Informed sources report that McCain slipped across the Syrian border last night and joined the al-Nusra front, an Israeli-supported al-Qaeda affiliate that is waging war against Syria.
McCain issued the following statement explaining his actions: “In the name of Yahweh, the benevolent, the merciful, I hereby declare allegiance to Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahiri and to the Zionist entity he represents. I have always wanted to grow a beard, cut off some heads, and devour the raw internal organs of my victims, especially since I had a bad experience in a POW camp, so this represents the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. I am grateful to Sheikh al-Zawahiri, Prime Minister Netanyahu, Adam Gadahn, and the other heroic mujewhideen who have made this possible.”
According to terror expert Daniel Pipes, McCain is the highest-level American politician ever to have joined al-Qaeda: “This is a real coup for al-Qaeda. But it wasn’t unexpected. Now that the State of Israel has openly merged with al-Qaeda, and is bombing Syria on behalf of al-Qaeda operations, I believe we will be seeing more well-known American statesmen follow in the footsteps of Senator McCain.”
Another leading terror expert, Steve Emerson, explained: “More and more US Senators are competing to see who can humiliate themselves the most obsequiously as they grovel at the feet of Israel and Netanyahu. What better way to show your devotion to Israel than by joining its favorite false-flag militia and blowing yourself up?”
Meanwhile, McCain’s colleague Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced a resolution (S. Res 65) supporting al-Qaeda’s right to self-defense, and committing the US to go to war to defend al-Qaeda if it should decide to attack any nation, including the US.
Graham explained: “Al-Qaeda is a branch of Israel, and Israel has the right to attack anyone it wants, including us. That’s why McCain’s father covered up the Israeli massacre of the USS Liberty crew, and it’s why we all covered up Israel’s demolition of the World Trade Center on 9/11. If Israel and its al-Qaeda front group want to blow up any more American skyscrapers, the United States must stand behind them and offer our full support.”
Al-Qaeda spokesman Adam Gadahn welcomed the news of McCain’s decision to wage kosher jihad. “We both have a family tradition of service to Israel. My grandfather was a Director of the ADL, and Senator McCain’s father was the Navy’s highest-ranking Mossad infiltrator. Together, we will make a terrific team as we make Muslims look like homicidal lunatics, while waging kosher jihad against Israel’s enemies in Syria. It’s a win-win situation.”
Meanwhile, back at the White House, an executive branch “disposition matrix” death panel is considering targeting McCain in a drone strike. Polls showed that since McCain joined al-Qaeda, 68% of Americans now favor “taking him out” – a three-point jump since he joined the terrorist group.
A 1992 supreme court ruling that said a state could not force a retailer to collect sales tax unless the retailer had a physical presence in the state. Photo: Scott Sady/AP
The US Senate on Monday passed a bill aimed at ending tax-free shopping on the internet but the move looks set to face fierce opposition before it becomes law.
The Marketplace Fairness Act, which has cross-party supporter and the backing of powerful retailers, would give states the power to require retailers with sales over $1m to collect state and local sales taxes for online purchases.
The bill has the support of president Barack Obama the majority of senators including Republican John McCain but Marco Rubio, seen a potential Republican presidential hopeful, and Rand Paul both voted against the bill.
The bill passed the Senate by 70 votes to 24 but faces a second test in the House of Representatives where internet retailers and conservatives are already lobbying against the tax. House leaders have yet to schedule hearings or votes on their version of the measure.
The legislation would overturn a 1992 supreme court ruling that said a state could not force a retailer to collect sales tax unless the retailer had a physical presence in the state.
Senate passes Internet sales tax bill; House fate uncertain
By Jim Puzzanghera
May 6, 2013, 4:49 p.m.
WASHINGTON – The Senate voted 69-27 Monday to approve legislation that would allow states to force larger online retailers to collect sales taxes.
But the bill faces an uncertain future in the House as lawmakers, particularly Republicans, wrestle with whether the Marketplace Fairness Act amounts to a tax increase.
The Market Place Fairness Act would give states the authority to force larger retailers to collect sales taxes that residents already are obligated to pay. But with most consumers dodging those taxes for years, the result will be that people will pay more in taxes.
For influential activist Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, which asks lawmakers to sign a no-new-tax pledge, the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act is, in effect, a tax increase.
And his group, along with some other conservative activists, is pushing House members to reject it.
But some Republicans have pushed back, saying the bill raises no new taxes and just helps level the playing field between online and traditional bricks-and-mortar retailers.
Two of the leading Senate supporters were Repubilcans — Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Lamar Alexander of Tennesssee. And the bill passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support.
Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) is the main House sponsor and is hopeful the chamber will pass the bill.
But House leaders have not committed to taking up the legislation, saying it would first go to the House Judiciary Committee.
Whatever remains of civil liberties is going to feel the full brunt of the state’s boot heel.
They’re already regulating some of the most fundamental aspects of life, from how we are allowed to educate our children to what we can / cannot put in our bodies to the very nature of money.
People are forced to hold their savings in insolvent banks backed by insolvent insurance funds backed by insolvent governments. And those insolvent governments have demonstrated that they are perfectly willing to directly confiscate accounts.
Retirement funds have proven to be an easy, tempting target. A number of countries including Argentina, Ireland, and Hungary have appropriated private pensions. Even the US government temporarily dipped into federal employee pensions.
Western governments are making every possible effort to take over the Internet. Despite every previous attempt (SOPA, PIPA, etc.) failing due to public outcry, they keep trying and trying (ACTA, CISPA, etc.).
They’re raising taxes, creating new ones (including Maryland’s new ‘rain tax’), imposing capital controls, racking up debt, and rapidly devaluing their currencies.
It all reeks of desperation… and it’s all so obvious. At least, for anyone paying attention.
Unfortunately it’s easy to lose sight of the truth. After all, how can there be any economic problems when the stock market is at an ‘all-time high’ and Nobel Prize winning pseudo-scientists tell us that debt levels don’t matter?
Truth is, these enormous challenges shouldn’t be ignored. The entire global financial system is sitting on a bed of dynamite. Central bankers are dousing the pile with gasoline while politicians are standing around smoking.
The potential for epic disaster cannot be understated.
This is not to say that the world is coming to an end. Far from it. History is quite generous with past example of once-great civilizations that collapsed under the weight of their own hubristic debt.
The Senate delivered a devastating blow to President Obama’s agenda to regulate guns Wednesday by defeating a bipartisan proposal to expand background checks.
It failed by a vote of 54 to 46, with five Democrats voting against it. Only four Republicans supported it.
Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor (Ark.), Max Baucus (Mont.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Mark Begich (Alaska) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) voted against it. Reid supported the measure but voted against it to preserve his ability to bring the measure up again.
GOP Sens. John McCain (Ariz.), Susan Collins (Maine), Pat Toomey (Pa.) and Mark Kirk (Ill.) voted “yes.”
The amendment sponsored by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Toomey appeared to have political momentum last week.
It would have expanded checks to cover all firearms sales at gun shows and over the Internet, but would have exempted sales between friends and acquaintances outside of commercial venues.Democrats felt confident the compromise could pass once Toomey, a Republican with an A rating from the National Rifle Association, signed on. They were caught off guard by the vigorous lobbying campaign waged by the NRA, which warned lawmakers that Manchin-Toomey would be a factor in its congressional scorecard.
What appeared to be a likely victory for the president was resoundingly defeated by the Senate as jittery Democrats facing tough reelections next year joined nearly the entire Republican conference.
The NRA released a statement immediately after the vote that said the measure would have “criminalized certain private transfers of firearms between honest citizens.”
“As we have noted previously, expanding background checks, at gun shows or elsewhere, will not reduce violent crime or keep our kids safe in their schools,” NRA executive director Chris Cox said in a statement.
Now Democratic leaders will have to overhaul the pending gun control bill to give it a chance of passing the Senate in diminished form.
The failure of Manchin-Toomey means the broader bill still includes Democratic language passed by the Judiciary Committee to establish universal background checks. That language failed to attract a single Republican vote during the panel markup, and conservative Democrats such as Manchin and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) have said they cannot support the package without changes to the language on background checks.
The Senate’s failure to expand background checks means the three pillars of Obama’s gun control agenda have stalled. The chamber is expected to also reject proposals to ban military-style semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips.
It’s frustrating to see how muddled the debate over drones has become. Some people are wondering why we’re all so concerned over a new vehicle that delivers bombs, as opposed to planes. No, no, that’s not it at all. Drones don’t kill people, the U.S. government kills people. It’s just a tool. The problem isn’t the tool; the problem is how we are using it.
So, in order to clear up the confusion let me just state the three biggest problems with how we are using the drone program.
1. We have used drones to execute U.S. civilians without a trial. In the case of Anwar al-Awlaki, the government seems to be indicating he was a really important operational leader for al-Qaeda. Their evidence for that — nothing. At least nothing they have presented to the public or any other branch of government. The old saying is that you could indict a ham sandwich, but apparently they couldn’t indict Awlaki.
Does that mean our government couldn’t produce any evidence at all on this supposed terrorist mastermind, or has such disdain for any other branch of government that they think it’s beneath them to show a shred of evidence to a court before they order the execution of a U.S. citizen?
In the case of the other two U.S. citizens who were killed, including Awlaki’s 16 year-old son who was struck in another bombing, the government refuses to say whether they meant to kill those citizens or if it was an accident. Shouldn’t we at least know if assassinations of U.S. citizens are done on purpose or accidentally (by the all-knowing, all-wise executive branch)?
At the end of the Civil War, Lambdin P. Milligan, a United States citizen, was arrested in his Indiana home, tried before a military commission, and sentenced to death on a number of charges including “[a]ffording aid and comfort to rebels against the authority of the United States”. Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2, 6 (1866). Milligan petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court held that the military commission had no jurisdiction to try or sentence Milligan. Even in a time of war, Milligan was entitled to his due process rights under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Nearly 150 years later, the U.S. finds itself embroiled in another time of war. Advances in military technology such as drones have greatly enhanced the government’s ability to conduct lethal operations anywhere in the world without ever having to put a single American soldier on the ground. Paradoxically, it is exactly these new advances in military technology that have dredged up a longstanding, yet important conflict between balancing national security with constitutional protections of due process.
The conflict between national security and due process recently regained national attention with the leaking of a Department of Justice White Paper. The White Paper detailed the legal framework under which the government can lawfully order lethal operations against a United States citizen who is outside a recognized battlefield and believed to be a “senior operational leader” or an “associated force” of al-Qa’ida. It concluded that when an informed high-level U.S. official determines that (1) a U.S. citizen poses an “imminent threat” of violent attack, (2) capture of the citizen is infeasible, and (3) the operation can be conducted consistently with law of war principles, lethal force does not violate international or domestic law. The White Paper expressed the latest of a long series of arguments put forth by the Obama Administration justifying its practice of requiring minimal due process procedures before taking lethal action against U.S. citizens far from the combat zone. In fact, as early as 2010, Harold Koh, Legal Advisor to the U.S. State Department, stated that a nation “engaged in an armed conflict or legitimate self-defense is not required to provide targets with legal process before the state may use lethal force…” In 2012, Attorney General Eric Holder in his address at Northwestern University declared that the President is not required to go through a federal court in order to take action, “The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.” What is most striking about the Obama Administration’s collective arguments is the wide discretion afforded to the Executive Branch and the inchoate analysis of the constitutional expectations due process requires from each branch of government.
There are two components of due process: fair notice and the opportunity to be heard. The fundamental rationale behind due process is to check against arbitrary government action. At its core, due process is an amalgamation of what makes the separation of powers a powerful American ideal. The Legislative branch writes the laws—including the ones that dictate charges available against U.S. citizens—that the Executive branch enforces by bringing citizens in violation of the law to be tried before an impartial Judicial branch that the Constitution itself or the Legislative branch has established. Times of national crisis will necessarily render some procedures of due process more elastic than times of peace. Indeed, the Supreme Court has recognized that in certain cases the procedures for due process must be narrowed in times of national crisis. For example, in Ex ParteQuirin, during World War II, the Court upheld the constitutionality of trying a U.S. citizen for offenses against the laws of war in front of a military commission rather than a jury. See Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 modified sub nom. U.S. ex rel. Quirin v. Cox, 63 S. Ct. 22 (U.S. 1942). At the same time, the Court has also recognized that “[w]hatever power the United States Constitution envisions for the Executive in its exchanges with other nations or with enemy organizations in times of conflict, it most assuredly envisions a role for all three branches when individual liberties are at stake.” Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 542 U.S. 507, 536 (2004).
The Hamdi opinion, which the DOJ White Paper cited, also recognized the need to balance the constitutional guarantee of due process with the Executive branch’s responsibility to keep the nation secure. Thus, in evaluating the constitutional protections afforded a U.S. citizen captured and deemed an “enemy combatant” by the U.S. military, the Hamdi Court used a balancing test that it had employed 28 years prior in Mathews v. Eldridge. The Mathews Court stated that the proper test for evaluating how much due process is required is the consideration of three factors: “First, the private interest that will be affected by the official action; second, the risk of an erroneous deprivation of such interest through the procedures used, and the probable value, if any, of additional or substitute procedural safeguards; and finally, the Government’s interest…”.Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976). The DOJ White Paper conceded that “no private interest is more substantial” than the interest in avoiding erroneous deprivation of life. White Paper at 6. However, the DOJ reasoned that the government interest in ensuring national security by using force on those that pose an “imminent threat of violent attack” is compelling. As such, the DOJ concluded that the “realities of combat” justified the force rendered necessary to meet those realities. In fact, the DOJ White Paper quoted the Hamdi decision, “due process analysis need not blink at those realities.” Hamdi, 542 U.S at 531. However, this use of Hamdi is disingenuous. The “realities” the Court referred to were the necessities of detaining enemy combatants rather than the use of force.[1]
The DOJ White Paper’s use of Hamdi to justify drone strikes outside recognized combat zones is increasingly suspect due to the fact that Hamdi emphasized that petitioner Hamdi was captured in a foreign combat zone. In doing so, Hamdi refered to Ex Parte Milligan, the aforementioned Supreme Court case regarding the constitutionality of military commissions during the Civil War. The Milligan Court held that despite being in a time of declared war, the military commission had no jurisdiction to try and sentence Milligan. The Hamdi Court reasoned “[h]ad Milligan been captured while he was assisting Confederate soldiers by carrying a rifle against Union troops on a Confederate battlefield, the holding of the Court might well have been different”. Hamdi, 542 U.S. at 522. Indeed, the Milligan Court pointed to the fact that in Indiana “…there was no hostile foot…[and] so in the case of a foreign invasion, martial rule may become a necessity in one state, when in another, it would be “mere lawless violence.” Milligan, 71 U.S. 2 at 126-27. The Court in both Hamdi and Milligan implicitly acknowledged the importance of recognized combat zones as a potential check on the Executive branch’s expansive war powers.
Obama to reveal more on drone strike policy -U.S. attorney general
By Lawrence Hurley
WASHINGTON, March 6 | Wed Mar 6, 2013 7:36pm GMT
(Reuters) – President Barack Obama will soon reveal more about the administration’s legal rationale for using drone strikes, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday.
Holder told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that Obama would address the issue directly “in a relatively short period of time.”
FREE GUIDES AND REPORTS FROM DIANOMI
ADVERTISEMENT
2013 CFO Strategies
Key signals CFOs are watching in 2013 – Watch this Expert Discussion
Free Video Here
Congress has been seeking access to at least 11 memos produced by the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel that lay out the legal rationale for using drone strikes to target individuals overseas, but until this week had only been allowed access to four of them.
“I heard you. The president has heard,” Holder said. As a result, the administration is prepared to make more materials available, he said.
The Obama administration has increasingly used drone strikes to target militants overseas. In 2011, for example, strikes in Yemen killed U.S.-born Anwar al-Awlaki, accused of being a leader of al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate, and his son, also a U.S. citizen.
Civilian casualties from drone strikes have angered local populations and created tension between the United States and Pakistan and Afghanistan. Washington has sought to portray civilian casualties as minimal, but organizations that collect data on these attacks put the number of civilians killed in the hundreds.
“We have talked about a need for greater transparency,” Holder told senators.
He predicted there “would be a greater level of comfort” about the use of drones after the information is shared.
On Tuesday, as part of a deal that led the Senate Intelligence Committee to approve the nomination of John Brennan as the new director of the CIA, the administration agreed to share two more of the documents with committee members and some staffers.
Senator Rand Paul during his 13-hour talking filibuster insisting that Obama administration provide stronger assurances that US citizens will never be killed by drone attack on US soil. Photograph: AP
You could say that a filibuster occurs when a senator drones on and on. The problem with the US Senate was that there were too few senators speaking about drones this week.
President Barack Obama’s controversial nomination of John Brennan as director of the Central Intelligence Agency was held up Wednesday afternoon by a Senate filibuster. The reason: Brennan’s role in targeted killings by drones, and President Obama’s presumed authority to kill US citizens, without any due process, if they pose an “imminent threat”. The effort was led by Tea Party Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky, joined by several of his Republican colleagues. Among the Democrats, at the time of this writing, only Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon had joined in the genuine, old-fashioned “talking filibuster”, wherein the activities of the Senate floor are held up by a senator’s speech.
Members of Congress, tasked with oversight of intelligence and military matters, have repeatedly demanded the memoranda from the White House detailing the legal basis for the drone program, only to be repeatedly denied. The nomination of Brennan has opened up the debate, forcing the Obama administration to make nominal gestures of compliance. The answers so far have not satisfied Senator Paul. Nearing hour six of his filibuster, Senator Paul admitted:
“I can’t ultimately stop the nomination, but what I can do is try to draw attention to this and try to get an answer … that would be something if we could get an answer from the president … if he would say explicitly that noncombatants in America won’t be killed by drones. The reason it has to be answered is because our foreign drone strike program does kill noncombatants. They may argue that they are conspiring or they may someday be combatants, but if that is the same standard that we are going to use in the United States, it is a far different country than I know about.”
****You know it makes one wonder what the heck these Politicians are thinking when they say things like this. Please bear in mind I am no Rand Paul fan. However, Rand Paul only vocalized the question on some Americans minds. Judging from the total disregard for liberties here at home and complete contempt for the value of human life abroad. Add to it the NDAA, the Patriot Act, the lies, the subterfuge as well as the petulance coming from the Administration. I fail to see how being concerned for the safety of fellow Americans could be considered offensive? Or is it only inoffensive when it is the life or livelihood of a politician that is the concern? I suppose the rest of us must worry in silence for fear of offending the Republicans busy schmoozing with the President, hmmmm? Very Interesting how the head of hypocrisy seems to be rearing it’s ugly head. Or so it seems to me .
As far as I can tell it is because of Rand Paul and his filibuster that the American People finally have an answer to a question that has been asked many times over the last few months and the Administration was too busy hemming and hawing to give a straight answer. Why was it so difficult to say? Seems they don’t like being questioned. My response to that is TOUGH! I think it is about time someone said enough and demanded an answer to a question on most peoples mind. Those who don’t like it may want to consider the fact that to play tug – of – war it is necessary to be there on the same level as the rest of the players. Not to mention play by the same rules. I personally hope this is a sign of things to come. We need some backbone on Capitol Hill. It has been filled with yellow bellies and spineless jellyfish for far too long…….~Desert Rose~ ******
Highlighting the discord among Republicans over President Barack Obama’s targeted killings policy, two prominent GOP senators, John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, took to the Senate floor to criticize Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s 12-hour filibuster Wednesday.
Gary Cameron / Reuters
Senators John McCain, R-Ariz., (L) and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. confer at the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington March 5, 2013.
Thirteen Republican senators – including Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and the junior GOP senators from McCain’s and Graham’s home states — joined Paul during his filibuster to show their support for his demand that President Barack Obama explicitly say whether he thinks he has the authority to order the killing of a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil who was a noncombatant and posed no imminent threat of an attack.
Paul has delayed the confirmation of Obama’s CIA nominee John Brennan in order to dramatize his demand for an answer from Obama.
On Thursday Paul received a letter from Attorney General Eric Holder saying that the president does not have the authority “to use a weaponized drone to kill an American not engaged in combat on American soil.”
McCain said Thursday the Senate needed to conduct hearings and an in-depth debate on Obama’s targeted killings policy, “but that conversation should not be talking about drones killing Jane Fonda and people in cafes. It should be all about what authority and what checks and balances should exist” in order to combat “an enemy that we know will be with us for a long time.”
Sen. John McCain voices criticism toward fellow Republican Senator Rand Paul for indicating that it was possible for the government to attack an American cafe with a drone strike.
In his filibuster Paul had approvingly quoted an article by National Review writer Kevin Williamson which said, “As satisfying as putting Jane Fonda on a kill list might have been, I don’t think our understanding of the law would have approved such a thing even though she did give communist aid to the aggressor in Vietnam (in the 1970s).”
While Paul was conducting his filibuster, McCain and Graham were among a group of Republican senators having dinner with Obama at a Washington, D.C. hotel.
Graham scoffed at Paul’s question about whether Obama thinks he has the authority to kill a noncombatant American citizen on U.S. soil.
“I find the question offensive,” Graham said Thursday on the Senate floor. “As much I disagree with President Obama and as much as I support past presidents, I do not believe that question deserves an answer.” Paul’s question, the South Carolina Republican said, “cheapens the debate.”
Graham said flatly that Obama would not use a drone against a noncombatant sitting in a café somewhere in the United States.
Chuck Hagel, nominee for U.S. secretary of defense, speaks during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing in Washington on Jan. 31, 2013.
The Senate confirmed Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, after weeks of partisan acrimony over President Barack Obama’s choice to head the Pentagon in a time of budget-cutting and evolving threats from terrorism to cyber warfare.
The nomination was approved on a 58-41 vote hours after the Senate acted to limit debate, cutting off the first filibuster against a nominee for defense secretary. The former Republican senator from Nebraska, a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, will replace retiring Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
“I will be counting on Chuck’s judgment and counsel as we end the war in Afghanistan, bring our troops home, stay ready to meet the threats of our time and keep our military the finest fighting force in the world,” Obama said in an e-mailed statement.
Hagel, 66, will become the Pentagon’s leader as across-the- board spending cuts called sequestration are set to take $46 billion from military budgets over seven months and $500 billion over a decade, starting March 1, unless Obama and Congress agree on an alternative.
Republicans, who have criticized Hagel for his past positions — from his opposition to the troop surge during the Iraq war to his comments on the influence of what he once called the “Jewish lobby” — were readying for new fights with Hagel as the steward of the Pentagon’s diminishing funds.
McCain’s Criticism
“There are those of us who seek to cut waste, fraud, and abuse from the Department of Defense,” Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican and a senior member of the Armed Services Committee, said this month during floor debate. “Senator Hagel seeks something else entirely — to cut military capabilities that serve as tools to ensure our continued engagement through the world in support of America’s interests and those of our allies.”
Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democratic leader, said Hagel’s abilities are widely recognized. Hagel has been endorsed by 13 former secretaries of defense, state, and national security advisers of both parties, he pointed out.
“Men who have had that responsibility trust Chuck Hagel, and so do I,” Durbin said today.
Republicans said Hagel has been weakened by the confirmation process. No defense secretary has been confirmed with more than 11 votes in opposition, said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican leader.
“He will take office with the weakest support of any defense secretary in modern history, which will make him less effective in his job,” Cornyn said.
By Domenico Montanaro, Deputy Political Editor, NBC News
Updated 12:52 pm ET. Always one to speak — or Tweet — his mind, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) Monday made a joke comparing Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to a monkey, something one Republican congressman charged was “racist.”
“So Ahmadinejad wants to be first Iranian in space – wasn’t he just there last week?” McCain said in a tweet that also linked to a story about Iran launching a monkey into space.
Some didn’t take so kindly to the not-so-diplomatic quip, prompting McCain, 76, to respond: “Re: Iran space tweet – lighten up folks, can’t everyone take a joke?”
Under a bipartisan Senate framework, Democrats say, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano would have final say over whether the border is secure enough to put 11 million illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship.
If Napolitano does not provide the green light for putting illegal immigrants on a pathway to citizenship, the responsibility for judging whether the metrics for border security have been met will be given to her successor.The early debate over immigration reform has yielded two thorny questions: What metrics will be used to determine whether the goals for border security and other safeguards against illegal immigration have been met? Who will decide whether the metrics have been achieved?
Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the lead Democratic sponsor of the bipartisan immigration reform framework unveiled this past week, said Napolitano should decide.
“What we’ve proposed is that the DHS secretary, whomever it is, will have final say on [whether] whatever metrics we proposes are met,” Schumer said. “We think those metrics will be quite objective.”
Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the lead Republican sponsor of the framework, said the issue is under discussion within the Gang of Eight.
“We’re working on a lot of it,” he said.
But the idea of letting Napolitano, who plans to stay in the cabinet for President Obama’s second term, or a future secretary of Homeland Security make the final call on the border has sparked alarm among other Republicans.
“My constituents are not going to accept a Washington bureaucrat making a representation the border is secure when they know it’s not true. So that’s unacceptable,” said Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn, who represents Texas.
There are other tough issues that could derail immigration reform negotiations. These include the establishment of an entry-exit visa system to track whether persons who enter the country leave when they are supposed to. An estimated 40 percent of illegal immigrants have overstayed their visas.
Another is the question of how to handle the future flow of workers for so-called low-skill jobs in meat processing, hospitality and other service industries. Some lawmakers say disagreements over a guest worker program blew up a comprehensive reform bill in the Senate in 2007.
The proposal to make border security a condition for allowing illegal immigrants onto a pathway to citizenship has emerged as the biggest disagreement in the early debate. Obama pointedly did not call for it during a speech in Las Vegas, Tuesday.
Due to the social nature of this site, it may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit, to those who have expressed a prior interest in participating in this community for educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Any materials (ie. graphics, articles , commentary) that are original to this blog are copyrighted and signed by it's creator. Said original material may be shared with attribution. Please respect the work that goes into these items and give the creator his/her credit. Just as we share articles , graphics and photos always giving credit to their creators when available. Credit and a link back to the original source is required.
If you have an issue with anything posted here or would prefer we not use it . Please contact me. Any items that are requested to be removed by the copyright owner it will be removed immediately. No threats needed or lawsuit required. If there is a problem and you do not wish your work to be showcased then we will happily find an alternative from the many sources readily available from creators who would find it amenable to having their work presented to the subscribers of this feed.
Thank you for your time and attention, blessings to all :)
Sen. John McCain, chewing on the raw heart of a Syrian soldier
Gary Cameron / Reuters
Matthias Schrader / AP
