Congress Is Trying to Fool You on Immigration

6/19/2013
Congress is trying to fool you.

Here’s how they do business. A piece of legislation is going to cost trillions of dollars, but Members of Congress don’t want the public to see that. Instead, they have the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) look at the bill for just the first 10 years—and they move any costly items off into the future on purpose.

They did it with Obamacare—saved the budget bombshells for later. Now they’re trying to do it with immigration.

Yesterday, the CBO released its score of the Gang of Eight’s immigration bill. Heritage experts are still analyzing the full report, but a few things jumped out immediately. The Gang of Eight bill:

• WILL NOT stop illegal immigration – Despite promises of a secure border, the bill would slow future illegal immigration by only 25 percent, according to the CBO. In the next couple of decades, that means 7.5 million new illegal immigrants.


• WILL drive down wages – For legal American workers, the CBO estimates the bill would drive down their average wages.

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Things You Should Know About the Supreme Court and Voter ID

Amy Payne

June 18, 2013

Yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down one of its first major decisions of this term, striking down Arizona’s measure requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration. Media reports are already off base in interpreting this decision, says Heritage legal expert Hans von Spakovsky. Here are three things to know about the decision.
1. This is not a voter ID decision.
This decision has to do with voter registration, not the act of voting. Von Spakovsky explains:

In 2004, Arizona voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum that had two major components: voter ID for in-person voting and a requirement that anyone registering to vote provide proof of citizenship. The voter ID provision was not before the Supreme Court and is alive and well in Arizona. (emphasis added)

Although it did not strike down the provision that requires a photo ID for in-person voting, von Spakovsky said “the Supreme Court came down on the wrong side of election integrity” with this ruling.

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Panic in Washington: Is Iran and Syria's Regime Winning and What to Do?

Barry Rubin

Introduction:
A case can be made that the Syrian rebels must not be defeated because it would be an Iranian victory. But what is disturbing is that even if one could argue that the rebels must be helped it is a policy being conducted dishonestly. People do not know that the weapons given by the United States will almost all end up in the hands of pro-Muslim Brotherhood units. How would the American people feel if they knew that truth? At this point, almost 100 percent of the fighters on the front lines--are radical Islamists. The exiled political leadership is overwhelmingly Muslim Brotherhood. This is a choice of Sunni anti-Christians, anti-Americans, and antisemites rather than Shia anti-Christians, anti-Americans, and antisemites.  The United States--after Egypt and Tunisia--is now promoting the Muslim Brotherhood as regional hegemon. This is not a good idea and certainly not one to be made by honestly debating whether the United States wants to do this.

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Abbas defies US Congress request to fire official who glorified murderer

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=9172

by Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has defied senior members of US Congress by announcing his refusal to dismiss a senior PA official who glorified a murderer.

Following Palestinian Media Watch's report last month that Abbas' advisor and Head of the PA's NGO Authority, Sultan Abu Al-Einein, glorified the murderer of an Israeli just three days after the killing, five members of the US Congress sent a letter to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas demanding that the PA official be removed from office: 

"We ask that you publicly and officially denounce and condemn Mr. Al-Einein's remarks at once and remove him from his position in your government."

The letter was signed by Reps. Ed Royce, Eliot Engel, Nita Lowey, Ted Deutch, and Brad Sherman. PA official Abu Al-Einein had praised the murderer with the following words:

"We salute the heroic fighter... Blessings to the breast that nursed [him]."

Abbas has now announced that he will not remove Abu Al-Einein from his position, and likewise rejected Congress' demand for condemnation.

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Muslim Persecution of Christians: March, 2013

U.S. Defends "Human Rights" of Persecutors of Christians

by Raymond Ibrahim
Gatestone Institute

http://www.meforum.org/3532/muslim-persecution-of-christians-march-2013

The Islamic jihad against Christians in Nigeria is proving to be the most barbaric. A new report states that 70% of Christians killed around the world in 2012 were killed in the African nation. Among some of the atrocities committed in March alone, at least 41 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a bus station in a predominantly Christian neighborhood. According to the Christian Association of Nigeria, these attacks "were a signpost of the intended extermination of Christians and Christianity from northern Nigeria."

According to the Rev. Jerome Ituah, "Out of the 52 Catholic churches in Maiduguri diocese, 50 of them have been destroyed by Boko Haram. When two Christian brothers were returning home after Sunday church service, jihadis opened fire on them with machine guns, killing the brothers, as well as three others, and injuring several more Christians.

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Jerusalem's Decreasing Isolation Israel in the World

Efraim Inbar
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2013, pp. 27-38
The bad news is clear. Israel's right to exist is questioned by many, and its ancient and present capital, Jerusalem, is unrecognized by all but a few states. Israeli leaders are sometimes compared to leaders of Nazi Germany, and Israeli actions against the Palestinians are described as Nazi-like policies. Moreover, the Israelis are accused of engaging in South African apartheid policies toward the Palestinians and the country's Arab minority. Opponents and critics portray the Jewish state as the world's worst violator of human rights, United Nations resolutions, and international law.[1]

While European guilt over its colonialist past facilitates the acceptance of the Palestinian-as-victim narrative and while the latent, traditional anti-Semitism that culminated in the Holocaust has never been eliminated, Israel is still not quite the pariah of Europe as some think. In May 2010, Prime Minister Netanyahu (third from left) joined hands in Paris with leaders (left to right) Andrus Ansip, Estonia; Felipe Larrain, Chile; Silvio Berlusconi, Italy; Borut Pahor, Slovenia, and Angel Gurría, secretary general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, when Israel was formally admitted into the exclusive organization.

As a result of these global attitudes, many Israelis feel their country to be once more alone and increasingly isolated in the international community. An August 2010 poll showed that 56 percent of Jewish Israelis subscribed to the view that the "whole world is against us." Even a larger majority, 77 percent, thought that it made no difference what the Israeli government did and how far it might go on the Palestinian issue: The world would continue to be critical regardless of the facts.[2] The extensive media coverage of the April 2002 "Jenin massacre" fabrications, the infamous Goldstone report of September 2009, and the Gaza "Freedom Flotilla" of May 2010, among other things, provided evidence to Israelis of hostile international press reporting, which buttressed their perceptions that Israel is under international siege.

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'Worried about J'lem building freeze? Call the PM'

TOVAH LAZAROFF

Construction and Housing Minister Uri Ariel says those concerned over Jewish building should address Netanyahu's office.

Construction site in Jerusalem Photo: Marc Israel Sellem /The Jerusalem Post

 

Those who are concerned about Jewish building in east Jerusalem should call the Prime Minister’s Office, Construction and Housing Minister Uri Ariel told Army Radio on Thursday.

In a brief exchange that lasted a minute, Army Radio asked him, “Is there no more building in Jerusalem over the Green line?” “Yes,” Ariel responded. “It is very problematic. The statistics speak for themselves.

I have nothing to add beyond this. Let’s go on to the next question.” He added, “In this matter, let me give you another number. It will call the prime minister’s office and you can ask them your questions.”

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So Called Moderate Rohani Wins Iranian Vote

He served as Iran’s top nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005.

By: Yori Yanover

 

President elect Hasan Rohani (center) under the watchful eyes of the late Ayatollah Khomeini.

Hassan Rohani won outright majority of the votes and was declared President-elect of the Islamic Republic of Iran, IRNA reported.
Just under 37 million Iranians voted in Friday’s elections, out of some 50 million eligible voters—close to a 75 percent turnout—with about one million votes disqualified. Hassan Rohani won 18,613,629 votes, or just around 51 percent, which means there won’t be a runoff election.

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Shocking: Zero East Jerusalem Housing Starts in 2013, Only 43 in 2012

Minister of Housing and Construction Uri Ariel (L) and Mayor Benny Kasriel speaking to the press at the E1 area between Jerusalem and the Kasriel's town of Ma'aleh Adumim. A lot of talk – zero construction so far.
Photo Credit: FLASH90

Prime Minister Netanyahu is functioning as an agent of U.S. foreign policy and Palestinian expansion.

By: Yori Yanover

 

Since the beginning of 2013, not a single housing unit was built in East Jerusalem, Housing and Construction Minister Uri Ariel told Army Radio last week. “The figures speak for themselves,” Ariel said. “You should ask the prime minister’s office about it.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu for his part said last week that, regarding construction in east Jerusalem, Israel is better off “being smart and not being right.” And so, in line with that statement, there has been a standing order from the PM, given under heavy American pressure and in accordance with a vehement recommendation from NSC chief Ya’akov Amidror, Minister Ariel has not been given a green light to issue new construction bids in East Jerusalem.

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Understanding politics in Israel: The limousine theory

By MARTIN SHERMAN

 Into the Fray: How is it that, time after time, the electorate ends up with a gov't adopting precisely the policy it urged voters to reject?

Yuval Steinitz Photo: Marc Israel Sellem/The Jerusalem Post

On the one hand, the state invests billions of dollars in building a modern army; purchasing state-of-the-art warplanes and constructing modern airfields; equipping and training reserve battalions; and deploying Arrow missiles. All this is right and proper and necessary. But on the other hand, it has permitted a situation to develop in which these selfsame modern, expensive systems are liable to be rendered irrelevant. On the basis of such wishful thinking, battles, and wars, are lost
     – Yuval Steinitz, “When the Palestinian Army Invades the Heart of Israel,” Commentary, December 1, 1999.

To a dispassionate observer, unfamiliar with the mechanisms – and machinations – of Israeli politics, the events of the past two-and-a-half decades must seem to defy explanation, flying in the face of both logic and common sense, and a gross violation of the rationale of democratic principles.

To the vanquished the spoils?

Political realities in Israel since the early 1990s have shown that electoral victory has little bearing on the policies the resultant governments will pursue. Quite the reverse.

No matter how often the doctrine of political appeasement and territorial concession failed to win approval at the ballot box, it nevertheless continued to dominate the policy-making decisions of governments – even of those elected in express opposition to it.

Astonishingly, time and time again, the prescriptions of the vanquished became the policy of the victors.

Thus, Yitzhak Rabin, elected in 1992 on the basis of a series of hawkish “nays,” including rejection of negotiations with the PLO terrorist organization, radically switched his positions, transforming them all to dovish “yeas.”

The policy he adopted was indistinguishable from that promoted by the radical Left of the time – which failed to win voter support.

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The Other Battlefront: The Propaganda War

Samuel Westrop

The Fatah thugs are regularly sent by the Palestinian Authority, which is funded by the West, to threaten and batter journalists, writers, university students and political opponents -- driving them into the open arms of Hamas and other extremist groups.

Until recently, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank used to arrest Palestinians who criticized its leaders, especially Mahmoud Abbas.
But now the Palestinian Authority has resumed using thugs to break the bones of its critics.

It is an easy and quick way to deal with the critics and deter others from speaking out against Palestinian Authority leaders.

The thugs are often members of Abbas's ruling Fatah faction. However, they do not hold any official position in the Palestinian Authority; they do not belong to Palestinian Authority security forces or any government-related agency in the West Bank.

This allows the Palestinian Authority to distance itself from the thugs each time they perpetrate a crime.

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The Islamic future of Britain

Britain is in denial. If population trends continue, by the year 2050, Britain will be a majority Muslim nation

Vincent Cooper

Yassir Arafat understood the political power of high birth rates. The Palestinian population increased sevenfold in one generation from 450,000 in 1967 to 3.3 million in 2002. The wombs of Palestinian women, Arafat said, were the “secret weapon” in his cause. The Israeli government is very much aware of Palestinian demographics.
Population projections over the long term can be wrong. But for Britain, over the short term, whatever way you do the numbers, they all point in one direction: Britain will be a majority Muslim state by the year 2050.

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The Israel/Poland joint communique is a disaster.

By Ted Belman
Netanyahu and entourage are headed to Poland for a high level meeting. In advance his office put out a joint communique which said, inter alia, “Unilateral steps by either party are counterproductive to achieving a sustainable lasting peace,”
Netanyahu took issue with this statement because, according to JPOST:

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Op-Ed: We Were Fooled Once; Is That Not Enough?

Here, in a nutshell, are Arafat's lies, lies and more lies.

William K. Langfan

The writer is a pro Israel activist and lawyer living in Florida.

► More from this writer

“Arafat is a man who never comes to a bridge which he can’t double cross” was a favorite late King Hussein’s expression.

Israel and the US were beguiled by Arafat into Israel signing the Oslo agreement with his September 1993 letter to PM Rabin and the Wye River Agreement with his Jan. 1998 letter to President Clinton.

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