Freedom is Not Free -

The Citizens Mandate: Time for Mainstream America to Get a New Attitude!

1/25/2015 - Timothy Daughtry Townhall.com

The Citizens Mandate, released on January 15 by over fifty conservative leaders, does far more than call upon the GOP to honor the mandate given it by the electorate in the 2014 landslide. The Mandate offers an opportunity for mainstream America – for far too long the sleeping giant of American politics – to get a new attitude about politics.

As our government ratchets further and further to the left regardless of which party we put in power, the center-right mainstream in America edges closer and closer to a state that psychologists call conditioned helplessness. Regardless of how we vote, nothing changes.

We vote to tell our representatives to stop Obamacare, to stop Obama’s illegal amnesty and other unconstitutional intrusions of the Executive branch into the role of the Legislative branch, and to stop sacrificing American security on the altar of political correctness. And yet, after tickling our ears with tough campaign talk about doing all those things, the GOP barely gets back in the Beltway before they fund both Obamacare and illegal amnesty and, in effect, they collude with Obama’s agenda to radically transform America.

It is as if the Beltway is telling mainstream America that the political class is sovereign and that we are merely subjects: Go ahead and vote; call us and express your opinion if you must; go to a rally every now and then if it makes you feel better. But nothing you do can influence us. Just keep working and paying taxes and we’ll run the country the way we want to.

The longer this goes on, the bolder the abuses of power will become, and the more mainstream America will feel cynical and helpless to do anything about it.

In conditioned helplessness experiments, subjects are exposed to situations that they cannot control, such as a loud noise that they cannot turn off regardless of which button they push, or trying to solve a problem that has no solution. Whatever the case, subjects in these experiments typically give up and passively accept their circumstances. What is most surprising is that, when the experimental conditions are changed so that the subject could actually turn off the noise or solve the problem, these subjects have difficulty learning that their actions matter. They have developed a mindset of helplessness, and they have trouble seeing the solution that is right in front of them.

Sound familiar? Press “D” for Obamacare, amnesty, and executive overreach. Press “R” for Obamacare, amnesty, and executive overreach.

But, though mainstream America may feel a growing sense of helplessness to influence the direction of the behemoth inside the Beltway, there is a solution. We just have to change our attitude about politics and then try a different approach.

A major thesis of Waking the Sleeping Giant: How Mainstream America Can Beat Liberals at Their Own Game is that mainstream America confuses civics with politics. We think that politics is about voting and winning elections. When the election is over, we go back to work and wonder why government doesn’t listen to us. But the far left and K Street lobbyists understand that politics is about pressure. Regardless of which names are on the doors, the leftists and the lobbyists keep the pressure on long after the election until they get their way.

But if a handful of left wing activists and K Street lobbyists can successfully pressure government to carry out their agenda, what could millions of mainstream Americans do if they decided to put serious pressure on Washington that continued long after Election Day?

That’s where the Citizens Mandate comes in. Signed by conservatives such as Richard Viguerie, Phyllis Schlafly, bestselling novelist Brad Thor, and dozens of others – including this writer – the Mandate reminds the new Congress point by point of the 2014 electoral mandate to stop the radical transformation of America. Started as a collaborative effort among grassroots conservatives, however, the Mandate has the potential to become a movement that Washington cannot ignore.

Citizens who support the principles of the Mandate can join in by linking to it and spreading the word on social media and through their personal networks. Call talk radio shows to talk about the Mandate and express your support. Get tea party groups to endorse and publicize the Mandate. Get your county, district, and state GOP committees to endorse the Mandate and remind elected Republicans that the wave that put them in office is still rolling. Call your Representatives and Senators before work and again when you get home.

And don’t fall for parliamentary sleight-of-hand in which members of Congress claim to oppose a bill that is unpopular with their constituents while voting behind the scenes for rules that ensure its passage. Find websites and blogs written by experts who study those obscure rules and who can keep you informed about what’s really going on behind the curtain in the political theater.

The sleeping giant of mainstream America woke up and voted in 2014, but the mandate inherent in that vote is being ignored. Now it’s time for that giant to speak in a clear and sustained voice that rattles the windows in the halls of power.

Diversity is Destructive

'Diversity' in Action

1/20/2015 - Thomas Sowell Townhall.com

Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe, and European governments' counter-attacks are more than just a passing news story.

Europe is currently in the process of paying the price for years of importing millions of people from a culture hostile to the fundamental values of Western culture. And this is by no means the last of the installments of that price, to be paid in blood and lives, for smug elites' Utopian self-indulgences in moral preening and gushing with the magic word "diversity."

Generations yet unborn will still be paying the price, whether in large or small installments, depending on how long it takes for the West to jettison Utopianism and come to grips with reality.

Meanwhile, in the United States, no one seems to be drawing any lessons about the dangers of importing millions of people from fundamentally different cultures across our open border. In America, "diversity" has still not yet lost its magical ability to stop thought in its tracks and banish facts into the outer darkness.

Perhaps here, as in Europe, that verbal magic can only be washed away in the blood of innocent victims, many of them yet unborn.

To cross our open border with Mexico, you don't have to be Mexican or even from Central America. You can be from Iran, Syria or other hotbeds of Middle Eastern terrorism.

It is one of the monumental examples of political irresponsibility that the southern border has not been secured during administrations of either party, despite promises and posturing.

Many fine people have come here from Mexico. But, as with any other group, some are just the opposite. With open borders, however, we don't even know how many people who cross that border are Mexican, much less anything more relevant, like their education, diseases, criminal records or terrorist ties.

There are some politicians -- both Democrats and Republicans -- who just want to get the issue behind them, and are prepared to leave the consequences for others to deal with in the future, just as they are leaving a staggering national debt for others to deal with in the future.

These consequences include irreversible changes in the American population. Ethnic "leaders" and welfare state goodies guarantee the fragmentation of the population, with never-ending strife among the fragments. People who enter the country illegally will get, not only equal benefits with the American people who created those benefits, they will get more than many American citizens, thanks to affirmative action.

We cannot simply let in everyone who wants to come to America, or there will be no America to come to. Cultures matter -- and not all cultures are mutually compatible, as Europeans are belatedly learning, the hard way. And "assimilation" is a dirty word to multiculturalists.

State and local officials who blithely violate their oath to uphold the law, and indulge themselves in the moral posturing of declaring their domains to be "sanctuaries" for people who entered the country illegally, are unlikely to reconsider until disastrous consequences become far too big to ignore -- which is to say, until it is too late.

Meanwhile, harsh punishments are reserved for people in business who fail to carry out the law-enforcement duties that elected officials openly declare they are not going to carry out.

To many in the media, the only question seems to be whether we are going to be "mean-spirited" toward people who want to come here -- especially children who were brought here, or sent here, "through no fault of their own."

It is as if those children had some pre-existing right to be in the United States, which they could lose only if they did something bad themselves. But those children had no more right to be here than children in India, Africa or other places with millions of children living in poverty.

Surely we can think ahead enough to realize that children living in this country illegally are going to grow up and have children of their own, with cultures and values of their own -- and ethnic "leaders" to promote discontent and hostility if they don't get as good results as people who have the prevailing American culture, beginning with the English language.

You can't wish that away by saying the magic word "diversity" -- not after we have seen what "diversity" has led to in Europe.

Simple Answer: Enforce Current Immigration Laws

How Republicans Want To Reframe The Immigration Debate

1/13/2015 - Conn Carroll Townhall.com

Are you for or against "immigration reform"?

That is the question conservatives who oppose amnesty are tired of hearing. No one (conservative, moderate, or liberal) believes the current immigration system is working. The only real question is how should it be fixed.

For too long, many conservatives believe, pro-amnesty voices have defined the debate. What should we do with the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country today? Should we deport them or legalize them? How can American businesses get the foreign workers they need? How will our immigration policies affect Central American migrants?

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) believes a very important group has been left out of this liberal framing entirely: the American worker. In a 22-page memo hand delivered to ever Republican congressmen today, Sessions writes:

Republicans—who stood alone in Congress to save America from the President’s immigration bill and who alone have fought against his executive amnesty—must define themselves as the party of the American worker, the party of higher wages, and the one party that defends the American people from Democrats’ extreme agenda of open borders and economic stagnation.

Sessions' memo notes that the foreign-born population of the United States actually fell from 1930 through 1950, before leveling off through the 1970, a time when American wages rose steadily. But since then, the foreign population has surged significantly, rising from 14 million in 1980 to more than 41 million today. During that same time period American worker wages have stagnated and have actually fallen by about $2,000 since 1980. 

Sessions does not believe this decline in American worker wages and the explosion of the foreign-born population are a coincidence. He writes:

Immigration policy directly affects voters in ways that Washington “experts” do not see or understand. It impacts their jobs, wages, hospitals, schools, communities, and security. The failure of politicians to understand these real and deep concerns has produced an increasingly large gap between what politicians say about immigration and what voters actually think. (Imagine for a moment immigration policy from the perspective of an American worker who has lost his job to lower-paid labor from abroad). Many inside the DC bubble have no awareness that immigration rates have quadrupled to record levels, that all net employment growth over the last 14 years has gone to foreign workers, or that studies indicate the surplus of labor being brought into the U.S. has been driving a precipitous decline in workers’ wages. And while these realities are never covered by the Beltway media, they are experienced by working people across the nation. 

Sessions recommends that Republicans pursue "discrete, targeted enforcement measures" that would help slow the growth of the foreign born population, including: mandatory E-Verify, ending tax credits for illegal immigrants; canceling federal funds to sanctuary cities, ending catch-and-release on the border, and suspension of visas to countries with high overstay rates.

The memo does not spend much time on Obama's November amnesty, but he does warn that, "how Congress responds to this emergency will define its legacy," and he bemoans the focus on the Keystone Pipeline and Trade Promotion Authority, "while funding DHS is treated more as a hurdle to clear than a line in the sand."

Separately, Sessions has endorsed Rep. Rob Aderholt's (R-AL) amendment to the Department of Homeland Security funding bill, which would not only defund Obama's November 2014 Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) amnesty, but also his June 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) amnesty as well. 

The Aderholt bill even reaches back to a series of memos written by former Immigration and Customs Enforcement director John Morton that made it much easier for illegal immigrants to avoid deportation but did not give them work permits as the DAPA and DACA programs do.

Even if the Aderholt bill amendment is attached to the DHS funding bill, it is highly unlikely it would survive a Senate Democrat filibuster. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV), Jon Tester (D-MT), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), Angus King (I-ME), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) have all come out against the provision.

But, by trying a more comprehensive attack on Obama's amnesties first, conservatives may make it easier to pass a narrower measure that undoes the November 2014 amnesty by limiting the number of work permits the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services office can issue each year.

But conservatives will have to convince House Republican leadership to fight on the issue first. Which is what Sessions' memo is designed to do.

Fallacy of Failure to ENFORCE Immingration Laws

Obama’s Amnesty Further Fractures America

11/24/2014  By Peter Morici Townhall.com

 

President Obama’s decision to ignore the law by granting de facto amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants brought to America as children and those who are parents of children with legal status was a terribly foolish act. It will only serve to exacerbate racial tensions.

Polls indicate the overwhelming majority of whites view illegal immigration as threatening. Many see immigrants as taking jobs from native-born Americans, pushing down wages and contributing to cultural decline.

While many may silently harbor racial bigotry, the adverse economic consequences for whites are real and palpable.

Illegal immigration increases the supply of low-skilled workers, and that drives down wages for less educated whites and African-Americans.

Millions of illegals will qualify for work permits and be able to take more visible, better-paying jobs. Native born Americans will face more competition for positions paying significantly above the federal minimum. For example, those paying between the averages for the hospitality and construction industries—$17 and $25 per hour, respectively.

Exacerbating racial tensions among highly skilled professionals, elite universities, reflecting years of pressure from the Department of Education, divide admissions along informal racial quotas, and that disadvantages white applicants.

A group called Students for Fair Admissions has brought suit in federal court against Harvard and the University of North Carolina charging that practice discriminates against Asians, who tend to be the best academically qualified racial group.

If they prevail, and given the inclinations of the administration to pressure schools to admit African-Americans and Hispanics, even more white applicants would be squeezed out of top universities their antecedents founded and endowed.

Already many academically qualified children of successful white professionals are denied access to universities of the same status their parents attended, and consequently face much diminished career and lifetime earnings prospects.

The president’s recent actions will increase the pools of Hispanic and Asian college immigrants and applicants and further exacerbate intergenerational downward economic mobility among whites.

Last fall, when asked if he had the authority to end the deportation of illegal aliens, Obama responded, “Actually, I don’t” and that he could not appease immigrant advocates by violating the law.

Many Hispanics and Asians come from countries with recent histories of authoritarian governments or governments where a single party has maintained control, and national leaders simply do what populist sentiments requires—the law be damned.

Appeasing Hispanic and Asia voters, that is exactly what president Obama did with his executive order granting de facto amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.

It is not difficult to see why many white Americans would perceive illegal immigration as undermining their culture and the rule of law, and see Democrats as opportunists who would trash the constitution to maintain their grasp on power.

No one should be surprised that large majorities voted for Republican congressional candidates in November and Governor Romney in 2012.

Given the concentration of Hispanics, Asians and African-Americans in New York, California and several swing states like Virginia, the Democrats have a good shot at winning most presidential elections in coming years.

However, white voters still account for about 70 of the eligible voters, and given their particular dominance in more-sparsely populated states and the south, Republicans will likely continue to hold the House and Senate most of the time.

Still, the constitution does not provide white Americans with a remedy when a president by-passes congress and abuses executive power to satisfy a constituency that puts its agenda above the rule of law.

Impeachment is not a viable option, and Republicans lawmakers face uncertain prospects at best for successfully challenging executive orders in federal court.

Whites face a government that is explicitly working against their interests, the economic prospects of their children, and democratic processes they have spent more than 200 years defending.

If that is not a recipe for racial animus, I don’t know what is.

Peter Morici is an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland, and a national columnist. He tweets @pmorici1

Another Example of Government Gone Wild

When Illegal Aliens Replace American Soldiers

Conservative Daily December 30, 2014 Fellow Conservative,

The United States and NATO have officially ended the War in Afghanistan. I hope that this is real… I hope that prematurely pulling out doesn’t throw the country into anarchy like Iraq… But considering that the Taliban is already claiming victory and vowing to retake the country, I have serious doubts.

But the fact remains that major military operations in Afghanistan have officially ended. Sure, there might be some surgical operations done alongside Afghan security forces but for all intents and purposes, the war is now over.

With that, many of our men and women will be coming home for good. And when they get stateside, there will likely be a pink slip waiting for them in their mailbox.

This has been going on for years. I have family members who were given an ultimatum: accept a demotion and a pay cut or retire early from the military. They ultimately chose the latter.

On it’s own, this isn’t out of the ordinary. After World War II, the U.S. Military underwent a mass demotion of its officer corps. In October of 1946, the War Department demoted 212 Generals to the rank of Colonel. Without a war, there isn’t a need for a large officer corps.

Here’s the problem: While AMERICANS are being laid off and forced to retire from the military, the Pentagon is actively recruiting illegal aliens to effectively take their places.

Under Obama’s amnesty executive action, illegal aliens will now be eligible to serve more in the military. Not only that, but funds have been allocated to specifically recruit illegal aliens.

Listen… if an illegal alien serves this country in the military and is discharged honorably, I have no problem with them becoming eligible for citizenship.

What I do have a problem with is that while American soldiers and officers are being told to pack their bags, illegal aliens are going to be taking their place.

It’s just so ridiculous. If budget cuts are the reason behind these mass demotions/lay-offs, how on earth could the Army afford to actively recruit illegal aliens?

A lot has been written on Obama purging the military. I’m not sure if I believe all the conspiracy theories, but this purge is definitely happening. As I have said, I have family members and friends who were forced out. The military is downsizing and every day, more and more soldiers and officers are being let go.

To think that these distinguished Americans would be forced out of the Armed Forces and replaced by illegal aliens is unconscionable. But it is happening. Whether it is deliberate or unintentional, the Pentagon is effectively replacing Americans with illegals.

If there isn’t room for Americans in Uncle Sam’s military, there sure shouldn’t be room for illegal aliens!

But I guess this is what Barack Obama’s America looks like… But it doesn’t have to be this way!

I, for one, refuse to just sit back and watch this. Whether this is deliberate or unintentional, it cannot be allowed to stand!

No American serviceman or woman should EVER be let go and then replaced by an illegal alien!

Congress MUST put a stop to the Obama administration’s purge policy and we need to force this onto the GOP’s agenda!