How The Obama Loving Media Failed The USA

The gag order I was issued by a Taiwan judge in 2008 expired yesterday.  I want to explain how this gag order came about.

I worked for the Taiwan Times as the English Editor from 2000 to 2008.  During this time we covered every story of corruption in Taiwan and US politics.  Never during the time leading up to the 2008 presidential election were we ever censored or disciplined for stories we reported.

This all changed in 2007 when our parent company that owns the NY Times began to censor our stories reporting on the background and the vetting of then Senator Barack Obama.

In April of 2008, I received a phone call that a UK national wanted to speak to me about possible proof Obama could not possibly run for president and that he had proof from Kenya that Obama was actually Kenyan born and had been made an Indonesian national by his mother and Indonesian stepfather.

With some doubt I met the man in a meeting room at the Taiwan office.  He showed me a Kenyan birth certificate and hospital certificate.  He also showed me a copy of the school registration of Obama from the Islamic school he had attended in Indonesia.

I excused myself and had a reporter call Kenya and Indonesia to confirm this information.  The Kenyan Office of Vital Statistics, the Coast Province General Hospital in Mombassa, and the school in Indonesia all confirmed the authenticity of the documents.

I immediately scanned all the documents, took photographs of them, printed the email confirmations, and signed for acceptance of the man's pack of papers.  I then began to write the story myself.

I called the agency that had represented Obama's books.  They confirmed that Obama had been listed by their agency (Acton & Dystel) as being born in Kenya, raised in Indonesia and Hawaii, BUT they were forced to change this in February 2007 before Obama announced his candidacy.

A friend of mine at Breitbart scanned the blurb on the cover of his copy of Dreams of My Father and sent me an email.  It stated very clearly that Obama was born in Kenya just as the website of the publishing agency did.

When the story was completed the Taiwan Times board refused to print it or place it on the online version.  I was called into the CEO's office and informed that NY Times people killed the story and that I was to turn in ALL source material.  I copied all onto a CD and turned it in.

Something funny happened the next day.  I was called into a magistrate’s office a few blocks away from the Times.  I was issued an 8 year gag order.  Under penalty of prosecution I could never write, publish, or speak about the killed story.

A few days later I was fired from the Taiwan Times.  My wife was a Japanese national so we moved to Nagoya, Japan.  I then began my freelance writing.

Here are the copies of the original source material.

Kenyan birth certificate showing Obama was born in Kenya in Aug. 1961

Close up photo showing names

Showing official signature and seal

Hospital certificate

Copy of registration book at Indonesian school

From the publishing agency website

Blurb from cover of Dreams of My father

Dr. Carson Fights Back - Destorys Obama Myth

This is how you handle the lamestream media. Uncover their dirty, leftist agenda and tactics.

Trashing Trump - Child Exploitation

Well nice to see liberals exploit children for political pleasure.  And they wonder why Americans are fed up with Barry Obozo and their Marxist activist tactics.  Watch before Youtube takes it down, and you know they will because the dislikes are piling up. 

BTW I posted this just so you can dislike it.

Savage Nation Nov. 5, 2015

This is an important edition of The Savage Nation.  John DePetro guest hosting.  How illegal alien kiddies really feel about the USA.  Obama arming ISIS in Syria and Iraq.  Exploitation by Tarantino of our police.

What Obama Can Do When He Doesn't Give A Damn

What? Me Worry.

Hat tip JD Tuccille

Ah, to be unencumbered by worries or responsibilities. It's that feeling of open horizons known by twenty-somethings with an apartment and a first paycheck, by healthy retirees with topped-off 401Ks—and by second-term presidents who have stopped giving a shit about their own political party's prospects. In an era of expanding executive power, President Obama looks like a guy contemplating a world of interesting possibilities. Even his fellow Democrats seem a bit jittery about just what the man in the Oval Office has in mind.

Timothy Cama at The Hill writes, "President Obama’s election-year plan to win a new international climate change accord is making vulnerable Democrats nervous."

So why don't they just tell the president that any such deal is DOA in the Senate? At least until after the election?

Because Coral Davenport at the New York Times suggests that Obama plans to bypass Congress entirely.

[U]nder the Constitution, a president may enter into a legally binding treaty only if it is approved by a two-thirds majority of the Senate.
To sidestep that requirement, President Obama’s climate negotiators are devising what they call a “politically binding” deal that would “name and shame” countries into cutting their emissions. The deal is likely to face strong objections from Republicans on Capitol Hill and from poor countries around the world, but negotiators say it may be the only realistic path...
American negotiators are instead homing in on a hybrid agreement — a proposal to blend legally binding conditions from an existing 1992 treaty with new voluntary pledges. The mix would create a deal that would update the treaty, and thus, negotiators say, not require a new vote of ratification.

By...umm...creatively building off an existing treaty, the president could unilaterally reach for the green-garbed legacy he covets. He would also confirm the fears of everybody who worries about executive overreach and probably torpedo the chances of at least a few Democrats in battleground states where the economic impact of such a deal would be an issue.

The proposal risks putting donkey party candidates in close races "in front of the firing squad," according to a Democratic strategist quoted by Cama.

But how likely is the unilateral strategy? When asked about such a Senate-bypassing scheme, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest coyly answered, "Because that agreement is not written, it's not yet clear exactly what sort of role Congress would be required to play."

President Obama is likely to follow a similar path on immigration issues. Karen Tumulty and Robert Costa at the Washington Post write:

Both political parties are in a state of high anxiety about the possibility that President Obama will allow millions of illegal immigrants to remain in the country, fearing that White House action on the issue could change the course of November’s midterm elections.
In the past few days, Democratic candidates in nearly every closely fought Senate race have criticized the idea of aggressive action by Obama. Some strategists say privately that it would signal that he has written off the Democrats' prospects for retaining control of the chamber, deciding to focus on securing his legacy instead.

The White House isn't even shy on the issue. When asked if Obama might "think twice about taking executive action on immigration," Earnest answered, "No...the President is determined to act where House Republicans won't."

A minority opinion among political strategists is that such a move is actually a clever plan to get GOP nativists foaming at the mouth so they hurt Republican prospects. But as reliably batshit as some Republicans can be on the immigration issue, Democrats are certain to suffer, too, from unilateral action on a controversial issue. And the whole idea of a republic based on limited govement power takes a hit when one person follows the "Stroke of the pen. Law of the Land. Kinda cool" approach to ruling a country by fiat.

Note, too, that the wisdom or lack thereof of a unilateral presidential action is irrelevant to the dangers of growing executive power. I would personally agree with some of the president's ideas on easing immigration restrictions. But the problems of a president set free to do as he damned well wishes, on his own, are problems of concentrated power, no matter how it's used.

And President Obama looks like he sees a world of interesting possibilities in using that power.

Obama A Radical Islamist? Some of us knew that already.

Hat tip to the Examiner

Today, a former CIA agent bluntly spoke out that America has switched sides in the war on terror under President Obama. Clare Lopez was willing to say what a few members of Congress have said in private, but declined to say on-the-record.

Clare M. Lopez is the Vice President for Research and Analysis at the Center for Security Policy and a Senior Fellow at The Clarion Project, the London Center for Policy Research, and the Canadian Meighen Institute. Since 2013, she has served as a member of the Citizens Commission on Benghazi. Also Vice President of the Intelligence Summit, she formerly was a career operations officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee from 2005-2006, and has served as a consultant, intelligence analyst, and researcher for a variety of defense firms. She was named a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute in 2011.

Lopez said the global war on terror had been an effort to “stay free of Shariah,” or repressive Islamic law, until the Obama administration began siding with such jihadist groups as the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates. Lopez believes that the Muslim Brotherhood has thoroughly infiltrated the Obama administration and other branches of the federal government. One of the most outrageous of those appointments is Mohamed Elibiary, a senior member of the Department of Homeland Security Advisory Council. According to a report by the Center for Security Policy, Elibiary supports brokering a U.S. partnership with the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group. Two months ago, a firestorm erupted online after Elibiary tweeted that a “Caliphate” is inevitable and compared it to the European Union.

Ms. Lopez also believes Obama had essentially the same goals in the Mideast as the late Osama bin Laden: “to remove American power and influence, including military forces, from Islamic lands.” The former CIA operative’s perspective affects her prescription for what the U.S. should do about the terror army ISIS, as she called for caution and restraint.

While there has been a sudden chorus of politicians and military experts calling for the immediate elimination of the terrorist army after it beheaded American journalist James Foley last week, Lopez believes the U.S. should have an overall strategy in place before fully re-engaging in the Mideast militarily.Any military action would be further complicated, she told WND, if it were not clear which side the U.S. is on, either in the short term or in the overall war on terror.

Lopez felt it was impossible to understand why the president and some of his top appointees, such as CIA Director John Brennan, who is believed to be a Muslim convert, “consistently seem to apologize for Islam, even in the face of such atrocities as the Foley beheading,” adding, they “take pains to assure the world they don’t think IS, (or the Islamic State, also called ISIS) or whichever perpetrator it was, has anything to do with Islam. How can they possibly believe that genuinely when everything these jihadis do tracks directly to the literal text of Quran, hadiths and Shariah?”

“In any case, and for whatever motivations, there is no doubt this administration switched sides in what used to be called the Global War on Terror,” she said.

Obama A Threat To America

As if anyone with any intelligence had a doubt.

Hat Tip: Daily Caller Full Report

The report is in, and the review of the president’s foreign policy is clear: If there is not an immediate course-reversal, the United States is in serious danger.

In 2013, the United States Institute for Peace, “a congressionally-created, independent, nonpartisan institution whose mission is to prevent, mitigate, and resolve violent conflicts around the world,” was asked to assist the National Defense Panel with reviewing the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The National Defense Panel is a congressional-mandated bipartisan commission that’s co-chairs were appointed by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

A Warning to French Republicans

Hat tip: My friend Bishop Daniel Rea

The good reverend responds to a question via email about his feelings on Cantors defeat.

Cantor and Boehner never were Republicans. They are simply big government liberals who just happened to occasionally vote for other big government ideas and fellow French Republican liberals with an (R) beside their names as opposed to the big government ideas and liberals with the (D) beside their name. Not conservatives or Republicans at all.  The party didn’t abandon them it is just in the process of returning to what it was always supposed to be – a party opposed to big government liberalism in all forms.  The Tea Party is simply the resurrection of the Reagan principals minus the French Republican support (read liberal Dems who became Republican in opposition to Carter).

You say Republicans are the opposite of what they were and so are liberals. Bear in mind that liberals were Republicans at one time. What was formerly liberal is now conservative. What was formerly conservative is now liberal. This is key to undertstanding what I am saying. Liberals were for free speech, the right to own guns, the right for people to work and live as they choose. Conservatives were the status quo. So are you now saying that conservatives are the new liberals.

The right to free speech, right to dissent, the right not to lose your privacy and live under the thumb of an ever watchful and restrictive government, the right to live as you wish, the right for each person to be an individual, not part of a group or a mindset. A small government that defends liberty of the people and huge government that invades every aspect of life with regulations. What kind of toilet we can buy. What light bulbs we can have in our homes. The kind of automobile we feel is best for our family. So if you believe in those things, why aren't you conservative?

I remember when liberals loved the term 'speaking truth to power.' Now they hate it since they have become the power and dissent has become almost tantamount to a crime. It is conservatives that feel uncomfortable with an intrusive authority, that mourn the fact that it is now permissible by law to kill an American citizen overseas if he is simply 'suspected' of being a terrorist and revoking his right of due process, of collecting info on American citizens, of bringing back 'the enemies list' and using government agencies as weapons against those who speak against you. Of turning over your well-being and allowing the government to decide how insurance should be administered and how much you should pay, and deciding when you have made 'enough' money and who you owe your excess to. Maybe it's liberals that have stopped moving forward.

Let us all recall a few facts. The Demcorat Party is the party of...

... Original wars of attrition begun on lies and doctored intelligence - Korea and Vietnam 

...Slavery

...The KKK ("the terrorist wing of the democrat party")

...Jim Crow

...The Confederacy

...Segregation

...Lynching

...Blowing up little black girls at church

...Bull Connor

As recently as the 1990's, the Democrat Party proudly placed a Grand Cyclops of the KKK, one Sen. Robert Byrd, 4th in line of presidential succession.

There is a saying "there is none so devout as the recently converted." I think it important the Republican Party make it a point to consistently remind people of this point. One cannot choose their own view of history and invent “facts” that are clearly lies. Lies not mistakes because lies are intentional and meant to mislead.

The Democrat Party is so racist they couldn't even pass civil rights legislation, even though they owned the presidency, House and Senate from 1960 to 1964. Kennedy was warned continually that he would divide the Democratic Party. Want to know who had their hands dripping with JFK's blood? Consider Bull Connor in league with Robert Byrd, Strom Thurmond, Geroge Wallace, and others.

This is the continuing, now 60 year democrat-manufactured slander that has gone unchallenged, and I suspect, intentionally taught in our schools, that the Republicans are home to Americas racists. This not only requires a willful denial of easily researchable history, but a deliberately malicious twisting of the truth. It's a lie. The democrats know it's a lie. Even though they know it's a lie, they gladly and joyfully repeat it, they even print this lie on protest signs declaring it.

Which party is following the Nazi, Marxist, Fascist, and Saul Alynsky practice of telling a lie long and loud enough that it is eventually accepted as the truth? Americas national tragedy on the issue of race, is the unwillingness to put a stop to the 60 year lie. Democrat Bull Connor as the Public Safety Commissioner of Birmingham, Alabama allowed freedom riders, reporters, and ministers in support of the Civil Rights movement to be beat for 15 minutes by the KKK before he allowed Birmingham police to take action to stop them. Democrat Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, who stood in the school doorway to prevent black children from attending school with white children. Strom Thurmond left the Democratic party in 1964 as a protest of LBJ's continued support for the Civil Rights Act. Thurmond continually voiced hate for JFK and MLK. Senator Robert Byrd held the titles of Grand Kleagle and Exalted Cyclops of the KKK.

So in honesty of history and facts, which is the party of racism?  The Tea Party is bringing the party back to our true conservative roots grounded in Lincoln to Reagan minus the French Republicans who were never Republicans to begin with, I say good riddance to them and take Romney, Rubio, McConnell, Ryan, and Paul with them.

Obama Just Funded Terrorists For Years

Hat tip, my friend who is a senior intelligence official:

The Haqqanis could give a rat’s ass about prisoners, the Haqqani Network, a designated terrorist group in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the five Guantanamo Bay prisoners who were freed in exchange for Bergdahl’s release.  The people that are holding Bergdahl wanted cash and someone paid it to them.  

The Taliban is an ideologically committed group, they say, while the Haqqani Network is better understood as a tribal crime syndicate using unrest in the region not to advance an Islamist agenda but to further own financial and political interests.

When Westerners talk [about the] Taliban, we tend to use it as a generic term.  Afghans are more likely to talk about the Haqqani Network versus the Quetta Shura also known as the Afghan Taliban versus the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.

One of these things doesn’t add up.  If you were to put one of these Taliban prisoners with Haqqani in a room together, they’d beat the shit out of each other.

Haqqani benefits zero from the prisoner exchange.  Based on 10 years of working with those guys, the only thing that would make them move Bergdahl is money.

Whether the Qataris paid it, or some big oil sheik, or somebody used our petrodollars, there was a ransom paid in cash for each one of them, my guess somewhere in the round numbers of $5 or 6 million to get Bergdahl freed.

The groups do have links, but if Bergdahl was held by Haqqani and we released Quetta Shura, it seems Bergdahl’s captors were seeking something other than the Taliban prisoners, got paid off, and Obama simply used the trade as an excuse to release master terrorists from Gitmo.

Michelle Obama Wants Kids Spying On Parents

Hat tip: Daily Caller

There can be no aspect of your daily life that’s removed from politics. Now you will be monitored by your own children for expressing unapproved opinions. You’d better watch what you say at the dinner table, Mom and Dad.

Pete Kasperowicz, The Blaze:

First lady Michelle Obama is encouraging students to monitor their older relatives, friends and co-workers for any racially insensitive comments they might make, and to challenge those comments whenever they’re made.

The first lady spoke on Friday to graduating high school students in Topeka, Kansas, and in remarks released over the weekend, Obama said students need to police family and friends because federal laws can only go so far in stopping racism.

“[O]ur laws may no longer separate us based on our skin color, but nothing in the Constitution says we have to eat together in the lunchroom, or live together in the same neighborhoods,” she said. “There’s no court case against believing in stereotypes or thinking that certain kinds of hateful jokes or comments are funny.”

Oh, if only we could control what other people think and feel. But until that magic day arrives, all we can do is set people against each other based on race, under the guise of “fighting racism.”

I wonder if this extends toward hateful jokes or comments about white people? Or is that simply considered social justice? After all, those hillbillies have got it coming for possessing the same skin tone as other people who’ve said and done bad things.

Of course, this post is racist because the First Lady is black. If you don’t condemn me for disagreeing with her, you’re a racist too.

Then there is this, hat tip Cheryl K. Chumley author Police State USA

In five years, we will really start to wonder what happened to America. In 10 years, our kids won't know the same America of our youth. And in 25 years, we won't recognize America at all. The Constitution will be a relic, tossed on the same heap of living, breathing, ever-changing trash pile as the Bible. The notion of God-given rights will be replaced by government control and privacy rights will have crumbled along with Fourth Amendment guarantees that protect us from warrantless searches of home, possessions, and self. The arrival at this brave new world has been surprisingly quick-paced. Most of the ideological changes have occurred in the past few decades. Police State USA explains how America is standing on the cusp of a police state, what led to this state - including environmental and corporate influences, as well as media spin and lies - and how we might overcome and recapture our freedoms, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers. But it's not too late to reverse the police state.

What do I think about this?

To one journalist, this was more than an off-hand comment made by the first lady. In the opinion of Cheryl Chumley, a reporter for The Washington Times and the author of “Police State USA,” Michelle Obama’s remark reflects a growing trend in America to target and attack individuals for committing “thought crime.”

“Michelle Obama’s push for kids around the nation to monitor their family members for perceived racist comments is just another way the government seeks to inject itself into an area it doesn’t really belong — the American home,” Chumley told The Daily Caller Monday.

“Having the first lady wag her finger at us and send America’s youth on some sort of quest to scour the homes and backyards of our nation’s families for any mention of a racist joke, slur or slight is nanny-governance run amok — something that belongs in a George Orwell novel, not the White House, Chumley said.”

Chumley sees a troubling growth of America’s most powerful political figures now singling out private individuals for their beliefs, and using government agencies and public denunciations to intimidate opponents into silence.

“Harry Reid attacking the Koch brothers for the crime of giving money to conservative causes is just as bad. President Obama, Joe Biden and the entire cast of the White House, for slamming lawful gun owners for exercising their Second Amendment rights, and for trying to drum up emotional-fueled support to ram through gun control,” Chumley listed off. “The IRS targeting of tea party and patriotic non-profits and our nation’s highest law enforcement official, Eric Holder stonewalling on a special prosecutor appointment — does it get any more police state than that?”

The Washington Times reporter sees the creation of hate crime laws as one of the first steps in our country’s history in the direction of attacking unpopular and politically incorrect thoughts in America.

“What comes to mind when I think of the genesis for this growing trend of government to control Americans’ speech, and by extension, thoughts, is when the notion of hate crime was brought into our criminal prosecution system — as if acts of violence that are committed because of racial divides deserve a different category of ‘extra-special bad,’” Chumley stated.

“Political correctness and pandering politicians have fueled this narrative in recent years. Anybody who throws the race card on a regular basis — think Eric Holder, Al Sharpton, Harry Reid — is guilty to a certain degree of clamping down on free speech, and in turn, making Americans even wary of what they think.”

And it’s not just the government enforcing this new speech code, in Chumley’s opinion — private companies are just as complicit in regulating speech that’s deemed offensive by the government and media.

“Private companies, like A&E with the “Duck Dynasty” debacle, are getting just as bad as government when it comes to clamping down on free speech, especially when religious views are involved — or, of late, the gay rights movement,” Chumley stated. “I’m all for businesses reacting to free market pressures from their customer base — but really, they need to show a little more spine.”

In Chumley’s opinion, Americans growing a backbone and holding firm to their beliefs would be enough to resist this apparent infringement on individual rights.

“When Dan Cathy, president of Chick-fil-A, stood strong in the face of gay rights activists, you didn’t see his business crumble and fold. Rather, you saw those who believe in freedom of speech rise up and stand in Chick-fil-A lines across the nation to support him,” the “Police State USA” author stated. “The only answer is to refuse to be cowed. We’re a nation that’s founded on the belief that rights come from God, not government.”

Origination Clause Suit For Obama Care

The Affordable Care Act is back at center stage in the courts on Thursday with yet another legal challenge that aims to derail President Obama’s massive health care reform law.

Rather than attacking the individual mandate or the so-called contraceptive mandate, this lawsuit challenges a legislative maneuver used by Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada to pass the bill five years ago.

The little-noticed legal battle is being waged by a conservative public interest law group, the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF). It seeks to enforce a constitutional command: “All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives.”

Lawyers for the group charge that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was first passed by the Senate and only later approved by the House in violation of the Constitution’s Origination Clause.

The Obama administration rejects the challenge. “The Supreme Court has never invalidated an Act of Congress on the basis of the Origination Clause, and this suit presents no reason to break new ground,” Justice Department Attorney Alisa Klein wrote in her brief.

The case is set for argument on Thursday at 9:30 a.m. before three judges at the federal appeals court in Washington.

If the judges agree with the Pacific Legal Foundation, the decision would invalidate the Affordable Care Act and send health care reform back to Congress for a do-over.

If the judges agree with the Obama administration that the law was properly passed, the PLF lawyers are likely to petition the US Supreme Court to examine the issue.

It is unclear how receptive the appeals court panel will be to the PLF challenge. One of the three appeals court judges assigned to the case was appointed by Bill Clinton, the other two were appointed by President Obama.

The central issue in the case is whether in the scramble to assemble enough votes in the Senate to pass the Affordable Care Act, Democratic leaders in Congress took a shortcut that the Constitution does not permit.

The Origination Clause requires that bills seeking to raise revenue from the American people emerge first from the legislative body closest to the people themselves. The requirement is designed to maximize political accountability by forcing such measures to win initial approval among lawmakers in the House, where each member must seek reelection every two years.

Senators, with their six-year terms, are more insulated from popular pressure.

In addition to requiring that all revenue raising bills originate in the House, the Constitution permits the Senate to “propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.”

Government lawyers cite that portion of the Origination Clause as support for the Reid maneuver.   

In the runup to the vote on the ACA, Senator Reid used a “shell bill” to satisfy the technical requirement that the legislation arrive from the House.

He used the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 as a template for the maneuver. That law, HR 3590, offered tax credits to military members who were first-time homebuyers.

Reid eliminated the entire text of the six-page law and replaced it with the 2,000-plus page bill that became the Affordable Care Act. All that remained of the Home Ownership Tax Act was the bill number, HR 3590.

After winning Senate approval, the “amended” HR 3590 was sent to the House where the Democratic majority approved it. The bill was then sent to President Obama who signed it into law in March 2010.

In defending the procedure, Ms. Klein says HR 3590 was not a bill to raise revenue, it was a bill to reform health care, and, thus, does not trigger requirements of the Origination Clause.

She also argues that HR 3590 did, in fact, originate in the House of Representatives and that it doesn’t matter that the entire substance of that House-passed bill involving tax credits was deleted and substituted with the Senate-written ACA.

Klein says there is nothing improper or even unusual about the ACA’s passage.

Replacing the text of a House-passed bill with Senate-approved text as an amendment is permissible under the Origination Clause, Klein said.

The check against abuse of this procedure, she said, is that any bill amended by the Senate must also later be approved by the House.

Klein quotes an authority no less than James Madison, a Founding Father, for support of the government’s position.

“You may safely lodge this power of amending with the senate,” Madison told the Virginia ratifying convention in 1788. “When a bill is sent with proposed amendments to the House of Representatives, if they find the alternatives defective, they are not conclusive. The House of Representatives are the judges of their propriety.”

Lawyers with the PLF reject government claims that the ACA is a health reform measure unrelated to raising revenue.

The US Supreme Court in 2010 upheld the constitutionality of the ACA as a permissible use of Congress’s taxing power, they said. The tax penalty associated with the health care mandate is expected to raise $4 billion a year in general government revenue by 2017.

The PLF lawyers also argue that replacing the entire text of HR 3590 was not a legitimate way to amend a statute seeking to raise revenue from the people.

“This was not a lawful ‘amendment’ of HR 3590 as required by the Origination Clause, because the subject matter of the one had nothing whatsoever to do with the other,” the PLF brief says.

The lawyers said the Supreme Court has held that only Senate amendments that are germane to the subject matter of the underlying House bill can avoid scrutiny under the Origination Clause.

“If the Origination Clause has any meaning, it must be to bar the Senate from creating from scratch any bills for raising revenue,” the PLF brief says.

“While the Senate may in most cases have the power to ‘gut-and-amend’ a bill by striking and replacing its entire contents, no court has ever held that the Senate can use such a procedure to originate a bill for raising revenue,” the PLF lawyers say.

The case is Sissel v. US Department of Health and Human Services.

Christian Science Monitor

Democrat Arrogance Is Amazing

A top Republican on the House intelligence committee slammed his Democratic colleague Sunday for suggesting fellow Democrats boycott the newly announced committee tasked with probing the Benghazi attacks. 

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said doing so would be "terribly arrogant" and "wrong." 

The call for a boycott was made earlier by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., during an interview on "Fox News Sunday." He was responding to House Speaker John Boehner's announcement Friday that the House would vote on a select committee to investigate Benghazi. 

The congressman said Democrats should not give the select committee more "credibility" by joining, dismissing new evidence that Republicans have called a "smoking gun" showing the White House politicized the tragedy. 

"I think it's a colossal waste of time," said Schiff, also a member of the intelligence panel. "I don't think it makes sense, really, for Democrats to participate." 

King, speaking afterward with Fox News, said this would be a "mistake" for Democrats as it would show they "cannot defend the administration." 

"If Democrats boycott this committee, refuse to take part, the American people are going to conclude, and I think quite rightly, that they feel they have something to hide," King said. 

Schiff, who called the select committee a "tremendous red herring," acknowledged he doesn't know what Democratic leadership will decide. 

Fox News was told on Friday that the panel would be bipartisan. Schiff's comments, though, raise the prospect that his party could try to define the committee as a political vessel by sitting it out. The remarks reflect how the committee, which has not yet been formally approved, already is a political football. It would begin its investigative work in the heat of the midterm election season, poised to level damaging charges against the Obama administration at a sensitive time. 

Leading Republicans were adamant that the committee is vital to get to the bottom of what happened in the days and weeks following the Sept. 11, 2012, attack which killed four Americans, including a U.S. ambassador. 

The tipping point for those, like Boehner, who were hesitant about forming a select committee, was the release of an email that showed a White House adviser reviewing talking points for then-U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice. The email  stressed the role of protests over an anti-Islam video -- which is the faulty explanation Rice went on to use to describe the Benghazi attack's origin on Sunday news shows after the tragedy. 

The White House maintains that email referenced protests elsewhere in the Middle East and Africa, but Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., said that claim "doesn't pass the laugh test." 

She told "Fox News Sunday" the email shows the need for a select committee. Ayotte said there still hasn't been a clear explanation of why Rice connected the attack to a video. 

"The video story clearly came from the White House," she said, calling it a "political explanation leading up to an election." 

"This did not fit their narrative," Ayotte said. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the document was a "messaging email" -- one that Congress never would have seen if not for a court order to release it. He said the claim that a video was to blame was a "lie." 

"It wasn't a fog of war problem they had. They created a political smokescreen," Graham told CBS' "Face the Nation." 

Former White House adviser David Plouffe, speaking on ABC's "This Week," called the committee "bogus," and suggested more attention should be paid to shoring up security at U.S. embassies.

Obama's Failed Asian Pivot

Behind the veil of reassuring Asian allies about Washington's attention, an agreement with Japan to forge ahead with the 12-nation free-trade Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) was easily the most important item on President Obama's tour of East Asia.

The stakes were so high and the negotiating dynamics so intense that American and Japanese trade officials were given extra time to come up with a deal until Mr. Obama had to leave Tokyo for his flight to Seoul.

Apparently, some progress was made but there was no agreement.

What happened?

Strangely enough, the Japanese did not think that their unwillingness to open up their farm and automobile sectors were the main stumbling blocks. During last Friday's press conference, Japan's Finance Minister Taro Aso said that the problem was a lack of consensus on the American side, and that any agreement was unlikely until after the mid-term Congressional elections next November.

Implicit in Tokyo's view is the Japanese refusal to make the necessary concessions because they thought Mr. Obama could not get a fast-track negotiating authority to conclude the TPP agreement covering the 12 countries (U.S., Japan, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, Chile and Peru) that are estimated to account for 40 percent of world trade and for 60 percent of American exports.

I wonder whether American diplomats knew about all that before Mr. Obama went to Tokyo.

At any rate, the danger now is that the TPP and Washington's similar project of a free-trade agreement with the E.U. (Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement – TAFTA) may unravel. America's forthcoming presidential election cycle will soon be in full swing, and the next U.S. administration won't be ready to take up these issues until sometime in 2017 -- assuming that Asians and Europeans were still interested.

For Japan, however, the economic consequences of forgoing structural reforms inherent in a more open trading system could be serious. The TPP was seen as an impetus to competitive markets at home and a tariff-free access for Japanese exporters to a region that is home to nearly half of the world's population.

Prospects of increasing export sales are of vital importance at a time when Japan's foreign trade is becoming a drag on economic growth. Last year, for example, the negative trade balance took 0.3 percent off the Japanese gross domestic product (GDP), and the trade deficit in the first quarter of this year nearly doubled from the year before.

Japan's domestic demand is also likely to continue to weaken. Real wages in the first two months of this year declined 1.5 percent from the year earlier, and the households' real purchasing power will be significantly eroded by stagnant wages, rapidly rising inflation and higher taxes.

Without a sustained pressure to open up its economy in a free-trade environment, it is difficult to see how the Japanese government could initiate and complete meaningful structural reforms that would go against deeply entrenched vested interests and powerful political constituencies.

It, therefore, seems that the changing structure of an opening Japanese economy – the "third arrow" of the government's economic program – is at best a very long shot. As so many times in the past, it will be much easier for Japan to rely on a tried and tested expedient of more monetary creation, weaker yen and a renewed export push.

CNBC

Looking Deeper Into Benghazi Emails

In the immediate aftermath of the 2012 attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya, the White House quickly jumped from questions about the cause of the attack to blaming the incendiary YouTube video promoted by Florida pastor Terry Jones.

Last May, a set of emails was leaked by opponents of President Obama outlining the development of the talking points then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice used in a series of television appearances following the September 11, 2012 attack. The White House then released a more complete set of messages, effectively neutralizing critique of how the talking points were created.

New documents, obtained by the conservative group Judicial Watch by a Freedom of Information Act request, include a different set of talking points created by Obama advisor Ben Rhodes and sent to administration officials including spokesman Jay Carney. At the top, it outlines four goals:

1. To convey the USA is doing everything that we can to protect people and facilities abroad;
2. To underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy;
3. To show that we will be resolute in bringing people who harm Americans to justice, and standing steadfast through these protests;
4. To reinforce the President's and Administration's strength and steadfastness in dealing with difficult challenges.

I've highlighted the most important point: number 2 - Rhodes' assertion that the protests "are rooted in an Internet video."

At the time this email was sent — about 8 p.m. on Friday, September 14 — a separate set of emails was bounding back-and-forth between the CIA, the FBI, the State Department, and the White House. Those emails, the ones that were the subject of the discussion last May, offer a much different and much more reserved description of what prompted the attack. An email sent from the CIA to the White House at about 5 p.m. included this language:

The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the US Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the US Consulate and subsequently its annex. … On 10 September we warned of social media reports calling for a demonstration in front of the Embassy and that jihadists were threatening to break into the Embassy.

Over the next night, much of those specifics were stripped out by CIA director Michael Morell. But when Rhodes sent his proposed talking points, the nuance of "currently available information" was lost.

The new documents also include an email sent from a staffer for Rice to a group of employees in her office. It walks through a conversation the State Department's Victoria Nuland held on background with members of the press on the Wednesday after the attacks. In that conversation, Nuland was similarly vague. "Toria said that she couldn't speak to the identity of the perpetrators but that it was clearly a complex attack," the email reads. When Nuland was asked if the attack was linked to the video disparaging the Prophet Muhammed, "she said she could not confirm a connect as we simply don't know — and we won't know until there's an investigation."

What Rhodes was apparently advocating was to eliminate that nuance. And when Rice appeared on Fox News that Sunday with Chris Wallace, she was asked to respond to a statement made by Carney.

CARNEY (on video): This is not a case of protests directed at the United States writ large or at U.S. policy. This is in response to a video that is offensive.WALLACE: You don't really believe that?
RICE: Chris, absolutely I believe that. In fact, it is the case. We had the evolution of the Arab spring over the last many months. But what sparked the recent violence was the airing on the Internet of a very hateful very offensive video that has offended many people around the world.

One point of critique on the Benghazi affair has long been that the White House wanted to play up the role of the YouTube video in order to deflect critique of their policies. It's not clear if Rhodes had information about the attack (or believed he had information about the attack) that isn't reflected in the documents, but it seems clear that he overstepped the caution that was exhibited by other members of the administration — perhaps leading to Rice's strong and much-derided assertion that the attack was in response to the video. It was his job to protect the White House, but it's likely that this argument has caused much more trouble for Obama than it prevented.

 On September 27,2012,  the key actors in the White House's response team passed around a news article from FoxNews.com which indicated that the administration knew by September 12 that the video didn't play a role. All of the discussion about that article was redacted.

View photo

Documents Tie White House to Benghazi

Hat tip to The Japan Times Herald

From:

The Washington Post

AP, AFP, and UPI

As the result of a Freedom of Information Act battle waged by the conservative group Judicial Watch, new documents have emerged tying the messaging of the Sept. 11, 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, to the White House. Judicial Watch reports:

[The documents] include a newly declassified e-mail showing then-White House Deputy Strategic Communications Adviser Ben Rhodes and other Obama administration public relations officials attempting to orchestrate a campaign to “reinforce” President Obama and to portray the Benghazi consulate terrorist attack as being “rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy.” 

Other documents show that State Department officials initially described the incident as an “attack” and possible kidnap attempt.The documents were released Friday as result of a June 21, 2013, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the Department of State (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-00951)) to gain access to documents about the controversial talking points used by then-UN Ambassador Susan Rice for a series of appearances on television Sunday news programs on September 16, 2012.  Judicial Watch had been seeking these documents since October 18, 2012. . . . Among the top administration PR personnel who received the Rhodes memo were White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, Deputy Press Secretary Joshua Earnest, then-White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, then-White House Deputy Communications Director Jennifer Palmieri, then-National Security Council Director of Communications Erin Pelton, Special Assistant to the Press Secretary Howli Ledbetter, and then-White House Senior Advisor and political strategist David Plouffe.

 In addition a document showed Susan Rice was informed before her TV appearance: “Responding to a question about whether it was an organized terror attack, Toria said that she couldn’t speak to the identity of the perpetrators but that it was clearly a complex attack.” Toria refers to Victoria Nuland, then State Department spokeswoman and now assistant secretary for Europe and Eurasia. She had been unfairly maligned in some quarters and falsely accused of participating in the illicit editing of the talking points. These documents exonerate her entirely, pointing the finger directly at the White House and the CIA. (It is noteworthy that in the days between the attack and Rice’s TV outing, Nuland never tied the video to the attack; Carney did, most clearly on Sept. 14.) With regard to the CIA:

The Judicial Watch documents confirm that CIA talking points, that were prepared for Congress and may have been used by Rice on “Face the Nation” and four additional Sunday talk shows on September 16, had been heavily edited by then-CIA deputy director Mike Morell. According to one email:

The first draft apparently seemed unsuitable….because they seemed to encourage the reader to infer incorrectly that the CIA had warned about a specific attack on our embassy.  On the SVTS, Morell noted that these points were not good and he had taken a heavy hand to editing them. He noted that he would be happy to work with [then deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton]] Jake Sullivan and Rhodes to develop appropriate talking points.

The e-mails were exchanged at a time when the State Department and CIA already knew that the video was not at issue and that this was a staged attack of some type. Former United Nations spokesman Richard Grenell who was briefly part of the Mitt Romney presidential team told Right Turn, “The e-mail from Ben Rhodes to a bunch of political appointees at the White House proves that there was a scramble inside Obama’s inner circle to protect him from the fallout of a U.S. Ambassador being killed on the anniversary of 9/11 and a few short weeks from his reelection.” He pointedly added: “ It’s time for real journalists to confront the President. It’s clear now that he and his team have not been truthful with the American people.”

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz’s spokesman Catherine Frazier was quick to jump on the news. She told Right Turn, “ Here we are more than 19 months after the attack – seven months after Sen. Cruz called for a joint select committee to investigate – and more revelations continue to surface, confirming how little we really know about what happened in Benghazi on Sept 11, 2012.” She stressed, “This administration must be held accountable to telling the truth so that we can find closure, bring our attackers to justice, and prevent future attacks — and Hillary Clinton’s regrets are not enough. All witnesses with knowledge of the attack including administration officials should be called to testify before a joint select committee so we can once and for all know the truth about what happened.”

Since mainstream media reporters have been loath to press the issue (and Congress may well convene new hearings), let me offer a few questions to start the inquiry:

Will Rhodes be allowed to testify under oath?

Who instructed Rhodes to send the memo and who reviewed it before it went out?

Will the president instruct all the people mentioned in the emails to cooperate with congressional or other investigators?

Since the issue now involves senior White House officials, is a special prosecutor appropriate?

If any individuals conspired to falsify a reason for the attack knowing of evidence to the contrary, will the president fire them?

At the time of the e-mails, did the president understand the video was not at issue?

Is the White House planning on conducting its own internal investigation?

When White House Spokesman Jay Carney received the talking points and in subsequent press conferences stressed the role of the video, did he know that assertion to be untrue?