Tag Archives: National

President Obama’s Top 10 Constitutional Violations Of 2013

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By Ilya Shapiro

One of Barack Obama’s chief accomplishments has been to return the Constitution to a central place in our public discourse.

Unfortunately, the president fomented this upswing in civic interest not by talking up the constitutional aspects of his policy agenda, but by blatantly violating the strictures of our founding document. And he’s been most frustrated with the separation of powers, which doesn’t allow him to “fundamentally transform” the country without congressional acquiescence.

But that hasn’t stopped him. In its first term, the Administration launched a “We Can’t Wait” initiative, with senior aide Dan Pfeiffer explaining that “when Congress won’t act, this president will.” And earlier this year, President Obama said in announcing his new economic plans that “I will not allow gridlock, or inaction, or willful indifference to get in our way.”

And so, as we reach the end of another year of political strife that’s fundamentally based on clashing views on the role of government in society, I thought I’d update a list I made two years ago and hereby present President Obama’s top 10 constitutional violations of 2013.

Read more at Forbes Magazine

McDonald’s pulls ‘McResource’ site warning workers against fast food

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By Carly Rothman/The Star-Ledger

mcdIt was an embarrassing nugget in the news this week: McDonald’s own employee website seemed to be advising employees to steer clear of the chain’s own fast food.

Now, tired of defending the McResource line against this and other criticism, the company has yanked it, the Wall Street Journal reports. The site was operated by a third-party vendor.

“Unfortunately, as you may have seen in the news over the past few days and weeks, a number of stories have scrutinized some content and advice found on the well-intended website. Given that the content has been taken out of context and that we are unable to screen and approve all content posted on the site, we decided to remove it from our suite of resources,” read a memo reviewed and quoted by the Wall Street Journal.

Read more at NJ.com

Citizens take law into own hands after cash-strapped Ore. county guts sheriff’s office

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nvcwWhen budget woes reduced the sheriff’s department in one rural Oregon county to a bare-bones force, residents decided to take matters into their own hands — creating armed patrol groups in defiance of local officials.

Their decision has raised safety concerns with the county government, which would prefer residents instead hike their own taxes to fund the hiring of trained deputies. But despite the risks, the move stands as a unique, some would say innovative, response to one of the country’s most severe local budget crunches.

The government in Josephine County, where nearly 70 percent of the land is owned by the U.S. government, had long relied on federal timber subsidies to pay the bills. When the feds terminated the funds, county officials scrambled to pass a May 2012 tax levy to make up a nearly $7.5 million budget shortfall.

Read more at FOX News

Feds charge white ‘knockout’ suspect with hate crime

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‘The plan is to see if I were to hit a black person, would this be nationally televised?’

Federal authorities said Thursday they have arrested and charged a Texas man in connection with the “knockout game,” accusing him of a hate crime for targeting a black man for a vicious street attack.

Most knockout victims that have appeared in news reports have been white, but the Justice Department said in this instance the victim was a 79-year-old black man, and stepped in with federal charges

“Suspected crimes of this nature will simply not be tolerated,” said Kenneth Magidson, the U.S. attorney for the southern district of Texas. “Evidence of hate crimes will be vigorously investigated and prosecuted with the assistance of all our partners to the fullest extent of the law.”

Read more at Washington Times

Washington Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon Sends Controversial Tweet After Seahawks Loss

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CardinalsThe Arizona Cardinals ended the Seattle Seahawks’ 14-game, 729-day winning streak at home Sunday with a 17-10 victory.

Washington State Representative Joe Fitzgibbon wasn’t happy with the game, which led to a controversial tweet.

KING TV’s Chris Daniels grabbed a screenshot of it:

WA Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon has deleted his #Seahawks related tweet, which referred to Arizona as a “racist wasteland”. http://t.co/SbU9xuCfJE
— Chris Daniels (@ChrisDaniels5) December 23, 2013

Read more at Bleacher Report

Pastor Ken Hutcherson, 61, Champion of the Multi-ethnic Church, Dies of Cancer

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By Alex Murashko, Christian Post Reporter
December 18, 2013|7:01 pm

ken-hutchersonPastor Ken Hutcherson, 61, of Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Wash., highly respected for his solid biblical teaching and a champion of the multi-ethnic church movement, died Wednesday after a lengthy battle with cancer.

“Antioch Bible Church sadly announces that shortly before noon today our Senior Pastor Dr. Ken Hutcherson was ushered in the [presence] of the Lord. Please pray for comfort and peace for the family,” an announcement on the church website reads. “The family asked that you give them some privacy at this time.”

During an interview with The Christian Post earlier this month, Hutcherson (known to his friends as “Hutch”), with a voice weakened by cancer and its required treatment, said the number one thing he wanted to talk about was the importance of having churches that not only accept, but embrace people of different ethnicities and races.

Read more at the Christian Post

Was Wichita airport bomb suspect a victim of entrapment?

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loewenSince the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the government has mounted a number of investigations in which undercover FBI agents or informers have posed as co-conspirators with suspects who get charged with trying to carry out plots.

It has spawned a national debate about whether the suspects are really terrorists or just easily manipulated people who become victims of entrapment. With the arrest of Terry Lee Loewen at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport on Friday, that national debate has come to the Air Capital of the World.

Loewen, a 58-year-old avionics technician, has been charged in an alleged plot to use his airport access to try to drive a car bomb onto the tarmac to inflict maximum deaths. Two FBI employees posed as people engaging him or helping him to carry out the attack, a criminal complaint said. Loewen didn’t find out he had been fooled until he tried to carry out the attack with what was inert material, not high explosives, the court document said.

A letter to the editor in Tuesday’s Eagle typifies the entrapment argument: “The FBI has a pattern of seeking out naive, harmless, disaffected individuals and using them to orchestrate a crime. … Terry Lee Loewen has been entrapped along with others in these phony plots,” wrote Don Anderson of Winfield.

Read more at The Wichita Eagle

Senate confirms Obama pick Jeh Johnson as Homeland Security secretary

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It should be noted that the Senate thwarted a filibuster attempt by Republicans under the new rules prior to the vote for this previously unknown Obama campaign contributor.

johnsonThe Senate approved Jeh Johnson as the fourth Homeland Security secretary, giving him the reins at a department that, more than a decade after its creation, is still unstable and trying to figure out its role in the massive federal bureaucracy.

The 78-16 vote gives President Obama a solid victory, filling a major Cabinet post that has remained empty since Janet A. Napolitano left in September.

“In Jeh, our dedicated homeland security professionals will have a strong leader with a deep understanding of the threats we face and a proven ability to work across agencies and complex organizations to keep America secure,” Mr. Obama said in a statement released soon after the vote. “I look forward to Jeh’s counsel and sound judgment for years to come.”

Moments after the Johnson confirmation, Democrats set up a vote on another contentious Homeland Security nomination in Alejandro Mayorkas, Mr. Obama’s selection to be deputy secretary of the department, even though Mr. Mayorkas is facing an internal department investigation.

Mr. Johnson brings the shortest list of qualifications to the job of any of the secretaries, having served only as a top lawyer in the Defense Department.

Read more at the Washington Times

Special Report: How China’s weapon snatchers are penetrating U.S. defenses

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2013-12-17T222147Z_2_CBRE9BG15ZK00_RTROPTP_2_BREAKOUT-STINGBy John Shiffman and Duff Wilson

OAKLAND, California (Reuters) – Agents from Homeland Security sneaked into a tiny office in Oakland’s Chinatown before sunrise on December 4, 2011. They tread carefully, quickly snapping digital pictures so they could put everything back in place. They didn’t want Philip Chaohui He, the businessman who rented the space, to learn they had been there.

Seven months had passed since they’d launched an undercover operation against a suspected Chinese arms-trafficking network – one of scores operating in support of Beijing’s ambitious military expansion into outer space.

The agents had allowed a Colorado manufacturer to ship He a type of technology that China covets but cannot replicate: radiation-hardened microchips. Known as rad-chips, the dime-sized devices are critical for operating satellites, for guiding ballistic missiles, and for protecting military hardware from nuclear and solar radiation.

It was a gamble. This was a chance to take down an entire Chinese smuggling ring. But if He succeeded in trafficking the rad-chips to China, the devices might someday be turned against U.S. sailors, soldiers or pilots, deployed on satellites providing the battlefield eyes and ears for the People’s Liberation Army.

Entering He’s office at 2:30 that December morning, the agents looked inside the FedEx boxes. The microchips were gone. The supervisor on the case, Greg Slavens, recoiled.

“There are a bunch of rad-chips headed to China,” Slavens recalls thinking, “and I’m responsible.'”

Read more at Yahoo!

Does God Love Online Poker? Texas Congressman Has Shocking Answer

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Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas) at the Congressional hearing regarding the Internet Poker Freedom Act

Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas) at the Congressional hearing regarding the Internet Poker Freedom Act

By Katherine Weber, Christian Post Reporter
December 12, 2013|8:56 am

During a Congressional hearing earlier this week concerning the new Internet Poker Freedom Act, Texas Rep. Joe Barton, a staunch supporter of online poker, argued that God enabled him to travel to the congressional hearing in Washington D.C., and therefore the Almighty must be in support of online poker and the passing of the online gaming bill.

Barton, speaking during the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing Tuesday in D.C., said that “God must be for this bill because I got up this morning at four o’clock in Texas, outside Dallas, and braved icy roads and 20 degree temperatures to get to DFW airport where my good friends at American Airlines left exactly on time. God put a 200 mile tail wind behind our plane, and I got here an hour early. So that tells me that God is for this bill,” Barton, a Republican, said jokingly, garnering laughter from those attending the subcommittee hearing.

The Internet Poker Freedom Act, also known as House Bill 2666, would allow more people to play internet poker by setting certain regulations to the online game, including establishing a program for states and federally recognized Indian tribes to license the game. The legality of online poker in the U.S. folded in 2011 after the Department of Justice ended many online gaming operations, and earlier in 2006 Congress passed a law banning the use of credit cards for illegal internet gaming.

Barton, who is backing the Internet Poker Freedom Act , went on to argue at Tuesday’s congressional hearing that he believes fans of poker should be able to play online, saying the game is superior to other games such as slots or roulette, because it requires skill and not just luck. “Now we have the Internet and iPhones and iPads and apps and all these things,” he said. “Just about the only thing you can’t do [online] anymore is play poker. And that is changing.”

Read more at The Christian Post