The Front Page Cover
"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened"
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Featuring:
Capital punishment’s slow death
George F. Will
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"Rise up together as one voice"
"Be careful where you stand"
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nObama Amnesty Suffers Another Stinging Rebuke 
The nObama administration's legal woes continued on Tuesday after government lawyers failed to convince a federal appeals court to overturn a temporary injunction against executive amnesty issued by U.S. District Judge Andrew S. Hanen. In February, Hanen blocked the first phase of the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability program and reaffirmed his decision in April partly because government lawyers misled the court, granting work permits to 100,000 illegals before the executive action was temporarily blocked. Two of the three judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit — Jerry Smith and Jennifer Walker Elrod — "found that the states had sufficient legal grounds to bring the lawsuit and that the administration had not shown that it would be harmed if the injunction remained in place and the programs were further delayed," The New York Times reports. Tuesday's ruling isn't a final verdict — the case could eventually make it to the Supreme Court — but the administration is now 0-for-2, and it's looking likelier it will strike out. nObama spokesman Brandi Hoffine responded to the decision by insisting they know the Constitution better than anyone, saying Judges Smith and Elrod "chose to misinterpret the facts and the law in denying the government's request for a stay." If that's the case, how do Democrats expand this nugget from The Washington Post? "nObama's second-term agenda, it seems, is in the hands of the courts. Same-sex marriage. nObamacare. Climate change. And now immigration. And in many cases, there is significant doubt about whether his signature initiatives will stand legal scrutiny." Tell us again who "chose to misinterpret the facts and the law"? -The Patriot Post
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IRS Data Breach Leaves Tax Info of 100K in Hackers' Hands
Using the service to request former tax returns and filings from the IRS, a group of hackers stole confidential information on over 100,000 taxpayers. Using the information, the hackers can file false tax returns, stealing directly from the American taxpayer. "Eighty percent of the identity theft we're dealing with and refund fraud is related to organized crime here and around the world," IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said. "These are extremely sophisticated criminals with access to a tremendous amount of data." It's easy to see that the agency is running damage control. It's not saying if the hackers were foreign or domestic, and Koskinen said people filing fraudulent tax returns only netted $50 million this year. However, the IRS gave identity thieves $5.8 billion in 2013. As Hot Air's Mary Katharine Ham notes, only 6% of Americans believe the U.S. government does a good job protecting their information. With this news, we guess the IRS will get a budget boost in the next few months — whether it needs it or not.More...
-The Patriot Post
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Now's a Good Time to Develop a Strategy Against ISIL
With the fall of Ramadi, it may be a good time for the nObama administration to pause, take a step back and reconsider what it has tried and what that has done against ISIL. On Sunday, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter blamed the fall of the strategic city on the Iraqi army. "The Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight," Carter said on CNN. "They were not outnumbered. In fact they vastly outnumbered the opposing force and yet they failed to fight and withdrew from the site. ... We can give them training, we can give them equipment. We obviously can't give them the will to fight." Meanwhile, it appears the U.S. has the equipment, but it too doesn't have the will to fight. The New York Times reports that U.S. planes only fly 15 strikes a day against ISIL, compared to the 800 flown every day during the 2003 Iraq War. Furthermore, only during one out of four flights does the pilot fire munitions. Part of this is due to concern that any civilian deaths would translate into propaganda for ISIL. Part of the hesitation is because the pilots cannot rely on soldiers on the ground pointing out targets and delineating allies. There's plenty for Carter and the rest of the nObama administration to consider. How about sending arms and training to the Kurds? Or sending more U.S. troops to spot U.S. airstrikes? More... -The Patriot Post
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GOP, Prepare for SCOTUS's nObamaCare Ruling If the Supreme Court rules against the "Affordable" Care Act in King v. Burwell sometime in late June, it could leave the act in deep water, or it could leave Republicans with the dilemma of fixing a problem they didn't create. So says conventional wisdom.
SCOTUSblog.com writer Amy Howe discusses the case: "There are three key parts to the ACA. The first is the 'non-discrimination' rule... The second is the individual mandate, which the Court upheld three years ago... Third, because everyone has to buy insurance, there are tax subsidies to make sure that lower- and middle-income Americans can afford to comply with the individual mandate by buying insurance."
David King is the primary plaintiff in King v. Burwell. He and three other Virginians, for their own reasons, decided they did not want to buy insurance. Virginia, incidentally, joined the federal marketplace, and King has insurance that would cost him $648 per month, but with his subsidy, costs $275. His suit was tossed out of a lower court, but with the help of the American Enterprise Institute he got a writ of certiorari, and he and his fellow plaintiffs' case was picked up by the Supreme Court.
The fight is about four words — "established by the State" — just a few found in the 2,700-page act. -The Patriot Post
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Hezbollah: Human Shields, Tunnels, And Missiles For War With Israel
(Jeff Dunetz) - The reports keep coming...Hezbollah is gearing up for war against the State of Israel. Back in January Former Israeli National Security Adviser, Maj. Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror, outlined the threats to the Jewish State from non-state entities in a report released by the Begin Center for Strategic Studies (BESA)... The most serious existential threat to the Jewish State by non-state entities is the terrorist group Hezbollah, with 150,000 missiles, which according to the General is a “rare and substantial firepower apparently even exceeded the firepower possessed by most of the European states combined.” After having been accustomed to a situation in which large regular armies with armor, artillery, hundreds of aircraft and thousands of troops were arrayed on Israel’s borders, there can be no doubt that Israel has moved into a different world. Since then there has been an onslaught of reports that Hezbollah empowered by the successful Iranian negotiations against an impotent Barack nObama was planning to use those missiles against Israel. http://yidwithlid.blogspot.com/2015/05/hezbollah-has-human-shields-and-tunnels.html?utm_source=The+Lid+List&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6ad6390c8f-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_term=0_597b72c01c-6ad6390c8f-291705165&goal=0_597b72c01c-6ad6390c8f-291705165
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Catholic Group Exposes Red Influence in the Vatican
(Cliff Kincaid) - Doing the research and investigative work that the major U.S. media have all but abandoned, an organization called the American Life League (ALL) has uncovered dramatic evidence of links between the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church and an international communist group known as the World Social Forum... The evidence suggests overt Marxist influence on the climate change movement that Pope Francis and his top advisers are now embracing. The ALL report, a 76-page PowerPoint presentation complete with original source material and numerous photographs, documents how Caritas Internationalis, the Vatican’s top social justice organization, is actually “providing leadership” to the communist group. The report’s author, Michael Hichborn, stated, “This is a very serious problem. Given how intimately connected the World Social Forum (WSF) has been with the promotion of communism, abortion, and homosexuality since the very beginning, it’s impossible to see how any Catholic can participate in it, or even speak positively about it, let alone have any involvement in its governance. But Caritas Internationalis does!” http://www.aim.org/aim-column/catholic-group-exposes-red-influence-in-the-vatican/?utm_source=AIM+-+Daily+Email&utm_campaign=email052715&utm_medium=email
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What’s Wrong With TPP? How About Corporate Extortion Courts
(rickwells.us) - Senator Elizabeth Warren addressed the United States Senate earlier this year in an effort to prevent the blind passage of the TPP, without its having been read and in direct conflict with the will of and what is best for the American people... The Senate Majority Leader, the new Dingy Mitch, didn’t bother to listen. He’s got people to please and they’re all much richer than the common peasants who elected him. He’s got a six year license to steal before he has to face the voters again and he’s getting started now. Warren points out how the agreement provides for external, unelected commissions to rule rather than American courts on disputes involving corporations and signatory nations. It’s called “Investor Dispute Settlement”, ISDS, a kangaroo court composed of corporate cronies deciding issues on each others’ behalf in disputes against sovereign nations, such as the United States. It would have the effect of overruling our laws and our own judicial system. http://rickwells.us/whats-wrong-with-tpp-how-about-corporate-extortion-courts-able-dictate-american-law/.
Al Jazeera Poll Destroys the Myth of the Tiny Minority of Extremists
(David Wood) - When jihadists attacked the World Trade Center, politicians and the media assured us that extremists represent only a tiny minority of Muslims, and that nearly all Muslims support peace, tolerance, democracy, etc... After terrorist attacks in Spain, Great Britain, Russia, and so on, world leaders and news networks continued to proclaim that only a tiny minority of Muslims have radical views. (These extremists, of course, just need jobs.) There's only one problem with the narrative of politicians and the media: It's empirically false. Poll after poll, study after study have shown that the number of Muslims who support blasphemy laws, the death penalty for apostates, terrorist attacks, etc., is quite large. The Al Jazeera news network accidentally let the cat out of the bag recently by asking readers whether they support Islamic State victories. After more than 40,000 readers responded, the network found that more than 80 percent supported ISIS.
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U.S. Intel: nObama Coalition Supported Islamic State in Syria
(Alex Newman) - A newly released intelligence report from the Pentagon shows that the U.S. government knew that supporting jihadists in the fight against Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad would produce a fundamentalist Islamic State in Eastern Syria... and that nObama’s supposed “anti-ISIS” coalition knowingly backed ISIS and other Islamic terrorists for precisely that purpose. The heavily redacted Defense Department report, obtained by watchdog Judicial Watch via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, shows once again that, contrary to the false narrative peddled by the establishment press, the rise of the savage terror group known as ISIS was actually deliberate policy. Now, the fruits of that plot are becoming clearer as the body count continues to skyrocket. http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/20943-u-s-intel-obama-coalition-supported-islamic-state-in-syria?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=4336171292-The_Editors_Top_Picks_3_12_143_12_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8ca494f2d2-4336171292-289778381
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Support Our Troops: Get US Out of the United Nations!
(John F. McManus) - The complete text of the UN Charter’s Article 25 states: “The Members of the United Nations agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council in accordance with the present Charter.”... That clearly stated requirement supersedes adherence to the U.S. Constitution. That any U.S. government official would agree to that is incredible. When the UN’s Security Council decides to act, our nation’s membership requires the United States to “accept and carry out” what the Security Council wants done. It is true that our nation possesses a veto that can be used to block passage of any Security Council resolution. But U.S. leaders don’t exercise this veto power. It was a UN Security Council resolution that got our nation into the 1950 Korean War, not a required congressional declaration. Had there been a declaration of war and if its inherent goal had been to gain victory, the Korean War could have been won. But victory was denied (by the UN) and as a result our nation still has tens of thousands of troops in South Korea — all of whom serve in the overall UN Command. http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/20944-support-our-troops-get-us-out-of-the-united-nations?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_campaign=4336171292-The_Editors_Top_Picks_3_12_143_12_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_8ca494f2d2-4336171292-289778381
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U.S. PUSHBACK AGAINST MUSLIM REFUGEES 'GROWING'
(Leo Hohmann) - WND has discovered what amounts to the government playbook for countering the rising “backlash” against the secret planting of Muslim refugees into cities and towns across America... Now, WND has learned the government and its contractors have a stock plan on how to deal with what they call “backlash” to refugee resettlement in American cities. Titled “Resettlement at Risk: Meeting Emerging Challenges to Refugee Resettlement in Local Communities,” the report by one of the federal government’s top resettlement contractors admits that communities “across the country” are pushing back against the refugee program, especially when it involves the infusion of Muslims into their city or town. In the wake of the report, the nObama administration has handed out millions of dollars in grants to organizations like Welcoming America, which works to “educate” elected officials and the public in “receiving communities” before refugees arrive. Welcoming America was started in 2010 with seed money from George Soros’s Open Society Institute..
Senate Passes Trade Bill that Could Increase Foreign Workers
(fairus.org) - On Friday, the Senate passed legislation granting President nObama fast track trade promotion authority (TPA). (Senate Roll Call Vote 193) With TPA, President nObama will be able to implement part of his immigration agenda through trade agreements... rather than through legislation passed by Congress. Specifically, President nObama — who opposed TPA when he served in the Senate — claims he needs TPA in order to finalize the Trade Pacific Partnership (TPP), a large trade deal with 11 Latin American and Asian countries. Although the specifics of TPP are being intentionally withheld from the public, the outline of the TPP released by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative indicates that a "key feature" of the TPP is a "temporary entry" guest worker program. The TPA authorizing bill now moves to the House. It is currently uncertain whether the bill has enough votes to pass. http://www.fairus.org/legislative-updates/legislative-update-5-27-2015#1
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"Secular" Turkey
(Uzay Bulut) - When many Western analysts discuss the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey, they rightfully criticize it for its religious intolerance, authoritarianism and lack of respect for secular principles and minorities... They also tend to compare the AKP to former Kemalist governments, and draw a distinction between the Islamist AKP and former non-Islamist governments. They claim that Turkey was "secular" and somewhat "democratic," until the AKP came to power. A deeper look into the history of Turkey, however, reveals that, unfortunately, Turkey has never been either truly secular or democratic. The modern Turkish state, since its founding in 1923, has never kept its hands off religion. It has engaged in religious matters on almost all levels -- by institutionalizing Sunni Islam and by persecuting (or annihilating) other faiths. Intolerance, even hatred, for non-Muslims was openly promoted -- even by the heads of the state -- from day one. http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5833/secular-turkey
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Clinton Confidant Revealed as Source of Benghazi Misinformation
(Helle Dale) - One of the mysteries surrounding the Benghazi scandal appears to have been solved with the release of the private emails of former Secretary of State Hilly Clinton... The question was who came up with the false narrative of the cause of the attack on the U.S. Benghazi consulate on Sept. 11, 2012. The answer, according to emails obtained by The New York Times, is Sidney Blumenthal, former journalist and longtime confidante of the Clintons. Both the Department of Defense and the State Department immediately identified terrorism as the cause of the attack on Benghazi. But it was Hilly Clinton, in remarks at the U.S.-Morocco Strategic Dialogue on Sept. 13 of that year, who first suggested the activity at the Benghazi consulate began as a demonstration over an anti-Islam YouTube video. And now compelling evidence in the email trail points to Blumenthal as the source of that narrative. But this nObama admin continue to give out misinformation, even when knowing the truth. http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/26/clinton-confidant-revealed-source-benghazi-misinformation/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRojsqvNZKXonjHpfsX56%2BQpWqS%2BlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4JScNrI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrLBMa1ozrgOWxU%3D
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Capital punishment’s slow death
George F. Will
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It is difficult to imagine moral reasoning that would support the conclusion that an injustice will be done when, years hence, the death penalty finally is administered to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon terrorist who placed a bomb in a crowd and then strolled to safety. Sentencing to death those who commit heinous crimes satisfies a sense of moral proportionality. This is, however, purchased with disproportionate social costs, as Nebraska seems to be concluding.
It is difficult to imagine moral reasoning that would support the conclusion that an injustice will be done when, years hence, the death penalty finally is administered to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston Marathon terrorist who placed a bomb in a crowd and then strolled to safety. Sentencing to death those who commit heinous crimes satisfies a sense of moral proportionality. This is, however, purchased with disproportionate social costs, as Nebraska seems to be concluding.
. Nebraska is not a nest of liberals. Yet on Wednesday its 49-member unicameral legislature passed a bill abolishing the death penalty 32 to 15. Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, vows to veto it.
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This comes at a time when, nationwide, exonerations of condemned prisoners and botched executions are dismayingly frequent. Nebraska’s death penalty opponents, including a majority of Nebraskans, say it is expensive without demonstrably enhancing public safety or being a solace to families of murder victims. Some Nebraska families have testified that the extended legal processes surrounding the death penalty prolong their suffering. That sentiment is shared by Bill and Denise Richard, whose 8-year-old son was killed by Tsarnaev.
This comes at a time when, nationwide, exonerations of condemned prisoners and botched executions are dismayingly frequent. Nebraska’s death penalty opponents, including a majority of Nebraskans, say it is expensive without demonstrably enhancing public safety or being a solace to families of murder victims. Some Nebraska families have testified that the extended legal processes surrounding the death penalty prolong their suffering. That sentiment is shared by Bill and Denise Richard, whose 8-year-old son was killed by Tsarnaev.
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Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments about whether one component of a three-drug mixture used in lethal injection executions — and recently used in some grotesquely protracted ones — is unreliable in preventing suffering that violates the Eighth Amendment proscription of “cruel and unusual punishments.” States use the drug in question because more effective drugs are hard to acquire, partly because death penalty opponents are pressuring drug companies not to supply them.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments about whether one component of a three-drug mixture used in lethal injection executions — and recently used in some grotesquely protracted ones — is unreliable in preventing suffering that violates the Eighth Amendment proscription of “cruel and unusual punishments.” States use the drug in question because more effective drugs are hard to acquire, partly because death penalty opponents are pressuring drug companies not to supply them.
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For this, Justice Antonin Scalia blamed a death penalty “abolitionist movement.” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked, “Is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty, which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain?” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wondered, “What bearing, if any, should be put on the fact that there is a method, but that it’s not available because of opposition to the death penalty? What relevance does that have?”
For this, Justice Antonin Scalia blamed a death penalty “abolitionist movement.” Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked, “Is it appropriate for the judiciary to countenance what amounts to a guerrilla war against the death penalty, which consists of efforts to make it impossible for the states to obtain drugs that could be used to carry out capital punishment with little, if any, pain?” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wondered, “What bearing, if any, should be put on the fact that there is a method, but that it’s not available because of opposition to the death penalty? What relevance does that have?”
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The answers are: Public agitation against capital punishment is not relevant to judicial reasoning. And it is not the judiciary’s business to worry that a ruling might seem to “countenance” this or that social advocacy.
The answers are: Public agitation against capital punishment is not relevant to judicial reasoning. And it is not the judiciary’s business to worry that a ruling might seem to “countenance” this or that social advocacy.
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The conservative case against capital punishment, which 32 states have, is threefold. First, the power to inflict death cloaks government with a majesty and pretense of infallibility discordant with conservatism. Second, when capital punishment is inflicted, it cannot later be corrected because of new evidence, so a capital punishment regime must be administered with extraordinary competence. It is, however, a government program. Since 1973, more than 140 people sentenced to death have been acquitted of their crimes (sometimes by DNA evidence), had the charges against them dismissed by prosecutors or have been pardoned based on evidence of innocence. For an unsparing immersion in the workings of the governmental machinery of death, read “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson, executive director and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative.
The conservative case against capital punishment, which 32 states have, is threefold. First, the power to inflict death cloaks government with a majesty and pretense of infallibility discordant with conservatism. Second, when capital punishment is inflicted, it cannot later be corrected because of new evidence, so a capital punishment regime must be administered with extraordinary competence. It is, however, a government program. Since 1973, more than 140 people sentenced to death have been acquitted of their crimes (sometimes by DNA evidence), had the charges against them dismissed by prosecutors or have been pardoned based on evidence of innocence. For an unsparing immersion in the workings of the governmental machinery of death, read “Just Mercy” by Bryan Stevenson, executive director and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative.
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Third, administration of death sentences is so sporadic and protracted that their power to deter is attenuated. And the expensive, because labyrinthine, legal protocols with which the judiciary has enveloped capital punishment are here to stay. Granted, capital punishment could deter: If overdue library books were punishable by death, none would be overdue. But many crimes for which death is reserved, including Tsarnaev’s crime of ideological premeditation, are especially difficult to deter.
Third, administration of death sentences is so sporadic and protracted that their power to deter is attenuated. And the expensive, because labyrinthine, legal protocols with which the judiciary has enveloped capital punishment are here to stay. Granted, capital punishment could deter: If overdue library books were punishable by death, none would be overdue. But many crimes for which death is reserved, including Tsarnaev’s crime of ideological premeditation, are especially difficult to deter.
. Those who favor capital punishment because of its supposed deterrent effect do not favor strengthening that effect by restoring the practice of public executions. There has not been one in America since 1937 (a hanging in Galena, Mo.) because society has decided that state-inflicted deaths, far from being wholesomely didactic spectacles, are coarsening and revolting.
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Revulsion is not an argument, but it is evidence of what former chief justice Earl Warren called society’s “evolving standards of decency.” In the essay “Reflections on the Guillotine,” Albert Camus wrote, “The man who enjoys his coffee while reading that justice has been done would spit it out at the least detail.” Capital punishment, say proponents, serves social catharsis. But administering it behind prison walls indicates a healthy squeamishness that should herald abolition.
Revulsion is not an argument, but it is evidence of what former chief justice Earl Warren called society’s “evolving standards of decency.” In the essay “Reflections on the Guillotine,” Albert Camus wrote, “The man who enjoys his coffee while reading that justice has been done would spit it out at the least detail.” Capital punishment, say proponents, serves social catharsis. But administering it behind prison walls indicates a healthy squeamishness that should herald abolition.
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