ubben was stuck on that rooftop for 20 hours before help finally arrived. He can tell us and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "what difference does it make"that help was not sent — at least two American lives. Ubben sustained injuries at Benghazi so severe he's still being treated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Rep. Darrel Issa's House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has tried to interview Ubben as part of its Benghazi scandal investigation, but the State Department has not allowed the meeting, according to Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah.

"While initially they said they would be helpful, pretty quickly they turned that off," Chaffetz reported. "And I had a meeting scheduled to go visit this ... young man and then I was denied." State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki denies Chaffetz's claim, saying State has been fully cooperative.

Another Republican congressman, Frank Wolf of Virginia, who has gathered a majority of Republicans in the House in support of a select committee to investigate Benghazi, recently sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry complaining that the State Department has refused for months to provide Congress with the names and contact information of the survivors.

Ubben entered the smoke- and flame-filled Benghazi consulate several times in an attempt to rescue his fellow Americans. First, he recovered the body of Foreign Service Officer Sean Smith. He also went searching for Ambassador Chris Stevens but couldn't find him.

With more hearings scheduled on Benghazi this fall, some lawmakers hope Ubben will feel he's well enough to publicly testify, because he's one of the few survivors to witness both waves of the attack.

It was hoped that Col. George H. Bristol, former commander of Marine Corps special forces in Africa, could help explain to Ubben and to us why he had to wait on a roof in Benghazi for 20 hours for help to finally arrive.

Bristol was in charge of special operations forces in Northern Africa on the night of the Benghazi terrorist attack. He gave closed-door congressional testimony on Wednesday in which he said he was traveling in Africa at the time of the Benghazi attack and unreliable communications kept him from participating in the attack response, or lack of one.

Which raises the interesting question of how our African commander traveling in Africa was unable to coordinate a response to a terrorist attack in Africa. Of course, President Obama also did not participate in the attack "response" and the timeline of his activities that night still remains a mystery.

Command responsibility during his unavailability was in the hands of Lt. Col. S.E. Gibson who reportedly had earlier said he was at no point ordered to "stand down" but rather to remain in Tripoli to defend the American Embassy.

Presumably he was ordered to handle any spontaneous demonstrations in Tripoli spawned by a hateful Internet video. But isn't an order to stay put an order to "stand down"?

Perhaps Ubben can explain what he knows about why he had to lie on that rooftop for 20 hours. "Thank you very much for what you've done," Pat Smith, mother of the slain Sean Smith, said upon hearing of Ubben's actions, her voice filled with gratitude but also anger.

"Why couldn't the government have done the same thing?"

Why indeed, Mr. President? We're still waiting for a real answer.

© 2013 Investor's Business Daily

IRS

Media Can't Ignore New Developments In IRS Scandal

Posted 07/31/2013 06:54 PM ET

IRS-Gate: From stonewalling Congress to Federal Election Commission collusion to harassment of already-tax-exempt conservative groups, the IRS scandal metastasizes. Someone high-up was clearly giving orders.

'Phony scandals," to use President Obama's term, should not generate near-daily news coverage from a media that would like nothing better than to see its dream president let off the hook. Yet everywhere you look comes another bolt of lightning keeping this Frankenstein monster "alive!":

• In addition to conservative organizations being ultra-scrutinized in applying for tax-exempt status, existing conservative groups like Morton Blackwell's Leadership Institute, around since 1979, and the Claire Booth Luce Policy Institute, founded in 1993, were slammed with costly audits by Obama's IRS in the months before the 2012 election.

• With the IRS providing just a fraction of the documents requested, House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., on Tuesday accused acting IRS commissioner Danny Werfel of systematically attempting "to delay, frustrate, impede and obstruct" the panel's probe.

• National Review reports that on-leave IRS tax-exempt division head Lois Lerner was in e-mail contact with at least one attorney at the Federal Election Commission — where she used to work — to whom she apparently gave tax status information of a conservative group, the American Future Fund, before the FEC lawyer recommended "that the commission prosecute it for violations of campaign-finance law." The FEC also asked about the conservative American Issues Project.

• A House Ways and Means Committee analysis found conservative groups were asked three times as many questions by the IRS and had longer delays than left-wing groups seeking tax-exempt status.

• A June 26 letter made public last Thursday from the IRS inspector general to House Ways and Means Ranking Democrat Sander Levin of Michigan "makes it clear the inspector general believes Tea Party groups did have it worse than progressives," the left-leaning National Public Radio conceded.

• While President Obama claimed when the IRS scandal came to light in May that "It's inexcusable ... and I'm angry about it," Politico reports this week that tax-exempt organizations commissioner Sarah Hall Ingram received "bonuses of $26,550 to $35,400 in fiscal years 2010, 2011, and 2012 ... 15 to 20% of her annual salary," while Lerner from 2006 to 2012 "was paid a combined total of $110,035 in bonuses." And senior IRS official Faris Fink, better known as Mr. Spock in the IRS' taxpayer-funded "Star Trek" parody, got "$149,506 in bonuses between 2007 and 2012." Clearly, someone above them was pleased.

• Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Treasury Secretary and ex-White House chief of staff Jack Lew didn't sound like someone sure that the IRS probes would find nothing: "I'm not saying it's done. We will cooperate with all of the ongoing investigations."

• At his "phony scandals" press briefing a week ago Tuesday, White House crisis manager Jay Carney was so intent on distracting reporters from IRS-gate and the other Obama scandals, he uttered the term "middle class" no fewer than 17 times — astonishing, considering that median household income is down 5%, almost $3,000, from the year Obama took office.

Lew, Carney and Obama himself act like people worried about a threat lying a little farther under investigators' shovels. And they should be considering the suspicious timeline of Obama-appointed IRS chief counsel William Wilkins visiting the president on April 23 last year; IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman visiting the White House the next day; and Wilkins' office sending the IRS "guidance" on the Tea Party the day after that.

The IRS is one of the most powerful, frightening arms of the U.S. government. ObamaCare, about to be implemented, will mean "an unprecedented and unauthorized expansion of IRS power," bypassing Congress' constitutionally defined taxing powers, warns a soon-to-be-released book, "Impeachable Offenses."

If we find our tax-collection agency helped re-elect a president under political orders, Watergate could look trivial by comparison.

© 2013 Investor's Business Daily,

IRS In The Crosshairs: A Discussion With Acting Commissioner Werfel

 

While attending the IRS Nationwide Forum on Tuesday in Dallas, I had the opportunity to be part of a small group meeting with
Principal Deputy Commissioner Daniel Werfel.  His goal with our session was to have a substantive dialog regarding IRS strategic issues, something that is difficult to engage in currently in the beltway.  The session included industry representatives from the practitioner community (Enrolled Agents, CPAs, Registered Tax Preparers, Certified Acceptance Agents, software providers, former
IRS employees now working in the private sector).  The variety of niches represented and the volleying for why customer service should not be cut to each niche was enlightening.  As was Mr. Werfel’s awareness of the issues and limitations confronting each of the taxpayer constituencies represented.

I was impressed with Mr. Werfel. His reputation for integrity, professionalism and skill as a public sector management specialist is well deserved.  His ability to delve into and evaluate the operational fitness of the mammoth agency was apparent in his ability to engage our group.

For more than three decades I have been an observer of the odd love-hate relationship of Congress and the IRS.  But the vitriolic assault we have seen this year has gone further than ever in undermining the effectiveness of the organization.

Mr. Werfel allowed “the issues are certainly more complex than the media would have one believe, and it would be a mistake to assume the entire organization is flawed.  We cannot ignore where there are management challenges, but there are some parts of the organization that continue to exhibit strong and productive management.”

His goal is to keep an eye on the areas that do need a management intervention, and where there are problems, take corrective action. 

He intends to do this by avoiding distractions; staying focused on the task assigned, methodically, and professionally moving forward.

He points out that the travel and training issues occupying a great deal of the allegations of government waste aired this Summer actually took place in 2010, and had been significantly addressed prior to his arrival at IRS, and actually represent a miniscule proportion of the overall IRS budget.

He views the decision facing Congress on the budget issue as one of whether they will continue to Invest or Divest in IRS. His focus will be in making transparent the tradeoffs of either decision path.  Discussions about cutting the IRS budget by up to 24% would force choices about which of the functions IRS currently performs will be cast by the wayside.  Which programs are expendable?  Not funding enforcement (examination, collection or criminal investigation) or not funding services…like assisting with telephone services, walk-in centers, and filing season?

IRS doesn’t make the laws it is charged with administering.  It doesn’t create the mind-numbing complexity or create the structure of blending social and entitlement programs with those that generate revenue.  They are not given a choice as to which portions of the laws they choose to enforce.  Lay those decisions at the feet of our Legislators.

Mr. Werfel underscores that IRS will do the best they can at the level of funding Congress grants.  But he warns there are key areas that would be seriously impacted if funding is cut:

• Identity theft; will it take 2 months or 2 years to resolve cases?
• Modernizing fraud filters and detection methods
• Movement to electronic portals
• Implementing the Affordable Care Act
• Offshore tax evasion enforcement efforts

Can the government operate with reduced revenue? While enforcement statistics are often cited as a return to the government of $4 for each budget dollar spent for those purposes, failure to provide funding for taxpayer services and a well-trained workforce can erode voluntary compliance as the public is not able to get the assistance it needs to file returns or deal with IRS inquiries.

Millions of individuals are contacted by IRS annually with letters and notices generated by automated enforcement systems. 

Automated mechanisms are good at creating assessments of additional tax against taxpayers.   However, without human staffing to respond when those notices and letters are wrong, and they are wrong more than one-third of the time, taxpayers will be injured by the way the laws are being administered. This leads to a perception of unfairness in the system and erodes voluntary compliance.

Mr. Werfel believes the greater threat to the organization is an erosion of respect for the Service and what it does.  I believe the perception of fairness in the way laws are administered plays an essential part in taxpayer respect for the IRS and willingness to pay one’s “fair share.”  I also believe a healthy respect for the enforcement function (fear factor) of dealing with the agency contributes significantly to the level of compliance.  Both service and enforcement by a well trained workforce and access to people to resolve issues efficiently when needed are essential elements to building respect for the organization.

Can the tax system afford the cost of Congressional budget cuts?  Can the tax system afford the erosion of respect the media frenzy of this summer has focused on it? Years of doing more with less combined with the sequestration, scandal, and budget uncertainty could lead to inertia. Mr. Werfel is optimistic there will be no inertia and no stagnation on his watch.

Huma & Hillary (Confilcts / Stonewall)

Hillary, Huma 'Stonewall' Senate Inquiry Into Conflicts

Posted 07/31/2013 06:54 PM ET

Graft: The relationship between the Clintons and the wife of embattled Anthony Weiner grows curiouser and curiouser. Forget sexting; this may be the real scandal. And one senator sees a possible criminal element to it.

Republican Chuck Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is demanding documents from the State Department shedding more light on the private consulting work that Huma Abedin, aka Mrs. Weiner, performed while working for the government, where she had access to top secret information.

Abedin served as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's deputy chief of staff, where she earned $135,000 a year. But it turns out she at the same time worked as a consultant to the Clinton Foundation and a New York advisory firm closely tied to the Clintons, one that happens to do business before the government.

Abedin reportedly hauled in as much as $355,000 in consulting contracts while on the government payroll. What she did for that dough is unclear. "The State Department and Ms. Abedin haven't provided a single document that I requested," Grassley said. "Putting up a stone wall raises a lot more questions."

While Hillary's old department stonewalls Grassley's document requests, her close aide Abedin is suddenly taking leave from her current job as head of her transition office, where by all accounts Hillary is preparing a 2016 run at the White House.

Their sudden separation likely has more to do with Grassley's inquiry than Weiner's perversions.

Grassley suspects Abedin was trafficking in political intelligence while employed at State. He says it appears the Clinton consulting shop — Teneo Holdings — was "compensating Ms. Abedin for gathering information from government sources for purpose of informing investment decisions," a potentially serious conflict.

Teneo's Wall Street clients have included MF Global, as it was collapsing. It also represents foreign governments.
Teneo, which maintains offices in Dubai and Beijing, was founded in 2011 by former State Department official and Hillary 2008 fundraiser Declan Kelly, as well as former Clinton aide Douglas Band and Paul Keary, former senior managing director of FTI Consulting, a global consulting firm specializing in China.

FTI's man in Washington, Jackson Dunn, served as an aide to both Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as to former Sen. John Kerry, who succeeded Hillary at State. Teneo's "intelligence CEO" is James Shinn, a former Pentagon official focused on China.

Band worked in the White House for Bill Clinton, who happens to be a well-paid adviser to Teneo. Band, who now also works in Clinton's Harlem office and for the Clinton Foundation, is the former president's right-hand man.

Grassley wants to know what, if any, business Teneo was doing before State while it was paying Abedin. He's asked for a record of communications between Teneo and its clients and the department. He also wants to know if Hillary signed off on her outside consulting. So far, he's been stiffed.

He'd also like to know why Abedin suddenly changed her employment status to "special government employee" in June 2012, which allowed her to leave Washington and work from New York.

That same month, Abedin made headlines when several members of Congress sent a letter to State demanding more information about her family connections to the radical Muslim Brotherhood. While Abedin was advising Clinton, State abandoned its prior policy against official dealings with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and elsewhere.

What other consulting contracts and contacts did Abedin maintain while at State, before June 2012? Grassley has asked for all the private contracts she signed while taxpayers thought they were paying her for full-time government work. But Abedin won't turn over any of them.

If there was nothing improper going on, why all the stonewalling?

© 2013 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.