Earlier today, the House Judiciary Committee, held a full committee hearing on ICE’s decision to release thousands of Criminal & Illegal Aliens.
According to Subcommittee Chairman Trey Gowdy, (R-SC): “ICE contends it only detains the ‘worst of the worst;’ therefore it necessarily follows ICE just released thousands of the ‘worst of the worst’ onto our streets. It strains credibility to understand why then the first cost-saving measure ICE pursued was to release detainees from custody.”
I posted video of Gowdy’s tough questioning of ICE officials, earlier today.
He told Neil Cavuto on his show, this afternoon:
“I just do not want law enforcement or the criminal justice system playing the same political games we always play with other agencies and institutions of government. I would just hope that public safety would be immune from these kinds of political shenanigans, but apparently, it’s not.”
President Obama nominated Thomas Perez on Monday to run the Labor Department, praising him as “a consensus-builder” who passed the nation’s “first statewide living-wage law” in Maryland. That isn’t his only talent. Consider how Mr. Perez worked behind the scenes to undermine two civil cases against the City of St. Paul in order to stop a Supreme Court case that might have repudiated his discrimination enforcement theories.
These columns first reported on the curious St. Paul episode in February 2012 (“Squeezed in St. Paul”), after the Minnesota city withdrew a case that it had spent almost a decade litigating and that the U.S. Supreme Court had already agreed to hear. We’ve since learned more about how it happened, and we’ve seen emails that illustrate the strong-arm role played by Mr. Perez in his current job as head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. It’s a story of how political muscle undermined the rule of law.
At the beginning of the segment, Issa briefly also discussed the Benghazi witnesses, being hidden by the Obama administration, saying, “the fact is, every time we interview people who were there, we find that the stories that were told to us publicly, and the stories these individuals tell us privately are always different.”
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is holding a full committee hearing today that is being livestreamed on CSPAN3.
According to Subcommittee Chairman Trey Gowdy, (R-SC): “ICE contends it only detains the ‘worst of the worst;’ therefore it necessarily follows ICE just released thousands of the ‘worst of the worst’ onto our streets. It strains credibility to understand why then the first cost-saving measure ICE pursued was to release detainees from custody.”
Gowdy questioned DHS Under Secretary, Management, Rafael Borras on the 10 level 1, aggravated felons released by ICE. Where might they have cut a measly $1,200 a day instead of releasing dangerous criminals into the public? Conferences? Travel? Promotional material?
“But you agree with me that the decision to release level 1, aggravated felons was not the only option that you had, there were other places that you could have cut costs?” Gowdy asked at one point.
“There was nothing else you could do as a cost saving measure.” Is that your testimony?” He pressed.
Borras answered in the negative: “no, it’s not my testimony.”
Gowdy also pressed ICE Director Morton on the release of criminal detainees.
“It does look like the decision to release the detainees was a political determination and not a monetary determination,” Gowdy said. “It appears to me that the release of the detainees was part of a sequester campaign that included the fictional firing of teachers, the closing of the White House for student tours, the displacement of meat inspectors and now we are going to release aggravated felons—some aggravated felons onto the street.”
In plain language – Congress is hauling up the heads of agencies to ask them why they’re making such high profile, “painful cuts” rather than cuts in waste and overhead.
I don’t know why we make light of this. It really isn’t funny. The Regime lies to the American people every day, and hardly anyone gives a damn. There have been so many sequester lies, it’s hard to keep track of them all.
They were caught, last week lying about who decided to cancel the White House tours. Carney admitted it was the White House while Obama tried to pass the buck to the Secret Service.
But the most egregious sequester lie had to do with the DHS illegal immigrant prisoner releases. The Regime said they were “low risk, non criminal detainees”. LIE. As Pirro established last week, they wouldn’t have even be detained if they didn’t pose some kind of risk to the general public – per ICE written policy.
The Regime also maintained that only “a few hundred detainees have been released (“as you know”, Jay Carney likes to tell reporters.) No we don’t know, Skippy. It turns out the original reporting was correct. It was over 2,200.
Jay. Quit already. If you have an ounce of decency, dignity, self respect — if you have a soul – QUIT. This has got to be eating you up – going out there and lying to everyone’s faces like that every single damn day. I don’t know how these people sleep at night. I really don’t.
There”s also the Fast and Furious lies, the Benghazi lies, and their lies about the debt crisis – (there is no crisis.)
Pirro had Congressman Randy Forbes (VA) to talk about the problem of this administration’s non stop lies.
Thursday night, The National Bloggers Club sponsored a BlogBash, “the largest gathering of right of center bloggers, and online opinion leaders” for the conservative bloggers in Washington DC for CPAC. Hundreds of bloggers filled Bobby McKey’s Dueling Piano Bar for a fun filled night. Fellow Texan Melissa Clouthier ( @Melissatweets ) introduced the Senate’s rising star, Senator Ted Cruz:
“You represent power and you represent democracy,” Cruz told assembled bloggers, “You scare the hell out of Washington.”
Congressman Louis Gohmert answered questions outside the grand ballroom at CPAC, this afternoon. A young reporter asked him about his bid to defund Obama’s golf trips until the White House tours resume. He said that just one of those trips could fund White House tours for the rest of the year.
Obama blames the Secret Servicefor the controversial decision to suspend the White House tours, but Jaye Carney has admitted that the decision was made by the White House after the Secret Service acknowledged that it needed to pull staff from the White House tours.
Earlier today, Senators McCain and Graham criticized Rand Paul’s position of drone strikes inside American borders.
McCain took to the Senate floor to make it abundantly clear that he does not “stand with Paul”:
Reading from the critical Wall Street Journal editorial urging Paul to “calm down,” McCain tore into Paul’s arguments.
“I saw colleagues who know better come to the floor and voice some of this same concern, which is totally unfounded,” McCain asserted, pointing to Paul’s Jane Fonda hypothetical, deeming it ridiculous. To “somehow say that someone who disagrees with American policy and even may demonstrate against it is somehow a member of an organization which makes that individual an enemy combatant is simply false,” he added.
“I don’t think we should have any doubt that there are people, both within the United States of America and outside of it, who are members of terrorist organizations that want to repeat 9/11,” McCain continued — but “to somehow allege or infer that the president of the United States is going to kill somebody like Jane Fonda, or somebody who disagrees with the policies, is a stretch of imagination which is, frankly, ridiculous.”He went on to contend that we are in danger, but that danger is from the enemy “hellbent on our destruction.” Bringing up Anwar al-Awlaki, McCain said he should not have been protected anywhere in the world.
Then why not spell it out in the law, Senator? You have more trust in this Regime than some of us do. (Pssss: Jane Fonda is safe, it’s the bitter clingers fitting DHS’s broad description of a domestic terrorists we’re worried about.)
Lindsey Graham, who has been so strong on Benghazi, said this after having dinner with Barack Obama.
“This idea that we’re going to use a drone to attack a citizen in a cafe in America is ridiculous.”
Via The Hill,Rand Paul blasted the two on Thursday, saying the they “think the whole world is a battlefield.”
Paul criticized the hawkish senators for thinking the laws of war should take precedence over the Bill of Rights. The two had criticized Paul’s statements about drone policy during the Kentucky Republican’s nearly 13-hour filibuster on Thursday.
“They think the whole world is a battlefield, including America, and that the laws of war should apply,” Paul said in an interview on Fox News about McCain and Graham, who had described Paul’s comments about drones as “ridiculous.”
“They think the whole world is a battlefield, including America, and that the laws of war should apply,” Paul said in an interview on Fox News about McCain and Graham, who had described Paul’s comments about drones as “ridiculous.”
“The laws of war don’t involve due process, so when they ask you for an attorney you tell them to shut up. That’s not my understanding of the way America works,” Paul told Fox. “I don’t think the laws of war apply to America, I think the Bill of Rights do and I think it’s a disservice to our soldiers that our senators up there arguing that the Bill of Rights aren’t important.”
I don’t know which interview the Hill was referring to on Fox, but Paul made many of the same points in his interview with Megyn Kelly, this afternoon without mentioning them by name.
After Kelly read the letter from Holder conceding that it would be unlawful to target American citizens with drone strikes in America, Paul said, “under duress, and under public humiliation, the White House will relent and do the right thing.”
Tellingly, they released the letter to the media before sending it to the Senator.
KS Sec. of State, Kris Kobach began his Sunday night talk show on 710 KCMO with civil defense sirens wailing in the background, “still broadcasting after the collapse of civilization” following the sequester.. It had been in effect for two days, and Kobach was hunkering down in the KCMO bunker….having a little fun at the Regime’s expense.
One of the effects of sequestration that Kobach wanted to discuss on Sunday’s show – not surprisingly, because he’s known as an anti-illegal immigrant hawk – was the decision of DHS to release illegal immigrant detainees. Kobach was astounded. Speaking as someone who was involved with making illegal immigration policy under the Bush administration, he wanted to clarify just what kind of people the Regime was releasing to the public.
“We detain a very tiny percentage of illegal aliens who are in removal proceedings – roughly 10%”, he began. “Between 30 and 40,000 are in detention….the rest of the hundreds of thousands who are in deportation proceedings, are not detained. They’re on their honor to come to court. On their honor. And guess what? Many of them don’t show, and if the judge says, “you’re outta here – they ignore their removal letter…. oh, you thought removal meant that someone came with handcuffs and took the illegal alien to the border immediately? Nah. We have an honor system in America.” He continued, “but about 10%… ARE detained and those are the ones with serious criminal records or extraordinary indicia in their records indicating that they are a huge flight risk. They are a problem. They are not your illegal aliens who just came here for a better life.”
Driving the point home, he explained, “these are illegal alien robbers, arsonists, drug dealers. These are bad guys. These are not illegal aliens who just want a chance at a better life. These are illegal immigrations who are the worst of the worst and the Obama administration decided to turn them loose to make a point about sequesters.”
He noted that it was not necessary to turn them loose. “There is so much fat in DHS and ICE”, he argued, “it would be easy to cut 2-3% of the budget.”
He suggested they could start with getting rid of executive travel and conferences, and vehicles, making the point that during the government shut down in 1996, certain emergency services were not shut down including deportation and detention facilities. So the highest levels of government services. But the ” extraordinary, bizarre, extreme” Obama administration decided that to make a political point that they would shut down what couldn’t get shut down during the government shut down in the nineties.
Scaring us by releasing illegal immigrant criminals — “REALLY, Mr. President? Really?!” Kobach thundered.
“This is a brazen abuse of power”, he said. “They crossed the line.”
“This is impeachment stuff!”
“You do not release dangerous criminals to make a point…”
WHOOPS:
Someone who will remain nameless made a booboo. (Not me.) The audio below is hour two of the program. You can listen listen to the first hour, (part of which is described above), here.
For some reason, the Obama administration has been hiding the identities of the Benghazi attack survivors since the attack took place, last September. Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) said a parent of one of the survivors currently at Walter Reed, told him, “if you had called into the hospital previously, you would never have found that person because they changed his name on the hospital records.”
Frustrated that Congress has not made any headway on this matter after six months, Greta Van Susteren asked Chaffetz why they haven’t put the whisteblowers under oath and gotten the answers? Chaffetz didn’t have a good answer for that and meekly noted that they had tried to get the members of the Accountability Review Board to testify before Congress, but they were refused. They’ve been trying to get answers from the Regime but have been stonewalled at every turn.
“You’ve got subpoena power!” Greta blasted, ” I don’t understand…I mean, why are you all so afraid to get some answers? I don’t know what happened or didn’t happen in Benghazi, but the only way to get the answers is if you ask them, and if they don’t come up and answer, you a drop a subpoena on them and you get them under oath by order!”
I thought Greta was a tad hard on Chaffetz for not investigating Benghazi more aggressively considering her own lame, soft-ball interview of Hillary“What difference does it make?” Clinton not too long ago. That said, she makes a good point.
Regarding the talking points: one source who reviewed the documents said removal of the word “al Qaeda” from the talking points was initiated, at least in part, by one of the “press shops.” The source said press officers from the Defense Intelligence agency, the White House and the FBI were “looped in” from the start and that some of them expressed concerns in writing that the media would ask follow up questions if certain words or phrases were used. The source added that the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and then-Deputy CIA Director Michael Morell were included in these emails.
When asked whether Clapper and Morell misled Congress when they didn’t disclose who changed the talking points (because they knew), one source said “the exact right question wasn’t asked.”
The documents indicated numerous other changes were made to the talking points, including removal of certain references to an “attack.”
The source who reviewed the documents also flagged several emails prior to the Benghazi attacks from officials in Libya to Washington, D.C., that supposedly specifically warned of an imminent attack within days of the Benghazi consulate.
Additionally, the source says “most if not all contact” between officials in Libya and Washington, D.C., once the attacks began reference al Qaeda, al Qaeda-affiliated cells or both as being the suspected instigator from the very start. The few references to demonstrations were by people who hadn’t directly observed any.
“It’s amazing that anyone would question who was behind the attack and keep the idea of the demonstration going for weeks,” said the source.
Yes, it was amazing at the time, too, because for anyone who was remotely paying attention, it was obvious that it was a terrorist attack and not the result of a demonstration, but the slack-jawed media went out and uncritically reported the lies, accusing anyone who questioned the Regime of politicizing the issue.
So now, six months later, after the Liar in Chief is reelected, the truth finally comes out. The President, his Press Secretary, Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton are all culpable for lying to the American people. But the journolistas tell us that “nobody cares about Benghazi” and they’re probably right. Since most of the MSM has ignored the story, so do most of the American people.
Incredibly, liberal legend Bob Woodward has now become a bete noire to the left, and a darling to the right. So much so, he’s been invited to attend the CPAC 2013 Blogbash. So much so that The GOP House Conferencecreated this “Adventures of Bob Woodward comic strip:
President Obama and His Operatives at the White House Proposed the Sequester
“Lew, Nabors, Sperling and Bruce Reed, Biden’s chief of staff, had initially decided to propose using language from the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction law as the model for the trigger. It seemed tough enough to apply to the current situation. It would require a sequester with half the cuts from Defense, and the other half from domestic programs.” (The Price Of Politics, Bob Woodward, 2012, p. 341)
“What the president said is not correct (regarding sequestration),” Woodward told POLITICO Tuesday. “He’s mistaken. And it’s refuted by the people who work for him.” (Bob Woodward: Obama ‘mistaken’ on sequester, Politico, Leigh Munsil, October 23, 2012)
“Woodward reports in his book that White House Office of Management Director Jack Lew and Legislative Affairs Director Rob Nabors took the proposal for sequestration to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and then it was presented to congressional Republicans.” (Bob Woodward: Obama ‘mistaken’ on sequester, Politico, Leigh Munsil, October 23, 2012)
“Republicans demanded spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit last summer. The White House and Democrats in Congress insisted that steep cuts to the Defense Department accompany the domestic-spending reductions favored by the GOP.” (President Obama’s big sequester gamble, Politico, Jonathan Allen and Scott Wong, October 23, 2012)
President Obama Doubled-Down on His Sequester
“My message to [Congress] is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off-ramps on this one.” (President Obama,Super Committee Statement, November 21, 2011)
House Republicans Acted to Replace the Obama Sequester
House Republicans took steps to replace President Obama’s sequestration, passing bills on two separate occasions. Neither of which the Democratic-controlled Senate considered.
In case you missed him on Hannity, last night, Woodward said that although he never used the word, “threat” to describe Sperling’s email, it’s no way for a White House to operate. He’s standing by everything he has said regarding the sequester, including his charge that Obama’s moving the goalposts.
Senator Lindsey Graham gave an emotional speech on the floor of the United States Senate, Thursday, about the negative impact sequestration will have on the United States military. He noted we have already committed to reducing defense spending by nearly $500 billion over ten years and the additional military spending cuts called for under sequestration would add another $600 billion on top of that figure, totaling 1.1 trillion dollars, which would essentially gut the finest military in the world. “What we’re doing in this sequestration proposal is ill-conceived, dangerous and despicable”, he railed.
“What came out of Bob Woodward’s reporting and common sense, Graham began, “is that this idea came out of the White House and the White House thought that it had created a penalty clause for Super Committee failure called sequestration, which would take 600 billion out of the 1.2 trillion out of the Defense Dept ….and 6oo billion out of non defense that would put pressure on the Super Committee to get the right result”
“Well, we’re going to spend 45 trillion over the next decade. The question”, he continued, “is can we save 1.2 trillion without destroying the Defense Dept. and raising taxes? Yes we could if we tried…”
He went on to make an important point that many Republicans, (including me) have been missing about the money being cut from defense.
“2/3 of the budget (almost)is exempt from sequestration”, he noted….
“When you hear Republicans say, we can find 85 billion out of 3.5 trillion dollars in spending – to my Republican colleagues – stop saying that. That’s not accurate. We’re not cutting 85 billion out 3.5 trillion dollars. We’re cutting 85 billion out of 1.3 or `1.2 and 1/2 because the budget Act took of the table 2/3 from the government from getting cut.”
“I guess that the Republican party feels like pell grants and food stamps and FAA and home mortgage interest deduction and all this other stuff in the federal government should be shielded, but those who have been fighting the war that protects us all from radical Islam should be on the chopping block. Ronald Reagan should be rolling over in his grave.Shame on everybody who thought this was a good idea on our side. I can’t tell you how disgusted I am with the concept that when it comes time to cut because a bunch of politicians couldn’t reach an agreement, we fire the soldiers and keep the politicians and every other social program intact - put half the cuts on those who are fighting the war.
So next time you go on a military base — good luck with looking those men and women in the eye —because I don’t see how you could. I don’t see how you go onto a military base or see somebody at the airport and shake their hand and thank them for their service given the fact that you’ve taken the Defense Dept, and made it something not so special anymore.”
Senator Graham really seemed on the verge of tears at this point.
You could say he was not pleased with the Republican leadership, but he had even tougher words for the president.
“You are the Commander Chief of the United States”, he began, “they trust you, they need you, your primary goal is to take care of those in uniform and their families. Mr. President, you have let them down……How you could have considered this as an acceptable outcome, just makes me sick to my stomach.”
”How any Commander in Chief could have been comfortable with the idea that if the Super Committee fails we’re going to gut the military…and you haven’t lifted a finger in the last year to do anything about it – you finally go down to the Naval base down in VA after the election a few days before this kicks in. To me, this is a pathetic leadership by the Commander in Chief , this is an abandonment of the Republican party’s belief in peace through strength, this is the low point of my time in the US Congress….”
“I cannot tell you how ashamed I am of what we’ve done to those who have been busting their butt for the last eleven years, have been deployed time and time again, and to their families. The thanks you get from the President of the United States and Congress is we’re going to put your way of life on the chopping block. God, if we can’t do any better than that all of us should be fired”, he said. “Fire the politicians, not the soldiers.”
Speaker Boehner called Senate Democrats failure to pass a single Sequester replacement bill in 15 months, embarrassing, in a press release, today.
WASHINGTON, DC – House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) released the following statement after the Democratic-controlled Senate failed to pass legislation replacing President Obama’s sequester:
“It’s embarrassing that after 15 months Senate Democrats still haven’t passed a single sequester replacement bill. The American people deserve better. Republicans in the House passed legislation almost a year ago in May, and again in December, to avert the president’s sequester and help put us on a path to a balanced budget. Now that today’s political stunt to raise taxes has failed, it’s time for the president and Senate Democrats to do the hard work that is necessary to pass a bill in the Senate so we can begin to resolve this issue.”
He told Senate Democrats to do their jobs and pass a bill, noting that as of right now, the revenue issue is closed. He said, “any revenues generated by closing loopholes should be used to lower rates across the board for American families.”
The House has passed 5 bills to stop sequestration of DoD, including H Con Res. 112: Official House Republican Budget for FY2013; H.R. 5652: Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act of 2012; H.R. 6365: National Security and Job Protection Act of 2012; H.R. 5872: Sequestration Transparency Act (now law).
For his part, Harry Reid took to the floor of the Senate to say that John Boehner is acting like a dictator. See if you can follow his logic.
Now, via News Ninja,it looks like Obama’s starting to walk back some of his spastic hair-on-fire dire predictions regarding the sequester. He ain’t getting his tax hikes. These cuts are going to happen – now what?
Oh – “a lot of people may not notice”, he now says.
