In First Year of New Program, Deportation Is Deferred for 400,000 Young Immigrants

About 400,000 "Dreamers" have been allowed to stay in the United States in the year since the Obama administration began accepting applications for young illegal immigrants to defer deportation proceedings and receive work permits, according to data compiled by the Brookings Institution and released on the anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The numbers show that out of more than a half-million applicants for deferred action, more than three-quarters were accepted and just 1 percent denied. The applications were concentrated in states that already have large immigrant communities, such as California, Texas, New York, Illinois, and Florida. On the East Coast, the applications were from a more diverse set of countries while in the West, Midwest, and South the vast majority of applicants were from Mexico.

"DACA has been an incredible success for our country," said Congressional Hispanic Caucus Chairman Ruben Hinojosa, D-Texas. "To date we have given 400,000 young immigrants the ability to continue to contribute to this country, the only country that most of these outstanding individuals have ever known."

Via: National Journal

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Appeals court rules Michigan right-to-work law applies to state workers

LANSING, Mich. –  A divided Michigan appeals court ruled Thursday that the state's right-to-work law applies to 35,000 state employees.

In the first major legal decision on the much-debated, Republican-backed law eight months after its passage, judges voted 2-1 to reject a lawsuit filed by labor unions. The passage of the measure drew thousands of protesters to the state Capitol late last year.

The law prohibits forcing public and private workers in Michigan to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment, and applies to labor contracts extended or renewed after late March. It went to court after questions were raised whether it applies to state workers, since the Michigan Civil Service Commission, which sets compensation for state employees, has separate powers under the state constitution.

The majority said lawmakers have the authority to pass laws dealing with union fees.

"In light of the First Amendment rights at stake, the Michigan Legislature has made the policy decision to settle the matter by giving all employees the right to choose," Judges Henry Saad and Pat Donofrio wrote.

The dissent said the court's decision strips the civil service panel of its "regulatory supremacy."

Multiple lawsuits have been filed to strike down the law in a mainstay of organized labor. Legal challenges in neighboring Indiana, which passed a right-to-work law just before Michigan did, have been unsuccessful.

Via: Fox News

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Report: DHS spends $600,000 to buy $100,000 homes

The Homeland Security Department spent $600,000 apiece to build houses in Arizona that would have gone for less than $100,000, according to a report in the Arizona Republic that’s raising questions in Congress.

“This type of spending is irresponsible as our nation faces significant budget deficits and the men and women in the Border Patrol face cuts in overtime that are essential to their mission,” Rep. Ron Barber, the Arizona Democrat in whose district the homes were built, said in a statement Friday.

The Republic said Homeland Security built 21 homes and bought 20 other mobile homes for $15 million. 

Comparable homes go for between $70,000 and $100,000, the paper said. The homes were built to be rented to border agents and officers.

Homeland Security officials repeatedly refused to answer the newspaper’s questions about the project, the Republic said.

Mr. Barber is the ranking Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee’s oversight panel, and said he will use that role to get to the bottom of the spending.

Via: Washington TImes

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Pediatrician Fears Obamacare Will Diminish Care

When pediatrician Dr. Rosemary Fernandez Stein and her husband set out to start up a pediatric group in 1999, their goal was to provide outstanding medical service to underserved populations in Burlington, N.C.—primarily Hispanic patients who often had limited access to care.

Back then, some of the biggest concerns were keeping overhead and health care costs low, malpractice insurance, and having enough supplies for patient use. Today, Obamacare is high on Dr. Stein’s mind.

“I keep worrying about what will happen to our long-term disabled patients who are in pediatrics,” says Dr. Stein, who co-owns International Family Clinic. With an influx of 15 million Americans expected to enroll in Medicaid through the health law, Dr. Stein worries available resources could be limited for her patients.

On an average day, the practice sees about 75 to 80 patients, with 75 percent of them receiving their health coverage from Medicaid, the federal-state public health program. “It could limit the options I have for a patient with Down syndrome that also has terrible heart defects.”

Another big stressor is the diminishing choices doctors have when serving Medicaid patients. “With Medicaid and many insurers we accept, we have to get authorization for using medication that is stronger or better,” Stein says. “This requirement for extra work in filling out paperwork, doing it online, or calling an authorization center is going to push a lot of doctors to change their habits. And I don’t think that will always be in the best interest of the patients.”

Via: The Foundry

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Barack the Lawgiver By Charles Krauthammer

Obama sees the Constitution’s separation of powers as a quaint anachronism. 

As a reaction to the crack epidemic of the 1980s, many federal drug laws carry strict mandatory sentences. This has stirred unease in Congress and sparked a bipartisan effort to revise and relax some of the more draconian laws.

Traditionally — meaning before Barack Obama — that’s how laws were changed: We have a problem, we hold hearings, we find some new arrangement, which is ratified by Congress and signed by the president.

That was then. On Monday, Attorney General Eric Holder, a liberal in a hurry, ordered all U.S. attorneys to simply stop charging nonviolent, non-gang-related drug defendants with crimes that, while fitting the offense, carry mandatory sentences. Find some lesser, non-triggering charge. How might you do that? Withhold evidence — e.g., about the amount of dope involved.

In other words, evade the law, by deceiving the court if necessary. “If the companies that I represent in federal criminal cases” did that, said former deputy attorney general George Terwilliger, “they could be charged with a felony.”

But such niceties must not stand in the way of an administration’s agenda. Indeed, the very next day, it was revealed that the administration had unilaterally waived Obamacare’s cap on a patient’s annual out-of-pocket expenses — a one-year exemption for selected health insurers that is nowhere permitted in the law. It was simply decreed by an obscure Labor Department regulation.

Which followed a presidentially directed 70-plus percent subsidy for the insurance premiums paid by congressmen and their personal staffs — under a law that denies subsidies for anyone that well-off.

Via: National Review

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EPA Head: ‘The Challenge Today Is Just To Stop Arguing About’ Climate Change

WE ALL KNOW YOU ARE TRYING TO  SELL A NON -EXISTANT ARGUMENT

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The newly appointed administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday the only way to confront climate-change challenges and environmental problems facing agriculture is for farmers and government agencies to work together.

Gina McCarthy, EPA administrator for three weeks, said she accepted Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad’s invitation to the Iowa State Fair to celebrate steps Iowa is taking to control the runoff of farm fertilizer and manure.

Her brief speech was positive and repeatedly stressed the theme of collaboration. She declined to take questions from reporters and left the Iowa Farm Bureau building on the state fairgrounds after posing for a few photos without further comment.

“The challenge today is just to stop arguing about the problem and really start driving solutions,” she said in the speech.

She said President Barack Obama will continue to speak out about climate change and ways to deal with its impact — including the possibility of more frequent droughts and floods, problems Iowa farmers are familiar with.

She promised that by the end of her tenure at the EPA, the relationship between the agency and the agriculture community will be more productive and trusting.

Via: CBS DC

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Egyptian blood runs as supporters march in 'Friday of anger'

Violent and bloody protests continued to rage throughout Egypt Friday, as Muslim Brotherhood backers clashed with fellow Muslims, security forces and  Christians in what was designated a "Day of Rage."

As night fell, rioters ignored a curfew and called for protests to continue into next week. Coptic churches were set ablaze, security forces and backers of ousted President Mohammad Morsi exchanged gunfire and the day's death toll swelled past 60. The figure was well below the two-day toll of 638 for Wednesday and Thursday, but observers saw no signs of hope the bloodshed would end anytime soon.

"We call on the Egyptian people and national forces to protest daily until the coup ends," the Muslim Brotherhood said in a statement in reference to the army's overthrow of Morsi last month, according to a Reuters report.

"We call on the Egyptian people and national forces to protest daily until the coup ends."

- Muslim Brotherhood statement

Twenty-four members of the Egyptian police force have been killed since late Thursday night across the country, a security official told Reuters Friday, bringing the number of police killed in political violence to 67 since Wednesday.

Heavy gunfire rang out throughout Cairo as Muslim Brotherhood supporters clashed with vigilante residents in the fiercest street battles to engulf the capital since the country's Arab Spring uprising. 

Via: Fox News

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Media Mash: Bozell, Hannity Slam MSNBC for Still Insisting Boston Bombers Were Not Islamists

One day before the one-year anniversary of Floyd Lee Corkins's failed terror attack on the Family Research Council -- he was inspired by a "hate map" by the Southern Poverty Law Center -- MSNBC brought on SPLC's Mark Potok to mislead viewers about the nature of the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing, insisting that the Tsarnaev brothers were not motivated by radical Islamic ideology so much as by right-leaning conspiracy theorist websites that investigators found in Tamerlan Tsarnaev's search history.

"This isn't the first time MSNBC has done this," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell reminded Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity during Hannity's August 15 "Media Mash" segment. Indeed, it was Hardball host Chris Matthews who on the day of the attack theorized that it was a homegrown right-wing terrorist responsible for the bombing because it occurred on Tax Day, Bozell noted. What's more, the Media Research Center founder added

Look at the group that they cite who give the quote. The Southern Poverty Law Center. Talk about a hate group. This is a group that has branded as a hate group, a Christian group for professing Christianity, the Family Research [Council].

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev admitted that he and his brother planted the bombs to retaliate for deaths of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan. But that is of no consequence to MSNBC, which insists on distorting the news to fit its preferred narratives.

Also discussed during the Media Mash segment was the liberal media's outrage at a new voter ID law in North Carolina which requires a valid government-issued photo ID to vote:

Look the reason 75 percent of the public supports this is because it's common sense. The only thing that you're doing is you're safeguarding free elections. You're preventing fraud. The only thing that's being repressed is people who are cheating. So anybody who talks about voter repression, understand, they are supporting people who would cheat.

Via: Newsbusters

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