Conservative Happenings

Saturday, July 11, 2015

[VIDEO] ‘This Interview Is Over': Clinton Backer Hangs Up On Host After Grilling Over Clinton Emails

Former Clinton White House special counsel Lanny Davis hung up on Newsmax TV host Steve Malzberg Friday after the host grilled him over Hillary Clinton’s email scandal.

The Newsmax TV host opened up the interview by bringing up the fact that Clinton claimed that she never received a subpoena over her emails, even though Rep. Trey Gowdy revealed on Wednesday that Clinton did indeed receive one in March.

Davis went on the defensive immediately, telling Malzberg that Clinton was referring to not getting one prior to her giving her emails to the State Department.

“Why did Hillary say she never got a subpoena on CNN when there have been several subpoenas?” Malzberg asked initially.

“Okay, she said she never got a subpoena in the context of a question of whether she had a subpoena prior to her delivering the emails to the State Department,” Davis responded. “That was the question she answered. A time specific answer, she had not gotten a subpoena at that time. I think she probably misunderstood that it would be interpreted this way. But knowing Trey Gowdy, who’s never answered the question, ‘why won’t you call her publicly to testify why you won’t release the transcript of Sidney Blumenthal’s deposition. That’s what we should be talking about.”

“I don’t really care about that Lanny,” Malzberg said. “I don’t care about that. I’m here to talk about Hillary, not Trey Gowdy.

“Well, what I care about is telling you these answers that I choose to answer,” Davis said. “Not the one you want me to. I gave you the answer.”

Via: Daily Caller

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION DEFIES SUPREME COURT, ISSUES FINAL CONTRACEPTIVE MANDATE RULE

Despite repeatedly losing its cases over the Obamacare contraceptive mandate at the U.S. Supreme Court, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday that it will continue to force religious organizations to distribute contraceptives – including the “week-after pill” – to their employees.

As a news release at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty states, the Obama administration has been handed “multiple losses in contraceptive mandate cases at the Supreme Court,” including the Hobby Lobby decision, and cases involving the Little Sisters of the Poor and Wheaton College.

Last week, the Supreme Court ordered the Obama administration not to enforce the contraceptive mandate against Catholic organizations from Pennsylvania, making this case the government’s sixth loss in a row at the Supreme Court. Currently, four petitionsare before the Supreme Court asking for final resolution of the issue by June 2016.

“The government keeps digging the hole deeper,” said Adèle Auxier Keim, legal counsel at the Becket Fund. “Just last week the Supreme Court ordered HHS not to enforce the exact rules they finalized today. But the government still won’t give up on its quest to force nuns and other religious employers to distribute contraceptives.”

“Especially after the Supreme Court’s recent King v. Burwell decision allowed the government to expand its healthcare exchanges, there is no reason at all the government needs religious employers to help it distribute these products,” she added.

As Keim observes, the Obama administration has already told thousands of businesses they need not comply with the HHS mandate at all.

“So why is it continuing to go out of its way to force religious objectors, from nuns to business owners, to do something it is more than capable of doing itself?” she asks.

Via: Breitbart

ISIS: 0; TED KENNEDY: TOO MANY TO COUNT by Ann Coulter

In the days leading up to July Fourth weekend, Americans were hysterically warned about an ISIS attack in the United States. Congressman Peter King, for example, somberly advised Fox News viewers that "this is the most concerned I've seen the FBI and Homeland Security" since 9/11.

And, once again, the weekend came and went without anyone in America being killed by ISIS, but a lot of people being killed by immigrants -- legal, illegal, second generation and anchor babies. There's no way to know exactly how many Americans were killed July Fourth weekend as a result of the country's immigration policies, because the media don't trust us with the truth.

But the holiday weekend kicked off with the news that an illegal alien from Mexico, Francisco Sanchez, had shot and killed 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle on Wednesday on a San Francisco pier. The most surprising aspect of the crime was that we were told right away that Steinle's suspected killer was an illegal alien. Usually, we only find out that the perp was an immigrant years later when the Spanish translators show up in court.

The day after Steinle was shot to death, the Associated Press reported that members of the Mexican mafia and their associates -- Loribeth Martinez, John Mendoza Jr., Kristopher Sanchez and Veronica Sanchez -- had been arrested for the murder of two people, Traci Lynn Lemley and Jeremy Carrico, in San Antonio, Texas.

Also on Thursday:

-- A fifth suspect in a shooting in Las Vegas, Benjamin Hernandez, was arrested. He joined Yors "Cuete" Garcia-Mier, Nicholas Pedro "Silent" Cortes, Miguel "Trips" Salazar and Jeiszon Valles in jail for the killing.

-- In New Jersey, an illegal alien from Ecuador was indicted for attempting to murder his ex-wife by stabbing her with a steak knife in front of one of their children. (Gosh -- I hope all those kids were born here, so the media can start referring to them as "American citizens" right away.)

-- The bodies of two Americans, Michael Careccia and his wife, Tina, were dug out of the Arizona desert, and Jose Valenzuela, was arrested for their murder.

-- An illegal immigrant from Mexico, Juan Francisco de Luna Vasquez, murdered his wife with a hammer in Laredo, Texas. Vasquez had previously been charged with assault, making terroristic threats, DWI and evading arrest. It just sounds awful to be living in the shadows like that!

That was Thursday. And I didn't even include drunk driving fatalities, a specialty of our Latin American immigrants. (It may not be a good idea to pluck people from the Mayan jungle and put them directly on American roads and highways.)

On Friday, as Americans worried about the imminent ISIS attack:

-- Prudencio Juan Fragos-Ramirez, an illegal alien in Washington state, was accused of murdering an 18-year-old and her toddler son, then setting the pair on fire.

-- Irina Kolenkina, a Russian immigrant who does not speak English, was ordered to stand trial for the murder of her husband in Vienna, Wisconsin. Kolenkina had to be put into restraints because she became so combative upon her arrest.

-- Illegal immigrant Sinar Roblero Escalante found out he would get off scot-free for killing a 24-year-old man in East Naples, Florida, 10 years ago in a car accident. After the crash, Escalante had fled the scene on foot. He went on the lam and is believed to have hid out in Mexico for at least part of that time -- thus, outlasting the statute of limitations. Escalante was recently re-arrested after being caught in his car with a baggie of cocaine on his lap.

-- In another immigration success story, Andrew Romero assaulted a prison guard in New Mexico last week. Romero is awaiting trial on charges that he murdered Rio Rancho Police officer Gregg Benner.

-- On our nation's birthday, it was reported that Brogenet Cinor, a Haitian voodoo priest, was arrested for child rape in Florida.

-- On Monday, an illegal alien from Mexico engaged in a fatal hit-and-run accident in Bellingham, Washington, then fled the scene of the accident. Witnesses described a "short Hispanic man" running from the car, which was littered with empty beer bottles and a case of Modelo Especial. The illegal farm worker doesn't speak English, but he was able to ask for an attorney in Spanish.

In related news, a non-elderly woman in Washington state became the first person to die of measles in the U.S. since 2003.

On the bright side, heading into the July 4 weekend, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that it is reconsidering its policy of releasing convicted criminal illegal aliens into the public without warning. This was the agency's lightning-fast response to the murder of 21-year-old Grant Ronnebeck by a Mexican illegal alien in Arizona last January.

Apolinar Altamirano had been released by ICE because the charge on his conviction sheet was "burglary," which our public servants deemed a "nonviolent" offense. But burglary was merely the charge Altamirano had agreed to in a plea bargain. His actual crime, according to the victim, was to break into her home with two accomplices, steal all her belongings, kidnap and rape her.

Mexico really is sending us its best people!

Some of these crimes were committed by legal residents -- even "citizens." But without Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration act, combined with Justice William Brennan's 1982 anchor baby invention, the "Mexican mafia" would not be living in America, much less be "citizens."

Just as America's immigration policies began favoring people from cultures as different from ours as possible, we also began providing government assistance to any loser immigrants and refusing to deport the criminals.

There's no question but that the only reason any of this week's criminal immigrants are in America at all is because of Ted Kennedy's 1965 immigration act.

Now go back to worrying about ISIS.

Via: Ann Coulter.

Oregon Wedding Cakes Are Just the Excuse

Theoretically, liberalism picks pluralism over public morality, nowhere more so than in the intimate realm of human sexuality.

But the regulatory state has gotten so large, and so powerful, with such extensive reach into Americans’ livelihoods, that the Left cannot resist using it to impose its sexual moral views on the rest of us.

Take Melissa and Aaron Klein, whose little Oregon bakery refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple. It is not technically a crime to refuse to bake a gay wedding cake, so instead of being tried in a court of law, they were tried by the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries.

Why can gay bakers refuse to bake a Celebrate NOM (the National Organization for Marriage) cake, but Aaron and Melissa Klein must bake a gay wedding cake or pay the penalty? Because the regulatory state is now redirecting to this realm the powerful public-accommodations mechanisms that were strengthened to put an end to Jim Crow — the systematic, ugly attempt by powerful Southerners to deprive black people of equal opportunities in the economy and the culture.

For African Americans, this was a horrendous problem. In 1906, Mary Church Terrell, an Oberlin grad and the daughter of two ex-slaves who rose to be successful Memphis business owners, gave a speech at the United Women’s Club in Washington, D.C., where she explained:

As a colored woman I might enter Washington any night, a stranger in a strange land, and walk miles without finding a place to lay my head. . . . Indians, Chinamen, Filipinos, Japanese and representatives of any other dark race can find hotel accommodations, if they can pay for them. The colored man alone is thrust out of the hotels of the national capital like a leper.

As a colored woman I may walk from the Capitol to the White House ravenously hungry and abundantly supplied with money with which to purchase a meal, without finding a single restaurant in which I would be permitted to take a morsel of food . . .

As a colored woman, I cannot visit the tomb of the Father of this country . . . without being forced to sit in the Jim Crow section of an electric car . . .

Nothing (thankfully) like this is happening to gay people. There is no complex of the economically and culturally powerful seeking to prevent their free access to ordinary American society. They have not only the courts but also the corporations on their side. Not only does Walmart fund gay-pride parades, its CEO publicly opposed Arkansas’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Via: National Review

Unreal: CNN Blames Republicans For Gross Incompetence Of Obama’s OPM Appointee…

CNN posted this tweet after she stepped down earlier today:

Which links to this story (note the headline):

Via: Weasel Zippers

Rasmussen: Most Americans Want Feds to Punish Sanctuary Cities

Nearly two-thirds of likely U.S. voters want the Department of Justice to take legal action against so-called sanctuary cities that do not enforce most national immigration laws, according to a new survey.

Rasmussen Reports polled voters and found that 62 percent of them want the government to step in and punish cities for essentially providing safe haven for illegal immigrants. That amounts to 79 percent of Republicans, 65 percent of unaffiliated voters, and 43 percent of Democrats.

Fifty-eight percent of those voters would like to see the federal government cut off funding to more than 200 such cities across the nation, a figure that includes 79 percent of Republicans.

Sanctuary cities have been in the news after a San Francisco woman was allegedly shot and killed by an illegal immigrant who was taking refuge in the city. He had been deported five times, and the shooting appears to be a random murder.

Presidential candidates, including Republicans Jeb Bush and Rand Paul, along with Democrat Hillary Clinton, criticized sanctuary cities this week.

"The city made a mistake, not to deport someone that the federal government strongly felt should be deported," Clinton said, according to CBS News.

Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican, introduced legislation this week aimed at repealing sanctuary laws.

The discussion on sanctuary cities is just another rung on the national immigration debate that has raged for months, ever since President Barack Obama took executive action last fall that would grant amnesty to as many as 5 million illegal immigrants currently living in the U.S. The order is currently held up in the court system.

Real estate mogul Donald Trump, a Republican candidate for president, injected new life into the debate when he criticized both the policy and the illegals crossing the border.

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're not sending you. They're not sending you. They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems to us," said Trump, who clarified his remarks in an op-ed for Newsmax this week. "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people!

Via: Newsmax

Federal Judge Orders Cancellation of Redskins’ Trademark Registration

Read more at http://shark-tank.com/2015/07/09/federal-judge-orders-cancellation-of-redskins-trademark-registration/On Wednesday, a federal judge ordered the cancellation of the Washington Redskins federal trademark registrations. It is the biggest blow to the NFL team thus far.

The cancellation is seen as a “huge victory” by the activists but according to the Washington Post, it does not go into effect until the team has exhausted the appeals process.

Redskins President, Bruce Allen is not giving up. He said:

We are convinced that we will win on appeal as the facts and the law are on the side of our franchise that has proudly used the name Washington Redskins for more than 80 years.

Even if the Redskins take the issue to the Supreme Court and lose they can still use “Redskins” and seek trademark protection from the state. The team is arguing the cancellation of their trademark will tarnish their brand and remove legal benefits that would protect them against copycats.

The NFL team is arguing the majority of Native Americans are not offended by there name whereas the opposition is saying they find it very offensive and want it changed.

Five Native American activists have been pursuing the case against the Redskins. They include Amanda Blackhorse who is a Navajo Indian known for leading protests against the team.

Blackhorse has said:

This case is about humanizing the indigenous identity. I have asked this many times before and have never heard a sensible answer — if people wouldn’t date all a Native American a ‘redskin’ because they know it is offensive, how can an NFL football team have this name?

Other courts have concluded Blackhorse did not reach the burden of proof by showing enough Native Americans find the NFL teams name offensive.

Via: The Shark Tank

[VIDEO] Baltimore's Next Police Chief Faces Demoralized Department

Baltimore's next police commissioner will have a daunting to-do list: quell a surge in homicides, rebuild trust between officers and the public, win the confidence of a demoralized and alienated department, and keep the peace when the explosive Freddie Gray case comes to trial.

"It's the toughest job in the United States at the moment," said Eugene O'Donnell, a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York and a former New York City police officer.

Commissioner Anthony Batts was fired by the mayor on Wednesday, less than three months after riots erupted over Gray's death from a spinal injury the 25-year-old black man suffered while being bounced around the back of a moving police van. Six officers are awaiting trial in October on charges ranging up to murder.

"You have a confluence of factors: You have an ongoing criminal case that's traumatic for everybody. You have the specter of riots. For the police union and officers, they're alienated, and the concern is that the cops will be further alienated," O'Donnell said. "You need a chief who can, first and foremost, drive everyone toward common ground."

In dismissing Batts, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said his approach was too divisive and his presence too damaging.

Just hours before his firing, in a sign that the 2,800-officer department's rank-and-file had lost confidence in Batts, the police union issued a report blasting his response to the looting, arson and vandalism that broke out April 27. The report said Batts discouraged officers from wearing protective gear and told them not to engage with rioters. Roughly 200 officers were injured during the unrest.

"The officers characterized the Baltimore Police Department's leadership during the riots as unprepared, politically motivated and uncaring and confusing," said Gene Ryan, president of the police union.

Batts' standing was further damaged by soaring bloodshed in the city in the weeks after the riots.

In May, Baltimore saw its biggest surge in homicides in four decades, while arrests dropped by half compared with the same period a year earlier. The city's homicide total so far this year is 156, a 48 percent increase from the same time last year. And shootings have climbed 86 percent.

Community members have accused police of not doing their jobs in the wake of the Gray arrests. Batts and the police union denied that officers were shirking their duties but acknowledged that police are angry, frustrated and fearful in the wake of the Gray case of being second-guessed and prosecuted.

Peter Moskos, also with John Jay College and a former Baltimore police officer, said the Gray case led police officers to question whether the department had their backs.

"The harm from the Freddie Gray death is it had a chilling effect: Cops were saying, 'That could have been me,'" he said. But he said getting rid of Batts was "a step toward getting things on track."

"Batts was a leader without a following," Moskos said. "If none of the rank and file thinks you're competent, it's as good as being incompetent."

Batts' deputy, Kevin Davis, will serve as interim commissioner until the mayor appoints a permanent replacement. Davis said his first order of business was appointing someone to focus on riot response. Davis added that he would like to remain in the position permanently.

Via: ABC News

Goodbye, Money-Sucking Empty Buildings. Hello, Better Government?

American taxpayers are forking over $1.7 billion a year just to maintain empty federal buildings.

Each year, 12 agencies run 20 programs to study invasive species, to the tune of $1.4 billion a year.

Leaders of the Government Transformation Initiative Coalition, teaming up with members of Congress, want to change that.

They’re behind the Government Transformation Act, a bill sponsored by Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., in the House and soon to drop in the Senate, creating a commission to combine or eliminate redundant and wasteful federal programs and agencies.

“We have to honor the American people,” Steve Goodrich, CEO at the Center for Organizational Excellence and one of the coalition’s leaders, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The coalition has some experience in fiscal scrutiny, with other leadership members including David Walker, a former Government Accountability Office head, and Barry Melancon, president at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

But the trick, of course, as with anything in Washington, is making a massive overhaul of the federal government a reality. Ever so often, a new group says it has plans to fundamentally transform the way Washington works, but change comes incrementally, if at all.

In 2010 for example, President Barack Obama created the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, aka the Simpson-Bowles Commission, to shore up the United States’ fiscal future. But, that committee’s members couldn’t reach marshal enough internal support to report its findings to Congress. Fiscal reform supporters applauded the commission’s work, but it went basically nowhere.

Last year, CTI worked on similar legislation, and it failed to gain Congress’ approval. Supporters say this attempt could be different.

The bill requires Congress to take an up-or-down vote on any recommendations-turned legislation from the commission within three days. That would “force the hand of Congress,” as Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, put it.

Via: Daily Caller

[VIDEO] AWESOME: BEN CARSON TELLS STORIES OF HOW BLACK INVENTORS CAN INSPIRE TODAY’S YOUTH TO GREATNESS

We haven’t heard much from Ben Carson lately, but I ran across this clip from last month where he’s speaking in the south side of Chicago on how young people think that they can be the next big time player in professional sports when that’s just not the reality. Rather, Carson says stories of black inventors, who really made a difference in this world, can inspire today’s youth if they are simply told their stories.

Watch This:

Via: Red State

Friday, July 10, 2015

Obamacare’s Bill Is Due

ow that the Supreme Court has once again saved Obamacare, can we have an honest talk about it?

Let me explain. On one side—you don’t need me to spell out which—the Affordable Care Act was demonized. It was going to bankrupt the health care system; destroy the United States’ reputation for excellent service; steal you away from your doctor; and, by some means never quite explained, lead us straight to communism. Today, subsidized health care premiums and an end to pre-existing condition exclusions; tomorrow, Stalin and FEMA detention camps located in semisecret parts of Texas. You know how it goes.

Under this assault, all too many ACA defenders turned into fanboys and fangirls, dismissing any issue raised against the law as inconsequential and exaggerated. And besides, it’s not like legislation to improve any aspect of it would get through our paralyzed, polarized, and now Republican-run Congress anyway.

But this strategy might well come back to bite the Democrats. The bill for the health care expansion is coming due, just as the recipients will be heading to the ballot box to vote in the first primaries for the 2016 election. More than a few are likely to be annoyed.

Last week Oregon’s insurance commissioner, Laura Cali, announced that the state had approved a 25 percent premium increase for the largest health insurer on the state’s exchanges. The second largest insurer did even better: It received permission to boost its monthly charge to consumers by 33 percent.

Oregon might be the first health insurance exchange equivalent of a penguin getting shoved off an ice floe, but it won’t be alone in the freezing-cold waters for long. For example, BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee requested an average 36 percent price increase for the plans it offers—after receiving a 19 percent bump last year. And that sounds like a relative bargain compared with Minnesota and New Mexico, where the BlueCross BlueShield family is looking for increases of more than 50 percent. Even if the final numbers are lower than the asks, it seems quite likely these states will approve substantive premium increases.

The problem is simple. As Trudy Lieberman reported this month in Harper’s, the ACA made a decent stab at solving the problem of Americans lacking insurance. Unfortunately, the bargain struck to get the bill to a point where lobbyists for the hospital, insurance, and pharmaceutical industries to sign on, or at least not fight it, did not adequately address the issue of overall medical costs.

And that’s where the consumer comes in. Someone is “it,” the party paying the bill. And that “it” is increasingly you, whether you receive insurance on the exchanges or from an employer.

Via: Slate

Can Kate Steinle's Family Sue San Francisco Over Its Sanctuary City Policy?

FILE -- July 2, 2015: Liz Sullivan, left, and Jim Steinle, right, parents of Kathryn "Kate" Steinle, talk to members of the media outside their home in Pleasanton, Calif. (Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle via AP

)Looking for justice? Move to Mexico. When it comes to looking to the U.S. courts for protection, you may have a better chance if you’re from south of the border.

Kathryn "Kate" Steinle was shot dead on July 1, allegedly by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a Mexican felon who was in the U.S. illegally. Lopez-Sanchez would have been deported but for the fact that San Francisco is a "sanctuary city," which is why officials there chose to release him and ignore an ICE detainer. This effectively put him back on the street. And yet, if Steinle's family tries to sue the city for this travesty, it may be thrown out of court.

Meanwhile, in Arizona, a judge has just denied a motion to dismiss a case brought by the mother of a Mexican teen who was shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in a cross-border shooting. You read that right. The teen was Mexican, shot in Mexico, and the judge still ruled that his mother may sue the Border Patrol agent. U.S. District Court Judge Raner Collins opined that "the Mexican national may avail himself to the protections of the Fourth Amendment and that the agent may not assert qualified immunity." The ACLU attorney on the case applauded this ruling, saying, "The court was right to recognize that constitutional protections don't stop at the border."

Perhaps they begin there. If Kate Steinle's family cannot use our laws to get justice in her name, and yet the family of this Mexican teen can, the immigration debate has truly become the twilight zone.

Via: Fox News

[VIDEO] Megyn Kelly: Why Is Obama Silent on the Murder of Kate Steinle By an Illegal Immigrant?

MEGYN KELLY, HOST, "THE KELLY FILE": Breaking tonight, the young woman gunned down by an illegal immigrant in San Francisco was just laid to rest. Surrounded by friends and family. It does not appear at this hour that anyone from the Obama administration was in attendance.

Welcome to THE KELLY FILE, everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly. Funeral services were held this evening for 32-year-old Katherine Steinle. Her loved ones remembering her as an avid traveler who loved connecting with people until her life was cut short a week ago. That's when Kate was shot and killed while in her father's arms, police say by this man, Francisco Sanchez, an illegal immigrant who had been deported five times from this country and had racked up a string of felonies while in the U.S. The San Francisco sheriff had Sanchez in custody as recently as April but released him pursuant to San Francisco's sanctuary city policy where they have rules against handing over anyone to the Feds who might be deported.

This sheriff himself a convicted criminal says, he stands by the city's policy. Kate's murder has since exploded into a national debate on illegal immigrant, sanctuary cities in crime. With the White House ducking the issue of its own acquiescence in these city's decision to flout the federal immigration laws which were duly enacted. When asked repeatedly this week to speak to this case, White House Spokesman Josh Earnest declined to weigh in other than to refer folks to the Department of Homeland Security. A stark contrast to what we saw after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri. A man we now know was attacking a police officer at the time of his death. His funeral saw three Obama officials in attendance, his death drew comments from President Obama personally. And the administration also sent in the DOJ and 40 FBI agents dispatched to Missouri after Michael Brown was killed.

Where is the swarm of agents in San Francisco? Then there was Freddie Gray in Baltimore, a repeat drug offender who was killed in police custody. Here again his funeral was attended by three Obama administration officials and again the President spoke personally to Freddie Gray's death. And again, sent the DOJ in to investigate. When Trayvon Martin was killed in Florida, the President spoke to his death which was later ruled to be in self-defense. But Kate Steinle, nothing. No comments, no swarm of FBI agents, no DOJ investigation, nothing. Why?

Marc Thiessen is a FOX News contributor and the former chief presidential speechwriter for President George W. Bush. Richard Fowler is a nationally syndicated radio host. Thank you for being here, both. Marc, why?

MARC THIESSEN, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, the silence from President Obama is absolutely deafening. He had plenty to say when it came to Trayvon Martin, when it came to Michael Brown, when it came to Freddie Gray, but all of the sudden a woman is killed by a criminal alien, and all of a sudden the President is tongue tied. He's got nothing to say. Why is that? The answer is simple. In all of those other cases, he had liberal policy points that he wanted to make about gun control, about police bias, about racial profiling. In this case he has no policy points he wants to make because the policies that he supports are the ones that got this woman killed. His support for sanctuary cities, his support for releasing criminal aliens into the communities. So he doesn't want to highlight this because there's no political gain to be made from it.

KELLY: Richard, do you disagree with any word that Marc just said?

RICHARD FOWLER, NATIONALLY SYNDICATED RADIO HOST: I disagree with about 90 percent of it. I think this president is outraged that we haven't passed comprehensive immigration reform. Since this president is coming to the White House --

KELLY: Where is the comment on Kate Steinle's death?

FOWLER: Over and over and over again about comprehensive immigration reform. This president has said number of times --

KELLY: But if you could just answer my question, Richard? Could you answer my question?

FOWLER: I am answering your question, Megyn.

KELLY: Where is the comment about Kate Steinle's murder?

FOWLER: The reason why Kate Steinle's murder happened, and the White House will tell you the same thing, is because we have a broken immigration system. George Bush tried to fix it and Republicans blocked it. Now, the President has tried to fix it. Marco Rubio even tried. It was so bad that he ran away from it.

Via: Fox News

As Massachusetts food stamp agency tries to fix flaws, experienced welfare workers retire

Massachusetts welfare officials promised the federal government that they will take steps to correct problems with the state's food stamp program, including hiring more staff. However, the food stamp program just lost around 11 percent of its staff to an early retirement incentive.

"You have truly a brain drain with a system that's extremely new and extremely flawed," said Patricia Baker, senior policy analyst at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute.

Michelle Hillman, a spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, said, "We continue to assess the positions vacated due to early retirement and will prioritize based upon need and compliance with our corrective action plan."

The state has the authority to use up to 20 percent of the savings from the retirement incentive to hire new employees to fill critical jobs. It has not yet determined which positions will be filled.

The problems date back to a modernization of the food stamp program, officially called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, instituted in 2014, in response to reports of welfare fraud. The Department of Transitional Assistance created a new electronic management system that checked multiple sources of data to determine a recipient's eligibility, then began to automatically cut off benefits based on the results of online checks. The department instituted a new phone system. It centralized case processing, replacing a regional system.

As The Republican / MassLive.com previously reported, the modernization resulted in a huge drop in food stamp caseloads. Advocates for the poor said people were being needlessly kicked off the program and were having trouble reaching caseworkers to reinstate their benefits.

Via: Mass Live

Candidates call for changes in "sanctuary city" policies

As immigration continues to be a contentious issue on the campaign trail, many politicians are calling for changes in "sanctuary city" policies, reports CBS News correspondent Jan Crawford.

The idea of the policies is to support immigrants and provide assistance if they became involved with minor offenses. But the policies have come under scrutinysince the murder of a San Francisco woman, allegedly by an undocumented immigrant.

"We ought to eliminate 'sanctuary cities,"' former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said.

Play VIDEO

San Francisco under fire for "sanctuary" immigration policy

On this immigration issue, Republican presidential candidates agree.

"One of the things we've talked about in the past, and we've tried to get included with negotiations with Democrats in the past, is the idea of getting rid of the 'sanctuary city' situation," Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said on Fox News.

Now Congress is considering action.

"I don't think you can have whole cities or whole states just not obeying the law," Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said.

It became front-page news after the murder of Kathryn Steinle, allegedly shot and killed by Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, a convicted felon who had been deported to Mexico five times.

Lopez-Sanchez was released from jail in April. But he was on the streets because San Francisco officials, under city policy, ignored a request from federal immigration officials to notify them before he was set free.

Play VIDEO

Killing ignites immigration debate over "sanctuary cities"

The crime even has Democratic candidates like Hillary Clinton softening their previous support for "sanctuary cities."

"The city made a mistake, not to deport someone that the federal government strongly felt should be deported," she said.

But for Republicans, it's a chance to reset the crucial immigration debate and move away fromDonald Trump's incendiary comments about illegal immigrants.

San Francisco is one of more than 200 sanctuary jurisdictions, including New York, Miami and Los Angeles, that can offer a safe harbor for undocumented immigrants who otherwise might face deportation.

Via: CBS This Morning

Saturday, July 11, 2015

CNN posted this tweet after she stepped down earlier today:

Friday, July 10, 2015

San Francisco under fire for "sanctuary" immigration policy

Killing ignites immigration debate over "sanctuary cities"

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