Editorial: Will anything come from the Benghazi investigation?

Editorial


This week we saw the beginning of the possibility of a Benghazi investigation. Although expectations are low, this might be the only time there is any negative coverage of the current president and the front runner for 2016, Ms. Clinton.

Documents Prove IRS Harassment of Pro-Life Groups Dates to 2009

An interesting story from www.lifenews.com about the IRS and Pro-Life Groups receiving treatment similar to Tea Party Groups. This follows this post about the Kermit Gosnell trial. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can also get two very interesting books HERE.

Documents Prove IRS Harassment of Pro-Life Groups Dates to 2009


Today, the Thomas More Society offered over 150 pages of analysis and evidence to the House Ways and Means Committee about repeated IRS harassment of pro-life organizations.



At the request of Congressman Aaron Schock (R-IL), Thomas More Society President Thomas Brejcha, Executive Director Peter Breen, and Special Counsel Sally Wagenmaker, prepared the legal memorandum with solid evidence of IRS harassment of pro-life organizations dating back to 2009. http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/17/documents-prove-irs-harassment-of-pro-life-groups-dates-to-2009/

Tell GOP Congressmen that Supporting Amnesty Won't Win Over Hispanic Voters

A timely post from www.NumbersUSA.com about Amnesty as a failing strategy for the GOP. This follows this post about Congressional townhalls this August. This follows THIS VERY IMPORTANT POST about the Arizona Senate race and this post about the MURDER of ROBERT KRENTZ, who the protestors and boycotters won't give a solution for, but will call Americans racist for trying to prevent another MURDER, and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

Tell GOP Congressmen that Supporting Amnesty Won't Win Over Hispanic Voters
This new fax has been posted in your Action Buffet based on your answers to the Interest Survey.

You can find this fax by proceeding to
http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=12408


On August 17, Tom Garcia, a Republican running for Congress in Florida's 24th District, wrote an opinion piece for the Washington Times, outlining why supporting an amnesty for illegal aliens will not bring Hispanic voters to the Republican Party. You can read Mr. Garcia's op-ed below.

Please send a fax, which will be delivered to every Republican U.S. Senator and Representative, and let them know about Mr. Garcia's article and that you agree with his opinion. Please be sure to make it clear you are a Republican and believe the Party should oppose any amnesty for illegal aliens.

----

There is no upside to amnesty for illegal aliens

By Tom Garcia

The Washington Times

Tuesday, August 17, 2010



Throughout his partnership with President George W. Bush, Karl Rove argued that a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens would be a political winner for the Republican Party. His argument, so it went, was that because the so-called Hispanic segment of the population was growing faster than other parts of the body politic, it would be foolish to block amnesty for illegal aliens that those voters wanted.

Furthermore, so his logic contended, this growing minority would punish Republicans for not going along with the Democrats' amnesty proposals. In other words, the Republican Party should itself co-opt these proposals for amnesty and make them their own, thereby eroding the Democrats' share of this voting public.

But on what premise is this theory based?

First, it assumes that all U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent favor a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens, whether those aliens come from Malaysia, Ireland, Kosovo, Somalia or Russia. While it obviously is true that the leftist, top-down, unelected leadership of the ethnocentric advocacy organizations La Raza, the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund and the League of United Latin American Citizens, as well as their organized masses of illegal alien street marchers, are boisterous in their clamor for "comprehensive immigration reform," it isn't equally clear how many ordinary, everyday U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent share those passions.

Illegal immigration impacts Hispanic-American communities first and foremost, because foreign nationals from south of the border naturally congregate in already-established enclaves. Those communities therefore sustain the brunt of crime; gang infestation; and competition for already scarce jobs, housing, education and social services.

While it may be true that some Hispanic-Americans might nurture a solidarity with their more recently arrived ethnic cousins, is this where their own true interests lie? Are their real-world interests associated with the illegal arrival of millions of neighbors from their old countries or with their fellow American citizens, with the old world they left behind or the new society of which they are a part? Isn't the ethnic demagoguery associated with the so-called "pathway to citizenship" in effect a pathway to Balkanization?

Instead of descending into a competition with Nevada Sen. Harry Reid in a watered-down imitation of liberal Democrats' pandering for the votes of "Amnesty-Hispanics," wouldn't it be more prudent as well as more respectful to Hispanic-Americans for the Republican Party to offer a clear alternative, to appeal to their American patriotism and their own real self-interests as U.S. citizens? Why lump the entire Hispanic-American community, with ancestors from a host of Latin American countries, with a diversity of histories, cultures, traditions, languages and interests, into one homogeneous group as if they all marched to the same drummer? How about offering this vibrant cross section of American citizens an option other than blind obedience to La Raza and the Democrats?

Second, Mr. Rove's theory rests on the assumption that newly amnestied voters will remember that the Republican Party helped pave their pathway to citizenship and reward the party with future support. But let's look at the facts. The overwhelming majority of illegal aliens have less than a high school education, and many are not even literate in their own languages. This doesn't mean they aren't good people, but it does mean they are natural recipients of the welfare state. Once they receive citizenship in the United States, will they be more likely to favor the big-government, wealth-transferring, multiculturalist nanny state promised and promoted by the Democrat Party or the smaller-government, self-reliant, lower-taxing, entrepreneurial, assimilative society championed by the Republican Party?

What's more, the tens of millions of newly amnestied citizens legally would be able to bring in their next of kin through chain migration, swelling the overall number to potentially more than 50 million within a decade of the amnesty - constituting a permanent Democratic majority.

We've become fond of Mr. Rove's cable-TV chalkboards. Here's a four-liner he hasn't shown us yet:

If 12 million-20 million illegal aliens are amnestied, it can be estimated conservatively that a majority of these new citizens will vote Democrat.

If there is no amnesty, none of these illegal aliens will vote, period.

If there is an amnesty, current U.S. citizens of Hispanic origin will vote as they have been voting anyway.

If there is no amnesty, current U.S. citizens of Hispanic origin will vote as they have been voting anyway.

A majority of U.S. citizens of Hispanic origin (with the exception of Cuban-Americans) have consistently voted Democratic. Many of those within this voting population who ardently support amnesty will blame the Democrats for not getting one because the Democrats will be the ones who did not push through an amnesty when they had the political power and the unprecedented opportunity to do so. So where is the political upside for the Republican Party to support an amnesty, in either the short or long run?

Had there been an amnesty in 2006 or 2007, as Sen. John McCain and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy proposed, millions more would have entered the country illegally since then, as, in fact, they have anyway. The border wasn't secured before the amnesty votes and hasn't been secured since those votes. Visa violators continued to remain illegally in the country before those votes, and many more recent arrivals have continued illegally to do so since those votes. The federal government under Mr. Bush and President Obama contented itself with cosmetic measures and halfhearted initiatives, abdicating its responsibility to enforce existing immigration law effectively and to secure our borders. Even with the successful passage of McCain-Kennedy in 2006, we would be debating anew today whether to provide amnesty for the 4 million to 5 million illegal aliens who have entered since. And if an amnesty were enacted tomorrow, five years from now, Congress would be debating what to do with the additional 5 million who would have entered by that time.

If the history of past amnesties has taught us anything, it is this: Talk of amnesty, the promise of amnesty - especially the enactment of amnesty legislation as in 1986 - simply encourages more and more illegal immigration. Limited or general, amnesties act as flashing green lights to the likely hundreds of millions on earth who would like to move to America.

Until the borders are really secured, workplace laws are really upheld and the benefits of the welfare state are restricted to U.S. citizens and legal immigrants, any consideration of amnesty is a perilous venture into a fantasyland of false promises, unrealistic expectations, the abrogation of the rule of law and the perpetuation of an immoral, systematic exploitation of unending waves of cheap labor from Third World countries. We already have federal laws in place to get the illegal immigration fiasco under control. Congress has not abdicated its responsibility by failing to enact new laws favored by open-borders utopians. No such laws are required, comprehensive or otherwise. The problem is with the executive branch and the Obama administration, which has turned itself into the greatest collection of scofflaws in the country.

The way to increase the percentage of American-Hispanics voting for the Republican Party is

(1) To raise their standard of living (and everyone else's) by a return to free-market principles;

(2) by an open appeal to their shared American patriotism and

(3) by clearly and unapologetically stating the unequivocal rejection of amnesty in any guise, shape or form. U.S. citizens of Hispanic origin don't love the rule of law less than other Americans and understand that the United States already has the most generous legal immigration policy on earth. Given a clear choice and a positive appeal, many will rally.

These positions won't get Republicans a majority of these voters right away, but they will diminish the Democrats' share of the vote in the short run and hasten the integration of the Hispanic-American community into the great melting pot that is America. A time will come in the not-too-distant future when hyphens matter to Hispanics no more than they do to any of the immigrant groups who preceded them. It is the best path for America and the only practical path for the survival of the Republican Party as a majority party worthy of the electorate.

Will this get the GOP from 55% to 70%?

A very insightful article from Steve Sailer of www.vdare.com! He also wrote a book called Barack Obama: America's Half-Blood Prince which you can get here.

Sailer Strategy Supplement: Rebrand Democrats As The Black Party
By Steve Sailer
Two weeks ago, I noted that the Republican Party has been digging itself an ever deeper electoral hole by tolerating (when not exacerbating) the lax immigration policies of the last four-plus decades. These caused demographic changes that are indisputably and inevitably deleterious to the GOP.
Yet, I pointed out, there remains a logical possibility that the country can avoid one-party Democratic rule even as far out as the middle of the 21st century. If all else remains equal, I calculated, Republican candidates could win in the 2048-2052 era simply by 1) increasing the GOP’s share of the white vote, from McCain’s 55 percent to 70 percent, and by 2) raising the white turnout level back to that seen in 1992.
At VDARE.COM, this fairly obvious but apparently unmentionable option is called the “Sailer Strategy”.
Of course, this arithmetic raises some difficult questions.
For example, how could the GOP go about deserving to get 70 percent of the white vote? That’s a question I can’t fully answer yet. But at least I’m thinking about it, which, I suspect, is more than you can say for anybody connected to the Republican Party in any official capacity.
Another difficult question is: How can the GOP keep “all else equal” while raising the white share of the vote?
For example, the blogger The Cold Equations reflected thusly on the possibility of the GOP getting about 70 percent of the white vote:
“This is not out of the question. Other races vote in blocs. But, I'm not sure how it could be done, especially without alienating other races and making the target even higher, high enough that you'd have to get white hardcore liberals, which isn't going to happen.”
On this reading, the Republican Party can’t just have a positive strategy of attracting and mobilizing white voters. There has to be a supplementary tactic. Republicans must also drive voters away from the Democrats by using wedge issues and shrewd rhetoric to aggravate the inevitable fault lines in the Democrats’ unwieldy coalition.
Even if this doesn’t convert anyone to the GOP, it would lower turnout among potential voters who lean Democrat.
In 2008, McCain let Obama position himself to blacks as the black candidate, to other nonwhites as the nonwhite candidate, and to whites as the postracial candidate. Yet, unless treated as timidly as McCain handled his opponent in 2008, a black-led four-race coalition is an inherently fragile thing.
The good news for the GOP about black voters: it really can’t get much worse than 2008. McCain ran as gingerly as imaginable on topics even remotely related to race, and still lost 95-4 among blacks.
And black turnout was very high. Indeed, the highest turnout rate among any group was among black women—which is quite remarkable considering that turnout typically correlates positively with income, education, and age. This is a tribute to the intense politicization of blacks.
Imagine that the GOP starts finally advocating and delivering on policies that are beneficial for America’s white majority, and in response the Republican Party drops a stunning three-fourths of its black support. Instead of losing among blacks 95-4, the GOP would then lose 98-1.
Big deal!
The more important question is: What about the growing immigrant groups, the Hispanics and the Asians, who, together, cast 9.9 percent of the vote in 2008?
Karl Rove labored mightily to convert Hispanics into Republicans, with minimal success and catastrophic side effects. There simply are fundamental reasons why a low-income group will always be more attracted to the Democrats, with their proud tax-and-spend tradition. (Asians might be a different story, but there’s no evidence of it as yet and anyway nobody has paid them much attention.)
A more plausible Republican strategy, one with much history on its side, is to work to make Hispanics and Asians less enthusiastic about voting Democrat.
Maybe they could get so disgusted with the Democrats that they convert to Republicans. Or maybe not. Maybe they’ll just vote less. Half a loaf (or a non-cast vote from your opponent’s base constituency) is better than none.
Traditionally, Hispanics and Asians have been good at not voting. Hispanics tend to find politics a bore and Asians find it a distraction. Even in 2008, with the excitement of voting for a non-white candidate, neither group saw even half of its citizens turn out, versus 66 percent of whites and 65 percent of blacks. And lots of permanent residents (especially Mexicans) never bother becoming citizens.
But let’s be realistic. Being, in essence, the white party makes the GOP uncool. And that’s only going to get worse as the impact of decades of indoctrination in the uncoolness of white people by the school system and Main Stream Media continue to pile up.
Further, contra Karl Rove, the GOP will never be able to shake its white party image. It will either increase its share of the white vote or it will go out of business as a party capable of winning national power.
My suggestion: the only long-term option for the Republicans, the de facto white party, is to rebrand the Democrats as the de facto black party.
Not the Minority Party or the Cool, Hip, Multicultural Party—but the Black Party. Go with the flow of the fundamental Manichaeism of American thought: Black versus White.
Sure, it’s kind of retarded, but Americans, especially American intellectuals and pundits, aren’t good at thinking in terms of shades of brown. You can’t beat it, so use it.
Hispanics and Asians certainly will never be terribly happy with the idea of being junior partners in the white party. (Indeed, lots of white people have an allergy to belonging to the white party.) Hence, the alternative must be framed that if Hispanics and Asians don’t want to be junior partners in the white party, they get be junior partners in the black party.
Black or white: choose one.
Or they can not choose and stay home on Election Day.
The subtle cunning of the tactic of rebranding the Democrats as the black party is not to criticize the Democrats for being the vehicle of African-American political activism, but to praise them for it, over and over, in the most offhand “everybody-knows” ways.
Republicans can hurry along the coming Democratic train wreck by, for example, lauding blacks as the “moral core” of the Democratic Party. Respectfully point out that the Democratic Party is the rightful agent for the assertion of African-American racial interests, and that advancing black interests is central to the nature of the Democratic Party. Note that, while individual blacks wishing to vote for the good of the country are more than welcome in the GOP, black racial activists have their natural home in the Democratic Party. That’s what the Democrats are there for.
Don’t argue it. Just treat it as a given.
Moreover, Republican rhetoric should encourage feelings of proprietariness among blacks toward their Democratic Party. It’s not all that hard to get blacks to feel that they morally deserve something, such as, for example, predominance in the Democratic Party. African-Americans are good at feeling that others owe them deference.
This kind of subtle language, casually repeated, puts Democrats in a delicate spot. Either they insult blacks by denying this presumption, or they alarm their Asian, Hispanic, and white supporters by not denying it. As everybody knows, but seldom says, black political control hasn’t worked out well for places as far apart as Detroit and Zimbabwe.
For instance, 2016 on the Democratic side will be interesting. If Obama wins re-election in 2012, blacks will argue, not unreasonably, that they’ve brought the Democrats political prosperity and therefore a black deserves a spot on the 2016 national ticket. If Obama loses re-election, the media will relentlessly blame it on white racism, and blacks in 2016 will demand a black candidate to fight the scourge of anti-black feelings.
Even if blacks are rebuffed by the Democrats in the 2016 nominating process, they aren’t going to vote Republican in the fall. But without a black on the ballot, they won’t show up to vote in quite the huge numbers seen in 2008.
Conversely, if the Democrats pander to blacks in 2016, thus establishing a precedent of a permanent black spot on the national ticket, that will raise severe questions in the rest of this awkward alliance.
As the black sense of rightful ascendancy in the Democratic Party becomes more pronounced, Hispanics will be demanding that their burgeoning numbers mean that it’s now their turn. Meanwhile, more Asians will wonder why they are supporting an agglomeration dominated by blacks who don’t share their values. And white Democrats will wonder how exactly they can prosper in a party where everybody else is allowed to speak out in internal disputes as representatives of a legitimately aggrieved racial group, but they aren’t.
The GOP faces a daunting future of their own making. Then, again, so do the Democrats. All Democrats should be helpfully assisted to confront this.
[Steve Sailer (email him) is movie critic for The American Conservative. His website www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily blog. His new book, AMERICA’S HALF-BLOOD PRINCE: BARACK OBAMA’S "STORY OF RACE AND INHERITANCE", is available here.]