The Obama Administration has openly declared its plan to implement a unilateral executive amnesty for 5–6 million more illegal immigrants. This unlawful amnesty—urged on by congressional Democrats—would include work permits, taking jobs directly from millions of struggling American citizens.

Any action Congress might consider to address the current border crisis would be futile should the President go forward with these lawless actions. Congress must speak out and fight against them. It must use its spending power to stop the President’s executive amnesty.

That the House leaders’ border package includes no language on executive actions is surrender to a lawless President. And it is a submission to the subordination of congressional power.

After years of falling wages and rising joblessness, American workers are pleading for someone to hear them. How can it be that our President is brazenly advertising that he will nullify and strip away American workers’ immigration protections, and their own elected leaders will not rise to their defense? Or to the defense of our laws and our Constitutional order?

There are other grave concerns with the Granger package as well: because it does not fix our asylum rules and loopholes, the end result of the additional judges and hearings will be more illegal immigrants gaining asylum and access to U.S. welfare. It is a plan for expedited asylum, not expedited removal.

Nor will this package make our rogue President actively enforce anything, coming nowhere close to the kinds of reasonable enforcement activities needed to restore the interior application of our immigration laws.

And finally, a package that is silent on blocking amnesty creates an opportunity for Senate Democrats to add elements of their party’s open borders and mass immigration agenda.

This legislation is unworthy of support.

Oh, so they don't actually hold the btc, just the cash value of it you put in? If so, that does seem a bit silly but I'm sure it cant just be that and we've missed something here.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration pushed back strongly Monday at a torrent of Israeli criticism over Secretary of State John Kerry's latest bid to secure a cease-fire with Hamas, accusing some in Israel of launching a "misinformation campaign" against the top American diplomat.

"It's simply not the way partners and allies treat each other," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

Her comments were echoed by the White House, where National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the U.S. was "dismayed" by mischaracterizations of Kerry's efforts. Israeli media reports have cast Kerry as seeking a cease-fire that is more favorable to Hamas and being dismissive of key Israeli concerns.

NEAR THE ISRAEL-GAZA BORDER — The curved concrete top of the tunnel grazes the dark-brown buzz cut of Lt. Col. Oshik Azulai, putting it 5 feet and 7 inches above the sand floor. The walls are about 30 inches apart — wide enough for two people to squeeze past each other, unless both are in body armor. It is cool in the tunnel, 46 feet under, and dark, of course. Cellphones do not work.

Colonel Azulai, deputy commander of the Israeli military’s Southern Gaza Division, said this tunnel stretched eight-tenths of a mile into Israel, next to a field filled with watermelon, ripe but unpicked because of the war. It ended about 600 yards from Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha, a rural enclave of 325, but was unfinished: Unlike the tunnels used to infiltrate Israel from Gaza in recent days, this one still had electric lines along the wall and carriage tracks used to ferry out dirt.

Destroying such tunnels was the stated goal of Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza, which began July 17. But 11 days into the mission, and after Israeli officials say they have found 31 tunnels and destroyed 15, Palestinian militants again penetrated underground into Israel on Monday evening and confronted soldiers in a staging area. Multiple soldiers were killed, a senior military official said, as was at least one of the men from Gaza.

“We will not complete the operation without neutralizing the tunnels, the sole purpose of which is the destruction of our civilians and the killing of our children,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel declared in a televised address afterward. “It cannot be that the citizens of the state of Israel will live under the deadly threats of missiles and infiltration through tunnels — death from above and death from below.”

THE parents of a boy aged four were horrified when a “mark of the Devil” appeared on his chest.
Sharon Lewis and Robby Jones spotted the cross-hair imprint as they got son Samuel ready for bed.
The sinister sign is proving a devil to explain. The imprint has baffled his parents, teachers and even the family's GP.

Shocked Sharon, 37, of Market Drayton, Shrops, said yesterday: “It’s a nightmare. Some people have said it’s the Symbol of Mammon — the sign of the Devil’s first born — which has been very upsetting.

“Just looking at it made me shake thinking something unnatural had visited my boy.
“Something or someone made the sign on him but we just can’t explain how.”

Talk of impeachment was cooked up by a White House desperate for something to rally Democrats ahead of November’s elections, House Speaker John A. Boehner said Tuesday, flatly ruling out any action on the controversial suggestion.

“We have no plans to impeach the president. We have no future plans,” Mr. Beohner said. “Listen, it’s all a scam started by Democrats at the White House.”

Democrats have acknowledged impeachment talk has been good for their fundraising, but also say there’s some fire behind all the smoke. On Tuesday, congressional Democrats circulated a list of GOP candidates and sitting lawmakers who have said they want to see President Obama be impeached.

Some conservative commenters have said impeachment is the right step, given the way Mr. Obama has chosen to enforce or not enforce laws written by Congress.

But Republican leaders have tried to squelch the talk, saying they are focused on pursuing their lawsuit against Mr. Obama for overreaching his powers, and want to pass legislation on boosting job creation.

U.S. technology companies are in danger of losing more business to foreign competitors if the National Security Agency’s power to spy on customers isn’t curbed, researchers with the New America Foundation said in a report today.

The report, by the foundation’s Open Technology Institute, called for prohibiting the NSA from collecting data in bulk, while letting companies report more details about what information they give the government. Senate legislation introduced today would fulfill some recommendations by the institute, a Washington-based advocacy group that has been critical of NSA programs.

Citing concerns from top executives of Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) and other companies, the report made a case that NSA spying could damage the $150 billion industry for cloud computing services. Those services are expanding rapidly as businesses move software and data to remote servers.
...
Microsoft joined with Yahoo! Inc., Google Inc. and other companies in a coalition calling for broad restrictions on NSA spying.
...
U.S. technology companies may lose as much as $35 billion in the next three years from foreign customers choosing not to buy their products over concern they cooperate with spy programs, according to an earlier study by the Washington-based Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
China Sales

Cisco became one of the first companies to go public with concerns about NSA spying. The revelations affected sales in China and caused customers in other countries to hesitate when making decisions about buying products, John Chambers, chairman and chief executive officer for the San Jose, California-based company, said during an earnings conference call in November.

In a May 15 letter to President Barack Obama, Chambers said confidence in a free and open Internet “is eroded” by revelations of government surveillance and called for “a new set of rules of the road.”

A Cisco spokesman, John Earnhardt, declined to comment on whether the company has continued to see slow sales, saying its fiscal year fourth-quarter earnings will be reported Aug. 13.

The government of Germany also has announced that it plans to cancel a contract with Verizon Communications Inc. in response to the spying disclosures.

It’s not possible to put an exact dollar figure on the cost of lost business for U.S. companies as a result of the NSA revelations, Dawson and Hopfensperger said.

“If a customer goes directly to a non-U.S provider for something, you never know that you didn’t get the call,” Hopfensperger said.
...

Federal law enforcement and intelligence authorities say they are increasingly struggling to conduct court-ordered wiretaps [read: sham FISA "court"] on suspects because of a surge in chat services, instant messaging and other online communications that lack the technical means to be intercepted.

A “large percentage” of wiretap orders to pick up the communications of suspected spies and foreign agents are not being fulfilled, FBI officials said. Law enforcement agents are citing the same challenge in criminal cases; agents, they say, often decline to even seek orders when they know firms lack the means to tap into a suspect’s communications in real time.

“It’s a significant problem, and it’s continuing to get worse,” Amy S. Hess, executive assistant director of the FBI’s Science and Technology Branch, said in a recent interview.

One former U.S. official said that each year “hundreds” of individualized wiretap orders for foreign intelligence are not being fully executed because of a growing gap between the government’s legal authority and its practical ability to capture communications — a problem that bureau officials have called “going dark.”

Officials have expressed alarm for several years about the expansion of online communication services that — unlike traditional and cellular telephone communications — lack intercept capabilities because they are not required by law to build them in.

But the proliferation of these services and a greater wariness — if not hostility — toward government agencies in the wake of revelations about broad National Security Agency surveillance have become a double whammy for law enforcement and intelligence agencies, according to FBI officials and others.

Today, at least 4,000 companies in the United States provide some form of communication service, and a “significant portion” are not required by law to make sure their platforms are wiretap-ready, Hess said. Among the types of services that were unthinkable not long ago are photo-sharing services, which say they allow users to send photos that are automatically deleted, and peer-to-peer Internet phone calls, for which there are no practical means for interception.

Meanwhile, the disclosures by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden have fostered a widespread view that the government is excessively sweeping up all manner of Americans’ communications. Founded or not, that impression, FBI officials argue, has unfairly extended to the investigations of law enforcement and intelligence agencies that obtain individual warrants to intercept the calls, chats and instant messages of suspected criminals and spies.

[Fox News] Feds quietly dump hundreds of illegal immigrants in Tennessee without saying a word

Imagine you’re about to sit down for supper when suddenly 760 folks show up on your front porch wanting fried catfish and hushpuppies. You’d be fit to be tied as they say in Tennessee.

And Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam is fit to be tied.

The Obama administration recently released 760 illegal immigrant children to sponsors in the Volunteer State without any warning, the governor charged.

There was not so much as a text message or tweet.

“It is unacceptable that we became aware via a posting on the HHS website that 760 unaccompanied children have been released by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to sponsors in Tennessee without my administration’s knowledge,” the governor wrote in a strongly-worded letter to President Obama.

Haslam, a Republican, said he still has not been contacted by the Obama administration – and has no idea where the illegals were resettled.

“I still have not been contacted and have no information about these individuals or their sponsors other than what was posted on the HHS website,” he wrote.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement says sponsors are typically a parent or relative who can care for the illegal immigrant child while their immigration case is processed. All sponsors are required to undergo background checks.

It’s also unclear why the ORR is handling the children – since they are illegal immigrants and not refugees.

It’s been the Obama administration’s standard operating procedure to release the illegals into states without notifying local or state government officials.

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that the illegal immigrant children have a right to privacy. He said privacy rights of the illegals are more important than the public’s right to know what’s happening.

Pentagon official: U.S. is no safer now than when the Iraq war began

Douglas Barclay, Rare Staff

Posted on July 29, 2014

On Saturday at the Aspen Security Forum, a top Pentagon official painted a grim picture when assessing the potential success the United States has made in combatting terrorism.

When Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency was asked if the United States was safer than at the beginning of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Flynn could not quell the fears of most Americans.

“Yeah, my quick answer is that we’re not,” he said, noting that current terrorist groups are more complex than those that existed 12 years ago.
...

I think this will hurt attorneys more then journalists. If an attorney cannot communicate with his client in confidence then he will not be able to properly represent him and give him the best advice.

POLICING AMERICA: SECURITY VS. LIBERTY
By: John Stossel

Where's the line between security and liberty? American police are now armed like the military; they use their power more often and forcefully than ever before. The state has new and expanding powers to spy on almost everything you do.

THE WARRIOR COP: SWAT teams were once called out only in emergencies. Now there are almost 100 raids a day. The weapons and tactics they use come straight from the military. Sometimes innocent people are killed. Why use so much force so often? What would you do if armed men in masks broke down your door in the middle of the night?

CONSTITUTION-FREE ZONES: Lots of Americans are getting upset about being detained by armed border patrol agents not on the border but miles away from the border. Some push back, sometimes with violent results.

MANDATORY MINIMUMS: Do mandatory minimum sentences work? Prosecutors like them because they give them more power when they plea bargain with suspects. But judges often object, and sometimes people serve long sentences for trivial crimes. Or no crime.

NSA SPYING: New revelations surface almost daily on ways the Feds spy on Americans. Does this make us safer? Or invade our privacy in destructive ways?

I SPY: Government spying is one thing. Now new, cheaper, "personal" drones make it easy for anyone to spy on anyone. Some say: "I've got nothing to hide. Why should I care?" But then why do you have drapes? Stossel goes to Florida to test the spying power of personal drones.

LEGALIZE WEED: Washington State and Colorado just legalized marijuana for recreational use. Could this be the start of America's trillion dollar drug-war coming to an end? Former advisor to the president Kevin Sabet says: "Colorado will show why legalizing marijuana is a mistake."

Dozens of journalists and attorneys surveyed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch for a new report say that the United States government’s surveillance operations are eroding their ability to work.

The results of the collaborative effort between the ACLU and HRW was published on Monday this week and contains a number of chilling accounts from Pulitzer Prize-winning reporters and acclaimed attorneys alike who say the US government’s spy programs have put a damper on their professions.

After surveying 92 participants — 46 reporters, 42 lawyers and a handful of current or former government officials — the authors of the 126-page "With Liberty to Monitor All" study conclude that US surveillance practices are “harming journalism, law and American democracy” by making it increasingly difficult for professionals tasked with keeping governments accountable and preserving justice from accomplishing as much.

...

Establishment media outlets predictably attempted to downplay the size of an anti-illegal immigration protest held over the weekend in Boston, hoping to propagate the illusion of a diminished public outcry.

The rally, which took place Saturday on the steps of the Massachusetts State House, attracted anywhere from four to ten thousand participants, judging by numerous social media photos of the unprecedented event and estimates by State Troopers.

Local Boston media, however, gave the impression that mere “hundreds,” or that only “about a thousand” people showed up, significantly downplaying Bostonian opposition to recent proposals to house additional illegal aliens in their state, backed by Gov. Deval Patrick.

...

WASHINGTON, DC - On August 4, 2014, Senator Rand Paul will travel to Council Bluffs, Iowa to kick off a three day tour of the hawkeye state. Multiple events are open to accredited media.
Monday, August 4

Iowa GOP Council Bluffs Victory Office
231 South Main Street
Council Bluffs, IA51503
12:30 p.m.

Iowa GOP Sioux City Victory Office
2526 Glen Avenue
Sioux City, IA 51106
3:00 p.m.

Steve King for Congress Fundraiser
The Barefoot Bar
24457 178th Street
Okoboji, IA 51355
6:30 p.m.


Tuesday, August 5

Cerro Gordo GOP Fundraiser
Mason City Airport Restaurant
9184 265th Street
Clear Lake, IA50428
8:00 a.m.

Iowa GOP Cedar Rapids Victory Office
1340 Blairs Ferry Road
Hiawatha, IA 52233
10:30 a.m.

Mariannette Miller-Meeks for Congress Fundraiser
The University Club
1360 Melrose Avenue
Iowa City, IA 52246
Noon

Von Maur Corporate Headquarters Tour/Speech
727 Veterans Memorial Parkway
Davenport, IA 52806
2:00 p.m.
2:30 p.m. media avail

Iowa GOP Davenport Victory Office
311 W. Kimberly Road
Davenport, IA 52806
3:00 p.m.


Wednesday, August 6

Westside Conservative Club Breakfast
Machine Shed Restaurant
11151 Hickman Road
Urbandale, IA 50322
7:15 a.m.

Iowa GOP Des Moines Victory Office
2775 86th St.
Urbandale, IA 50322
8:30 a.m.