Part 2: Story 1: Trump Gives Outstanding Economic Policy Speech Using Teleprompter and Before Clinton and Big Lie Media Crushed Trash As Backdrop –How To Make America Wealthy Again — The American Worker vs. Global Elitists — Free Fair Trade and Fair Tax Less — Landslide Victory For Trump in November — Videos
Donald Trump Monessen Pennsylvania Alumisource Policy Speech Economy FULL STREAM HD [AMAZING]
FULL Donald Trump Delivers Economy Policy Speech! June 28th 2016 Part 1
Published on Jun 28, 2016
Tuesday, June 28, 2016: Live streaming coverage of Donald J. Trump’s policy speech in Monessen, PA at Alumisource. Coverage begins at 2:30 PM EDT.
– TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 2016 –
MONESSEN, PA
Alumisource
2:30 PM
Donald J. Trump for President Policy Speech
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, television personality, author, and politician. He is chairman of The Trump Organization, which is the principal holding company for his real estate ventures and other business interests. He is also the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. Having worked in his father Fred Trump’s real estate and construction firm while attending college, he assumed control of that family business in 1973, later renaming it The Trump Organization. During his career, Trump has built hotels, casinos, golf courses, the Manhattan neighborhood Riverside South and numerous other developments, many of which bear his name, including Trump Entertainment Resorts (now owned by Carl Icahn). He has made the Trump name a valuable and distinct brand, licensing it to numerous enterprises in which he has minimal or no stake. He briefly sought the Reform Party’s nomination in the 2000 presidential election, withdrawing prior to any primary contests, although he won two primaries after his withdrawal. Listed by Forbes among the wealthiest 400 of The World’s Billionaires, Trump and his businesses, as well as his three marriages, have for decades received prominent media exposure. He hosted The Apprentice, a popular reality television show on NBC, from 2004 to 2015.
On June 16, 2015, Trump announced his candidacy for president as a Republican, and quickly emerged as the front-runner for his party’s nomination. His platform includes measures to combat illegal immigration, opposition to many free-trade agreements that he regards as unfair, often non-interventionist views on foreign policy, and a proposal to temporarily ban immigration to the United States from countries with a proven history of terrorism against the United States, until the government has perfected its ability to screen out potential terrorists. His statements in interviews and at campaign rallies have often been controversial, with the rallies sometimes accompanied by protests or riots.
FULL Donald Trump Delivers Economy Policy Speech! June 28th 2016 Part 2
FULL Donald Trump Delivers Economy Policy Speech! June 28th 2016 Part 3
Donald Trump’s 7-point trade plan: No TPP, renegotiate NAFTA
Conversation: The Strategy Behind China’s Currency Devaluation
The Bears Talk China’s Manipulated Currency
US trade deficit with China
Marc Faber On Yuan Devaluation, Fed Rate, Indian Economy & More
China’s Currency Manipulation is Harming America. Fair Trade Would Restore US Jobs and Prosperity
How Does China Manipulate Its Currency?
Keiser Report: Trump-Addicted America (E889)
FairTax: Fire Up Our Economic Engine (Official HD)
The FairTax: It’s Time
What is the FairTax legislation?
What is the impact of the FairTax on business?
How is the FairTax different from a Value Added Tax (VAT)?
Congressman Woodall Discusses the FairTax
Dave Ramsey Supports the Fair Tax
Neal Boortz responds to White House re FAIRtax
Mike Huckabee – What is the “Fair Tax?”
FairTax explained – a 2 minute introduction
The Case for the Fair Tax
How will Social Security payments be calculated under the FairTax?
Freedom from the IRS! – FairTax Explained in Detail
Is NAFTA a success story or damaging policy?
Obama calls out Trump trade rhetoric
Obama On Trump’s Anti-Mexican Rhetoric
Gorka: Trump’s Populism ‘Is A Direct Response To Obama’s Divisive Presidency’
Milton Friedman – Deficits and Government Spending
Milton Friedman – A Limit On Spending
TAKE IT TO THE LIMITS: Milton Friedman on Libertarianism
Milton Friedman on the Dangers of Protectionism (Obama’s recent tariff on Chinese imports
Gerald Celente 2016 Currency War, Trade War, Oil Prices & Bankism
The Legacy of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act
Lessons from the Great Depression
Lincoln’s Tariff War | by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
An In Depth Look at Southern Secession and American Principles part 4
An In Depth Look at Southern Secession and American Principles part 5
Tariffs: The Road to Civil War Part 1
Published on Jul 12, 2015
The South was 25% of the population and they were paying 80% of the taxes in the US which were being used to subsidize Northern industries. There is no way around that.
The declaration of secession included language from every faction including minority factions like slave owners who had a lot of money. Slavery wasn’t originally part of it. They pissed and moaned until they got everything included in it. These people were not the driving force of secession as secession and nullification movements started 30 years before the Civil War when slavery wasn’t even on the table. Furthermore slavery WASN’T on the table in the Civil War either. The North via New York and Ohio introduced a constitutional amendment, the Corwin Amendment which forbid the interference in slavery. Congress passed it too. It read : “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.” It was not ratified because the South seceded anyway the two largest states did so AFTER Lincoln put a naval blockade on his own country to collect the import and export taxes.
The CSA constitution changed things that we accept today a) it gave term limits b)it gave a line item veto and c) section 8 (I) was changed to
“The Congress shall have power – To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises for revenue, necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States; but no bounties shall be granted from the Treasury; nor shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry; and all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the Confederate States”
. I will remind you that 5 Northern states also had slaves, actually they all allowed slaves just not as to scale as the south. Other Northern States forbid foreign blacks from even entering the state such as Lincolns home state and the black code laws. And the 13th amendment which freed the slaves was rejected by 3 northern states and only 1 southern state. Let’s think they just lost 400,000 people to free the slaves then vote against freeing the slaves? It was never about slavery. It was about as Lincoln said “preserving the union” Lincoln didn’t even bring up the issue of slaves until the middle of the war.
Lincoln said “There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races … A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas …”
He also said “I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.”
And he said “Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may some day challenge the supremacy of the white man.”
And pay attention to this Lincoln said ” I HAVE NO PURPOSE DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY TO INTERFERE WITH THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY IN THE STATES WHERE IT EXIST. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
And “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.” -Abe Lincoln your white separatist hero.
Today, Donald J. Trump spoke at the Alumisource Factory in Monessen, Pennsylvania. Mr. Trump’s speech focused on how to rebuild the American economy by fighting for fair trade. The middle class has collapsed because of the failed policies from Washington, D.C. that benefit the politicians, but not the American people. The all talk, no action politicians have promoted globalization at the expense of American workers. Mr. Trump will fight to put the country and its workers first in order to Make America Great Again. A transcript of the remarks can be viewed via the link below:
Today, Donald J. Trump announced the expansion of his campaign team making several appointments as he continues to build his operations in advance of the general elections.
Jason Miller will serve as Senior Communications Advisor, where he will work with the existing team to build out a full Communications Department to deliver victory this November. Mr. Miller will work with several areas of the campaign to ensure messaging coordination and implementation. Mr. Miller has managed campaigns and shaped messages for successful House, Senate and gubernatorial races in addition to serving on the senior staffs of two presidential campaigns.
Michael Abboud is joining the Trump Campaign as a Communications Coordinator. Formerly with the RNC Communications Department, Mr. Abboud will work to execute the campaign’s rapid response and daily messaging, as well as providing candidate briefings on daily news and breaking stories.
Alan Cobb will serve as the Director of Coalitions for the campaign, organizing and managing the numerous coalition groups that currently support, and will support, Mr. Trump for president. Previously, Mr. Cobb served in several roles for the Trump Campaign including as a Senior Advisor. Mr. Cobb managed statewide, political and issue campaigns, served as the Deputy State Director for U.S. Senators Bob Dole and U.S. Senator Sheila Frahm and served as a Campaign Advisor to the 2014 campaigns of Congressman Mike Pompeo and Senator Pat Roberts.
On the appointments, Mr. Trump stated, “As we continue to work to defeat Hillary Clinton this November, I am constantly building a superior political team. After winning the most votes in the history of a Republican primary contest, we are taking our messages to the people so that we can Make American Great Again.”
Donald Trump starts a trade war — with the Republican Party
By Sean Sullivan and Jenna JohnsonJune 30
The unusual battle between Donald Trump and much of the Republican establishment on international trade is rapidly escalating, as the presumptive GOP nominee rails against business groups and members of his own party while defenders of sweeping free-trade pacts rebuke him.The rift deepened on Thursday when Trump called out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce by name for the second straight day and pilloried the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, two landmark trade agreements broadly supported by Republicans.“I’m messing with bad deals that we could make good,” Trump said in his speech at a shuttered manufacturing plant in Manchester, N.H. “I could make good deals. Why would somebody fight that? I mean, the U.S. Chamber fights. They said, ‘Oh, Trump wants to stop free trade.’ I don’t want to stop free trade. I love free trade, but I want to make great deals.”
The mogul’s comments followed a flurry of insults throughout the week aimed at advocates of broad trade accords, which have been championed by Republican leaders for decades as crucial engines of capitalism. Trump accused TPP backers, for example, of wanting to “rape” the United States.
For Trump, feuding with powerful business interests makes him an attractive candidate for many disaffected working-class voters, including some who have supported Democrats in the past.
But the loud dispute also risks alienating many of the Republican Party’s wealthy benefactors at a time when he is struggling to kick his long-dormant fundraising operation into gear. A stridently protectionist message could also push some moderate Main Street Republicans to support Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, in much the same way that many Republicans in the foreign policy world have done.
Many business groups, which generally favor looser trade restrictions and are traditional Republican allies, have taken sharp issue with Trump’s latest comments and appear determined to rebut them.
“While we never endorse in the presidential race, we do plan to be aggressive in presidential policy with both major party nominees,” said Scott Reed, the senior political strategist at the Chamber of Commerce. The group repudiated Trump in real time on Tuesday in a series of tweets as he delivered an address threatening to tear up trade accords and impose tariffs.
Trump has long blamed broad trade agreements for harming U.S. workers. But this week has marked a rhetorical shift as he aggressively casts members of both parties who have supported trade deals as anti-American and in league with “special interests.” For many Republicans in particular, the rhetoric amounts to an assault on core ideological beliefs that have undergirded conservative economic policy for generations.
The candidate’s arguments have also left an opening for sharp attacks by Clinton and other Democrats accusing him of hypocrisy. Trump in the past has talked favorably about outsourcing jobs overseas, and much of his Trump-branded apparel line and other products are manufactured in low-cost Asian countries.
“Donald Trump is running as an anti-Republican Republican in many ways,” said David French, senior vice president of government relations at the National Retail Federation, which like the Chamber of Commerce is not taking sides in the presidential contest. French said Trump’s commentary on trade has been disappointing.
Some business leaders are privately pessimistic that publicly fighting Trump hard on trade will be a winning proposition. His access to free media coverage through television and radio interviews presents a big obstacle to anyone standing in his way.
It also remains to be seen how and if these groups will escalate their fight beyond social media and chastising in the news media. The Chamber of Commerce, for example, is focused heavily on down-ballot contests and, given that the group primarily supports Republicans, could end up helping Trump regardless.
As Trump spoke Thursday, he stood in front of a manufacturing facility that closed in 2014, causing more than 130 workers to lose their jobs. He continued to tout his protectionist economic policies, which he has underscored since the day he launched his campaign more than a year ago and which stand at odds with many pro-free-trade statements in his past.
Trump’s repeated needling of the Chamber of Commerce, which is the nation’s largest business lobby, signaled that he has found a new favorite target. During a rally in Maine on Wednesday, Trump accused the organization of being “totally controlled by the special-interest groups.”
The mogul continued his assault on social media a few hours later, tweeting, “For reasons only they can explain, the @USChamber wants to continue our bad trade deals rather than renegotiating and making them better.”
Trump has repeatedly blamed outsourcing and big trade agreements for domestic economic decline. He has vowed to renegotiate NAFTA as president and withdraw the United States from TPP — promises many experts in both parties call unrealistic and highly risky.
But such talk has won Trump legions of fans in the economically depressed Rust Belt and other areas suffering from the effects of globalization. His allies hope it will help him compete in Ohio and Pennsylvania, two key swing states.
Trump’s repeated talk about trade is aimed in large part at undermining Clinton, whose husband signed NAFTA as president. Trump also accuses Clinton of waffling on TPP, which she praised as secretary of state but then opposed during her hard-fought primary contest with Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
“The trade policies of Hillary Clinton, global financiers — and they’re all controlling her, they have 100 percent, they might as well stamp Hillary Clinton on their forehead,” he said Thursday.
Clinton and other Democrats have pushed back by pointing to the ways that Trump has benefited from the policies he now condemns. On Thursday, Clinton issued a tweet listing the countries, from Mexico to Bangladesh, where Trump-branded ties and shirts were made.
While Trump insists he is not trying to challenge free-trade principles, he has repeatedly argued that it is more important for the United States to have “fair trade” agreements. He has said that he would prefer to negotiate deals one-on-one with countries rather than enter into multi-national settlements.
Trump has repeatedly vowed to impose high tariffs — or the threat of high tariffs — to bully American companies into keeping jobs in the United States. His favorite example is Ford Motor Co., which plans to build a massive plant in Mexico. Trump has said that before he takes office he will persuade Ford to change course by threatening to charge the company a 35 percent tax on cars imported back into the United States.
Trump took a handful of questions from the audience Thursday, including one from a man who used to work at a factory that made police badges but lost that business when departments started ordering from overseas.
“What are you going to do for us?” the man asked, as the small crowd applauded.
“First of all, your story is common to thousands and thousands of companies throughout this country,” Trump said, before promising to fight currency manipulation, which he says makes it impossible for U.S. companies to compete with those based in China and elsewhere.
Trump repeatedly said that while making products within the United States might be a bit more expensive, it’s worth the cost to have more jobs based here.
Another man asked Trump how he will respond to the corporate backlash to his trade policies.
“Corporations? I’m not worried about it,” Trump said, pointing out that his tax plan is “cutting business taxes way down” and that he will make it less expensive for companies to temporarily bring their money back from overseas.
“We will do things that are going to be so miraculous — and it’ll be fast. It won’t take a long period of time,” Trump said.
The Morrill Tariff of 1861 was an increased import tariff in the United States, adopted on March 2, 1861, during the administration of President James Buchanan, a Democrat. It was the twelfth of seventeen planks in the platform of the incoming Republican Party, which had not yet been inaugurated, and it appealed to industrialists and factory workers as a way to foster rapid industrial growth.[1]
It was named for its sponsor, Representative Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont, who drafted it with the advice of Pennsylvania economist Henry Charles Carey. The passage of the tariff was possible because many tariff-averse Southerners had resigned from Congress after their states declared their secession. The Morrill Tariff raised rates to encourage industry and to foster high wages for industrial workers.[2] It replaced the low Tariff of 1857, which was written to benefit the South. Two additional tariffs sponsored by Morrill, each one higher, were passed during Abraham Lincoln‘s administration to raise urgently needed revenue during the Civil War.
The Morrill tariff inaugurated a period of continuous trade protection in the United States, a policy that remained until the adoption of the Revenue Act of 1913 (the Underwood tariff). The schedule of the Morrill Tariff and its two successor bills were retained long after the end of the Civil War.
History
Origins
A high tariff to encourage the development of domestic industry had been advocated for many years, especially by the Whig Party and its long-time leader Henry Clay. They enacted such a tariff in 1842, but in 1846 the Democrats enacted the Walker Tariff, cutting tariff rates substantially. The Democrats cut rates even further in the Tariff of 1857, which was highly favorable to the South.
Meanwhile, the Whig Party broke up, and this element of the Whig program was taken up by the new Republican Party, which ran its first national ticket in 1856. Some former Whigs from the Border States and upper South remained in Congress as “Opposition”, “Unionist”, or “American” (Know Nothing) members; they also supported higher tariffs.
The Panic of 1857 led to calls for protectionist tariff revision. Well-known economist Henry C. Carey blamed the Panic on the Tariff of 1857. His opinion was widely circulated in the high tariff (or “protectionist”) media.
Efforts to revise the tariff schedules upward began in earnest in the 35th Congress of 1857–1859. Two proposals were submitted in the House. House Ways and Means Committee chairman John S. Phelps (D-Missouri wrote the Democrats’ plan, which retained most of the low rates of the 1857 Tariff, with minor revisions to stimulate revenue.
Minority Ways and Means members Morrill and Henry Winter Davis (a Maryland “American”) produced the Republican proposal, an upward revision of the tariff schedule. It replaced the existing ad valorem tariff schedule with specific duties and drastically increased tariff rates on goods produced by popular “protected” industries, such as iron, textiles, and other manufactured goods. Economic historian Frank Taussig argued that in many cases, the substitution of specific duties was used to disguise the extent of the rate increases.[3] Supporters of the specific rates argued that they were necessary, though, because European exporters were routinely providing their American customers with phony invoices showing lower prices for goods than were actually paid. Specific rates made such subterfuge pointless.
However, the House took no action on either tariff bill during the 35th Congress.
The Morrill bill was passed out of committee and brought up for a floor vote near the end of first session of the Congress (December 1859 – June 1860).
The vote was on May 10, 1860; the bill passed by a vote of 105 to 64.[4]
The vote was largely but not entirely sectional. Republicans, all from the northern states, voted 89–2 for the bill. They were joined by 7 northern Democrats from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Five of these were “anti-Lecompton Democrats” (dissident Democrats who opposed the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution for Kansas).
14 northern Democrats voted against the bill.
In the Border States, 4 “Opposition” Representatives from Kentucky voted for it, as did its co-sponsor Winter of Maryland, a Maryland “Unionist”, and a Democrat from Delaware. 8 Border state Democrats and an “American” from Missouri voted no.
35 southern Democrats and 3 Oppositionists voted against it; one Oppositionist from Tennessee voted for it.
Thus the sectional breakdown was 96–15 in the north, 7–9 in the Border, and 1–39 in the south.
There were 55 abstentions, including 13 Republicans, 12 northern Democrats, 13 southern Democrats, and 8 southern “Oppositionists” and “Americans”. (The remaining Representatives were mostly “paired” with opposing Representatives who could not be present.[5]
Senate action
The Morrill bill was sent on to the Senate. However, the Senate was controlled by Democrats, and so the bill was bottled up in the Finance Committee, chaired by Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia.
This insured that the Senate vote would be put off till the second session in December. It also meant that the tariff would be a prominent issue in the 1860 election.[6]
1860 election
The Republican party included a strong pro-tariff plank in its 1860 platform. They also sent prominent tariff advocates such as Morrill and Sherman to campaign in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where the tariff was popular, by touting the Morrill bill. Both Democratic candidates, John C. Breckinridge and Stephen Douglas, opposed all high tariffs and protectionism in general.[7]
Historian Reinhard H. Luthin documents the importance of the Morrill Tariff to the Republicans in the 1860 presidential election.[8] Abraham Lincoln’s record as a protectionist and support for the Morrill Tariff bill, he notes, helped him to secure support in the important electoral college state of Pennsylvania, as well as neighboring New Jersey. Lincoln carried Pennsylvania handily in November, as part of his sweep of the North.
On February 14, 1861, President-elect Lincoln told an audience in Pittsburgh that he would make a new tariff his priority in the next session if the bill did not pass by inauguration day on March 4.
Renewed Senate action
The second session of the 36th Congress began in December 1860. At first it appeared that Hunter would keep the Morrill bill tabled until the end of the term in March.
However, in December 1860 and January 1861, seven southern states declared secession, and their low-tariff Senators withdrew. Republicans took control of the Senate in February, and Hunter lost his hold on the Finance Committee.
Meanwhile, the Treasury was in financial crisis, with less than $500,000 on hand and millions in unpaid bills. The Union urgently needed new revenue. A recent historian concludes, “the impetus for revising the tariff arose as an attempt to augment revenue, stave off ‘ruin,’ and address the accumulating debt.”[9]
The Morrill bill was brought to the Senate floor for a vote on February 20, and passed 25 to 14. The vote was split almost completely down party lines. It was supported by 24 Republicans and Democrat William Bigler of Pennsylvania. It was opposed by 10 Southern Democrats, 2 Northern Democrats, and 2 Far West Democrats. 12 Senators abstained, including 3 Northern Democrats, 1 California Democrat, 5 Southern Democrats, 2 Republicans, and 1 Unionist from Maryland.[10]
There were some minor amendments related to the tariffs on tea and coffee, which required a conference committee with the House, but these were resolved and the final bill was approved by unanimous consent on March 2.
Though a Democrat himself, outgoing President James Buchanan favored the bill because of the interests of his home state, Pennsylvania. He signed the bill into law as one of his last acts in office.
Adoption and amendments
The Morrill Tariff took effect one month after it was signed into law. Besides setting tariff rates, the bill altered and restricted the Warehousing Act of 1846.
The Morrill Tariff was drafted and passed the House before the Civil War began or was even expected, and was passed by the Senate almost unchanged. Thus it should not be considered “Civil War” legislation.[11]
In fact, the Tariff proved to be too low for the revenue needs of the Civil War, and was quickly supplanted by the Second Morrill Tariff, or Revenue Act of 1861, later that fall.[12]
Impact
In its first year of operation, the Morrill Tariff increased the effective rate collected on dutiable imports by approximately 70%. In 1860 American tariff rates were among the lowest in the world and also at historical lows by 19th century standards, the average rate for 1857 through 1860 being around 17% overall (ad valorem), or 21% on dutiable items only. The Morrill Tariff immediately raised these averages to about 26% overall or 36% on dutiable items, and further increases by 1865 left the comparable rates at 38% and 48%. Although higher than in the immediate antebellum period, these rates were still significantly lower than between 1825 and 1830, when rates had sometimes been over 50%.[13]
The United States needed $3 billion to pay for the immense armies and fleets raised to fight the Civil War — over $400 million just in 1862. The chief source of Federal revenue had been the tariff revenues. Therefore, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, though a long-time free-trader, worked with Morrill to pass a second tariff bill in summer 1861, raising rates another 10 points in order to generate more revenues.[14] These subsequent bills were primarily revenue driven to meet the war’s needs, though they enjoyed the support of protectionists such as Carey, who again assisted Morrill in the bill’s drafting.
However, the tariff played only a modest role in financing the war. It was far less important than other measures, such as $2.8 billion in bond sales and some printing of Greenbacks. Customs revenue from tariffs totaled $345 million from 1861 through 1865, or 43% of all federal tax revenue, while military spending totalled $3,065 million.[15]
Reception abroad
The Morrill Tariff was met with intense hostility in Britain, where the free trade movement dominated public opinion. Southern diplomats and agents sought to use British ire towards the Morrill Tariff in order to garner sympathy, with the aim of obtaining British recognition for the Confederacy.[16] The new tariff schedule heavily penalized British iron, clothing, and manufactured exports with new taxes and sparked public outcry from many British politicians. The expectation of high tax rates probably caused British shippers to hasten their deliveries before the new rates took effect in the early summer of 1861. When complaints were heard from London, Congress counterattacked. The Senate Finance Committee chairman snapped, “What right has a foreign country to make any question about what we choose to do?”[17]
When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, British public opinion was sympathetic to the Confederacy, in part because of lingering agitation over the tariff. As one diplomatic historian has explained, the Morrill Tariff:[18]
“Not unnaturally gave great displeasure to England. It greatly lessened the profits of the American markets to English manufacturers and merchants, to a degree which caused serious mercantile distress in that country. Moreover, the British nation was then in the first flush of enthusiasm over free trade, and, under the lead of extremists like Cobden and Gladstone, was inclined to regard a protective tariff as essentially and intrinsically immoral, scarcely less so than larceny or murder. Indeed, the tariff was seriously regarded as comparable in offensiveness with slavery itself, and Englishmen were inclined to condemn the North for the one as much as the South for the other. “We do not like slavery,” said Palmerston to Adams, “but we want cotton, and we dislike very much your Morrill tariff.”
Many prominent British writers condemned the Morrill Tariff in the strongest terms. Economist William Stanley Jevons denounced it as a “retrograde” law. The well known novelist Charles Dickens used his magazine, All the Year Round, to attack the new tariff. On December 28, 1861 Dickens published a lengthy article, believed to be written by Henry Morley,[19] which blamed the American Civil War on the Morrill Tariff:
If it be not slavery, where lies the partition of the interests that has led at last to actual separation of the Southern from the Northern States? …Every year, for some years back, this or that Southern state had declared that it would submit to this extortion only while it had not the strength for resistance. With the election of Lincoln and an exclusive Northern party taking over the federal government, the time for withdrawal had arrived … The conflict is between semi-independent communities [in which] every feeling and interest [in the South] calls for political partition, and every pocket interest [in the North] calls for union … So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle. Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils… [T]he quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.
Communist philosopher Karl Marx was among the few writers in Britain who saw slavery as the major cause of the war. Marx wrote extensively in the British press and served as a London correspondent for several North American newspapers including Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune. Marx reacted to those who blamed the war on Morrill’s bill, arguing instead that slavery had induced secession and that the tariff was just a pretext. Marx wrote, in October 1861:
Naturally, in America everyone knew that from 1846 to 1861 a free trade system prevailed, and that Representative Morrill carried his protectionist tariff through Congress only in 1861, after the rebellion had already broken out. Secession, therefore, did not take place because the Morrill tariff had gone through Congress, but, at most, the Morrill tariff went through Congress because secession had taken place.[20]
Legacy
According to historian Heather Cox Richardson, Morrill intended to offer protection to both the usual manufacturing recipients and a broad group of agricultural interests. The purpose was to appease interests beyond the northeast, which traditionally supported protection. For the first time protection was extended to every major farm product.
Planning to distribute the benefits of a tariff to all sectors of the economy, and also hoping to broaden support for his party, Morrill rejected the traditional system of protection by proposing tariff duties on agricultural, mining, and fishing products, as well as on manufactures. Sugar, wool, flaxseed, hides, beef, pork, corn, grain, hemp, wool, and minerals would all be protected by the Morrill Tariff. The duty on sugar might well be expected to appease Southerners opposed to tariffs, and, notably, wool and flaxseed production were growing industries in the West. The new tariff bill also would protect coal, lead, copper, zinc, and other minerals, all of which the new northwestern states were beginning to produce. The Eastern fishing industry would receive a duty on dried, pickled, and salted fish. “In adjusting the details of a tariff,” Morrill explained with a rhetorical flourish in his introduction of the bill, “I would treat agriculture, manufactures, mining, and commerce, as I would our whole people—as members of one family, all entitled to equal favor, and no one to be made the beast of burden to carry the packs of others.”[21]
According to Taussig, “Morrill and the other supporters of the act of 1861 declared that their intention was simply to restore the rates of 1846.” However, he also gives reason to suspect that the bill’s motives were intended to put high rates of protection on iron and wool to attract states in the West and in Pennsylvania:
“The important change which they (the sponsors) proposed to make from the provisions of the tariff of 1846 was to substitute specific for ad-valorem duties. Such a change from ad-valorem to specific duties is in itself by no means objectionable; but it has usually been made a pretext on the part of protectionists for a considerable increase in the actual duties paid. When protectionists make a change of this kind, they almost invariably make the specific duties higher than the ad-valorem duties for which they are supposed to be an equivalent…The Morrill tariff formed no exception to the usual course of things in this respect. The specific duties which it established were in many cases considerably above the ad-valorem duties of 1846. The most important direct changes made by the act of 1861 were in the increased duties on iron and on wool, by which it was hoped to attach to the Republican party Pennsylvania and some of the Western States”[22]
Henry Carey, who assisted Morrill while drafting the bill and was one of its most vocal supporters, strongly emphasized its importance to the Republican Party in his January 2, 1861 letter to Lincoln. Carey told the President-Elect “the success of your administration is wholly dependent upon the passage of the Morrill bill at the present session.” According to Carey:
“With it, the people will be relieved — your term will commence with a rising wave of prosperity — the Treasury will be filled and the party that elected you will be increased and strengthened. Without it, there will be much suffering among the people — much dissatisfaction with their duties — much borrowing on the part of the Government — & very much trouble among the Republican Party when the people shall come to vote two years hence. There is but one way to make the Party a permanent one, & that is, by the prompt repudiation to the free trade system.”
The Morrill tariff bill came nearer than any other to meeting the double requirement of providing ample revenue for the support of the government and of rendering the proper protection to home industries. No national taxes, except duties on imported goods, were imposed at the time of its passage. The Civil War changed all this, reducing importations and adding tenfold to the revenue required. The government was justified in increasing existing rates of duty, and in adding to the dutiable list all articles imported, thus including articles of prime necessity and of universal use. In addition to these duties, it was compelled to add taxes on all articles of home production, on incomes not required for the supply of actual wants, and, especially, on articles of doubtful necessity, such as spirits, tobacco and beer. These taxes were absolutely required to meet expenditures for the army and navy, for the interest on the war debts and just pensions to those who were disabled by the war, and to their widows and orphans.[23]
Secession and tariffs
The Morrill Tariff and the secession movement
The Morrill tariff was adopted against the backdrop of the secession movement, and provided an issue for secessionist agitation in some southern states. The law’s critics compared it to the 1828 Tariff of Abominations that sparked the Nullification Crisis, although its average rate was significantly lower.
Slavery dominated the secession debate in the southern states,[24] but the Morrill Tariff was addressed in the conventions of Georgia and South Carolina.
Robert Barnwell Rhett similarly railed against the then-pending Morrill Tariff before the South Carolina convention. Rhett included a lengthy attack on tariffs in the Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding State19s, which the convention adopted on December 25, 1860 to accompany its secession ordinance.
And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue— to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures.[25]
The Morrill Tariff played less prominently elsewhere in the South. In some portions of Virginia, secessionists promised a new protective tariff to assist the state’s fledgling industries.[26]
In the North, enforcement of the Morrill Tariff contributed to support for the Union cause among industrialists and merchant interests. Speaking of this class, the abolitionist Orestes Brownson derisively remarked that “the Morrill Tariff moved them more than the fall of Sumter.”[27] In one such example the New York Times, which had previously opposed Morrill’s bill on free trade grounds, editorialized that the tariff imbalance would bring commercial ruin to the North and urged its suspension until the secession crisis passed. “We have imposed high duties on our commerce at the very moment the seceding states are inviting commerce to their ports by low duties.”[28] As secession became more evident and the fledgling Confederacy adopted a much lower tariff of its own, the paper urged military action to enforce the Morrill Tariff in the Southern states.[29]
Historiography
Historians, James Huston notes, have been baffled by the role of high tariffs in general and have offered multiple conflicting interpretations over the years. (Low tariffs, all historians agree, were noncontroversial and were needed to fund the federal government.) One school of thought says the Republicans were the willing tools of would-be monopolists. A second schools says the Republicans truly believed tariffs would promote nationalism and prosperity for everyone along with balanced growth in every region (as opposed to growth only in the cotton South). A third school emphasizes the undeniable importance of the tariff in cementing party loyalty, especially in industrial states. Another approach emphasizes that factory workers were eager for high tariffs because it protected their high wages from European competition.[30]
Charles A. Beard argued in the 1920s that very long-term economic issues were critical, with the pro-tariff industrial Northeast forming a coalition with the anti-tariff agrarian Midwest against the plantation South. According to Luthin in the 1940s, “Historians are not unanimous as to the relative importance which Southern fear and hatred of a high tariff had in causing the secession of the slave states.”[31] However, none of the statesmen seeking a compromise in 1860-61 that would avert the war ever suggested the tariff might be the key to a solution, or might be a cause of the secession.[32] Beginning in the 1950s, historians moved away from the Beard thesis of economic causality. In its place, historians led by Richard Hofstadter began to emphasize the social causes of the war, centered around the issue of slavery. The Beard thesis has enjoyed a recent revival among economists, pro-Confederate historians, and neo-Beardian scholars. A 2002 study by economists Robert McGuire and T. Norman Van Cott concluded:
A de facto constitutional mandate that tariffs lie on the lower end of the Laffer relationship means that the Confederacy went beyond simply observing that a given tax revenue is obtainable with a “high” and “low” tax rate, a la Alexander Hamilton and others. Indeed, the constitutional action suggests that the tariff issue may in fact have been even more important in the North–South tensions that led to the Civil War than many economists and historians currently believe.”
Rather than contributing to secession, Marc-William Palen notes how the tariff was only able to pass through Congress following the secession of Southern states. Thus, secession itself allowed for the bill’s passage, rather than the other way around.[33]Allan Nevinsand James M. McPherson downplay the significance of the tariff, arguing that it was peripheral to the issue of slavery. They note that slavery dominated the secessionist declarations, speeches, and pamphlets. Nevins also points to the argument of Alexander Stephens, who disputed Toombs’ claims about the severity of the Morrill tariff. Though initially a unionist, Stephens would later cite slavery as the “cornerstone” reason behind his support of the secessionist cause.[34]
The Pronk Pops Show 709, June 29, 2016, Part 1: Story 1: Trump Gives Outstanding Economic Policy Speech Using Teleprompter and Before Clinton and Big Lie Media Crushed Trash As Backdrop –How To Make America Wealthy Again — The American Worker vs. Global Elitists — Free Fair Trade and Fair Tax Less — Landslide Victory For Trump in November — Videos
Donald Trump Monessen Pennsylvania Alumisource Policy Speech Economy FULL STREAM HD [AMAZING]
FULL Donald Trump Delivers Economy Policy Speech! June 28th 2016 Part 1
Published on Jun 28, 2016
Tuesday, June 28, 2016: Live streaming coverage of Donald J. Trump’s policy speech in Monessen, PA at Alumisource. Coverage begins at 2:30 PM EDT.
– TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 2016 –
MONESSEN, PA
Alumisource
2:30 PM
Donald J. Trump for President Policy Speech
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, television personality, author, and politician. He is chairman of The Trump Organization, which is the principal holding company for his real estate ventures and other business interests. He is also the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968. Having worked in his father Fred Trump’s real estate and construction firm while attending college, he assumed control of that family business in 1973, later renaming it The Trump Organization. During his career, Trump has built hotels, casinos, golf courses, the Manhattan neighborhood Riverside South and numerous other developments, many of which bear his name, including Trump Entertainment Resorts (now owned by Carl Icahn). He has made the Trump name a valuable and distinct brand, licensing it to numerous enterprises in which he has minimal or no stake. He briefly sought the Reform Party’s nomination in the 2000 presidential election, withdrawing prior to any primary contests, although he won two primaries after his withdrawal. Listed by Forbes among the wealthiest 400 of The World’s Billionaires, Trump and his businesses, as well as his three marriages, have for decades received prominent media exposure. He hosted The Apprentice, a popular reality television show on NBC, from 2004 to 2015.
On June 16, 2015, Trump announced his candidacy for president as a Republican, and quickly emerged as the front-runner for his party’s nomination. His platform includes measures to combat illegal immigration, opposition to many free-trade agreements that he regards as unfair, often non-interventionist views on foreign policy, and a proposal to temporarily ban immigration to the United States from countries with a proven history of terrorism against the United States, until the government has perfected its ability to screen out potential terrorists. His statements in interviews and at campaign rallies have often been controversial, with the rallies sometimes accompanied by protests or riots.
FULL Donald Trump Delivers Economy Policy Speech! June 28th 2016 Part 2
FULL Donald Trump Delivers Economy Policy Speech! June 28th 2016 Part 3
Donald Trump’s 7-point trade plan: No TPP, renegotiate NAFTA
Is NAFTA a success story or damaging policy?
Obama calls out Trump trade rhetoric
Obama On Trump’s Anti-Mexican Rhetoric
Gorka: Trump’s Populism ‘Is A Direct Response To Obama’s Divisive Presidency’
2016 North American Leaders’ Summit – Trilateral News Conference
Trump vs Friedman – Trade Policy Debate
Milton Friedman on Free Trade
Milton Friedman – Free Trade Vs Protectionism
Milton Friedman debates a protectionist
Milton Friedman on the Dangers of Protectionism (Obama’s recent tariff on Chinese imports
The Legacy of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act
Lessons from the Great Depression
Lincoln’s Tariff War | by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
An In Depth Look at Southern Secession and American Principles part 4
An In Depth Look at Southern Secession and American Principles part 5
Tariffs: The Road to Civil War Part 1
Published on Jul 12, 2015
The South was 25% of the population and they were paying 80% of the taxes in the US which were being used to subsidize Northern industries. There is no way around that.
The declaration of secession included language from every faction including minority factions like slave owners who had a lot of money. Slavery wasn’t originally part of it. They pissed and moaned until they got everything included in it. These people were not the driving force of secession as secession and nullification movements started 30 years before the Civil War when slavery wasn’t even on the table. Furthermore slavery WASN’T on the table in the Civil War either. The North via New York and Ohio introduced a constitutional amendment, the Corwin Amendment which forbid the interference in slavery. Congress passed it too. It read : “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.” It was not ratified because the South seceded anyway the two largest states did so AFTER Lincoln put a naval blockade on his own country to collect the import and export taxes.
The CSA constitution changed things that we accept today a) it gave term limits b)it gave a line item veto and c) section 8 (I) was changed to
“The Congress shall have power – To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises for revenue, necessary to pay the debts, provide for the common defense, and carry on the Government of the Confederate States; but no bounties shall be granted from the Treasury; nor shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry; and all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the Confederate States”
. I will remind you that 5 Northern states also had slaves, actually they all allowed slaves just not as to scale as the south. Other Northern States forbid foreign blacks from even entering the state such as Lincolns home state and the black code laws. And the 13th amendment which freed the slaves was rejected by 3 northern states and only 1 southern state. Let’s think they just lost 400,000 people to free the slaves then vote against freeing the slaves? It was never about slavery. It was about as Lincoln said “preserving the union” Lincoln didn’t even bring up the issue of slaves until the middle of the war.
Lincoln said “There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races … A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas …”
He also said “I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is physical difference between the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior position.”
And he said “Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may some day challenge the supremacy of the white man.”
And pay attention to this Lincoln said ” I HAVE NO PURPOSE DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY TO INTERFERE WITH THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY IN THE STATES WHERE IT EXIST. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.”
And “My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or destroy Slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.” -Abe Lincoln your white separatist hero.
Today, Donald J. Trump spoke at the Alumisource Factory in Monessen, Pennsylvania. Mr. Trump’s speech focused on how to rebuild the American economy by fighting for fair trade. The middle class has collapsed because of the failed policies from Washington, D.C. that benefit the politicians, but not the American people. The all talk, no action politicians have promoted globalization at the expense of American workers. Mr. Trump will fight to put the country and its workers first in order to Make America Great Again. A transcript of the remarks can be viewed via the link below:
Today, Donald J. Trump announced the expansion of his campaign team making several appointments as he continues to build his operations in advance of the general elections.
Jason Miller will serve as Senior Communications Advisor, where he will work with the existing team to build out a full Communications Department to deliver victory this November. Mr. Miller will work with several areas of the campaign to ensure messaging coordination and implementation. Mr. Miller has managed campaigns and shaped messages for successful House, Senate and gubernatorial races in addition to serving on the senior staffs of two presidential campaigns.
Michael Abboud is joining the Trump Campaign as a Communications Coordinator. Formerly with the RNC Communications Department, Mr. Abboud will work to execute the campaign’s rapid response and daily messaging, as well as providing candidate briefings on daily news and breaking stories.
Alan Cobb will serve as the Director of Coalitions for the campaign, organizing and managing the numerous coalition groups that currently support, and will support, Mr. Trump for president. Previously, Mr. Cobb served in several roles for the Trump Campaign including as a Senior Advisor. Mr. Cobb managed statewide, political and issue campaigns, served as the Deputy State Director for U.S. Senators Bob Dole and U.S. Senator Sheila Frahm and served as a Campaign Advisor to the 2014 campaigns of Congressman Mike Pompeo and Senator Pat Roberts.
On the appointments, Mr. Trump stated, “As we continue to work to defeat Hillary Clinton this November, I am constantly building a superior political team. After winning the most votes in the history of a Republican primary contest, we are taking our messages to the people so that we can Make American Great Again.”
The Morrill Tariff of 1861 was an increased import tariff in the United States, adopted on March 2, 1861, during the administration of President James Buchanan, a Democrat. It was the twelfth of seventeen planks in the platform of the incoming Republican Party, which had not yet been inaugurated, and it appealed to industrialists and factory workers as a way to foster rapid industrial growth.[1]
It was named for its sponsor, Representative Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont, who drafted it with the advice of Pennsylvania economist Henry Charles Carey. The passage of the tariff was possible because many tariff-averse Southerners had resigned from Congress after their states declared their secession. The Morrill Tariff raised rates to encourage industry and to foster high wages for industrial workers.[2] It replaced the low Tariff of 1857, which was written to benefit the South. Two additional tariffs sponsored by Morrill, each one higher, were passed during Abraham Lincoln‘s administration to raise urgently needed revenue during the Civil War.
The Morrill tariff inaugurated a period of continuous trade protection in the United States, a policy that remained until the adoption of the Revenue Act of 1913 (the Underwood tariff). The schedule of the Morrill Tariff and its two successor bills were retained long after the end of the Civil War.
History
Origins
A high tariff to encourage the development of domestic industry had been advocated for many years, especially by the Whig Party and its long-time leader Henry Clay. They enacted such a tariff in 1842, but in 1846 the Democrats enacted the Walker Tariff, cutting tariff rates substantially. The Democrats cut rates even further in the Tariff of 1857, which was highly favorable to the South.
Meanwhile, the Whig Party broke up, and this element of the Whig program was taken up by the new Republican Party, which ran its first national ticket in 1856. Some former Whigs from the Border States and upper South remained in Congress as “Opposition”, “Unionist”, or “American” (Know Nothing) members; they also supported higher tariffs.
The Panic of 1857 led to calls for protectionist tariff revision. Well-known economist Henry C. Carey blamed the Panic on the Tariff of 1857. His opinion was widely circulated in the high tariff (or “protectionist”) media.
Efforts to revise the tariff schedules upward began in earnest in the 35th Congress of 1857–1859. Two proposals were submitted in the House. House Ways and Means Committee chairman John S. Phelps (D-Missouri wrote the Democrats’ plan, which retained most of the low rates of the 1857 Tariff, with minor revisions to stimulate revenue.
Minority Ways and Means members Morrill and Henry Winter Davis (a Maryland “American”) produced the Republican proposal, an upward revision of the tariff schedule. It replaced the existing ad valorem tariff schedule with specific duties and drastically increased tariff rates on goods produced by popular “protected” industries, such as iron, textiles, and other manufactured goods. Economic historian Frank Taussig argued that in many cases, the substitution of specific duties was used to disguise the extent of the rate increases.[3] Supporters of the specific rates argued that they were necessary, though, because European exporters were routinely providing their American customers with phony invoices showing lower prices for goods than were actually paid. Specific rates made such subterfuge pointless.
However, the House took no action on either tariff bill during the 35th Congress.
The Morrill bill was passed out of committee and brought up for a floor vote near the end of first session of the Congress (December 1859 – June 1860).
The vote was on May 10, 1860; the bill passed by a vote of 105 to 64.[4]
The vote was largely but not entirely sectional. Republicans, all from the northern states, voted 89–2 for the bill. They were joined by 7 northern Democrats from New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Five of these were “anti-Lecompton Democrats” (dissident Democrats who opposed the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution for Kansas).
14 northern Democrats voted against the bill.
In the Border States, 4 “Opposition” Representatives from Kentucky voted for it, as did its co-sponsor Winter of Maryland, a Maryland “Unionist”, and a Democrat from Delaware. 8 Border state Democrats and an “American” from Missouri voted no.
35 southern Democrats and 3 Oppositionists voted against it; one Oppositionist from Tennessee voted for it.
Thus the sectional breakdown was 96–15 in the north, 7–9 in the Border, and 1–39 in the south.
There were 55 abstentions, including 13 Republicans, 12 northern Democrats, 13 southern Democrats, and 8 southern “Oppositionists” and “Americans”. (The remaining Representatives were mostly “paired” with opposing Representatives who could not be present.[5]
Senate action
The Morrill bill was sent on to the Senate. However, the Senate was controlled by Democrats, and so the bill was bottled up in the Finance Committee, chaired by Robert M. T. Hunter of Virginia.
This insured that the Senate vote would be put off till the second session in December. It also meant that the tariff would be a prominent issue in the 1860 election.[6]
1860 election
The Republican party included a strong pro-tariff plank in its 1860 platform. They also sent prominent tariff advocates such as Morrill and Sherman to campaign in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where the tariff was popular, by touting the Morrill bill. Both Democratic candidates, John C. Breckinridge and Stephen Douglas, opposed all high tariffs and protectionism in general.[7]
Historian Reinhard H. Luthin documents the importance of the Morrill Tariff to the Republicans in the 1860 presidential election.[8] Abraham Lincoln’s record as a protectionist and support for the Morrill Tariff bill, he notes, helped him to secure support in the important electoral college state of Pennsylvania, as well as neighboring New Jersey. Lincoln carried Pennsylvania handily in November, as part of his sweep of the North.
On February 14, 1861, President-elect Lincoln told an audience in Pittsburgh that he would make a new tariff his priority in the next session if the bill did not pass by inauguration day on March 4.
Renewed Senate action
The second session of the 36th Congress began in December 1860. At first it appeared that Hunter would keep the Morrill bill tabled until the end of the term in March.
However, in December 1860 and January 1861, seven southern states declared secession, and their low-tariff Senators withdrew. Republicans took control of the Senate in February, and Hunter lost his hold on the Finance Committee.
Meanwhile, the Treasury was in financial crisis, with less than $500,000 on hand and millions in unpaid bills. The Union urgently needed new revenue. A recent historian concludes, “the impetus for revising the tariff arose as an attempt to augment revenue, stave off ‘ruin,’ and address the accumulating debt.”[9]
The Morrill bill was brought to the Senate floor for a vote on February 20, and passed 25 to 14. The vote was split almost completely down party lines. It was supported by 24 Republicans and Democrat William Bigler of Pennsylvania. It was opposed by 10 Southern Democrats, 2 Northern Democrats, and 2 Far West Democrats. 12 Senators abstained, including 3 Northern Democrats, 1 California Democrat, 5 Southern Democrats, 2 Republicans, and 1 Unionist from Maryland.[10]
There were some minor amendments related to the tariffs on tea and coffee, which required a conference committee with the House, but these were resolved and the final bill was approved by unanimous consent on March 2.
Though a Democrat himself, outgoing President James Buchanan favored the bill because of the interests of his home state, Pennsylvania. He signed the bill into law as one of his last acts in office.
Adoption and amendments
The Morrill Tariff took effect one month after it was signed into law. Besides setting tariff rates, the bill altered and restricted the Warehousing Act of 1846.
The Morrill Tariff was drafted and passed the House before the Civil War began or was even expected, and was passed by the Senate almost unchanged. Thus it should not be considered “Civil War” legislation.[11]
In fact, the Tariff proved to be too low for the revenue needs of the Civil War, and was quickly supplanted by the Second Morrill Tariff, or Revenue Act of 1861, later that fall.[12]
Impact
In its first year of operation, the Morrill Tariff increased the effective rate collected on dutiable imports by approximately 70%. In 1860 American tariff rates were among the lowest in the world and also at historical lows by 19th century standards, the average rate for 1857 through 1860 being around 17% overall (ad valorem), or 21% on dutiable items only. The Morrill Tariff immediately raised these averages to about 26% overall or 36% on dutiable items, and further increases by 1865 left the comparable rates at 38% and 48%. Although higher than in the immediate antebellum period, these rates were still significantly lower than between 1825 and 1830, when rates had sometimes been over 50%.[13]
The United States needed $3 billion to pay for the immense armies and fleets raised to fight the Civil War — over $400 million just in 1862. The chief source of Federal revenue had been the tariff revenues. Therefore, Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, though a long-time free-trader, worked with Morrill to pass a second tariff bill in summer 1861, raising rates another 10 points in order to generate more revenues.[14] These subsequent bills were primarily revenue driven to meet the war’s needs, though they enjoyed the support of protectionists such as Carey, who again assisted Morrill in the bill’s drafting.
However, the tariff played only a modest role in financing the war. It was far less important than other measures, such as $2.8 billion in bond sales and some printing of Greenbacks. Customs revenue from tariffs totaled $345 million from 1861 through 1865, or 43% of all federal tax revenue, while military spending totalled $3,065 million.[15]
Reception abroad
The Morrill Tariff was met with intense hostility in Britain, where the free trade movement dominated public opinion. Southern diplomats and agents sought to use British ire towards the Morrill Tariff in order to garner sympathy, with the aim of obtaining British recognition for the Confederacy.[16] The new tariff schedule heavily penalized British iron, clothing, and manufactured exports with new taxes and sparked public outcry from many British politicians. The expectation of high tax rates probably caused British shippers to hasten their deliveries before the new rates took effect in the early summer of 1861. When complaints were heard from London, Congress counterattacked. The Senate Finance Committee chairman snapped, “What right has a foreign country to make any question about what we choose to do?”[17]
When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, British public opinion was sympathetic to the Confederacy, in part because of lingering agitation over the tariff. As one diplomatic historian has explained, the Morrill Tariff:[18]
“Not unnaturally gave great displeasure to England. It greatly lessened the profits of the American markets to English manufacturers and merchants, to a degree which caused serious mercantile distress in that country. Moreover, the British nation was then in the first flush of enthusiasm over free trade, and, under the lead of extremists like Cobden and Gladstone, was inclined to regard a protective tariff as essentially and intrinsically immoral, scarcely less so than larceny or murder. Indeed, the tariff was seriously regarded as comparable in offensiveness with slavery itself, and Englishmen were inclined to condemn the North for the one as much as the South for the other. “We do not like slavery,” said Palmerston to Adams, “but we want cotton, and we dislike very much your Morrill tariff.”
Many prominent British writers condemned the Morrill Tariff in the strongest terms. Economist William Stanley Jevons denounced it as a “retrograde” law. The well known novelist Charles Dickens used his magazine, All the Year Round, to attack the new tariff. On December 28, 1861 Dickens published a lengthy article, believed to be written by Henry Morley,[19] which blamed the American Civil War on the Morrill Tariff:
If it be not slavery, where lies the partition of the interests that has led at last to actual separation of the Southern from the Northern States? …Every year, for some years back, this or that Southern state had declared that it would submit to this extortion only while it had not the strength for resistance. With the election of Lincoln and an exclusive Northern party taking over the federal government, the time for withdrawal had arrived … The conflict is between semi-independent communities [in which] every feeling and interest [in the South] calls for political partition, and every pocket interest [in the North] calls for union … So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle. Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils… [T]he quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.
Communist philosopher Karl Marx was among the few writers in Britain who saw slavery as the major cause of the war. Marx wrote extensively in the British press and served as a London correspondent for several North American newspapers including Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune. Marx reacted to those who blamed the war on Morrill’s bill, arguing instead that slavery had induced secession and that the tariff was just a pretext. Marx wrote, in October 1861:
Naturally, in America everyone knew that from 1846 to 1861 a free trade system prevailed, and that Representative Morrill carried his protectionist tariff through Congress only in 1861, after the rebellion had already broken out. Secession, therefore, did not take place because the Morrill tariff had gone through Congress, but, at most, the Morrill tariff went through Congress because secession had taken place.[20]
Legacy
According to historian Heather Cox Richardson, Morrill intended to offer protection to both the usual manufacturing recipients and a broad group of agricultural interests. The purpose was to appease interests beyond the northeast, which traditionally supported protection. For the first time protection was extended to every major farm product.
Planning to distribute the benefits of a tariff to all sectors of the economy, and also hoping to broaden support for his party, Morrill rejected the traditional system of protection by proposing tariff duties on agricultural, mining, and fishing products, as well as on manufactures. Sugar, wool, flaxseed, hides, beef, pork, corn, grain, hemp, wool, and minerals would all be protected by the Morrill Tariff. The duty on sugar might well be expected to appease Southerners opposed to tariffs, and, notably, wool and flaxseed production were growing industries in the West. The new tariff bill also would protect coal, lead, copper, zinc, and other minerals, all of which the new northwestern states were beginning to produce. The Eastern fishing industry would receive a duty on dried, pickled, and salted fish. “In adjusting the details of a tariff,” Morrill explained with a rhetorical flourish in his introduction of the bill, “I would treat agriculture, manufactures, mining, and commerce, as I would our whole people—as members of one family, all entitled to equal favor, and no one to be made the beast of burden to carry the packs of others.”[21]
According to Taussig, “Morrill and the other supporters of the act of 1861 declared that their intention was simply to restore the rates of 1846.” However, he also gives reason to suspect that the bill’s motives were intended to put high rates of protection on iron and wool to attract states in the West and in Pennsylvania:
“The important change which they (the sponsors) proposed to make from the provisions of the tariff of 1846 was to substitute specific for ad-valorem duties. Such a change from ad-valorem to specific duties is in itself by no means objectionable; but it has usually been made a pretext on the part of protectionists for a considerable increase in the actual duties paid. When protectionists make a change of this kind, they almost invariably make the specific duties higher than the ad-valorem duties for which they are supposed to be an equivalent…The Morrill tariff formed no exception to the usual course of things in this respect. The specific duties which it established were in many cases considerably above the ad-valorem duties of 1846. The most important direct changes made by the act of 1861 were in the increased duties on iron and on wool, by which it was hoped to attach to the Republican party Pennsylvania and some of the Western States”[22]
Henry Carey, who assisted Morrill while drafting the bill and was one of its most vocal supporters, strongly emphasized its importance to the Republican Party in his January 2, 1861 letter to Lincoln. Carey told the President-Elect “the success of your administration is wholly dependent upon the passage of the Morrill bill at the present session.” According to Carey:
“With it, the people will be relieved — your term will commence with a rising wave of prosperity — the Treasury will be filled and the party that elected you will be increased and strengthened. Without it, there will be much suffering among the people — much dissatisfaction with their duties — much borrowing on the part of the Government — & very much trouble among the Republican Party when the people shall come to vote two years hence. There is but one way to make the Party a permanent one, & that is, by the prompt repudiation to the free trade system.”
The Morrill tariff bill came nearer than any other to meeting the double requirement of providing ample revenue for the support of the government and of rendering the proper protection to home industries. No national taxes, except duties on imported goods, were imposed at the time of its passage. The Civil War changed all this, reducing importations and adding tenfold to the revenue required. The government was justified in increasing existing rates of duty, and in adding to the dutiable list all articles imported, thus including articles of prime necessity and of universal use. In addition to these duties, it was compelled to add taxes on all articles of home production, on incomes not required for the supply of actual wants, and, especially, on articles of doubtful necessity, such as spirits, tobacco and beer. These taxes were absolutely required to meet expenditures for the army and navy, for the interest on the war debts and just pensions to those who were disabled by the war, and to their widows and orphans.[23]
Secession and tariffs
The Morrill Tariff and the secession movement
The Morrill tariff was adopted against the backdrop of the secession movement, and provided an issue for secessionist agitation in some southern states. The law’s critics compared it to the 1828 Tariff of Abominations that sparked the Nullification Crisis, although its average rate was significantly lower.
Slavery dominated the secession debate in the southern states,[24] but the Morrill Tariff was addressed in the conventions of Georgia and South Carolina.
Robert Barnwell Rhett similarly railed against the then-pending Morrill Tariff before the South Carolina convention. Rhett included a lengthy attack on tariffs in the Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding State19s, which the convention adopted on December 25, 1860 to accompany its secession ordinance.
And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue— to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures.[25]
The Morrill Tariff played less prominently elsewhere in the South. In some portions of Virginia, secessionists promised a new protective tariff to assist the state’s fledgling industries.[26]
In the North, enforcement of the Morrill Tariff contributed to support for the Union cause among industrialists and merchant interests. Speaking of this class, the abolitionist Orestes Brownson derisively remarked that “the Morrill Tariff moved them more than the fall of Sumter.”[27] In one such example the New York Times, which had previously opposed Morrill’s bill on free trade grounds, editorialized that the tariff imbalance would bring commercial ruin to the North and urged its suspension until the secession crisis passed. “We have imposed high duties on our commerce at the very moment the seceding states are inviting commerce to their ports by low duties.”[28] As secession became more evident and the fledgling Confederacy adopted a much lower tariff of its own, the paper urged military action to enforce the Morrill Tariff in the Southern states.[29]
Historiography
Historians, James Huston notes, have been baffled by the role of high tariffs in general and have offered multiple conflicting interpretations over the years. (Low tariffs, all historians agree, were noncontroversial and were needed to fund the federal government.) One school of thought says the Republicans were the willing tools of would-be monopolists. A second schools says the Republicans truly believed tariffs would promote nationalism and prosperity for everyone along with balanced growth in every region (as opposed to growth only in the cotton South). A third school emphasizes the undeniable importance of the tariff in cementing party loyalty, especially in industrial states. Another approach emphasizes that factory workers were eager for high tariffs because it protected their high wages from European competition.[30]
Charles A. Beard argued in the 1920s that very long-term economic issues were critical, with the pro-tariff industrial Northeast forming a coalition with the anti-tariff agrarian Midwest against the plantation South. According to Luthin in the 1940s, “Historians are not unanimous as to the relative importance which Southern fear and hatred of a high tariff had in causing the secession of the slave states.”[31] However, none of the statesmen seeking a compromise in 1860-61 that would avert the war ever suggested the tariff might be the key to a solution, or might be a cause of the secession.[32] Beginning in the 1950s, historians moved away from the Beard thesis of economic causality. In its place, historians led by Richard Hofstadter began to emphasize the social causes of the war, centered around the issue of slavery. The Beard thesis has enjoyed a recent revival among economists, pro-Confederate historians, and neo-Beardian scholars. A 2002 study by economists Robert McGuire and T. Norman Van Cott concluded:
A de facto constitutional mandate that tariffs lie on the lower end of the Laffer relationship means that the Confederacy went beyond simply observing that a given tax revenue is obtainable with a “high” and “low” tax rate, a la Alexander Hamilton and others. Indeed, the constitutional action suggests that the tariff issue may in fact have been even more important in the North–South tensions that led to the Civil War than many economists and historians currently believe.”
Rather than contributing to secession, Marc-William Palen notes how the tariff was only able to pass through Congress following the secession of Southern states. Thus, secession itself allowed for the bill’s passage, rather than the other way around.[33]Allan Nevinsand James M. McPherson downplay the significance of the tariff, arguing that it was peripheral to the issue of slavery. They note that slavery dominated the secessionist declarations, speeches, and pamphlets. Nevins also points to the argument of Alexander Stephens, who disputed Toombs’ claims about the severity of the Morrill tariff. Though initially a unionist, Stephens would later cite slavery as the “cornerstone” reason behind his support of the secessionist cause.[34]
Story 1: Breaking News! Terrorist Attack At Turkish Ataturk airport in Istanbul — 50 Dead+ and 60 Wounded — 3 Suicide Bombers From Islamic State — Videos
TURKEY AIRPORT Terror 41 Dead 239 Inj USA High Alert
Istanbul Terror Attack: 41 Dead and More than 230 Hurt
2016 – BBC World News – 41 Dead in Triple Suicide Bombings @ Istanbul Airport – 29/6/16
Terrorist Attack At Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport Kills Dozens
Istanbul Ataturk airport attack Two Blast At least 40 reported dead
Two blasts rock Istanbul airport , TERRORIST ATTACK IN ISTANBUL AIRPORT (NEWS VIDEO) 6-28-2016
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Terrorist attack Istanbul Ataturk Airport
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SUSPECTED IS ATTACK KILLS DOZENS AT ISTANBUL’S AIRPORT
BY ZEYNEP BILGINSOY, SUZAN FRASER AND DOMINIQUE SOGUEL
Suspected Islamic State group extremists have hit the international terminal of Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, killing dozens of people and wounding many others, Turkish officials said Tuesday.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said 31 people were killed in the attack while another senior government official told The Associated Press it could climb much higher.
The senior official at first said close to 50 people had already died, but later said that the figure was expected to rise to close to 50.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government protocol, said as many as four militants may have been involved in the attack.
Turkey’s NTV television earlier quoted Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin as saying some 60 people were wounded.
Roads around the airport were sealed off for regular traffic after the attack and several ambulances could be seen driving back and forth. Hundreds of passengers were flooding out of the airport and others were sitting on the grass, their bodies lit by the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles.
Twelve-year-old Hevin Zini had just arrived from Dusseldorf with her family and was in tears from the shock.
She told The Associated Press that there was blood on the ground and everything was blown up to bits.
South African Judy Favish, who spent two days in Istanbul as a layover on her way home from Dublin, had just checked in when she heard an explosion followed by gunfire and a loud bang.
She says she hid under the counter for some time.
Favish says passengers were ushered to a cafeteria at the basement level where they were kept for more than an hour before being allowed outside.
Another Turkish official said attackers detonated explosives at the entrance of the international terminal after police fired at them.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government protocol, said the attackers blew themselves up before entering the x-ray security check at the airport entrance.
Turkish airports have security checks at both the entrance of terminal buildings and then later before entry to departure gates.
Two South African tourists, Paul and Susie Roos from Cape Town, were at the airport and due to fly home at the time of the explosions and were shaken by what they witnessed.
“We came up from the arrivals to the departures, up the escalator when we heard these shots going off,” Paul Roos said. “There was this guy going roaming around, he was dressed in black and he had a hand gun.”
The private DHA news agency said the wounded, among them police officers, were being transferred to Bakirkoy State Hospital.
Turkey has suffered several bombings in recent months linked to Kurdish or Islamic State group militants.
The bombings include two in Istanbul targeting tourists – which the authorities have blamed on the Islamic State group.
The attacks have increased in scale and frequency, scaring off tourists and hurting the economy, which relies heavily on tourism revenues.
Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport was the 11th busiest airport in the world last year, with 61.8 million passengers, according to Airports Council International. It is also one of the fastest-growing airports in the world, seeing 9.2 percent more passengers last year than in 2014.
The largest carrier at the airport is Turkish Airlines, which operates a major hub there. Low-cost Turkish carrier Onur Air is the second-largest airline there.
—
Soguel reported from Sanliurfa, Turkey. Bram Janssen in Istanbul and Scott Mayerowitz in New York also contributed to this report.
PUBLISHED: 14:27 EST, 28 June 2016 | UPDATED: 15:30 EST, 28 June 2016
Suicide bombers have killed at least 10 and wounded 40 at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport after blowing themselves up as police opened fire, according to Turkish officials.
It is understood that a ‘terrorist’ first opened fire with a Kalashnikov, before blowing himself up.
It is not yet clear how many attackers were involved as witnesses reported twin blasts that struck at the International Arrivals Terminal at 7.50pm GMT – 9.50pm local time.
The first photographs to emerge from the airport show a scene of devastation, with debris and what appear to be ceiling tiles scattered over the taxi ranks outside the airport.
A man carries a wounded boy away from the devastated airport tonight after the twin explosions, in what is believed to have been a suicide attack
Ceiling tiles are scattered over the ground outside the international arrivals terminal, which was hit by what is believed to have been a suicide blast tonight
Ambulances rush to the airport after the blasts this evening, to help the at least 40 wounded in the blast
An AK-47 can be seen lying abandoned on the floor, after two suicide bombers set of blasts at the airport as police opened fire
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag confirmed 10 people were killed in the attack at the international arrival terminal.
He said: ‘A terrorist at the international terminal entrance first opened fire with a Kalashnikov and then blew himself up.’
It is believed the suspects had been trying to pass through the x-ray machines when they were stopped by security officials.
They then opened fire and became locked in a shootout with security and police officers.
Some of the wounded are said to be police officers involved in the melee.
Turkish airports have security checks at both at the entrance of terminal buildings and then later before entry to departure gates.
The private DHA news agency said the wounded were being transferred to Bakirkoy State Hospital.
One photograph from the scene shows an AK-47 lying abandoned on the floor of the airport following the attack.
Police officers and ambulance crews outside the international arrivals terminal, which was struck in what officials say was a terror attack
Ambulance crews ferry the wounded away from the terminal. The wounded are believed to include a number of police officers and security personnel
The first images to emerge from the scene show debris, including what appear to be ceiling tiles, scattered over taxis
An abandoned office at Turkey’s largest airport, the Ataturk airport in Istanbul, where reports say explosions and gunfire have broken out. A window pane to the right of the image appears to have been shattered
Ambulance crews and emergency services have descended on the stricken airport, as the number of wounded is expected to increase.
A witness told broadcaster CNN Turk that gunfire was heard from the direction of the car park at the airport, which is the largest in Turkey.
Four armed men were reportedly seen running away from the terminal building after the explosions, according to Turkey’s NTV channel.
All flight operation from the airport has been suspended.
Initial reports put the number of wounded at around 40 people. Taxis are ferrying the wounded away from the airport, which officials suspect was hit by a suicide bomber
A witness told broadcaster CNN Turk that gunfire was heard from the direction of the car park at the airport, which is the largest in Turkey. Pictured, emergency services at the airport
Paramedics at the scene help the 40 wounded at the airport, with at least 10 people reported to have died
A photograph of the entrance to the international airport shows scattered debris as onlookers gather around to help the wounded – initially estimated to number around 40 people
Crowds gather outside the airport after tonight’s explosions, as emergency crews rush to help the wounded
Holidaymakers drag their suitcases outside the airport, as all flights were grounded following the attack
Two explosions and gunfire have been heard at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport (pictured), according to reports in Turkish media
A file image of the Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, which is the country’s largest airport. Explosions and gunfire have hit the airport, although it is not yet clear whether it was a terror attack or suicide blast, according to officials
A Turkish official confirmed to Reuters that two explosions had hit the airport.
Turkey has suffered several bombings in recent months linked to Kurdish or ISIS militants.
The bombings included two in Istanbul targeting tourists – which the authorities have blamed on the Islamic State group.
The attacks have increased in scale and frequency, scaring off tourists and hurting the economy, which relies heavily on tourism revenues.
The U.S. State Department published a travel warning in March, encouraging citizens to ‘exercise heightened vigilance and caution when visiting public access areas, especially those heavily frequented by tourists’.
Story 2: The Big Lies And Cover-up About A State Department Foreign Policy And CIA Covert Action Failures in Libya and Benghazi Elects Barack Obama and Destroys Hillary Clinton Credibility And Reveals Total Incompetence and Blind Ambition of Obama and Clinton — Missing In Action President Obama and Secretary of Defense Not In Situation Room, No Followup and Leading From Behind — Arrogance of Power and The Decline and Fall Of American Empire By The Two Party Tyranny of The Democratic and Republican Parties — Throw The Political Elitist Establishment Out of Office — Both Political Parties Authorized A Undeclared War In Libya Contrary To United States Constitution — An Imperial President and Congress — American People Will Overthrow These Tyrants Come Election Day — Story 2: Breaking News! Terrorist Attack At Turkish Ataturk airport in Istanbul — 10 Dead+ and 40 Wounded –Videos
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) explains what happened in Benghazi
In a press conference on June 28, 2016, Rep. Jim Jordan, OH-04, explains his view of what happened leading up to, during and after the night of September 11, 2012 when four Americans lost their lives in Benghazi, Libya from a terrorist attack. Follow the link to read Rep. Jordan’s joint report with Rep. Mike Pompeo about the events: http://jordan.house.gov/uploadedfiles…
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Trey Gowdy Benghazi Report FULL Press Conference 6/28/16 – House Select Committee
Benghazi Press Conference Senator Trey Gowdy GOP Members of Congress on Select Committee Report
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Clinton fights back against new House Benghazi report
Muslim Brotherhood’s plan & Obama connection exposed
The official report of the House Select Committee on Benghazi offered proof of what America already knew about the attack – but, more importantly, added shocking details about the lack of leadership during that attack which led to the death of two of the four victims. It explains that the Obama Administration was already working on a cover-up during the attack – when Ambassador Stevens was missing and not yet reported dead and at least two of the four victims were still on the roof of the compound (Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods) and fighting for their lives.
The official 800 page committee report issued Tuesday came just a few hours after a politically-motivated report released by the Democrats, which referred to Donald Trump more times than two of the Benghazi victims.
While the report does find fault with Clinton and the State Department, it does not focus on her, just as committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-SC) promised. The report is a chronology of the events leading up to the attack, the attack itself and the aftermath. Additionally, the committee interviewed more than 80 people and reviewed thousands of pages of new documents not available to any prior investigation.
Along with finding fault with State Department staff and Hillary Clinton’s actions, the report criticizes the CIA, saying it “missed the looming threat despite warnings and wrote faulty intelligence reports after the attack. The findings will also indicate that the Defense Department did not meet its response times to deploy military assets to Benghazi and follow up to ensure Americans were rescued in a timely fashion.”
It is not surprising that the report says the story the Administration told America, that terrorist attack in Benghazi was incited by a Mohammed video on YouTube, was a fabrication invented by the Obama Administration political team and had nothing to do with the ongoing live reports the state department was getting from Benghazi during the attack.
One U.S. agent at the American outpost in Benghazi, whose name was withheld for security reasons, said that, just before the attack, they heard “some kind of chanting.”
Then that sound was immediately followed by “explosions” and “gunfire, then roughly 70 people rushing into the compound with an assortment of “AK-47s, grenades, RPG’s … a couple of different assault rifles,” the agent said.
In addition, a senior watch officer at the State Department’s diplomatic security command described the Sept. 11, 2012, strikes as “a full on attack against our compound.”
When asked whether he saw or heard a protest prior to the attacks, the officer replied, “zip, nothing, nada.”
“The firsthand accounts made their way to the office of the Secretary through multiple channels quickly …,” the report concluded.”
Not one of the reports provided from the people on the ground during the attack mentioned a protest or a video, yet as the attack was happening, senior members of the administration were meeting to create that story, even as they knew that Ambassador Stevens was missing (but, before anyone knew he had died) and CIA operatives Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were standing on the roof of the Benghazi Compound fighting for their lives.
That White House meeting that was convened roughly three hours into the attack, and included deputies to senior Cabinet members and Clinton, focused on a “Terrorist Event Notification” – not the video:
Five of the 10 action items from the 7:30 PM White House meeting referenced the video, but no direct link or solid evidence existed connecting the attacks in Benghazi and the video at the time the meeting took place. The State Department senior officials at the meeting had access to eyewitness accounts to the attack in real time. The Diplomatic Security Command Center was in direct contact with the Diplomatic Security Agents on the ground in Benghazi and sent out multiple updates about the situation, including a “Terrorism Event Notification.” The State Department Watch Center had also notified Jake Sullivan and Cheryl Mills that it had set up a direct telephone line to Tripoli. There was no mention of the video from the agents on the ground. Greg Hicks—one of the last people to talk to Chris Stevens before he died—said there was virtually no discussion about the video in Libya leading up to the attacks.
The only statement from the Obama administration that evening came from Hillary Clinton and included this line: “Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet.”
But, as we learned during her testimony to the committee, Ms. Clinton was saying something else in private:
In an email provided to the Select Committee, Clinton told daughter Chelsea, “Two of our officers were killed in Benghazi by an Al Queda-like [sic] group.”
Clinton also told Egypt’s prime minister the following day: “We know that the attacks in Libya had nothing to do with the film. It was a planned attack — not a protest.”
The report says that, despite “Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s clear orders to deploy military assets, nothing was en route to Libya at the time the last two Americans were killed almost 8 hours after the attacks began.”
The reason for the delay was a concern about the rescuers’ wardrobe:
So we were told multiple times to change what we were wearing, to change from cammies into civilian attire, civilian attire into cammies, cammies into civilian attire.
There was also some talk of whether or not we could carry our personal weapons. I was basically holding hard and fast to the point where we were carrying our personal weapons. Like, we’ve got a very violent thing going on the ground where we’re going, so we’re going to be carrying something that can protect ourselves.
In fact, the FAST Platoon commander testified that during the course of three hours, he and his Marines changed in and out of their uniforms four times.[General Carter] Ham [commander of U.S. Africa Command] was not aware the FAST Platoon had been directed to change out of their uniforms until after the fact. When asked whether he had any explanation for why it took so long for the FAST Platoon to arrive in Tripoli, he replied, “I do not.”
It was the State Department which originally suggested the wardrobe change. According to the notes from the 7:30PM White House meeting:
Apparently Pat K[ennedy] expressed concern on the [White House meeting] about Libyan reaction if uniformed US forces arrived in country in military aircraft; there was discussion of the option of entering in plainclothes, which JCS explained was possible but noted that the risks to the forces to remaining in plainclothes increased as they transited from point of entry to the relevant location of action.
A email framed the issue as follows:
The U.S. military has begun notifying special units of likely deployment, with ultimate disposition pending State coordination with the Libyan government and final approval by the White House. State remains concerned that any U.S. military intervention be fully coordinated with the Libyan Government and convey Libyan concerns that [sic] about U.S. military presence, to include concerns that wheeled military vehicles should not be used and U.S. Military Forces should consider deploying in civilian attire.
Thus, Panetta was being honest when he said there was no stand-down order. The rescue was delayed because of a concern about the appropriate wardrobe initiated by the State Department.
According to Susan Rice, who went on five Sunday news programs days after the attack blaming the video, her statements blaming the video “were based on the best available information, but nobody from the intelligence community such as the CIA director or the Director of National Intelligence briefed Rice. That was done by the political appointees.”
So, it seems that, even though she was playing the role of the administration’s spokesperson on the Sunday shows, it was deemed that Rice should get her story from the spin-masters.
In fact, a Sept. 14, 2012 memo from Rhodes included the subject line: “RE: PREP Call with Susan: Saturday at 4:00 pm ET.”
The email was sent to a dozen members of the administration’s inner circle, including key members of the White House communications team such as then-Press Secretary Jay Carney, who also pushed the video narrative in the days after the attacks.
In the email, Rhodes specifically draws attention to the anti-Islam Internet video, without distinguishing whether the Benghazi attack was different from protests elsewhere, including one day earlier in Cairo.
The Rhodes email, which was a catalyst for the Select Committee, was first obtained by Judicial Watch and reported here. Per the report, Rhodes was also the official who signed off on Clinton’s statement the night of the attack linking the video to Benghazi.
Among the goals laid out for Rice in the email were “to underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video and not a broader failure of policy” and “to reinforce the President and Administration’s strength and steadiness in dealing with difficult challenges.” Both this subterfuge and the attack occurred less than two months before the 2012 presidential election.
According to the committee, the CIA post-attack intelligence analysis contradicted the eyewitness accounts that night, and the “administration latched onto the faulty analysis to defend and justify their misleading statements to the public.”
The CIA’s September 13, 2012, intelligence assessment was rife with errors. On the first page, there is a single mention of “the early stages of the protest” buried in one of the bullet points. The article cited to support the mention of a protest in this instance was actually from September 4. In other words, the analysts used an article from a full week before the attacks to support the premise that a protest had occurred just prior to the attack on September 11
A headline on the following page of the CIA’s September 13 intelligence assessment stated “Extremists Capitalized on Benghazi Protests,” but nothing in the actual text box supports that title. As it turns out, the title of the text box was supposed to be “Extremists Capitalized on Cairo Protests.” That small but vital difference—from Cairo to Benghazi—had major implications in how people in the administration were able to message the attacks
On top of the full committee report, two of the panel’s Republican members, Reps. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) released their own views, stating that the committee should have been harsher on Ms. Clinton, saying that the committee needed an answer for why she was so insistent on keeping people in Libya’s troubled second city — creating a target for the terrorists.
“There was a very good chance that everyone was going to die,” one diplomatic security agent told the committee, recalling the troublesome security situation in the run-up to the attack.
(…) Mrs. Clinton personally joined a high-level video meeting the night of the attack and that gathering spent an extraordinary amount of time focused on the video, the lawmakers said. Of 11 action items emerging from that meeting, five of them related to the video, according to an email recounting the meeting, which the committee unearthed.
“What has also emerged is a picture of the State Department eating up valuable time by insisting that certain elements of the U.S. military respond to Libya in civilian clothes and that it not use vehicles with United States markings,” the lawmakers said. “We will never know exactly how long these conditions delayed the military response but that they were even a part of the discussion is troubling.”
This may not be the final version of the report, since the committee has scheduled a meeting markup to discuss and vote on the proposed report on July 8, 2016. According to the report issued Tuesday, all members of the committee will have the opportunity to offer changes in a manner consistent with the rules of the House at that time.
BENGHAZI REPORT: 10 THINGS THAT HAPPENED THE NIGHT OF
FILE – In this Oct. 22, 2015 file photo, Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington before the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Clinton never personally denied any requests from diplomats for additional security at the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, according to Democrats on a select House panel who absolved the former secretary of state and the U.S. military of wrongdoing in the deadly Sept. 11, 2012 attacks. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
With all the intelligence available at the time,Hillary Clinton should have realized the risks Ambassador Christopher Stevens and others faced from extremist groups in Benghazi, Libya, according to a long-awaited U.S. House committee reporton the attack that left Stevens and three others dead in 2012.
The report from the “Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi, Libya,” was released Tuesday. In addition to taking Clinton to task for her actions, the findings also say the Obama administration failed in nearly every way it could to protect American diplomats in Benghazi that night.
The report points out failures in military response, and slams Clinton, who was secretary of State at the time, and the State Department for acting in a “shameful” manner in failing to turn over emails from her private email server as the attack was being investigated. The report said because it did not have the emails, it was “impossible” to know everything about the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that left four Americans – Stevens, foreign service officer Sean Smith and former Navy Seals Ty Woods and Glen Doherty, dead.
The 800-page report comes after a two-year investigation into the events of that night.
What’s in the report
Here are some of the report’s findings:
Despite President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s clear orders to deploy military assets, nothing was sent to Benghazi, and nothing was en route to Libya at the time the last two Americans were killed almost 8 hours after the attacks began. [pg. 141]
With Ambassador Stevens missing, the White House convened a roughly two-hour meeting at 7:30 PM, which resulted in action items focused on a YouTube video, and others containing the phrases “[i]f any deployment is made,” and “Libya must agree to any deployment,” and “[w]ill not deploy until order comes to go to either Tripoli or Benghazi.” [pg. 115]
The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff typically would have participated in the White House meeting, but did not attend because he went home to host a dinner party for foreign dignitaries. [pg. 107]
A Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team (FAST) sat on a plane in Rota, Spain, for three hours, and changed in and out of their uniforms four times. [pg. 154]
Five of the 10 action items from the 7:30 PM White House meeting referenced the video, but no direct link or solid evidence existed connecting the attacks in Benghazi and the video at the time the meeting took place. The State Department senior officials at the meeting had access to eyewitness accounts to the attack in real time. The Diplomatic Security Command Center was in direct contact with the Diplomatic Security Agents on the ground in Benghazi and sent out multiple updates about the situation, including a “Terrorism Event Notification.” The State Department Watch Center had also notified Jake Sullivan and Cheryl Mills that it had set up a direct telephone line to Tripoli. There was no mention of the video from the agents on the ground. Greg Hicks—one of the last people to talk to Chris Stevens before he died—said there was virtually no discussion about the video in Libya leading up to the attacks. [pg. 28]
The morning after the attacks, the National Security Council’s Deputy Spokesperson sent an email to nearly two dozen people from the White House, Defense Department, State Department, and intelligence community, stating: “Both the President and Secretary Clinton released statements this morning. … Please refer to those for any comments for the time being. To ensure we are all in sync on messaging for the rest of the day, Ben Rhodes will host a conference call for USG communicators on this chain at 9:15 ET today.” [pg. 39]
Minutes before the President delivered his speech in the Rose Garden, Jake Sullivan wrote in an email to Ben Rhodes and others: “There was not really much violence in Egypt. And we are not saying that the violence in Libya erupted ‘over inflammatory videos.’” [pg. 44]
According to Susan Rice, both Ben Rhodes and David Plouffe prepared her for her appearances on the Sunday morning talk shows following the attacks. Nobody from the FBI, Department of Defense, or CIA participated in her prep call. While Rhodes testified Plouffe would “normally” appear on the Sunday show prep calls, Rice testified she did not recall Plouffe being on prior calls and did not understand why he was on the call in this instance. [pg.98]
On the Sunday shows, Susan Rice stated the FBI had “already begun looking at all sorts of evidence” and “FBI has a lead in this investigation.” But on Monday, the Deputy Director, Office of Maghreb Affairs sent an email stating: “McDonough apparently told the SVTS [Secure Video Teleconference] group today that everyone was required to ‘shut their pieholes’ about the Benghazi attack in light of the FBI investigation, due to start tomorrow.” [pg. 135]
Susan Rice’s comments on the Sunday talk shows were met with shock and disbelief by State Department employees in Washington. The Senior Libya Desk Officer, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, State Department, wrote: “I think Rice was off the reservation on this one.” The Deputy Director, Office of Press and Public Diplomacy, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, State Department, responded: “Off the reservation on five networks!” The Senior Advisor for Strategic Communications, Bureau of Near East Affairs, State Department, wrote: “WH [White House] very worried about the politics. This was all their doing.” [pg. 132]
House Benghazi report faults military response, not Clinton, for deaths
Panel chair Trey Gowdy concludes $7m investigation with 800-page report that accuses US of being slow to respond after 2012 attack was already under way
Benghazi report blames military for slow response after attacks
Lauren Gambino in New York and David Smith in Washington
Tuesday 28 June 2016 10.49 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 28 June 2016 15.14 EDT
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House Republicans investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks in Benghazi, Libya, have found no new evidence to conclude that Hillary Clinton, secretary of state at the time, was culpable in the deaths of four Americans, according to the committee’s final report released on Tuesday.
The 800-page document released by the Republicans on the House select committee on Benghazi brought to a close a fiercely partisan, two-year, $7m investigation that included interviews with more than 80 witnesses. The report reveals new details about the night of the attack and concludes that the Obama administration failed to recognize the possibility of it happening.
Ambassador Christopher Stevens, his state department colleague Sean Smith and former Navy Seals Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty were killed when Islamist militants stormed the US consulate in Benghazi on 11 September 2012. Controversy has raged ever since over the chain of events and how much support the men had from Washington.
The White House noted tersely that this was the eighth congressional committee to investigate the attacks and went on longer than the 9/11 commission and the committees designated to look at Pearl Harbor, the assassination of President John F Kennedy, the Iran-Contra affair and Watergate. It accused Republicans of pursuing “wild conspiracy theories”.
Committee chairman Trey Gowdy, a Republican from South Carolina, denied that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Clinton was the target. “When the select committee was formed, I promised to conduct this investigation in a manner worthy of the American people’s respect, and worthy of the memory of those who died,” he said.
“That is exactly what my colleagues and I have done. Now, I simply ask the American people to read this report for themselves, look at the evidence we have collected, and reach their own conclusions.”
But a split emerged among Republicans on the committee. Two members, Jim Jordan and Mike Pompeo, issued a 48-page supplementary report more forthright in its criticism. It says: “What we did find was a tragic failure of leadership – in the run-up to the attack and the night of – and an administration that, so blinded by politics and its desire to win an election, disregarded a basic duty of government: tell the people the truth. And for those reasons Benghazi is, and always will be, an American tragedy.”
Jordan, from Ohio, and Pompeo, from Kansas, were equally blunt in their condemnation of Clinton in particular. “Secretary Clinton and the administration told one story privately – that Benghazi was a terrorist attack – and told another story publicly – blaming a video-inspired protest,” they wrote.
Pressed on whether he believed that Clinton lied, Gowdy declined to give a direct answer, telling journalists to read the report. “You’re going to have to decide that for yourself,” he said.
Clinton on Benghazi report: ‘It’s pretty clear it’s time to move on’
The committee’s Democrats, who have long derided the investigation as politically motivated, on Monday released their own report on the committee’s findings.
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“Although the select committee obtained additional details that provide context and granularity, these details do not fundamentally alter the previous conclusions,” the Democrats’ report said.
Donald Trump has used the incident to discredit Clinton’s time at the helm of the state department. In a speech last week, he said Clinton “spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched. Among the victims was our late ambassador Chris Stevens”.
And on Tuesday Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, weighed in: “The new information in the majority’s report on the Benghazi terrorist attack makes clear that Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration engaged in a politically motivated cover-up weeks before the 2012 presidential election.
“Hillary Clinton knew the night of the attack it had nothing to do with an internet video, and yet she shamefully peddled this false narrative to the American public and to the victims’ families. This in itself is a disqualifying act of deception.”
Clinton, campaigning in Denver, said: “I understand that after more than two years and $7m spent by the Benghazi committee under taxpayer funds, it had to today report that it had found nothing – nothing – to contradict the conclusions that the independent accountability board, or the conclusions of the prior multiple earlier investigations carried out on a bipartisan basis in the Congress.”
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She added: “So while this unfortunately took on a partisan tinge, I want us to stay focused on what I’ve always wanted us to stay focused on, and that is the important work of diplomacy and development.”
The Democratic nominee added: “That’s especially true in dangerous places. We cannot withdraw or retreat from the world. America needs a presence for a lot of reasons, and the best way to honor the commitment and sacrifice of those we’ve lost is to redouble our efforts to provide resources and support that our diplomats and development groups deserve. So, I’ll leave it to others to characterize this report, but I think it’s pretty clear that it’s time to move on.”
In Washington, Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, condemned the report claiming it dealt in “politically motivated fantasies” and accused Republicans of “cynically trying to capitalise on the deaths of four innocent Americans who were killed overseas”.
Asked if he believed this finally drew a line under the Benghazi issue, Earnest replied: “I thought it was over after the first five investigations. This was the eighth.”
He called on the Republican National Committee to correctly report the in-kind contributions for the $7m investigation in its next filing with the Federal Election Commission.
In October, Clinton endured 11 hours of questioning by the House select committee, and was roundly commended for her performance during the marathon hearing while the chairman was criticized for failing to produce any new information about the 2012 attack.
The hearing was a turning point for Clinton’s campaign. On the trail, Democrats still refer to her grace-under-fire performance as a testament to her endurance and ability to withstand and overcome partisan attacks.
The report faults the military for its slow response sending resources to the Libyan city during the deadly 2012 attacks on a US outpost, despite clear orders from Barack Obama and the then US defense secretary Leon Panetta.
Gowdy said “nothing was en route to Libya at the time the last two Americans were killed almost eight hours after the attacks began”.
He said the Libyan forces that evacuated Americans from the CIA annex in Benghazi were not affiliated with any of the militias the CIA or state department had developed a relationship with during the previous 18 months.
Gowdy said on Tuesday that the report documents that the US was slow to send help to the Americans in Benghazi “because of an obsession with hurting the Libyans’ feelings”.
He said the report was not aimed at Clinton, but portrays “series of heroic acts” by Americans under attack “and what we can do to prevent” other assaults.
The Democrats’ report released on Monday saying that while the state department’s security measures in Benghazi the night of 11 September 2012 were “woefully inadequate”, Clinton never personally turned down a request for additional security. Democrats said the military could not have done anything differently that night to save the lives of the Americans.
On Tuesday, the panel’s Democrats denounced the Republicans’ report as “a conspiracy theory on steroids – bringing back long-debunked allegations with no credible evidence whatsoever”.
The state department also issued a statement on Tuesday, saying that the “essential facts” of the attacks “have been known for some time”, and have been the subject of numerous reviews, including one by an independent review board.
It is well accepted that the conduct of war is an “executive Power,” vested by Article II in the President, who also serves as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Both at the time of the Framing of the Constitution and afterward, there has been agreement that the President has the power to repel invasions. Intimately familiar with the treatises on international law, the Framers were undoubtedly aware of the general rule that, as Hugo Grotius had put it, “By the law of nature, no declaration is required when one is repelling an invasion.” The Law of War and Peace (1646). The debate, instead, has centered on the location of the power to initiate war.
Advocates of congressional power contend that the President cannot initiate hostilities because the Constitution expressly vests the power to “declare War” in Congress. In support of that view, they note that, according to his notes from the Constitutional Convention, James Madison successfully advocated that Congress be given the power, not to “make” war but to “declare” war, to “leav[e] to the Executive the power to repel sudden attacks.” In 1862, the Supreme Court opined that the President “has no power to initiate or declare a war,” but if there were an invasion, “the President is not only authorized but bound to resist force by force…without waiting for any special legislative authority.” Prize Cases (1863).
On the other hand, the Constitution distinguishes between “declaring” war and “engaging in” (see Article I, Section 10, Clause 3) or “levying” war (see Article III, Section 3, Clause 1). Moreover, there is no express requirement of legislative consent in other sections of the Constitution or in earlier documents before the President may commence hostilities.
Accordingly, much of the debate over the power to initiate hostilities focuses on understanding the meaning of the words, “declare War.” Supporters of presidential authority contend that the Founders were well aware of the long British practice of undeclared wars. They assert that the Constitution likewise does not require formal war declarations for the President to authorize hostilities as a matter of domestic constitutional power.
Under this view, Congress’s power to declare war was established for an altogether different purpose. Declarations of war alter legal relationships between subjects of warring nations and trigger certain rights, privileges, and protections under the laws of war. According to Grotius, declarations gave notice of the legal grounds for the war and the opportunity for enemy nations to make amends and thereby avoid the scourge of war. It served notice on the enemy’s allies that they would be regarded as cobelligerents and their shipping subject to capture. Under a declaration of war, one’s own navy and privateers could not be treated as pirates by the enemy, but on the other hand one’s own citizens were subject to prosecution if they dealt with the enemy.
Furthermore, under previous practice, declarations of war triggered other legal actions, such as the internment or expulsion of enemy aliens, the breaking of diplomatic relations, and the confiscation of the enemy’s property. In short, the power to declare war was designed as a power to affect legal rights and duties in times of hostilities. It is not a check on executive power to engage in such hostilities in the first place.
Congressional power supporters respond that the Declaration of War Clause must be given a broader interpretation, particularly in light of contemporaneous statements by prominent Founding era figures. They contend that the clause was intended to include the power not only to issue formal declarations, but also to confer authority to decide upon any engagement of hostilities, whether declared or otherwise. Therefore, they argue, the Declaration of War Clause must be construed to deprive the President of power to initiate hostilities absent congressional consent.
There have been only five congressionally declared wars in the history of the United States. Of those, only the first, the War of 1812, constituted an affirmative declaration of war. The remaining four, the Mexican-American War of 1846, the Spanish-American War of 1898, World War I, and World War II, merely declared the prior existence of a state of war. Notably, those declarations were accompanied by express authorizations of use of force, suggesting a distinction between declarations of war and authorizations of force.
Numerous other hostilities have been specifically authorized by Congress through instruments other than formal declarations. For example, offensive actions taken by the United States during its first real “war”—against Tripoli in 1802—were statutorily authorized but not accompanied by a formal declaration. Congress also expressly authorized the use of force in the Quasi War with France in 1798, against Iraq in 1991 and 2002, and against the perpetrators of the September 11, 2001, attacks, all without issuing a formal declaration of war.
Early in American history, in an era of limited peacetime budgets for military resources, Presidents tended to defer to Congress. In modern times, the debate over the allocation of war powers between Congress and the President is dramatically affected by the institution of a large United States peacetime military force following World War II. Starting with the Korean War, modern Presidents have been more aggressive in asserting unilateral authority to engage in war without declaration or other congressional authorization. In 1973, Congress attempted to affirm its control over war through passage, over President Richard M. Nixon’s veto, of the War Powers Resolution. Presidents have generally refused to recognize the constitutional operation of the War Powers Resolution, although Presidents have often taken actions “consistent” with the War Powers Resolution to avoid unnecessary conflict with Congress.
The Supreme Court has never intervened to stop a war that a President has started without congressional authorization. Some federal courts of appeals have held that at least some level of congressional authorization is constitutionally required before the President may conduct military hostilities. See, e.g., Orlando v. Laird (1971). Other courts have found the issue nonjusticiable. See, e.g., Mitchell v. Laird (1973).
Whatever the domestic constitutional implications for presidential power to initiate hostilities, the Declaration of War Clause gives to Congress certain powers under international and domestic statutory law. Nonetheless, with the growth of international law, the significance of formal declarations has declined. For example, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which guarantee various enumerated rights to lawful combatants, prisoners of war, and civilians, explicitly apply to all armed conflicts between contracting nations and not just to declared wars. Congress’s power to declare war continues to have important statutory ramifications, nonetheless. A particularly dramatic example is the Alien Enemy Act (1 Stat. 577 (1798), codified in 50 U.S.C. § 21 (2003)), which authorizes the President to detain and deport citizens of enemy nations, but only following either a declaration of war or an attack upon the United States.
Story 1: The People’s Freedom vs. The Elite’s Ruling New World Order Racket — British People Choose Freedom — American People Choose Freedom In November Outing President Obama and House Speaker Paul Ryan — Get The United Nations Out of United States and The United States Out of United Nations — Breakup The Rackets of The European Union and United Nations! — Dump House Speaker Paul Ryan and Hillary Clinton — Elect Trump — Three Cheers For The British People Who Voted For Brexit — Videos
Does the Brexit help Donald Trump?
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BREXIT THE MOVIE FULL FILM
BREXIT THE MOVIE is a feature-length documentary film to inspire as many people as possible to vote to LEAVE the EU in the June 23rd referendum.
Event Speech: Nigel Lawson Making the Case for Brexit
The Truth About Brexit | UK’s EU Referendum
“Why we must leave the EU” | UK economist and entrepreneur, Jim Mellon, backs Brexit
Economic Lessons from the European Union
The Great Intelligence Squared Brexit Debate
The Great European Refugees and Migrants Debate
Better off together? A conservative case for the European Union
Roger Bootle, Capital Economics, 28 January 2015 – Corporate Wisdom Lecture Series
Bruges Revisited
Roger Bootle Full Interview: Europe is a complete disaster – Britain must leave
What is wrong with Europe? Roger Bootle, Executive Chairman of Capital Economics discusses
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BREXIT – Vicky Redwood, Chief UK Economist at Capital Economics discusses.
Economic implications of ‘Brexit’ On-set interview Prof. Yang Jun-sok
Euro area is “dismal failure” and Brexit would be a concern, economist Joseph Stiglitz
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Peter SCHIFF – Brexit Is Not The Reason; It’s The Catalyst (after BREXIT)- Episode 176 – JUNE 2016
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Brexit: Aftermath | Paul Joseph Watson and Stefan Molyneux
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Marc Faber Brexit Would be the Best That Could Happen to Britain
An Introduction to Trading Away Your Freedom
Bad Deal for America
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Emerging Ties Between Backers of Trade Mergers & Con-Cons
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Nile Gardiner: Great Britain outside of EU will be far more competitive
David Malpass talks Brexit’s impact
Impact of Brexit on U.S. economy, trade
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Dr. Arthur Laffer’s 2015 West Virginia Business Summit Presentation
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Mind blowing speech by Robert Welch in 1958 predicting Insiders plans to destroy America
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COMPLETE INTERVIEW: Chuck Todd Interviewes Paul Ryan On “Meet The Press” (6/19/2016)
Paul Ryan Wants More Moslem Immigrants; 6-14-2016
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Paul Ryan’s Betrayal – Michelle Malkin at Paul Nehlen Rally
Paul Nehlen Says Ryan Betrayed Us on TPA/TPP
Paul Ryan’s Betrayal – Paul Nehlen Rally
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European SUPERSTATE to be unveiled: EU nations ‘to be morphed into one’ post-Brexit
EUROPEAN political chiefs are to take advantage of Brexit by unveiling their long-held plan to morph the continent’s countries into one GIANT SUPERSTATE, it has emerged today.
PUBLISHED: 11:01, Mon, Jun 27, 2016 | UPDATED: 17:20, Mon, Jun 27, 2016
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German Angela Merkel met with European heads today at the EU summit
The foreign ministers of France and Germany are due to reveal a blueprint to effectively do away with individual member states in what is being described as an “ultimatum”.Under the radical proposals EU countries will lose the right to have their own army, criminal law, taxation system or central bank, with all those powers being transferred to Brussels.
Controversially member states would also lose what few controls they have left over their own borders, including the procedure for admitting and relocating refugees.The plot has sparked fury and panic in Poland – a traditional ally of Britain in the fight against federalism – after being leaked to Polish news channel TVP Info.
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Polish politicians say the plans include loss of control of a number of key policy areas
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Polish foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski has blasted the plan
The public broadcaster reports that the bombshell proposal will be presented to a meeting of the Visegrad group of countries – made up of Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia – by German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier later today.Excerpts of the nine-page report were published today as the leaders of Germany, France and Italy met in Berlin for Brexit crisis talks.In the preamble to the text the two ministers write: “Our countries share a common destiny and a common set of values ??that give rise to an even closer union between our citizens. We will therefore strive for a political union in Europe and invite the next Europeans to participate in this venture.”The revelations come just days after Britain shook the Brussels establishment by voting to leave the European Union in a move some have predicted could leave to the break-up of the EU.
A number of member states are deeply unhappy about the creeping federalism of the European project with anti-EU sentiments running high in eastern Europe, Scandinavia and France.
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Opponents of the EU have warned of its ambitions to create a superstate
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Britain voted to leave the European Union in an historic referendum last Thursday
Responding to the plot Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski raged: “This is not a good solution, of course, because from the time the EU was invented a lot has changed.“The mood in European societies is different. Europe and our voters do not want to give the Union over into the hands of technocrats.“Therefore, I want to talk about this, whether this really is the right recipe right now in the context of a Brexit.”There are deep divides at the heart of the EU at the moment over how to proceed with the project in light of the Brexit vote.
Some figures have cautioned against trying to force through further political integration, warning that to do so against the wishes of the European people will only fuel further Eurosceptic feeling.
This is not a good solution
Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski
A few weeks before the Brexit vote European Council president Donald Tusk warned that European citizens did not share the enthusiasm of some of their leaders for “a utopia of Europe without conflicting interests and ambitions, a utopia of Europe imposing its own values on the external world, a utopia of Euro-Asian unity”.He added: “Increasingly louder are those who question the very principle of a united Europe. The spectre of a break-up is haunting Europe and a vision of a federation doesn’t seem to me to be the best answer to it.”His view was backed up by the leader of the eurozone countries, Dutch politician Jerome Dijsselbloem, who added: “In the eurozone some are pushing for a completion of the monetary union by creating a full political union, a euro area economic government or even a euro budget… to me it is obvious.“We need to strengthen what we have and finish it, but let’s not build more extensions to the European house while it is so unstable.”
Meanwhile Lorenzo Condign, the former director general of Italy’s treasury, has said it is nearly impossible to see Europe opting for more integration at such a time of upheaval.He said: “It seems difficult to imagine that the rest of the EU will close ranks and move in the direction of greater integration quickly. Simply, there is no political will.“Indeed, the risk is exactly the opposite – namely that centrifugal forces will prevail and make integration even more difficult.”But others see the Brexit vote as an opportunity to push ahead with the European elite’s long-cherished dream of creating a United States of Europe.
Spain’s foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo has called for “more Europe” whilst Italy’s finance minister, Carlo Padoan, is advocating a common budget for the eurozone states.
And Emmanuel Macron, France’s economy minister, wants to go even further and set up a common eurozone treasury which would oversee the permanent transfer of funds from wealthier northern Europe to shore up Mediterranean economies
Brexit 2.0: Populist Revolt Worldwide Catches Fire as Donald Trump Takes Aim at Globalist Hillary Clinton
by MATTHEW BOYLE 24 Jun 2016
The globalist movement is on the run as the British people on Thursday voted to “Leave” the European Union.
The vote to Brexit—a hard-fought campaign by nationalist populists in the United Kingdom—puts the world elite on their heels, as a similar but bigger and stronger such movement is brewing right here in the United States.
Donald J. Trump, the presumptive 2016 GOP presidential nominee, has run a campaign so far—and since winning the nomination—focused squarely on the exact same issues that the Leave campaigners ran on in the United Kingdom. Uncontrolled migration, out-of-whack trade deals, national sovereignty, popular control of government, and rejection of world elites are what propelled Leave campaigners to a stunning victory in the United Kingdom. Those same issues are what has propelled Trump to a similarly shocking victory over 16 other Republican presidential candidates in the primaries, where he—as Breitbart News has documented—received millions more votes than anyone else who has ever won the GOP nomination has.
They also set the stage for the 2016 general election. Trump has not shown a sign of backing down at all, on any of this, and in his speech earlier in the week laying out the case against Hillary Rodham Clinton—the presumptive 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, his opponent in November—he set the stage for this battle.
“Everywhere I look, I see the possibilities of what our country could be. But we can’t solve any of these problems by relying on the politicians who created them,” Trump said in his Tuesday address. “We will never be able to fix a rigged system by counting on the same people who rigged it in the first place. The insiders wrote the rules of the game to keep themselves in power and in the money.”
Throughout the speech, Trump excoriated Clinton for her ties to the world’s international elite—citing Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash to detail how she and her husband, former U.S. President Bill Clinton, “used the State Department to enrich their family at America’s expense.”
“She gets rich making you poor,” Trump said of Hillary Clinton, talking directly to the voters.
The matching themes of Trump’s campaign, and the successful Brexit campaign in the United Kingdom, are in large part why Trump’s well-timed trip to Scotland—purportedly for opening a golf course with his children, but seemingly because of the Leave success—makes him the captain of an international populist rejection of the world’s elite.
Trump seized the mantle of the movement on Friday morning in Scotland, embracing the populism that has propelled him this far and sustained him even as the most sinister and brutal of attacks come his way from inside his own party and from the other side.
“This is an amazing honor,” Trump said on Friday, almost taking credit for Brexit. After noting Brexit won, and by a bigger margin than pundits, analysts, and prognosticators could have ever predicted, Trump noted that the will of the public is all powerful.
“It’s always the will of the people ultimately that wins out,” Trump said.
As Trump soars back into the United States riding the populist wave on high, he will over the next several months seek to define his general election opponent—Hillary Clinton—correctly as the face of the global elite that the British voters just defeated. The lies, smears, and false alarms that Remain campaigners pushed out as part of a giant misinformation campaign designed to deceive the public into choosing against Leave all failed.
Those same misinformation campaign tactics are coming into focus here in the United States against Trump. High dollar donors are spending millions on attack ads. The mainstream media is inaccurately calling him a racist, a xenophobe, a sexist, and painting a grossly unfair and wrong picture of Trump as a buffoon who has no idea what he’s doing and would be a disaster for the economy and world security. That is the George Soros playbook, the exact same type of campaign the Remain folks in the United Kingdom ran against Leave campaigners.
Perhaps, despite serious concerns over his competence, Leave campaign’s Boris Johnson summed it up best during the BBC debate earlier this week:
At the end of this campaign, I think you’ll agree: There is a very clear choice between those on their side who speak of nothing but fear of the consequences of leaving the EU, and we on our side who offer hope. Between those who have been endlessly rubbishing our country and running it down, and those of us who believe in Britain. They say we can’t do it. We say we can. They say we have no choice but to bow down to Brussels. We say they are woefully underestimating this country and what it can do. If we vote Leave, we can take back control of our borders and huge sums of money—10 billion pounds a year net—of our tax raising powers, of our trade policies, and of our whole lawmaking system. The democracy that is the foundation of our prosperity and if we stand up for democracy we will be speaking up for hundreds of millions of people around Europe who agree with us but who currently have no voice. And if we vote Leave and take back control, I believe that this Thursday could be our country’s Independence Day.
Johnson lifted the Independence Day line from Nigel Farage of the U.K. Independence Party—also a Leave campaigner—and an actual leader of the populist movement who has been banging the drum on the issue for 25 years.
Trump struck a similar note in his New York City speech exposing Clinton:
Come November, the American people will have a chance to issue a verdict on the politicians that have sacrificed their security, betrayed their prosperity, and sold out their country. They will have a chance to vote for a new agenda with big dreams, bold ideas and enormous possibilities for the American people. Hillary Clinton’s message is old and tired. Her message is that things can’t change. My message is that things have to change – and this is our one chance, and maybe our only chance, to do that change. If we don’t do it now, folks, I don’t know that we’ll ever, ever have another chance. We have to have change, but real change—not Obama change.
What the Leave campaigners did in the United Kingdom—and what Trump is doing here—is taking the moral high ground away from the global elitists. Trump is turning Hillary Clinton into the “no you can’t” candidate, just as Leave campaigners framed the Remain campaigners as those holding Britain back.
The next several months leading up to the United States’ own presidential election are going to be some of the most brutal in U.S. political history. Hillary Clinton and her globalist allies are going to pull out every trick in the book—and more—to protect the face of the world elite. Clinton is their icon, their last hope to maintain control. The mud they will sling at Trump—from the Democratic Party, from Clinton’s campaign itself, and from outside allies like Super PACs and from the media—will be the worst anyone of us on the right has ever seen. But, if Trump can continue framing the election in this light and ride this wave, he could just soar right on through it and above it into the White House.
Populist nationalism has won U.S. House campaigns, U.S. Senate campaigns, and various other smaller ball political battles around the country and around the world. It can even win, as it helped Trump do when he roundly defeated some of the most talented governors and Senators in the primaries — a U.S. presidential primary. What Brexit shows is that populist nationalism can win national general elections, as it just did in the United Kingdom. That has the world elite fearing, and rallying around Clinton as we speak. Now that populist nationalism can win, and has won national general elections, is it only logical that Brexit 2.0 pumps Trump up into the White House? We shall see, come November.
It wasn’t me! Obama shrugs off his humiliating failure to stop Britain quitting Europe by claiming ‘globalization’ was to blame for shock result
White House attempted to calm choppy global waters on Friday brought on by Britain’s spectacular decision to leave the European Union
The president, on the West Coast for a summit and fundraising events, said in a speech he talked Prime Minister David Cameron
He also spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel – they agreed the US and the EU will ‘work closely together in the weeks and months ahead.’
Obama had publicly aligned himself with Prime Minister David Cameron – who is resigning – in the fight to keep the EU intact
In the race for the White House, Hillary Clinton joined Obama on the side of the ‘remain’ campaign and Donald Trump urged Britain to ‘leave’
Vice President Joe Biden was in Ireland, receiving an honorary doctorate; he said in his speech, ‘I must say we had looked for a different outcome’
By FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 07:07 EST, 24 June 2016 | UPDATED: 21:02 EST, 24 June 2016
President Barack Obama says he spoke to British Prime Minister David Cameron on the phone today, and he is ‘confident’ after their discussion that the United Kingdom ‘is committed to an orderly transition’ out of the European Union.
Obama said that the United States will remain in close contact with Britain, and their economic and financial teams will ‘stay focused on ensuring economic growth and financial stability.’
He also spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, he said, and they agreed the US and the EU will also ‘work closely together in the weeks and months ahead.’
‘I do think that yesterday’s vote speaks to the ongoing changes and challenges that are raised by globalization,’ Obama said in his opening remarks at Stanford University’s annual Global Entrepreneurship Summit.
Obama had publicly aligned himself with Cameron in the fight to keep the EU intact, an unusual intervention in another country’s politics at the invitation of its leader of the moment.
Heattempted to calm choppy global waters on Friday afternoon brought on by Britain’s spectacular decision to leave the EU by promising that the United Kingdom’s relationship with the United States would remain the same.
President Barack Obama says he spoke to British Prime Minister David Cameron on the phone today, and he is ‘confident’ after their discussion that the United Kingdom ‘is committed to an orderly transition’ out of the European Union
As a result of the vote, Britain’s relationship with the EU will change, Obama assessed at Stanford. ‘One thing that will not change is the special relationship that exists between our two nations.’
The president said in a statement that both the UK and the EU would continue to be ‘indispensable partners’ and touted the former’s involvement in NATO as an example of Western stability in face of tumbling worldwide markets.
‘The people of the United Kingdom have spoken, and we respect their decision,’ he said in a statement.
On the West Coast for a summit and fundraising events, Obama did not immediately speak to Cameron on Friday. In the interim, the White House offered no formal declaration of policy as the pound plunged and the stock market crashed abroad.
At Stanford, Obama had little to say about how the vote will affect the United States’ trade partnership with Britain, now that it will soon exit the EU.
It will need to ink a new deal with the United States, he warned in April, and that could take months, and even years.
The referendum result was as much a smack down of the U.S. president as it was the British prime minister, who said this morning that he would resign in October.
‘David has been an outstanding friend and partner on the global stage,’ Obama said today of Cameron, whom he closer with than any other world leader.
Obama said that the United States will remain in close contact with Britain, and their economic and financial teams will ‘stay focused on ensuring economic growth and financial stability’
The U.S. president had publicly aligned himself with Cameron in the fight to keep the EU intact, an unusual intervention in another country’s politics at the invitation of its leader of the moment
esident Joe Biden was in Ireland on Friday, receiving an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin. ‘I must say we had looked for a different outcome,’ Biden said of Brexit
Officially in California for the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, with two Democratic fundraising events lined up later in the day, the U.S. president waited until the event at Stanford – a speech and discussion with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg – to offer a televised comment on the shocking world event.
Hours after the vote totals poured in the White House issued a statement on Obama’s behalf that asserted, ‘The special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is enduring, and the United Kingdom’s membership in NATO remains a vital cornerstone of U.S. foreign, security, and economic policy.
‘So too is our relationship with the European Union, which has done so much to promote stability, stimulate economic growth, and foster the spread of democratic values and ideals across the continent and beyond.’
The chief executive of the United States promised that both parties ‘will remain indispensable partners of the United States even as they begin negotiating their ongoing relationship to ensure continued stability, security, and prosperity for Europe, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the world.’
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) following news that the United Kingdom has voted to leave the European Union. The Dow Jones industrial average quickly fell nearly 500 points on the news with markets around the globe plunging
How Brexit could affect Americans right now
Britain voted 52 percent to 48 percent to leave the EU on Thursday, shocking the world and electrocuting the financial markets
WHITE HOUSE ON CAMERON CALL
President Obama spoke by phone today with Prime Minister David Cameron of the United Kingdom to discuss the outcome of yesterday’s referendum on membership in the European Union, in which a majority of British voters expressed their desire to leave the EU.
The President assured Prime Minister Cameron that, in spite of the outcome, the special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom, along with the United Kingdom’s membership in NATO, remain vital cornerstones of U.S. foreign, security, and economic policy.
The President also expressed his regret at the Prime Minister’s decision to step aside following a leadership transition and noted that the Prime Minister has been a trusted partner and friend, whose counsel and shared dedication to democratic values, the special relationship, and the Transatlantic community are highly valued.
The President also observed that the EU, which has done so much to promote stability, stimulate economic growth, and foster the spread of democratic values and ideals across the continent and beyond, will remain an indispensable partner of the United States.
The President and Prime Minister concurred that they are confident that the United Kingdom and the EU will negotiate a productive way forward to ensure financial stability, continued trade and investment, and the mutual prosperity they bring.
Britain voted 52 percent to 48 percent to leave the EU on Thursday, shocking the world and electrocuting the financial markets.
Vice President Joe Biden was in Ireland on Friday, receiving an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin.
‘I must say we had looked for a different outcome. We would have preferred a different outcome,’ he said in his speech, ‘but the United States has a long-standing friendship with the United Kingdom and that very special bond will endure.’
Biden added, ‘We fully respect the decision they have made.’
Obama warned at at a joint news conference with Cameron in April that the UK would be sent to ‘the back of the queue’ if it voted to leave the 28-nation arrangement and go its own way.
‘Maybe some point down the line, there might be a UK-U.S. trade agreement, but it’s not going to happen anytime soon,’ Obama said, ‘because our focus is in negotiating with a big bloc, the European Union, to get a trade agreement done.’
The US president added, ‘The UK is going to be in the back of the queue — not because we don’t have a special relationship — but because, given the heavy lift on any trade agreement, us having access to a big market with a lot of countries rather than trying to do piecemeal trade agreements is hugely inefficient.
Obama justified his toiling with the EU by casting the possible Brexit as a US security matter.
‘What happens in Europe is going to have an impact here,’ he said at the news conference at No. 10. ‘And what happens in Europe is going to have an impact in the United States.’
Like Obama, Hillary Clinton, the next Democratic nominee, had urged Britain to ‘remain’ in the EU. She echoed again echoed Obama in a statement – released after the White House had finally spoken – that said, ‘We respect the choice the people of the United Kingdom have made’
Obama warned at at a joint news conference with Cameron in April that the UK would be sent to ‘the back of the queue’ if it voted to leave the 28-nation arrangement and go its own way
Obama telling BBC Britain should stay in EU back in 2015
GOP leaders and presumptive Republican Donald Trump blasted Obama’s meddling as ‘inappropriate.’
‘He came in and really tried to convince people to stay, and I thought it was inappropriate,’ said Trump, who threw his lot in with the ‘leave’ faction. ‘And I actually think that his recommendation perhaps caused it to fail.’
At a press conference that officially marked the reopening of his Turnberry golf course in Scotland, Trump said Obama is ‘constantly dictating to the world what they should do.
WHITE HOUSE ON MERKEL CALL
The President spoke today by phone with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany regarding the British people’s decision to leave the European Union.
Both said they regretted the decision but respected the will of the British people.
The two leaders agreed that the economic and financial teams of the G-7 partners will coordinate closely to ensure all are focused on financial stability and economic growth.
The President and the Chancellor affirmed that Germany and the EU will remain indispensable partners of the United States.
The leaders also noted that they looked forward to the opportunity to underscore the strength and enduring bond of transatlantic ties at the NATO Summit in Warsaw, Poland, July 8-9.
‘The world doesn’t listen to him, obviously. You can see that from the vote.’
Trump promised the country’s closest ally that if he succeeds Obama, he’ll quickly negotiate a new trade deal with Britain.
‘That wouldn’t happen with me. They’ll always be at the front of the line,’ he said in reference to Obama’s ‘back of the queue’ comment in April.
Trump said, ‘They’ve been great allies. I was very surprised when I heard President Obama say that.’
The U.S. presidential election is in November. The sitting president does not leave office until two and a half months later.
Like Obama, Hillary Clinton, the next Democratic nominee, had urged Britain to ‘remain’ in the EU.
She again echoed Obama in a statement today – released after the White House had finally spoken – that said, ‘We respect the choice the people of the United Kingdom have made.’
‘Our first task has to be to make sure that the economic uncertainty created by these events does not hurt working families here in America. We also have to make clear America’s steadfast commitment to the special relationship with Britain and the transatlantic alliance with Europe.
Clinton said in the written statement: ‘This time of uncertainty only underscores the need for calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House to protect Americans’ pocketbooks and livelihoods, to support our friends and allies, to stand up to our adversaries, and to defend our interests. It also underscores the need for us to pull together to solve our challenges as a country, not tear each other down.’
FULL WHITE HOUSE STATEMENT ON BREXIT
The people of the United Kingdom have spoken, and we respect their decision. The special relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is enduring, and the United Kingdom’s membership in NATO remains a vital cornerstone of U.S. foreign, security, and economic policy.
So too is our relationship with the European Union, which has done so much to promote stability, stimulate economic growth, and foster the spread of democratic values and ideals across the continent and beyond.
The United Kingdom and the European Union will remain indispensable partners of the United States even as they begin negotiating their ongoing relationship to ensure continued stability, security, and prosperity for Europe, Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the world.
Trump blasted Obama today: ‘He came in and really tried to convince people to stay, and I thought it was inappropriate,’ said Trump, who threw his lot in with the ‘leave’ faction. ‘And I actually think that his recommendation perhaps caused it to fail’
Previously, Jake Sullivan, her senior policy adviser, said she supported Cameron and Obama’s position.
‘Hillary Clinton believes that transatlantic cooperation is essential, and that cooperation is strongest when Europe is united. She has always valued a strong United Kingdom in a strong EU. And she values a strong British voice in the EU,’ he told the Observer in April, a day after the Obama-Cameron presser.
Trump used it as a cudgel against her on Friday. He said, ‘She’s always misread everything…She’s misread this.’
‘The only reason she did it is because Obama wanted it,’ he said. Clinton ‘doubled down’ on what Obama said ‘and she did the same thing.’
‘And obviously, for the 219th time, they were wrong. They’re always wrong. And that’s the problem with them.’
House Speaker Paul Ryan refused on Thursday to get involved in the Brexit debate UK voters made their decision.
‘I’m going to do exactly what the president did not do and not weigh in on this, and send the signal to our great friends and allies in Britain that we stand with them regardless of what decision they make,’ Ryan said.
The GOP leader said today in a statement, ‘I respect the decision made by the people of the United Kingdom. The UK is an indispensable ally of the United States, and that special relationship is unaffected by this vote.’
They Got It Wrong: Swarms of Global Chatterers Misread Brexit
By Mark Niquette mniquette
A global cohort said before Thursday’s Brexit vote that Britain was unlikely to pull out of the European Union, the post-World War II international project that brought an unprecedented era of prosperity and peace. Yet some were led astray by the belief that free trade’s money and material goods outweighed nationalism and the tug of nostalgia.
Among those who were wrong about Brexit before the vote:
Politicians
Conservative U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron called the referendum, presumably confident he would win. He lost, and he’s now resigning.
“Brits don’t quit,” Cameron said in an impassioned plea on Tuesday to voters to support remaining in the EU. “We get involved, we take a lead, we make a difference, we get things done.”
The Brits quit.
David Cameron
Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Bettors
Opinion polls on Brexit were all over the place; the theoretical lead had changed hands dozens of times since September, although “leave” never reached 50 percent support. Still, betting odds put the chance of remaining at 90 percent as the polls closed on Thursday. Ladbrokes was offering 4-to-1 on a leave vote, according to The Guardian.
Even though most players in the market were actually backing leave, more money was bet on remain by the affluent, who were generally behind staying, Matthew Shaddick, head of political betting at Ladbrokes, wrote in a blog post. Bookies are trying to make money, not help people forecast results, so the vote worked out fine for Ladbrokes, he said.
“Is this just one of the inevitable, normal occasions where an outsider wins, or a fatal blow to the idea of betting markets as being a useful forecasting tool?” Shaddick said. “Maybe unsurprisingly, I tend to think the former, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to reflect on all of their potential flaws and decide how we best interpret them in the future.”
The Chattering Class
The London-based Political Studies Association surveyed members, journalists, academics and pollsters from May 24 to June 2. Every group got it wrong.
Overall, 87 percent of respondents said Britain was more likely to stay in the EU, 5 percent said it was likely to leave, and 8 percent said both sides had an exactly equal chance.
The predicted probability of Britain voting to leave the EU: academics, 38 percent; pollsters, 33 percent; journalists, 32 percent; other, 38 percent; mean, 38 percent.
“Any ‘expert’ who makes a prediction at this stage, and within the context of the current volatility of politics in the U.K. and abroad, ain’t no expert!” one respondent said, according to a June 3 report.
Protesters gather in Westminster.
Photographer: Mike Kemp/In Pictures via Getty Images
Historians
Matt Qvortrup, professor of political science at Coventry University and author of two books about referendums, analyzed all 49 plebiscites on EU-related issues since 1972. He calculated that Britain would narrowly vote to remain, based on the U.K.’s levels of economic growth, inflation, and the number of years spent in office by the government.
“The indications and predictions based on previous referendums still suggest that the United Kingdom will stay in the European Union,” Qvortrup wrote in a blog posting in April. “But the margin will be very close indeed, and neither side will be able to claim a decisive victory.”
Financiers
Societe Generale SA saw the risk of Brexit at 45 percent, according to analysts including Brian Hilliard, its chief U.K. economist. The risks of Brexit had diminished, though, according to betting odds and the polls, strategist Jason Simpson wrote in a May 20 note.
Barclays Plc analysts had said the baseline scenario was that the U.K. wouldn’t leave, and Nomura saw only about a 25 percent likelihood the U.K. would quit, analysts said in a May 11 note. Credit Suisse Group AG expected the U.K. to stay, analysts including Neville Hall wrote in a May 19 research note.
Traders watch computer screens in London.
Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg
Political Clairvoyants
Even “superforecasters” got it wrong.
The consultancy Good Judgment Inc. regularly convenes a group of 150 people around the world with track records of successful predictions to prognosticate on various issues of the day. The aggregated probability estimates from the panel showed just a 24 percent chance of U.K. voters deciding to leave, according to a posting on Twitter on Thursday.
“I would say, ‘Expect the status quo’ reasonably confidently,” one of the forecasting panel, Michael Story, said last month.
UK ‘Leave’ vote deflates hopes for U.S.-EU trade deal
By David Lawder
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Britain’s looming exit from the European Union is another huge setback for negotiations on a massive U.S.-EU free trade deal that were already stalled by deeply entrenched differences and growing anti-trade sentiment on both sides of the Atlantic.
The historic divorce launched by Thursday’s vote will almost certainly further delay substantial progress in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) talks as the remaining 27 EU states sort out their own new relationship with Britain, trade experts said on Friday.
With French and German officials increasingly voicing skepticism about TTIP’s chances for success, the United Kingdom’s departure from the deal could sink hopes of a deal before President Barack Obama leaves office in January.
“This is yet another reason why TTIP will likely be postponed,” said Heather Conley, European program director at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington.
“But to be honest, TTIP isn’t going anywhere, I believe, before 2018 at the earliest,” she said.
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said in a statement on Friday that he was evaluating the UK decision’s impact on TTIP, but would continue to engage with both European and UK counterparts.
“The importance of trade and investment is indisputable in our relationships with both the European Union and the United Kingdom,” Froman said. “The economic and strategic rationale for T-TIP remains strong.”
TTIP negotiators are still expected to meet in Brussels in mid-July as scheduled, but those talks were aimed at focusing on less controversial issues while leaving the thorniest disagreements for U.S. and EU political leaders to resolve. And it is unclear when Britain will launch formal separation proceedings, which will take at least two years.
But analysts said both sides have been reluctant to put their best offers on the table with a new U.S. president due to take office in January and French and German leadership elections nearing in 2017.
The Brexit also will preoccupy EU officials in coming months as they launch their own negotiations with London over the future terms of UK-EU trade, and sort out their post-Brexit priorities, said Hosuk Lee-Makiyama, director of the European Centre for International Political Economy, a Brussels-based think tank.
Britain’s departure could leave U.S. negotiators facing a European side that is more dug-in on some issues, said Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think tank in Washington.
“As the UK is part of the coalition of liberal trading economies in the EU, the U.S. is losing one of the more like-minded countries from the group in Brussels sitting on the other side of the negotiating table,” said Bown, a former World Bank economist.
However, Lee-Makiyama, who also sees little chance of a deal before 2018, said Britain’s departure could eliminate one source of disagreement because the UK has insisted on a financial services chapter in the trade deal.
“The only real proponent of banking regulation in TTIP is the UK. Germany and France are probably willing to let it go,” he said. “It still leaves about 20 outstanding issues at nearly the same level of difficulty.”
The TTIP negotiations, which started three years ago, have unable to settle major differences over agriculture, where the EU side has shown little willingness to alter food safety rules that prohibit American beef raised with hormones or genetically modified foods, or open its closely guarded geographical food naming rules, such as for Asiago and feta cheeses.
European negotiators have complained that the United States has offered too little to open up its vast federal, state and local government procurement markets to European vendors with “Buy American” preferences in place.
Europe also wants access to key U.S. sectors such as maritime transport and aviation, while American negotiators have been frustrated over lack of access to some 200 European sectors ranging from healthcare to education.
The two sides also are far apart on how to resolve disputes. The U.S. side favors a traditional binding arbitration approach, while the Europeans want a court-like system that allows for appeals.
More progress has been made on harmonizing regulations for things like car seat belt anchors, clothes labeling and pharmaceutical inspections.
(Additional reporting by Phil Blenkinsop in Brussels; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Brexit: Britain Votes with Trump, against Hillary, Obama
by JOEL B. POLLAK
British voters chose to “leave” the European Union on Thursday, defying the polls — and President Barack Obama, who had urged Britain to “remain” in the EU. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had also urged Britain to stay in the EU. Only Donald Trump had backed the campaign to leave.
Republican strategists had panned Trump’s decision to travel to the UK in the midst of campaign turmoil, and in the wake of his blistering attack on Hillary Clinton earlier this week.
Now, however, it looks like a risk that paid off handsomely, in the currency of foreign policy credibility.
Obama’s advice may have pushed some voters to “leave.” In April, he warned British voters they would be at the “back of the queue” in trade with the U.S. if they left the EU. Some, like Andrew Roberts, took offense, writing in the Wall Street Journal:
Surely—surely—this is an issue on which the British people, and they alone, have the right to decide, without the intervention of President Obama, who adopted his haughtiest professorial manner when lecturing us to stay in the EU, before making the naked threat that we would be sent “to the back of the queue” (i.e., the back of the line) in any future trade deals if we had the temerity to vote to leave.
Was my country at the back of the line when Winston Churchill promised in 1941 that in the event of a Japanese attack on the U.S., a British declaration of war on Japan would be made within the hour?
…
Were we at the back of the line on 9/11, or did we step forward immediately and instinctively as the very first of your allies to contribute troops to join you in the expulsion of the Taliban, al Qaeda’s hosts, from power in Afghanistan?
Or in Iraq two years later, was it the French or the Germans or the Belgians who stood and fought and bled beside you? Whatever views you might have over the rights or wrongs of that war, no one can deny that Britain was in its accustomed place: at the front of the line, in the firing line. So it is not right for President Obama now to threaten to send us to the back of the line.
Hillary Clinton also backed a “remain” vote in April, with a senior policy adviser issuing a statement on her behalf:
Hillary Clinton believes that transatlantic cooperation is essential, and that cooperation is strongest when Europe is united. She has always valued a strong United Kingdom in a strong EU. And she values a strong British voice in the EU.
Trump, who happens to be in Scotland to open a golf resort, promised in May that leaving the EU would not put Britain at the “back of the queue,” and said: “I think if I were from Britain I would probably want to go back to a different system.” He reiterated that support last week, telling the Sunday Times: “I would personally be more inclined to leave, for a lot of reasons like having a lot less bureaucracy. … But I am not a British citizen. This is just my opinion.”
PUBLISHED: 02:24 EST, 24 June 2016 | UPDATED: 09:40 EST, 24 June 2016
As dawn broke over a shocked Brussels, a group of European MEPs warned that last night’s astonishing Brexit vote will cause the EU to ‘crumble to pieces’ within the next five years.
Their statement came as Britain voted to leave the EU, contrary to all projections by pollsters, to the bewilderment of the Eurocrats in Brussels.
‘This is the beginning of the end for the EU,’ Peter Lundgren, an MEP from the far-Right Sweden Democrat party, told MailOnline. ‘So many other countries will follow the UK. Europe will fall.’
Shattering: European MEPs warned that last night’s astonishing Brexit vote will cause the EU to ‘crumble to pieces’ within the next five years
Resign: An emotional David Cameron resigning this morning as Samantha Cameron looks on, as Brussels scrambled to make sense of Britain’s decision to exit and MEPs warned Europe will crumble
European Council President Donald Tusk prepares to address a media conference at the EU Council building in Brussels today
Message for Britain: Graffiti on a wall in at a Deutsche Post location at Hallisches Ufer in Berlin after the shock Brexit result
Far right: Today French far-Right leader Marine le Pen changed her twitter symbol to the Union Jack in a sign of how Brexit will increase support for the far-Right in France
Now France needs its own referendum too, says Marine Le Pen
The Eurosceptic MEPs from Sweden, Germany, Italy and France said a number of governments will now be under intense pressure to hold referendums of their own, and try to renegotiate their own individual deals.
This, they said, will lead to a ‘domino effect’ in the wake of Britain’s trailblazing and unprecedented decision to leave the EU.
‘The EU cannot survive. It is too undemocratic, corruption is too high, the Eurocrats’ ambition is too much, there is too much money in the gravy train. ‘It makes ordinary people raving mad.
‘It’s just a matter of time,’ Lundgren said. ‘Britain has set a precedent. Other member states will follow and the whole thing will fall apart. It will happen very soon.’
Overnight, as it became apparent that Britain was turning against the EU establishment, Brussels Eurocrats gradually left the bars around the parliament building and went home to bed.
Several British apparatchiks were concerned about their livelihood, with one telling MailOnline that he was expecting ‘to be on the scrapheap in the morning’.
The Commission and European Parliament buildings remained deserted, but a number of lights burned on the upper floors as a small number of desperate bureaucrats tried to lay the groundwork for a response to the most momentous event in the Union’s history.
Last night’s extraordinary vote was a reflection of the support for Eurosceptic parties that has been steadily growing across Europe in recent years, including for the populist and far-Right movements.
The Sweden Democrats – which started as a white supremacist party before sanitising its image – became the country’s third-largest party in 2014, and topped opinion polls last year.
Donald Tusk determined to keep EU unity after Brexit
Italy, Holland, Austria and other countries also have significant Eurosceptic followings, forming a wave of cynicism towards the EU and its cosseted elites
Collapse: MEPs Marco Zanni and Peter Lundgren claimed today that the European Union will now crumble
Panic: European Parliament President Martin Schultz, right, meets with presidents of political parties at the European Parliament in Brussels today amid deep shock over the Brexit result
European Council President Donald Tusk briefs the media after Britain voted to leave the European Union. Meanwhile Beatrix von Storch, right, said it was only a matter of time before the European Project fell apart
HOW BREXIT CONTAGION COULD SPREAD
SWEDEN: Polls have consistently shown that a majority of Swedes wish to stay in the EU. However, when considering a Europe without Britain, surveys produce a very different result, with at least one poll showing more Swedes determined to enact a ‘Swexit’.
FRANCE: On Tuesday, Marine Le Pen, the leader of the Front National, called for a French referendum modelled on the British vote. ‘I would vote for Brexit, even if I think that France has 1,000 more reasons to leave than the UK,’ she said, referring to the EU as ‘decaying’.
With French elections approaching, the issue is likely to become more contentious than ever.
ITALY: Earlier this month, the populist Five Star movement vowed it would demand a referendum on membership of the Euro, which would lead to a full-scale vote on EU membership.
Beppe Grillo, the party’s leader, said: ‘The mere fact that a country like Great Britain is holding a referendum on whether to leave the EU signals the failure of the EU.’
NETHERLANDS: According to the latest polls, most voters are in favour of a referendum on EU membership, with far-Right politicians like Geert Wilders agitating for a ‘Nexit’. In the aftermath of the Brexit decision, his will be a difficult demand for the Dutch government to ignore.
In France, the Front National is now finishing first in elections, and in Germany, Alternative Für Deutschland has more than 20,000 members.
Italy, Holland, Austria and other countries also have significant Eurosceptic followings, forming a wave of cynicism towards the EU and its cosseted elites.
Britain’s vote to leave will be seen as a huge boost for the Eurosceptics and populists, who have long argued that the Brussels elite are out of touch with the will of the people. Among them are inevitably a number of far-Right parties.
‘Our support is growing all over Europe,’ Lundgren said. ‘The EU cannot survive. It is too undemocratic, corruption is too high, the Eurocrats’ ambition is too much, there is too much money in the gravy train.
‘It makes ordinary people raving mad. People are gradually realising what’s going on. Britain has now started the process, and Europe will be fully dismantled by another country.’
Jeppe Koford, a mainstream Danish politician who leads the Social Democrats in the European Parliament, admitted that the EU was in dire straits but thought it was ‘too early to make that judgment’.
He said: ‘It’s not the UK referendum that could make Europe fall apart. It’s the lack of solutions to problems, whether its low wages, high unemployment or the terrorist threat,’ he said.
‘These are the main drivers of disintegration, if we’re not strong enough.’
But Beatrix von Storch, an MEP from Germany’s Alternative Für Deutschland, argued that Britain’s stunning decision would ‘start a process that can’t be stopped’, and had turned the EU upside down.
‘Let’s not forget that even those who voted to remain didn’t like the EU much,’ she said. ‘Remain campaigners kept repeating “the EU is not perfect”. They didn’t passionately believe in it, they have just been scared into supporting it.
‘Cameron’s renegotiation was going towards the Eurosceptic side, showing that even the people who are too scared to vote to leave the EU want less of it.’
German political parties give their views on the UK Leave vote
MEPs predict Brexit is the ‘beginning of the end’ and several countries will follow suit and hold a referendum, including Sweden, Germany and Italy
Cash crash: The FTSE opened 8 per cent down today as traders ran in fright from the shock Brexit result. Above, a trader sits in front of his screens, one which displays the rate of the British pound which drops against the US dollar
The EU’s failure to find solutions to the economic crisis, migration crisis and security crisis have all been blamed for the growing mistrust in Brussels
This, she said, reflected a Europe-wide disaffection with the EU that is growing year by year. ‘The process of the end has begun,’ she said. ‘Something has been started in Europe, and it cannot be stopped. Once one country is out, Europe will fall.’
Lundgren and von Storch are part of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy bloc, a populist grouping in the European Parliament containing many Ukip MEPs, including Nigel Farage.
Their analysis was questioned by the anti-extremism expert Vidhya Ramalingham, fellow at the German Institute on Radicalisation and De-Radicalisation Studies and Director of Moonshot CVE.
‘It’s an apocalyptic scenario which may not come about,’ she said. ‘It plays into the narrative that they are trying to promote. It’s fear mongering.’
She argued that the assumption that Europe would fall in response to Brexit was simply a way to sow division inside the EU. ‘It suits the Eurosceptic parties to make as much of it as possible,’ she said. ‘But the EU is stronger than that.’
Vote Leave supporters celebrate as a landslide victory in Sunderland points to final result – a win for Brexit
Cheers: Brexit supporters can’t contain their excitement as Britain votes Leave and triggers calls for a wave of similar referendums across Europe
Shock: The Remain camp is distraught as Brexit voters outnumber Remain by more than a million
But Marco Zanni, an Italian MEP from the Five Star movement who is also a member of the bloc, said that there were good reasons to predict the downfall of the EU.
He told MailOnline that the EU is facing ‘three crises at once’: the economic crisis, which has seen a bailout of Greece and deleterious growth across southern European countries; the migration crisis, which has caused the de facto suspension of the Schengen arrangement; and the security crisis, in which major attacks in Brussels and Paris have claimed hundreds of lives.
‘In each and every case, the EU is showing that it cannot solve these problems. It simply does not have the solutions, and people are getting fed up with it,’ he said.
‘In Italy, polls show disaffection with the EU skyrocketing. The majority is still in favour, but it is close to 50-50.
‘Italians are already agitating for a referendum. Last year, two hundred thousand Italians signed a petition demanding a referendum on our membership of the Euro, but it wasn’t granted.
‘The British referendum has given Italians an ambition to have a referendum as well.
‘There will be too much tension to hold the EU together. ‘It will collapse within the next 10 years.’
In France, the far-right National Front celebrated a Brexit ‘Victory’ and said it threatened the disintegration of the entire European project.
Marine Le Pen, the National Front (FN) leader, said the historic European Union vote was a clear indication the 28-nation bloc was ‘decaying’.
Calling for a referendum in her own country, and anticipating other exits across the EU, she said: ‘Victory for liberty!
‘As I’ve asked for many years, it is now necessary to have the same referendum in France and in the European Union.’
Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, another member of the Le Pen dynasty and an FN MP, also tweeted ‘Victory!’
What now: MEPs said disaffection with the EU was ‘skyrocketing’
The Le Pens, including the convicted racist and anti-Semite MEP and party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, are fiercely anti-Europe.
They view an end to the EU as the best way of implementing their anti-immigration and anti-globalisation agenda.
Other parties in France, including the governing Socialists, were overwhelmingly shocked and saddened by the result.
President Francois Hollande had made it clear that a leave vote was ‘irreversible’, and that there will now be ‘extremely serious consequences’ for the UK.
Under the headline ‘The Immediate consequences for Britons’, L’Express said the millions who visit France from the UK every year would now need a visa.
Holidays on the continent will also be ‘more expensive’, and expats including retired people living in France will see agreements on their health treatment and other benefits scrapped.
Thousands of French people living and working in the UK will be reassessing their futures, along with Britons based in France.
L’Express also warned of more ‘frontiers going up’ around Europe, including one between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Newspapers like Le Monde, meanwhile, highlighted ‘the collapse of Sterling’ and ‘panic in the markets’.
It described a ‘deeply divided’ Britain, with ‘large differences between the old and the young’.
Le Monde adds: ‘The focus on immigration, which has risen sharply, could accentuate the fractures in a country, also marked by a widening gap in wealth between the poor and the wealthy.’
Le Point also warned of a ‘domino effect’, saying the ‘terrible blow to the European project and the prime minister, David Cameron’ would have lasting negative effects.
Eva Joly, the French MEP, said the ‘jump into the dark’ by Britain, and a time of ‘great sadness’ for everyone in Europe.
Brexit Comes to America: Ryan Challenger Mounts Immigration Billboard
by JULIA HAHN 24 Jun 2016
Following last night’s historic Brexit vote, House Speaker Paul Ryan’s primary challenger, Wisconsin businessman Paul Nehlen, seems to have taken a page from the playbook of the U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) with the launch of a new billboard campaign.
On Friday morning, Nehlen’s campaign went live with a new billboard in Ryan’s hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin that is reminiscent of the distinctive UKIP-style campaign.
The ad reads: “Radical Islam Kills Americans. Vote YES for Immigration Control. Vote NO for Paul Ryan.”
The billboard then directs viewers to Nehlen’s campaign website, ElectNehlen.com.
UKIP’s national billboard campaign is distinctive for its clear, straight-forward manner of describing the effects of large-scale migration and its impact on workers and Western culture.
“This is the first of many billboards our campaign will be launching to inform the voters about what’s at stake on August 9th,” Nehlen told Breitbart.
As Nehlen’s billboard suggests, Paul Ryan has a two-decade long history of pushing for open border immigration policies – including his 2015 effort to fund President Obama’s expansion to the U.S. refugee resettlement operation.
In speeches, Ryan has made the case for policies that would effectively dissolve U.S. borders — declaring that the U.S. “is more than [its] borders.” Ryan has even articulated his support for implementing an immigration system similar to the open borders policy of the European Union — calling for “an economic-based immigration system where… labor and supply can meet each other so we can help fuel our economy and create jobs.”
The phrase “labor supply and demand can meet each other,” is a centerpiece of open borders thought. Under this global, one-world theory, any willing employer should be able to hire any willing worker regardless of what country he or she lives in. This view, that America is an “idea” and not a “nation,” sees borders as an obstacle to commerce.
With regards to Islamic migration, Ryan’s controversial omnibus spending bill funded U.S. visas for nearly 300,000 (permanent and temporary) Muslim migrants in a single year.
While polling data shows that the Republican electorate overwhelmingly backs proposals to temporarily pause Muslim migration, Ryan has rejected such proposals.
He has repeatedly ruled out the possibility of making any cuts to Muslim migration— insisting that “that’s not who we are,” and that such a proposal is “not reflective of our principles.”
However, Ryan has not explained how importing hundreds of thousands of migrants from nations that hold sentiments that are anti-women, anti-gay, anti-religious tolerance, and anti-America benefits the United States or helps to protect our Western values.
Indeed, as a result of large-scale Muslim migration, the U.S. has imported several practices and values that are antithetical to Western principles.
For instance, Muslim migration has put half a million U.S. girls and women at risk of suffering the barbaric and misogynistic practice of Female Genital Mutilation, according to Equality Now.
Aayan Hirsi Ali has also observed that Islamic “honor violence” has become increasingly prevalent in the United States as a result of “a significant increase in the number of people moving to the United States from countries with high-honor violence rates —notably Somalia… as well as Iraq.”
A 2011 study by the Tahirih Justice Center titled, “Forced Marriage in Immigrant Communities in the United States” found that in the U.S. there are “as many as 3,000 known or suspected cases of [forced marriage],” identified by survey respondents in recent years.
The high rate of Islamic migration has also posed challenges to national security. As CBS has reported, “The Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis [which] is sometimes called ‘Little Mogadishu’” given that it is the “center of the nation’s largest concentration of Somalis,” has become a “fertile ground for Islamic terrorist groups recruiting new fighters.”
As the Minneapolis Star Tribune has reported, a Congressional report found that “Minnesota leads the nation in would-be ISIL terrorists from U.S.”
Moreover, evidence has shown that the recent Orlando terrorist attack, in which the son of Afghan migrants targeted the LGBT community and slaughtered 49 people in a gay nightclub, was motivated by anti-Western ideology that was imported from foreign nations rather than “homegrown.”
As Andrew McCarthy has explained, “The inspiration for Muslims to brutalize and mass murder gay people does not come from ISIS. It is deeply rooted in Islamic law, affirmed by many of Islam’s most renowned scholars.”
McCarthy explains that “the mandate that homosexuals be killed” comes from Sharia – not ISIS. “This is why, wherever sharia is the law, homosexuals are persecuted and killed,” McCarthy writes. “[With the Orlando terror attack] we have gotten another glimpse of radicalization, which is not “homegrown” but rather fueled by a foreign, anti-American, anti-liberty ideology.”
According to Pew, nearly all Muslims in Afghanistan (99 percent) support sharia law as official law. Between 2001 and 2014, the U.S. permanently resettled more than 40,000 migrants from Afghanistan on green cards.
Additionally, between 2001 and 2014, the U.S. permanently resettled 674,920 migrants from nations where gays can be executed, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
This figure does not include the total number of migrants the U.S. has permanently resettled from Muslim nations during that time, which is nearly 1.7 million.
The current rate of U.S. immigration is record high. Every day the U.S. admits enough net immigrants to fill an overcrowded, metropolitan high school. Every month the U.S. imports a population of immigrants that is larger than the occupancy of Lambeau Field, where the Green Bay Packers play.
Since Wisconsin voters sent Paul Ryan to Washington, the U.S. has imported a population of immigrants that is nearly three times larger than the entire population of Wisconsin.
In seven years time – unless Congress takes action to curb U.S. visa distributions – the foreign-born share of the U.S. population will reach an all-time high. In the 1920s, the last time the foreign-born share of the population reached a record high, then-President Calvin Coolidge hit the pause button for roughly fifty years, producing an era of explosive wage growth and allowing immigrants already in the country to assimilate.
Paul Ryan, however, has made clear that he does not wish to curb immigration, but instead has pushed legislation that would substantially increase immigration.
According to Pew polling data, 92 percent of the GOP electorate — and 83 percent of the American electorate as a whole — is opposed to such an agenda and wants to see immigration levels frozen or reduced. Ryan represents only a minuscule seven percent of the GOP electorate that wants to increase migration rates.
As NumbersUSA president Roy Beck has explained, “Open borders is in his [Paul Ryan’s] ideological DNA … He’s an ideologue and has spent his whole life working for ideologues. Open borders seeps out of every pore of his being … Ryan is the heart and soul of crony capitalism.”
By NOLAN D. MCCASKILL 05/06/16 03:09 PM EDT Updated 05/06/16 05:35 PM EDT
When House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday he wasn’t ready to support Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, his Wisconsin primary opponent saw an opening.
Following the Trump campaign’s lash-out on Friday, Paul Nehlen seized that opening, suggesting he will do what Ryan won’t: support Trump.
Story Continued Below
“If Mr. Trump is the nominee, I will support that decision, because it will have been the will of the voters that got him there,” the Republican challenging Ryan for Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District seat in the state’s August primary said in a statement.
Nehlen is seeking to gain an edge in the primary against Ryan, who won his 2014 primary by nearly 90 percentage points. This time around, the Trump campaign and allies have aggressively attacked the House speaker and Republican National Convention chair, with Trump spokeswoman Katrina Pierson intimating that Ryan is unfit for his role if he can’t support the presumptive nominee.
But on Friday when Chuck Todd asked Pierson on “Meet the Press” if Trump would prefer to see Ryan remain speaker, she said “absolutely.” She said she had been stating her own opinion and not Trump’s.
“Mr. Trump is not out to get anyone here,” Pierson said. She also said that Trump would not back Nehlan even if Ryan refused to support him.
Trump himself called out Ryan in a tweet for claiming Trump “inherited” the Republican Party, highlighting that voters catapulted him atop the GOP ticket.
“Paul Ryan said that I inherited something very special, the Republican Party. Wrong, I didn’t inherit it, I won it with millions of voters!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
The nuance of his tweet speaks to the rift between mainstream Republicans and the polarizing, unconventional candidate who has risen to become the face of the party.
“Paul Ryan is right at the head of a small group of party elites who continue to tell the American people they know better,” Nehlen said. “He’s demonstrated that he’s not the unifier he claims. If he were a unifier, he would look for ways to work with the candidate that the American people have chosen in state after state.”
Nehlen argued that, despite Ryan’s calls for unity, his actions show he’s divisive, adding that Ryan isn’t supportive of Trump and wasn’t supportive of Ted Cruz or Rand Paul, either.
“It’s clear that he’s right out in front of the establishment’s #OnlyMe team. The people have spoken,” he said. “But Paul Ryan somehow thinks that the People are incompetent and that GOP elites should step in and guide them. The last time I checked, we lived in a representative republic. Paul Ryan seems to think we’re living in an oligarchy.”
Ryan said the onus is on Trump to unify the different wings of the party, a view Pierson pushed back on and Nehlen affirmed.
“Paul Ryan needs to be a — he’s the leader right now,” Pierson said. “We’re told Donald Trump is only the presumptive nominee. He’s not the nominee until 1,237. So really it’s incumbent on Paul Ryan to help bring unity to the party.”
Ryan’s office announced Friday afternoon that Ryan, Trump and Priebus will meet in Washington on Thursday of next week.
Nehlen’s move could give his campaign a boost, although Trump’s anti-establishment appeal in Wisconsin’s presidential primary wasn’t enough for the billionaire to win the state — or Ryan’s district, which was carried by Ted Cruz.
Conservative blogger Michelle Malkin endorsed Nehlen’s congressional campaign in April and will host a fundraiser for him in Wisconsin on May 27. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/05/paul-nehlen-support-donald-trump-paul-ryan-222908#ixzz4CbZe0Rzx
Story 1: American People Want Immigration Law Enforcement and Bill of Rights vs. Tyrant Obama Breaking Immigration Laws and Betraying His Oath of Office — Democrats Gun Grabbers Want To Repeal The Second and Fifth Amendments — Tiny Tyrants Temper Tantrum — Publicity Stunt To Raise Money — Criminals and Terrorists Target Gun Free Zones With Unarmed Americans — Fire All Democrat Tyrants in November — The Best Protection Against Criminals, Terrorists, and Tyrants Is Well Armed American Citizens — Videos
Presidential Oath of Office
Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:—
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States,and
will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion;
and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”
President’s Duty to Faithfully Execute the Law
Article II, Section 3 of U. S. Constitution
“take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
Paul Ryan: Gun sit-in a publicity stunt
House Democrats shout Paul Ryan down as he tries to stop #NoBreakNoBill sit-in
GOP Representatives Attemptig To Thwart Democratic Gun Control Sit-In
Penn & Teller Explain The Second Amendment
Reality Check: The True Intent Of The Second Amendment
YOUR SECOND AMENDMENT
The Judge on no-fly list gun ban push
Is a no-fly list gun ban legal?
Tom McClintock Trashes Leftist No Fly List Gun Control
Trey Gowdy questions DHS official, No Fly List
No Fly List, No Guns?
Federal Judge Rules No-Fly List is Unconstitutional
No Fly But You Can Buy Called ‘Insane’ By Obama
U.S. to Tell Americans Why They’re on No-Fly List
An “Assault” Weapons Ban Will Do Nothing to Prevent Murders & Simply Allows the Terrorists a Victory
Analyzing Obama’s response to the Supreme Court immigration ruling
Trump Endorses No Fly List Gun Ban
John Lott, Sheriff David Clarke, Bo Dittle on Hannity to discuss new push for gun control
John Lott on One America News Network to discuss Senate votes on gun control after Orlando
CPRC on the Glenn Beck TV Show to discuss debate over banning AR-15s
How’s It Goin’, Eh? With guests comedian Ian Bagg and gun expert John Lott
John Lott: Why More Guns Equal Less Crime
John Lott: More Guns, Less Crime
John Lott: At the Brink: Will Obama Push Us Over the Edge?
John Lott: “When Countries Impose Gun Bans Murder Rates Go Up”
John Lott: Myths of gun crime
Napolitano on constitutionality of Obama immigration actions
President Obama slams GOP for blocking Supreme Court nominee
Supreme Court Tie Blocks Obama’s Immigration Plan
Supreme Court Tie Blocks Obama Immigration Plan
Obama Expresses Disapointment In Supreme Court’s Immigration Ruling
President Obama on Supreme Court Immigration Executive Actions Ruling (C-SPAN)
President Obama Delivers a Statement on the Supreme Court’s Ruling on Immigration
WATCH: Paul Ryan Says Democrats #NoBillNoBreak Sit-In Was Publicity Stunt to Raise Money
Rep. John Lewis Leads Sit-In on House Floor
House Democrats shout Paul Ryan down as he tries to stop #NoBreakNoBill sit-in
U. S. Supreme Court immigration decision: what you need to know
Significant blow to president’s immigration policies enacted after Congress did nothing.
The Supreme Court split 4-4 over whether the Obama administration could implement two immigration programs offering deportation halts to up to 4 million unauthorized immigrants.
The main initiative would have protected the foreign-born parents of U.S. citizens and legal residents. The Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, known as DAPA, included renewable work permits.
The Obama administration also extended a 2012 executive action to cover more unauthorized immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children. The initiatives were the most sweeping immigration actions taken by President Obama in his two terms — and executed without a vote from Congress.
“The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) againstdomestic Violence.”
Unfortunately, efforts of states to recoup costs resulting from the current invasion of illegal aliens have so far failed. An Arizona case on this matter was rejected in 1997. The Arizona Republic article Justices reject state bid to recoup costs of illegals, Oct. 7, 1997 states:
Arizona officials filed the lawsuit in 1994 to recover more than $121 million that they said the state was owed for illegal immigrants serving time in prison…
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider arguments that the U.S. government must pay up because it has failed to meet its constitutional obligation to protect states from an “invasion” of illegal border crossers…
“Although the federal government may have the luxury of abdicating its constitutional duty to protect Arizona’s borders, Arizona cannot solve the problems that this abdication causes by following the federal government’s example and abdicating its duty to prosecute and incarcerate illegal aliens who commit felonies within Arizona’s unprotected borders,” Arizona argued in its high court appeal.
An October 7, 1997 LA Times article Court Rejects Claim That U.S. Is Liable for Immigrant Costs states:
The lawsuit cited Article 4 of the Constitution, which says that the United States “shall protect each of [the states] against invasion.” But U.S. District Judge Judith Keep in San Diego and the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco threw out the lawsuit on grounds that California and Arizona are not being “invaded” by a hostile, foreign power.
The issue of who pays… is a political issue, not a legal one, they said.
It is abundantly clear that our politicans lack the will to honor our Constitution. We encourage you to ask your public officials, who are sworn to uphold the Constitution:
if they support this provision;
what they plan to do to ensure implementation of this provision;
Earlier this week, The Intercept published a 166-page document outlining the government’s guidelines for placing people on an expansive network of terror watch lists, including the no-fly list. In their report, Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Devereaux highlighted the extremely vague and loosely defined criteria developed by 19 federal agencies, supposedly to fight terrorism.
Using these criteria, government officials have secretly characterized an unknown number of individuals as threats or potential threats to national security. In 2013 alone, 468,749 watch-list nominations were submitted to the National Counterterrorism Center. It rejected only 1 percent of the recommendations.
Critics say the system is bloated and imprecise, needlessly sweeping up thousands of people while simultaneously failing to catch legitimate threats, like Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
While some individuals are surely placed on these watch lists for valid reasons, the murky language of the guidelines suggests that innocent people can get caught up in this web, too, and be subjected to the same possible restrictions on travel and other forms of monitoring. Here are several ways you could find yourself on a terror watch list, even if you aren’t a terrorist:
1. You could raise “reasonable suspicion” that you’re involved in terrorism. “Irrefutable evidence or concrete facts” are not required.
This guidance addresses how to place people in the broader Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB), of which the no-fly list and the selectee lists — which cover those selected for enhanced screenings before boarding flights — are both subsections.
In determining whether a suspicion about you is “reasonable,” a “nominator” must “rely upon articulable intelligence or information which, taken together with rational inferences from those facts,” can link you to possible terrorism. As Scahill and Devereaux noted, words like “reasonable,” “articulable” and “rational” are not expressly defined. While the document outlines the need for an “objective factual basis,” the next section clarifies that “irrefutable evidence or concrete facts are not necessary” to make a final determination as to whether a suspicion is “reasonable.” So how could intelligence officials be led to put you on the watch list?
2. You could post something on Facebook or Twitter that raises “reasonable suspicion.”
According to the document, “postings on social media sites … should not be discounted merely because of the manner in which it was received.” Instead, those investigating the individual should “evaluate the credibility of the source” and, if they judge the content to pose a “reasonable suspicion” of a link to terrorism, nominate the person to the watch list, even if that source is “uncorroborated.” If this sounds disturbing, don’t worry: There’s a sentence that explicitly prohibits listing an individual “for engaging solely in constitutionally protected activities.” So as long as your free speech isn’t accompanied by any other “suspicious” behavior, you should be fine, maybe.
3. Or somebody else could just think you’re a potential terror threat.
The guidelines also consider the use of “walk-in” or “write-in” information about potential candidates for the watch list. Nominators are encouraged not to dismiss such tips and, after evaluating “the credibility of the source,” could opt to nominate you to the watch list.
4. You could be a little terrorist-ish, at least according to someone.
The document explains that you could be put on a suspected-terrorist watch list if you are determined to be a “representative” of a terrorist group, even if you have “neither membership in nor association with the organization.” Individuals accused of being involved with a terrorist organization, but who later are acquitted in a court of law or saw their charges dropped, are still potential nominees for watch-listing, so long as “reasonable suspicion” is established.
5. Or you could just know someone terrorist-y, maybe.
Scahill and Devereaux reported that the immediate family of a suspected terrorist — including spouse, children, parents and siblings — may be added to the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE), a broad terror database that feeds into the TSDB, “without any suspicion that they themselves are engaged in terrorist activity.” According to the document, “associates or affiliates” of known or suspected terrorists, or just those somehow “linked to” them, can also be nominated to the TSDB watchlist, so long as the relationship is defined and constitutes a “reasonable suspicion” of a connection to terrorist activity. The document states that “individuals who merely ‘may be’ members, associates or affiliates of a terrorist organization” may not be put into the latter database, unless that suspicion can be backed by “derogatory information.”
But there’s also a more nebulous connection that could prompt your placement in the TIDE database. The document specifically provides for nominating “individuals with a possible nexus to terrorism … but for whom additional derogatory information is needed to meet the reasonable suspicion standard.”
6. And if you’re in a “category” of people determined to be a threat, your threat status could be “upgraded” at the snap of a finger.
The watch-list guidelines explain a process by which the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism can move an entire “category of individuals” to an elevated threat status. It’s unclear exactly how these categories are defined, but according to the document, there must be “current and credible intelligence information” suggesting that the group is a particular threat to conduct a terrorist act. Such determinations can be implemented and remain in place for up to 72 hours before a committee convenes to decide whether the watch-list upgrade should be extended.
7. Finally, you could just be unlucky.
The process of adding people to the terror watch lists is as imperfect as the intelligence officials tasked with doing so. There have been reports of “false positives,” or instances in which an innocent passenger has been subject to treatment under a no-fly or selectee list because his or her name was similar to that of another individual. In one highly publicized incident in 2005, a 4-year-old boy was nearly barred from boarding a plane to visit his grandmother.
The watch-list guidance was supposedly revised in part to prevent incidents like these, but with more than 1.5 million people added to the lists in the last five years, mistakes are always inevitable. Just ask Rahinah Ibrahim, a Stanford University student who ended up on a no-fly list in 2004 after an FBI agent accidentally checked the wrong box on a form.
But then if you were to be mistakenly added to a list, you probably wouldn’t know — unless it stopped you from flying. The government has been extremely secretive about the names on the various watch lists. If you were to learn that you were wrongly placed on a watch list, good luck getting off it. As Scahill and Devereaux reported, you can file a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Traveler Redress Inquiry Program, which begins a review “that is not subject to oversight by any court or entity outside the counterterrorism community.”
And if you were to get your name removed from the watch list, the intelligence agencies aren’t even obligated to inform you of your updated status. Helpful.
The secretive nature of the terror watch lists has come under court scrutiny recently. A federal judge ruled in June that the government must develop a new process under which individuals can challenge their inclusion on the no-fly list. The judge found the current process “wholly ineffective.”
The No Fly List is a list, created and maintained by the United States government‘s Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), of people who are prohibited from boarding a commercial aircraft for travel in or out of theUnited States. The list has also been used to divert aircraft away from U.S. airspace that is not flying to or from the U.S. The number of people on the list rises and falls according to threat and intelligence reporting.[citation needed] There were 10,000 names on the list in 2011, 21,000 in 2012, and 47,000 in 2013.
The No Fly List is different from the Terrorist Watch List, a much longer list of people said to be suspected of some involvement with terrorism. As of June 2016 the Terrorist Watch List is estimated to contain over 2,484,442 records, consisting of 1,877,133 individual identities.[2][3]
History
Before the attacks of September 11, 2001, the U.S. federal government had a list of 16 people deemed “no transport” because they “presented a specific known or suspected threat to aviation.”[4][5] The list grew in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, reaching more than 400 names by November 2001, when responsibility for keeping it was transferred to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).[5] In mid-December 2001, two lists were created: the “No Fly List” of 594 people to be denied air transport, and the “Selectee” list of 365 people who were to be more carefully searched at airports.[4][5] By 2002, the two lists combined contained over a thousand names, and by April 2005 contained about 70,000 names.[4] For the first two and a half years of the program, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) denied that the program existed.[4]
The No Fly List program came to public light “when prominent antiwar activists, such as Jan Adams and Rebecca Gordan, and political opponents of the Bush administration, such as Senator Edward Kennedy and the civil rights attorney David Cole, found themselves included.”[4] In October 2006, CBS News‘s 60 Minutes reported on the program after it obtained a March 2006 copy of the list containing 44,000 names.[6]
Many individuals were “caught in the system” as a result of sharing the exact or similar name of another person on the list;[7] TSA officials said that, as of November 2005, 30,000 people in 2005 had complained that their names were matched to a name on the list via the name matching software used by airlines.[8] In January 2006, the FBI and ACLU settled a federal lawsuit, Gordon v. FBI, brought by Gordon and Adams under the Freedom of Information Act in order to obtain information about how names were added to the list.[8] Under the settlement, the government paid $200,000 in the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees.[9] A separate suit was brought as a class action “filed by people caught in the name game.”[7] In response, “TSA created an ombudsperson process, whereby individuals now can download and print out a Passenger Identity Verification Form and mail it, along with certain notarized documents, to the TSA “so the agency can differentiate the individual from others who may be on the list.”[7]
In April 2007, the United States government “terrorist watch list” administered by the Terrorist Screening Center, which is managed principally by the FBI,[10] contained 700,000 records.[11] A year later, the ACLUestimated the list to have grown to over 1,000,000 names and to be continually expanding.[12][13][14] However, according to Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff, in October 2008 the No Fly list contained only 2,500 names, with an additional 16,000 “selectees” who “represent a less specific security threat and receive extra scrutiny, but are allowed to fly.”[15]
As of 2011, the list contained about 10,000 names.[16][17] In 2012, the list more than doubled in size, to about 21,000 names.[18] In August 2013, a leak revealed that more than 47,000 people were on the list.[19][20]
Weapons purchases by listed persons
In a 2010 report, the Government Accountability Office noted that “Membership in a terrorist organization does not prohibit a person from possessing firearms or explosives under current federal law,” and individuals on the No Fly List are not barred from purchasing guns.[21] According to GAO data, between 2004 and 2010, people on terrorism watch lists—including the No Fly List as well as other separate lists—attempted to buy guns and explosives more than 1,400 times, and succeeded in 1,321 times (more than 90 percent of cases).[22]
Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, a Democrat, repeatedly introduced legislation to bar individuals on the terror watch lists (such as the No Fly List) from buying firearms or explosives, but these efforts did not succeed.[21][22][23]Dianne Feinstein of California, also a Democrat, revived the legislation after the November 2015 Paris attacks, and President Barack Obama has called for such legislation to be approved.[21]
The American Civil Liberties Union has voiced opposition to barring weapons sales to individuals listed on the current form of the No-Fly List, stating that: “There is no constitutional bar to reasonable regulation of guns, and the No Fly List could serve as one tool for it, but only with major reform.”[25] Specifically, the ACLU’s position is that the government’s current redress process—the procedure by which listed individuals can petition for removal from the list—does not meet the requirements of the Constitution’s Due Process Clause because the process does not “provide meaningful notice of the reasons our clients are blacklisted, the basis for those reasons, and a hearing before a neutral decision-maker.”[25]
In December 2015, Feinstein’s amendment to bar individuals on the terror watch list from purchasing firearms failed in the Senate on a 45-54 vote.[26] Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, put forth a competing proposal to “give the attorney general the power to impose a 72-hour delay for individuals on the terror watch list seeking to purchase a gun and it could become a permanent ban if a judge determines there is probable cause during that time window.”[26] The measure, too, failed, on a 55-45 vote (60 votes were required to proceed).[26] The votes on both the Feinstein measure and the Coryn measure were largely along party lines.[26]
Vulnerabilitie
False positives
A “false positive” occurs when a passenger who is not on the No Fly List has a name that matches or is similar to a name on the list. False positive passengers will not be allowed to board a flight unless they can differentiate themselves from the actual person on the list, usually by presenting ID showing their middle name or date of birth. In some cases, false positive passengers have been denied boarding or have missed flights because they could not easily prove that they were not the person on the No Fly List.[citation needed]
When an airline ticket is purchased, the reservation system uses software to compare the passenger’s name against the No Fly List. If the name matches, or is similar to a name on the No Fly List, a restriction is placed in the reservation that prevents the passenger from being issued a boarding pass until the airline has determined whether or not he or she is the actual person whose name is on the No Fly List. Passengers are not told when a restriction has been placed on their reservation, and they normally do not find out that anything is unusual until they attempt to check in. “False positive” passengers cannot use Internet check-in or the automatic check-in kiosks in airports. Any attempt to use either check-in method will normally result in a message that the check-in cannot be completed and that the passenger needs to see a live check-in agent.[citation needed]
In order to be issued a boarding pass, “false positive” passengers must present identification that sufficiently differentiates them from the person on the No Fly List. This can include, but is not limited to, date and place of birth, middle name, citizenship, passport number, etc. Depending on the airline, this clearance can be done either electronically, with the check-in agent keying the information into the system, or a manual procedure where the agent telephones a centralized security office to obtain clearance. Once a “false positive” passenger has been cleared for a flight, the clearance will usually, but not always, apply to the remaining flights on that reservation, including the return. However, the next time this passenger purchases an airline ticket, he or she will have to be cleared all over again. If a passenger’s identification is insufficient to differentiate that passenger from a name on the No-Fly List, the airline will refuse to issue a boarding pass and tell the passenger to contact the TSA.[citation needed]
Policies vary from airline to airline as to whether a check-in agent will tell passengers why they must always have additional steps performed when they check in, or why they are unable to check in via Internet, kiosk, or at curbside. In some cases, check-in agents will incorrectly tell passengers that they must be cleared because they are “on the No Fly List”, when in fact they are simply a “false positive” (having the same name as someone on the No Fly List). False positive passengers who are ultimately issued boarding passes are not on the No Fly List. In the majority of instances, passengers are not told anything, and it is only through the repeated experience of needing to be cleared or being unable to use curbside, Internet or automatic check-in that they come to suspect that they are “false positives”.[citation needed]
In an effort to reduce the number of false positives, DHS announced on April 28, 2008 that each airline will be permitted to create a system to verify and store a passenger’s date of birth, to clear up watch list misidentifications. Passengers can voluntarily provide this information to the airline, which would have to be verified by presenting acceptable ID at the ticket counter. Once this data has been stored, travelers that were previously inconvenienced on every trip would be able to check in online or at remote kiosks.[27] It will be up to each individual airline to choose whether they wish to implement such a system.[citation needed]
Notable cases
False positives and abuses that have been in the news include:
Numerous children (including many under the age of five, and some under the age of one) have generated false positives.[28][29][30]
Daniel Brown, a United States Marine returning from Iraq, was prevented from boarding a flight home in April 2006 because his name matched one on the No Fly List.[31]
David Fathi, an attorney for the ACLU of Iranian descent and a plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit, has been arrested and detained because his name was on the No Fly List.[32]
Asif Iqbal, a management consultant and legal resident of the United States born in Pakistan, plans to sue the U.S. government because he is regularly detained when he tries to fly. He has the same name as a former Guantanamo detainee.[33][34] Iqbal’s work requires a lot of travel, and, even though the Guantanamo detainee has been released, his name remains on the No Fly List, and Iqbal the software consultant experiences frequent, unpredictable delays and missed flights.[35] He is pushing for a photo ID and birthdate matching system, in addition to the current system of checking names.[36]
Robert J. Johnson, a surgeon and a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, was told in 2006 that he was on the list, although he had had no problem in flying the month before. Johnson was running as aDemocrat against U.S. Representative John McHugh, a Republican. Johnson wondered whether he was on the list because of his opposition to the Iraq War. He stated, “This could just be a government screw-up, but I don’t know, and they won’t tell me.”[37] Later, a 60 Minutes report brought together 12 men named Robert Johnson, all of whom had experienced problems in airports with being pulled aside and interrogated. The report suggested that the individual whose name was intended to be on the list was most likely the Robert Johnson who had been convicted of plotting to bomb a movie theater and a Hindu temple in Toronto.[6]
In August 2004, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) told a Senate Judiciary Committee discussing the No Fly List that he had appeared on the list and had been repeatedly delayed at airports. He said it had taken him three weeks of appeals directly to Homeland Security SecretaryTom Ridge to have him removed from the list. Kennedy said he was eventually told that the name “T Kennedy” was added to the list because it was once used as an alias of a suspected terrorist. There are an estimated 7,000 American men whose legal names correspond to “T Kennedy”. (Senator Kennedy, whose first name was Edward and for whom “Ted” was only a nickname, would not have been one of them.) Recognizing that as a U.S. Senator he was in a privileged position of being able to contact Ridge, Kennedy said of “ordinary citizens”: “How are they going to be able to get to be treated fairly and not have their rights abused?”[38] Former mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani pointed to this incident as an example for the necessity to “rethink aviation security” in an essay on homeland security published while he was seeking the Republican nomination for the 2008 presidential election.[39]
Walter F. Murphy, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton, reported that the following exchange took place at Newark on 1 March 2007, where he was denied a boarding pass “because I [Murphy] was on the Terrorist Watch list.” The airline employee asked, “Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that.” Replied Murphy, “I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the constitution.” To which the airline employee responded, “That’ll do it.”[43]
David Nelson, the actor best known for his role on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, is among various persons named David Nelson who have been stopped at airports because their name apparently appears on the list.[44][45]
In September 2004, former pop singer Cat Stevens (who converted to Islam and changed his name to “Yusuf Islam” in 1978) was denied entry into the U.S. after his name was found on the list.[47]
In February 2006, U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK) stated in a committee hearing that his wife Catherine had been subjected to questioning at an airport as to whether she was Cat Stevens due to the similarity of their names.[44][48]
U.S. Representative Don Young (R-AK), the third-most senior Republican in the House, was flagged in 2004 after he was mistaken for a “Donald Lee Young”.[49]
Some members of the Federal Air Marshal Service have been denied boarding on flights that they were assigned to protect because their names matched those of persons on the no-fly list.[50]
In August 2008, CNN reported that an airline captain and retired brigadier general for the United States Air Force has had numerous encounters with security officials when attempting to pilot his own plane.[51]
After frequent harassment at airport terminals, a Canadian businessman changed his name to avoid being delayed every time he took a flight.[52]
In October 2008, the Washington Post reported that Maryland State Police classified 53 nonviolent political activists as terrorists, and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases, with labels indicating that they were terror suspects. The protest groups were also entered as terrorist organizations. During a hearing, it was revealed that these individuals and organizations had been placed in the databases because of a surveillance operation that targeted opponents of the death penalty and the Iraq war.[53]
In April 2009, TSA refused to allow an Air France flight from Paris to Mexico to cross U.S. airspace because it was carrying Colombian journalist Hernando Calvo Ospina. Air France did not send the passenger manifest to the US authorities; they did however send it to Mexico who forwarded it to the US.[54]
On 19 August 2009, Air France flight AF-438 was not allowed to cross into US airspace because of the presence on board of one Paul-Emile Dupret, a civil servant at the European Parliament for 18 years, who had written some articles criticizing the EU’s policies toward Latin America because they are aligned too closely with those of the United States.[55] Even though AF-438 did not cross into US airspace, Paul-Emile Dupret was not allowed to fly to Montreal, where he was to take part in an official delegation of the European Parliament in Ottawa and Montreal. On 20 March 2016 at Charles DeGaulle Airport, Air France prevented Mssr. Dupret from boarding and suggested that he speak with a US security agent in the airport.
Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan was held for extensive questioning by US Immigration and Customs officials in August 2009 because, as he reported, “his name came up on a computer alert list.” Customs officials claimed that he “was questioned as part of a routine process that took 66 minutes.” Khan was visiting the United States to promote his film My Name Is Khan, which concerns racial profiling of Muslims in the United States.[56]
In June 2010, The New York Times reported that Yahya Wehelie, a 26-year-old Muslim-American man, was being prevented from returning to the United States, and was stranded in Cairo. Despite Wehelie’s offer to FBI agents to allow them to accompany him on the plane, while shackled, he was not permitted to fly. The ACLU has argued that this constitutes banishment.[57] In July 2010, Wehelie was permitted to fly to New York under a federal waiver.[58]
A U.S. citizen, stranded in Colombia after being placed on the no-fly list as a result of having studied in Yemen, sought to re-enter the U.S. through Mexico but was returned to Colombia by Mexican authorities.[57]
Michael Migliore, a 23-year-old Muslim convert and dual citizen of the United States and Italy, was detained in the United Kingdom after traveling there from the U.S. by train and then cruise ship because he was not permitted to fly. He said that he believes he was placed on the no-fly list because he refused to answer questions about a 2010 Portland car bomb plot without his lawyer present.[59] He was released eight or ten hours later, but authorities confiscated his electronic media items, including a cell phone and media player.[60]
Abe Mashal, a 31-year-old Muslim and United States Marine Veteran, found himself on the No Fly List in April 2010 while attempting to board a plane out of Midway Airport. He was questioned by the TSA, FBI and Chicago Police at the airport and was told they had no clue why he was on the No Fly List. Once he arrived at home that day two other FBI agents came to his home and used a Do Not Fly question-and-answer sheet to question him. They informed him they had no idea why he was on the No Fly List. In June 2010 those same two FBI agents summoned Mashal to a local hotel and invited him to a private room. They told him that he was in no trouble and the reason he ended up on the No Fly List was because of possibly sending emails to an American imam they may have been monitoring. They then informed him that if he would go undercover at various local mosques, they could get him off the No Fly List immediately and he would be compensated for such actions. Mashal refused to answer any additional questions without a lawyer present and was told to leave the hotel. Mashal then contacted the ACLU and is now being represented in a class-action lawsuit filed against the TSA, FBI and DHS concerning the legality of the No Fly List and how people end up on it. Mashal feels as if he was blackmailed into becoming an informant by being placed on the No Fly List. Mashal has since appeared on ABC, NBC, PBS and Al Jazeera concerning his inclusion on the No Fly List. He has also written a book about his experience titled “No Spy No Fly.” [61]
In November 2002 Salon reported that the No-Fly program seemed “to be netting mostly priests, elderly nuns, Green Party campaign operatives, left-wing journalists, right-wing activists and people affiliated with Arab or Arab-American groups.” Art dealer Doug Stuber, who ran Ralph Nader’s Green Party presidential campaign in North Carolina in 2000, was prevented from flying to Europe on business in October 2002. He was repeatedly pulled out of line, held for questioning until his flight left, then told falsely he could take a later flight or depart from a different airport. Barbara Olshansky, then Assistant Legal Director for theCenter for Constitutional Rights, noted that she and several of her colleagues received special attention on numerous occasions. On at least one occasion, she was ordered to pull her trousers down in view of other passengers.[62]
DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program
The DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program (TRIP) is a procedure for travelers who are delayed or denied boarding of an aircraft, consistently receive excess scrutiny at security checkpoints, or are denied entry to the U.S. because they are believed to be or are told that they are on a government watch list. The traveler must complete an online application at the Department of Homeland Security website, print and sign the application, and then submit it with copies of several identifying documents. After reviewing their records, DHS notifies the traveler that if any corrections of data about them were warranted, they will be made.
Travelers who apply for redress through TRIP are assigned a record identifier called a “Redress Control Number”. Airline reservations systems allow passengers who have a Redress Control Number to enter it when making their reservation.
DHS TRIP may make it easier for an airline to confirm a traveler’s identity. False-positive travelers, whose names match or are similar to the names of persons on the No Fly List, will continue to match that name even after using DHS TRIP, so it will not restore a traveler’s ability to use Internet or curbside check-in or to use an automated kiosk.[citation needed] It does usually help the airline identify the traveler as not being the actual person on the No Fly List, after an airline agent has reviewed their identity documents at check-in.
However, DHS TRIP has not been very helpful to travelers who accidentally end up on the No Fly List, as their efforts to clear their names are often futile to the extent that they are not told why they are on the list.[63]
Lawsuits
On April 6, 2004, the American Civil Liberties Union “filed a nationwide class-action challenge to the government’s No Fly List”, in which they charge that “many innocent travelers who pose no security risk whatsoever are discovering that their government considers them terrorists – and find that they have no way to find out why they are on the list, and no way to clear their names.”[64] The case was settled in 2006, when “the federal government agreed to pay $200,000 in attorneys’ fees to the ACLU of Northern California” and to “[make] public, for the first time, hundreds of records about the government’s secret ‘no fly’ list used to screen airline passengers after September 11, 2001.”[8] On August 5, 2010, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of 14 plaintiffs challenging their placement on the No Fly List.[65] and on June 24, 2014, U.S. District Judge Anna J. Brown ruled in favor of the plaintiffs saying that air travel is a “sacred” liberty protected by the U.S. Constitution[66] and ordered the government to change its system for challenging inclusion.[65]
A Malaysian academic has been the first to successfully bring a suit involving the No Fly List to trial. On August 18, 2008, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco issued a ruling on behalf of Rahinah Ibrahim, overturning a lower court decision and allowing her case against inclusion in the No Fly List to proceed through the court system.[67] A public trial began on December 2, 2013 in San Francisco in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge William Alsup.[68] The judge frequently cleared the courtroom following the requests of government lawyers (even though the judge himself once declared that the reasons “don’t make much sense sometimes.”)[69][not in citation given] After the government revealed that Ibrahim had ended up on the list because of human error by the FBI,[70] Alsup ruled on January 14, 2014 “that Ibrahim did have the right to sue and ordered the government to tell Ibrahim whether she is still on the list.”[71]
Gulet Mohamed, a U.S. citizen from Virginia, was placed on the no-fly list as a teenager in 2011 while he was visiting family in Kuwait. Because he was on the no-fly list, he was unable to return to the U.S. before his visa expired.[72] He was taken into custody in Kuwait for overstaying his visa, where he alleges that he “was repeatedly beaten and tortured by his interrogators,” one of whom spoke “perfect American English.”[73]Kuwaiti authorities tried to deport him to the U.S., but the airline denied him boarding, presumably because he was on the U.S. no-fly list, and he was returned to prison. While he was imprisoned in Kuwait, a lawsuit was filed on his behalf in the Eastern District of Virginia by the Council on American Islamic Relations. After the lawsuit was filed, he was allowed to return to the U.S.; the U.S. government then moved to dismiss the lawsuit as moot.[74] On May 28, 2013, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the government’s motion to dismiss Mohamed’s lawsuit.[75] On January 22, 2014, Judge Anthony J. Trenga denied most of another government motion to dismiss the lawsuit, allowing the case to proceed toward trial.[76]
Controversy and criticism
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has long criticized the No Fly List and similar list because of the lack of notification to persons included on such lists. The ACLU’s stance is that the government has not provided a constitutionally adequate means of allowing individuals to challenge their inclusion on the list[77] and that “constitutional rights are at stake when the government stigmatizes Americans as suspected terrorists and bans them from international travel.”[78]
Among the complaints about the No Fly List is the use of credit reports in calculating the risk score. In response to the controversy, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials said in 2005 that they would not use credit scores to determine passengers’ risk score and that they would comply with all rights guaranteed by the First and Fourth Amendments.[79]
The European Union and other non-U.S. government entities have expressed concern about allowing the CAPPS II proposal to be implemented within their borders. During the early testing of the No Fly List and CAPPS II, the TSA privately asked airlines to disclose massive amounts of personal information about their passengers. This action has been said[by whom?] to be a violation of the Privacy Act of 1974, which forbids the government to compile secret databases on U.S. citizens.
The No Fly List has been variously described as Orwellian and Kafkaesque. Individuals usually do not know they have been put on the list until they attempt to board a plane. Efforts to discover the reasons for being barred from flying meet with indeterminate responses from the authorities, which would neither confirm nor deny that a name is on the List.[69]
In the midst of this controversy, the Government Accountability Office of the U.S. Congress produced a report critical of the CAPPS II system. It characterized the proposal as incomplete and seriously behind schedule, and noted that the TSA had failed to address “developmental, operational, and privacy issues identified by Congress”. On July 14, 2004, TSA officials announced that CAPPS II was being pulled from consideration without proceeding to full testing. Critics have alleged that the TSA has merely chosen to start with a less controversial entry point that they are calling the “Registered Traveler” program.[80] TSA has also begun testing of another program called “Secure Flight“, which is supposed to solve some of the problems of CAPPS I while avoiding the privacy issues of CAPPS II.
In January 2009, Marcus Holmes[81] conservatively estimated the total cost of the program to be $536 million since 9/11, with a reasonable estimation range that approaches $1 billion, and he questioned whether the benefits of the list outweigh the costs.[82]
No fly lists in other countries
The government of Canada has created its own no fly list as part of a program called Passenger Protect.[83] The Canadian list incorporates data from domestic and foreign intelligence sources, including the U.S. No Fly List.[84] It contains between 500 and 2,000 names.[85]
Is It an Invasion? — Constitution’s Invasion Clause Won’t Work
By Barnaby Zall
Volume 11, Number 1 (Fall 2000)
In the recent movie Mars Attacks, President Jack Nicholson calls out the American military to battle aliens invading from Mars. The earthlings can’t do anything about the invasion for most of the movie. All their advanced technology is ineffective until a donut maker discovers that ancient recordings of yodeling literally explode the aliens. It may feel like the middle of that movie in some communities on our southern border.
Residents of southern border areas certainly feel that they are being invaded. At a July 24, 2000, meeting of the Cochise County (Arizona) Board of Supervisors, Chairman Mike Palmer estimated that 60 percent of the sheriff’s patrol division resources are spent responding to problems related to illegal immigration. Murphy, “Supes award grant funds to ease local border woes,” Sierra Vista [Arizona] News, Aug. 10, 2000, p.1, col. 2-3. The direct costs to the sheriff’s department were $2,900,798. Id. There were other costs in health care, legal defense for indigents, and additional firearms needed to deal with high-powered arsenals used by smugglers. Id.,p.3. With unreim-bursed health care costs driving her hospital into bankruptcy, one administrator reported that the costs to Copper Queen Community Hospital have tripled in less than a year. The federal government generously reimbursed the County only one-fifth of its costs a measly $778,000. Id.,p.1.
Perhaps Arizona ranchers beset by hordes of illegal immigrants crossing their lands could ask for federal assistance to set up huge speaker systems playing yodels or modern rock music? Music aside, it isn’t likely that the afflicted ranchers and counties can easily make a federal case of it. The courts have repeatedly held that immigration and border protection decisions are “political,” and they won’t interfere.
At first blush, it seems clear that the U.S. Constitution should protect the ranchers, health care workers, and county governments against this heavily-armed invasion. After all, Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution known as the “Invasion Clause” says: “The United States … shall protect [the States] against Invasion.” So why doesn’t the Invasion Clause protect border areas from this invasion?
There are three highly-technical legal reasons:
1. It’s not the right kind of invasion;
2. The federal government can choose not to act; and
3. It’s a “political question” which the courts won’t touch.
INVASION
The Invasion Clause in the U.S. Constitution says “invasion,” but it doesn’t say what an invasion is. In a way this is odd, since, among the Founders, the topic of protection against invasion was one of the most important reasons to discard the old Articles of Confederation in favor of the new Constitution with a federal government. See, e.g., “Debate in North Carolina Ratifying Convention, 24 July 1788,” Elliot 4:15-26 (Statement of Mr. Davie: “The general objects of the union are, 1st, to protect us against foreign invasion; 2d, to defend us against internal commotions and insurrections; 3d, to promote the commerce, agriculture, and manufacturers, of America. These objects are requisite to make us a safe and happy people, and they cannot be attained without a firm and efficient system of union.”); Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, Boston, 1833, � 481.
But the lack of a definition may have been because all the Founders knew, in the wake of the Revolutionary War and the predatory antics of States under the Articles of Confederation, what “invasion” meant. One of the few statements by the Founders about the Invasion Clause was by James Madison, in The Federalist No. 43, published January 23, 1788. Madison said:
“A protection against invasion is due from every society to the parts composing it. The latitude of the expression here used seems to secure each State, not only against foreign hostility, but against ambitious or vindictive enterprises of its more powerful neighbors. The history, both of ancient and modern confederacies, proves that the weaker members of the union ought not to be insensible to the policy of this article.”
Thus, Madison included both invasions from foreign powers and from other States. This view was reiterated by Founder William Rawle, who used the example of a State which refused to “refer its controversies with another state to the judicial power of the Union.” Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States, 2d Ed. Philadelphia, 1829.
Later the new Congress enacted a law providing for a militia, to be called up in the event of an invasion. Act of February 28, 1795, c. 101. That Act provided
“that whenever the United States shall be invaded, or be in imminent danger of invasion from any foreign nation or Indian tribe, it shall be lawful for the president of the United States to call forth such number of the militia of the state or states most convenient to the place of danger, or scene of action, as he may judge necessary to repel such invasion.” Id.
This description of invasion was more narrow, dealing only with foreign nations and Indian tribes.
The Supreme Court interpreted this Act, following the War of 1812, in Martin v. Mott, 12 Wheat. 19 (1827), a case brought by a man who refused to enter the militia as required, but the actual issues involved the declarations by the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut that they had the power to judge for themselves whether the militia should be called out. The Supreme Court held unanimously that
“the authority to decide whether the exigency has arisen, belongs exclusively to the president, and that his decision is conclusive upon all other persons. . . . The power itself is to be exercised upon sudden emergencies, upon great occasions of state, and under circumstances which may be vital to the existence of the Union.” Id.
The Supreme Court noted that any abuse of the President’s power would be corrected by elections or Congress’s “watchfulness.” Id. Thus, the definition of invasion was left to the President alone, and the Supreme Court said that any errors in judgment would have to be corrected by the political process.
Of course, not everyone is enamored of the views of the Founders. Some people believe that invasion includes pollution and “greed.” (See, e.g. http://www.article4.com, citing Diamond, “If You Can Keep It: A Constitutional Roadmap to Environmental Security,” Brass Ring Press, 1996.) Others believe that right now there is an “ongoing clandestine invasion” by space aliens who abduct and assault Arizonans. Citizens Against UFO Secrecy v. United States, U.S. District Court for Arizona, filed Sept. 1, 1999.
Courts, on the other hand, take a much more narrow view of the term “invasion,” usually referring to Madison’s Federalist No. 43. See, e.g., Padavan v. United States, 82 F.3d 23 [2d Cir. 1996] (rejecting claim by New York for federal reimbursement for costs of illegal immigration: “In order for a state to be afforded the protections of the Invasion Clause, it must be exposed to armed hostility from another political entity, such as another state or foreign country that is intending to overthrow the state’s government.”); New Jersey v. United States, 91 F.3d 463, (3d Cir. 1996)(rejecting same claim by New Jersey: Invasion Clause “offers no support whatsoever for application of the Invasion Clause to this case or for its reading of the term �invasion’ to mean anything other than a military invasion.”); California v. United States, 104 F.3d 1086 (9th Cir. 1997)(rejecting same claim by California: “there are no manageable standards to ascertain whether or when an influx of illegal immigrants should be said to constitute an invasion.”).
Thus, except as described below, it would be unlikely that the afflicted areas in Arizona could get courts to consider the tremendous influx of illegal immigrants as an “invasion.”
FEDERAL DECISION
As noted above, it is the President’s decision to call something an invasion. The Founders considered calling federal protection into a State to be such an important decision that it was to be left to the President alone. Martin v. Mott. Oversight was to be by Congress and the people (through an election) Id.
The President does have the power to stop the influx of illegal immigration. Although Congress has “plenary” (complete) power over immigration, Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. 787, 792 (1977), it has delegated the administration of immigration policy to the President and the Attorney General, in the form of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. �� 1101 et seq. The Attorney General is principally charged with enforcing the immigration laws, with some duties undertaken by the Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, 8 U.S.C. � 1103. Under Section 212(f) of that Act, the President may “suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens” whenever he “finds that the entry of any aliens … would be detrimental to the interests of the United States,” 8 U.S.C. � 1182(f).
In 1997, Attorney General Reno announced a new policy to block illegal immigration by shifting more resources to border enforcement in “traditional illegal crossing and drug smuggling traffic patterns along the southern border.” U.S. Dept. of Justice, “Strategic Plan, 1997-2002,” September 1997, 17. The new policy was successful in blocking many traditional illegal entry patterns, but the policy did not provide enough resources to block nontraditional entry points. The results were that illegal migration shifted heavily to the ranches and deserts of southern Arizona.
But it’s not as if the federal government is doing nothing, or is doing the wrong thing in stopping illegal immigration. The budget for the Immigration and Naturalization Service is over three billion dollars a year, with much of that money going to the Border Patrol. And the new border control policy has reduced illegal immigration (though by how much is still a matter of some contention).
So it’s not likely that the border communities will be able to claim that the federal government is not doing anything to help them.
POLITICAL ISSUE
But the most important roadblock to using the Invasion Clause to force more federal assistance to border communities is the “political question” doctrine. Courts will not get involved in matters that are too political. And every court which has reviewed Invasion Clause claims has refused to intervene because the questions are too political.
At heart, the courts won’t consider political questions because of the constitutional structure separating the three branches of the federal government: executive, legislative and judicial. Where the Constitution commits a policy area to the political branches of government, the courts won’t step in, Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 217 (1962).
As noted above, immigration is committed to the political branches, Fiallo v. Bell, 430 U.S. at 792. Every court to have considered whether immigration comes within the Invasion Clause has declared the question to be political and refused to step in. See, e.g., Barber v. Hawaii, 42 F.3d 1185, 1199 (9th Cir. 1994)(rejecting claim that federal government permit-ted “economic invasion” of Hawaii by Japanese); Chiles v. U.S., 69 F.3d 1094, 1097 (11th Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 116 S.Ct. 1674 (1996)(rejecting Florida’s attempt at same claim for reimbursement for costs of illegal immigration as other states mentioned above).
IS THERE A WAY TO PROCEED?
So are the border communities simply out of luck? Can they ever get any relief from the federal government for the massive influx of illegal immigrants suddenly streaming across their property?
It would be a difficult road, but the way is not entirely blocked. There are two possible avenues available to them. The first, and most obvious, is political pressure. If, as the courts have decreed, this is a political question, then the solution is also political. There is no active constituency for illegal immigration in Washington (as opposed to those who either ignore or like illegal immigration or those who promote legal immigration), and a well-organized attempt to increase border resources might return some semblance of peace to the border communities.
The second method is to find a sympathetic judge who will let the border communities tell their tale and allow them some relief. This was the method used by the Haitian community in past years; the immigration laws blocked attempts by Haitian refugees themselves to get judicial review of federal policies requiring their deportation. But federal Judge James Lawrence King ignored the ban on judicial review on the basis of a fiction that he was really hearing the claims of American citizens whose constitutional rights were violated by low-level officials. Jean v. Nelson, 472 U.S. 846 (1985), aff’g, 727 F.2d 957 (11th Cir.1984). Perhaps the border communities could convince another judge that their claims for violations are just as great as the Haitian communities’.
There are also legal grounds for this review which do not rely on the Invasion Clause. For example, the border communities might challenge the new enforcement policy as an illegal taking of their property, or as having failed a required procedural or environmental review. These constitutional or statutory rights will be mixed up with the political and policy questions which courts refuse to consider, but they might also entice an appropriate federal judge to take a chance on reviewing them. And a little-known secret of American constitutional law is that the choice of the original judge is critically important to establishing or contesting constitutional doctrines; federal judges’ decisions are usually sustained on appeal. Thus, if the border communities can craft an appropriate and appealing legal case and find a sympathetic judge, they may well find some relief in the courts.
But as for using the Invasion Clause itself, it’s not likely to be a fruitful exercise.
Finally, our trade policies do not discourage American employers from following a low-skill, low-wage strategy. We should imbed labor standards in all our trade rules, requiring nations that export to us to respect the freedom to organize and bargain collectively, to maintain a safe and healthful work place, to prohibit forced labor and the exploitation of children. These labor standards would put a floor under international wage competition and help US managers to manage better rather than trying to compete by reducing labor standards. We have inserted these standards in every US trade bill passed in the 1980s, but to be effective, we need to make them a part of the GATT system. ?
Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution requires the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”
Without enforcement of the law, there cannot be accountability under law, which is essential to a functioning democracy.
Presidents must not be allowed to treat the entire United States Code as mere guidelines and pick and choose among its provisions which to enforce and which to ignore
When the President fails to faithfully execute the laws, the Congress has appropriations and other powers over the President, but both houses of Congress must act together.
Congress may also hold the President accountable by asking the courts to call the fouls when the lines of constitutional authority have been breached.
The House of Representatives will bring a lawsuit challenging the President’s failure to enforce key provisions of Obamacare.
This lawsuit seeks to reaffirm constitutional principles, including the President’s duty to faithfully execute the laws.
The President’s Duty to Faithfully Execute the Law
Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution requires the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” The President must enforce all constitutionally valid Acts of Congress, regardless of the Administration’s view of their wisdom or policy. Without enforcement of the law, there cannot be accountability under law, which is essential to a functioning democracy. When the President fails to perform this duty, the Congress has appropriations and other powers over the President, but none of those powers can be exercised unless both houses of Congress work together. The most powerful means of solving this problem is the electoral process. Congress may also hold the President accountable by asking the courts to call the fouls when the lines of constitutional authority have been breached.
Abraham Lincoln is often paraphrased as saying, “The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.” While that paraphrase summarizes the gist of what Lincoln was saying, the full text of his remark is worth repeating.
In 1838, early in his career, Abraham Lincoln delivered an address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois. It was entitled “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions.” In it, he said:
Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;—let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children’s liberty. Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap—let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;—let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.
He went on to say:
When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying there are no bad laws.… But I do mean to say, that, although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still while they continue in force, for the sake of example, they should be religiously observed.
When Lincoln refers to religiously observing the law “for the sake of example,” he is referring also to the example of the American Republic itself as an example to the world. Without enforcement of the law, there cannot be accountability under law, and political accountability is essential to a functioning democracy.
We in the House of Representatives, who face reelection every two years under the Constitution, are perhaps reminded of that more often than others. And while there is at least one political branch willing to enforce the law, we will not fail to act through whatever means we can successfully avail ourselves of.
The President and the Take Care Clause
Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution requires the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” This clause, known as the Take Care Clause, requires the President to enforce all constitutionally valid Acts of Congress, regardless of his own Administration’s view of their wisdom or policy. The clause imposes a duty on the President; it does not confer a discretionary power. The Take Care Clause is a limit on the Vesting Clause’s grant to the President of “the executive power.”
The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in an opinion handed down just last year striking down the President’s assertion of authority to disregard a federal statute, provided a succinct description of the President’s obligations under the Take Care Clause, as follows:
Under Article II of the Constitution and relevant Supreme Court precedents, the President must follow statutory mandates so long as there is appropriated money available and the President has no constitutional objection to the statute. So, too, the President must abide by statutory prohibitions unless the President has a constitutional objection to the prohibition. If the President has a constitutional objection to a statutory mandate or prohibition, the President may decline to follow the law unless and until a final Court order dictates otherwise. But the President may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections. Of course, if Congress appropriates no money for a statutorily mandated program, the Executive obviously cannot move forward. But absent a lack of funds or a claim of unconstitutionality that has not been rejected by final Court order, the Executive must abide by statutory mandates and prohibitions.[1]
When the President fails to perform his constitutional duty that he take care that the laws be faithfully executed, the Congress has appropriations and other powers over the President, but none of those powers can be exercised unless both houses of Congress work together. Nor would the exercise of those powers solve the problem at hand, because they would not actually require the President to faithfully execute the laws.
Of course, the most powerful and always available means of solving the problem at hand is the electoral process. In the meantime, however, the need to pursue the establishment of clear principles of political accountability is of the essence.
As Lincoln said, “Let reverence for the laws be … enforced in courts of justice.” It is the courts’ duty, too, to uphold reverence for the law, and it is the specific duty of the courts to call fouls when the lines of constitutional authority under the separation of powers established by the Constitution have been breached.
A lawsuit by the House of Representatives would grant no additional powers to the judicial branch over legislation. Indeed, what a statute says or doesn’t say would remain unaffected. But it would be the appropriate task of the federal courts to determine whether or not, whatever a statute says, a President can ignore it under the Constitution. Whatever the result of such a lawsuit, this President and, in all likelihood, future Presidents will continue to nullify Congress’s legislative power in the absence of our seeking now the establishment, in court, of a clear principle to the contrary.
Challenging the President’s Failure to Faithfully Execute the Laws
The stakes for inaction are high. The lawsuit will challenge the President’s failure to enforce key provisions of the law that has come to bear his name in the popular mind and was largely drafted in the White House.
Unlike any other piece of major federal legislation enacted in at least 100 years—including the Federal Reserve Act, the National Labor Relations Act, the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Tax Reform Act, and all other major federal legislation over the last century—the Obamacare law did not garner significant bipartisan support. Indeed, and uniquely, it had none. There was no bipartisan political compromise.
What provisions of Obamacare have been enforced have not proved popular, and what provisions the President has refused to enforce have been delayed until at least after the next federal elections: How convenient for the President, yet how devastating to accountability in our Republic.
Imagine the future if this new, unconstitutional power of the President is left to stand. Presidents today and in the future would be able to treat the entire United States Code as mere guidelines and pick and choose among its provisions which to enforce and which to ignore. The current President has even created entirely new categories of businesses to which his unilaterally imposed exemptions would apply.
In that future, if a bill the President signed into law was later considered to be bad policy and potentially harmful to the President’s political party if enforced, accountability for signing that policy into law could be avoided by simply delaying enforcement until a more politically opportune time, if at all. No longer would presidential candidates running for reelection have to stand on their records, because their records could be edited at will.
Sign one bill into law; enforce another version of it in practice. Rinse and repeat—until the accumulation of power in the presidency is complete. Whatever the odds of preventing that nightmarish future through the reaffirming of constitutional principles in court, it would be our duty to pursue it.
Earlier this year, I joined with Representative Trey Gowdy (R–SC) to introduce H.R. 4138, the ENFORCE the Law Act, to put a procedure in place, including expedited court procedures, for Congress to initiate litigation against the executive branch for its failure to faithfully execute the laws. But while that legislation passed the House with bipartisan support, the Senate has failed to consider it. The House then considered and passed a resolution to authorize litigation by the House to restore political accountability and enforce the rule of law.
The Supreme Court and Presidential Power
The Supreme Court has squarely rejected the authority of the President to refuse to enforce constitutional laws. As early as the Court’s 1803 decision in Marbury v. Madison, the Court recognized Congress’s authority to impose specific duties upon executive branch officials by law, as well as the official’s corresponding obligation to execute the congressional directive.
The Supreme Court articulated this principle again in an 1838 case, Kendall v. United States ex rel. Stokes, involving the President’s refusal to comply with an act of Congress, observing that “[t]o contend that the obligations imposed on the President to see the laws faithfully executed, implies a power to forbid their execution; is a novel construction of the constitution, and entirely inadmissible.”[2] The Court further noted that permitting executive branch noncompliance with the statute “would be vesting in the President a dispensing power, which has no countenance for its support in any part of the constitution; and is asserting a principle, which, if carried out in its results, to all cases falling within it, would be clothing the President with a power to control the legislation of congress, and paralyze the administration of justice.”[3]
A century later, in what has become the seminal case on executive power, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, the Court reasoned as follows:
In the framework of our Constitution, the President’s power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a lawmaker. The Constitution limits his functions in the lawmaking process to the recommending of laws he thinks wise and the vetoing of laws he thinks bad. And the Constitution is neither silent nor equivocal about who shall make laws which the President is to execute…. The Constitution did not subject this lawmaking power of Congress to presidential … supervision or control.… The Founders of this Nation entrusted the law making power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times.[4]
And as the Court stated just this past term in the case of Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, “The power of executing the laws … does not include a power to revise clear statutory terms that turn out not to work in practice.”[5]
While the constitutional case law regarding standing to bring a case can be murky, one thing is absolutely clear: The Supreme Court has never closed the door to the standing of the House of Representatives as an institution. It has had the opportunity to do so many times in the past, and each time it has refused.
Individual Members of Congress often have difficulty establishing standing to allege an injury, butRaines v. Byrd, the leading Supreme Court case on legislator standing, “does not stand for the proposition that Congress can never assert its institutional interests in court,” as it has been described by one federal district court judge.[6] Indeed, as another federal district court judge recently pointed out, “the Supreme Court’s decision in Raines was premised in part on the fact that the legislators in that case did not initiate their lawsuit on behalf of their respective legislative bodies.”[7]
In fact, the Supreme Court noted in Raines itself that it “attach[ed] some importance to the fact that [plaintiffs] have not been authorized to represent their respective Houses of Congress in this action, and indeed both Houses actively oppose their suits.”[8] In other words, the Supreme Court’s decision in Raines was premised in part on the fact that the Members in that case did not initiate the lawsuit on behalf of their respective house of Congress.
Further, the courts routinely hear lawsuits involving the enforcement of subpoenas approved by federal legislative bodies. They do so because the subpoena power of each house of Congress derives from its legislative powers under Article I of the Constitution, and if Congress is to have the power to legislate, it must have the power to collect the information necessary to inform that legislative power. When the executive branch refuses to give a congressional body the information it requests, it impedes the legislative power, and the federal courts hear those cases.
But today, the President is not only impeding the legislative power; he is negating it by failing to enforce clear, central provisions of major domestic legislation. And if the federal courts can hear cases in which Congress’s legislative power is hampered by the failure to comply with a subpoena, surely they should be able to hear cases in which its legislative power is completely nullified.
Finally, there is nothing unusual or inappropriate about federal courts’ weighing in on separation of powers disputes. As the Supreme Court has stated:
Our system of government requires that federal courts on occasion interpret the Constitution in a manner at variance with the construction given the document by another branch. The alleged conflict that such an adjudication may cause cannot justify the courts’ avoiding their constitutional responsibility.[9]
The Court has also stated that:
Deciding whether a matter has in any measure been committed by the Constitution to another branch of government, or whether the action of that branch exceeds whatever authority has been committed, is itself a delicate exercise in constitutional interpretation, and is a responsibility of this Court as ultimate interpreter of the Constitution.[10]
The federal courts have a long history of resolving cases involving the allocation of power between the political branches and addressing important separation of powers concerns. Those cases include Bowsher v. Synar, regarding the execution of the laws; INS v. Chadha, regarding the legislative veto; Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, Morrison v. Olson, and Myers v. United States, regarding the removal of appointed officials; and NLRB v. Noel Canning, in which the Supreme Court just last term unanimously rejected the President’s recess appointments that occurred when the Senate had announced it was in session.[11]
Conclusion
The House of Representatives—the branch of our federal government closest to the people—has voted many times to repeal Obamacare, which remains as unpopular as ever, but the Senate and the President have ignored Americans’ dislike for the law. They have gotten away with ignoring it so far because the obverse of the paraphrase of Lincoln that “the best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly” is true as well and aptly summarizes the current danger to democratic government posed by the current Administration: The best way to keep a bad law on the books is to allow its selective enforcement. The House of Representatives will do everything it can to get bad laws off the books.
—The Honorable Bob Goodlatte represents the Sixth District of Virginia in the United States House of Representatives, where he serves as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee.
The U.S. Supreme Court deadlocked Thursday on an immigration plan implemented by President Obama that had shielded millions of undocumented immigrants and granted them the right to work legally in the United States.
The 4-4 vote leaves a lower court’s ruling in place, ending the plan Obama put into place by executive action after Congress failed, yet again, to pass a comprehensive immigration bill.
In a press conference, President Barack Obama expressed his disappointment at the SCOTUS deadlock that failed to yield a ruling.
“For more than two centuries, welcoming wave after wave of immigrants has kept us youthful and dynamic and entrepreneurial; it has shaped our character and it has made us stronger,” the president said. “But for more than two decades now, our immigration system, everybody acknowledges, has been broken. And the fact the Supreme Court wasn’t able to issue a decision today doesn’t just set the system back even further, it takes us further from the country we aspire to be.”
With the end of his second term in office on the horizon, Obama expressed frustration at today’s SCOTUS action (or inaction), coming at a time when his nominee to fill the vacancy on the court has been blocked and delayed by Republicans.
“Today’s decision is frustrating to those who seek to grow our economy and bring rationality to our immigration system and to allow people to come out of their shadows and left this perpetual cloud on them,” Obama said. “I think it is heartbreaking for the millions of immigrants who made their lives here, who’ve raised families here, who hoped for the opportunity to work, pay taxes, serve in the military and more fully contribute to this country we all love in a more open way.”
Five million unauthorized immigrants — all of them parents of citizens or of lawful permanent residents — were eligible to apply for a program called Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, or DAPA. That program would spare them from deportation and provide them with work permits.
Obama’s executive action in trying to solve the status of millions of immigrants had been stridently opposed by Republicans, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who categorized the president’s action as ruling by fiat. GOP opponents of the move took to social media to express their elation at the Supreme Court’s deadlock that effectively leaves millions of immigrants in limbo.
“Today’s decision keeps in place what we have maintained from the very start: one person, even a president, cannot unilaterally change the law,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a press release. “This is a major setback to President Obama’s attempts to expand executive power, and a victory for those who believe in the separation of powers and the rule of law.”
Abbott, too, reacted with glee while repeating his accusations that Obama acted more like a monarch than a president in issuing an executive action — despite it being a tactic that’s often been used by former presidents in times of Congressional inaction on matters of national importance.
“The action taken by the President was an unauthorized abuse of presidential power that trampled the Constitution, and the Supreme Court rightly denied the President the ability to grant amnesty contrary to immigration laws,” Abbott said in a statement. “As the President himself said, he is not a king who can unilaterally change and write immigration laws. Today’s ruling is also a victory for all law-abiding Americans—including the millions of immigrants who came to America following the rule of law.”
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan — on the heels of having endured an unprecedented, 26-hour sit-in by Democrats protesting the GOP majority’s inaction on helping enact gun control legislation — issued a statement saying the court’s ruling on immigration bolsters the idea that Congress, not the president, can enact laws.
“Today, Article I of the Constitution was vindicated. The Supreme Court’s ruling makes the president’s executive action on immigration null and void,” Ryan said in his statement. “The Constitution is clear: The president is not permitted to write laws — only Congress is. This is another major victory in our fight to restore the separation of powers.”
For Democrats, the decision is, naturally, a disappointment. But progressives view the issue as a cause to continue energizing their base. Up until Obama tried to fix the broken immigration system that forced millions into the shadows of society, Democrats had bemoaned the inaction of Congress to take on the issue.
The glimmer of hope for them in the wake of today’s SCOTUS action: It’s more of an indecision rather than a precedent-setting ruling, which means the immigration issue could be revisited down the road — although all but likely not during Obama’s presidency.
Still, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton blasted the SCOTUS impasse, reiterating a belief among progressives that Obama acted well within his discretion in taking executive action on the measure.
“Today’s deadlocked decision from the Supreme Court is unacceptable, and show us all just how high the stakes are in this election,” Clinton said in a statement. “As I have consistently said, I believe that President Obama acted well within his constitutional and legal authority in issuing the DAPA and DACA executive actions. These are our friends and family members; neighbors and classmates; DREAMers and parents of Americans and lawful permanent residents. They enrich our communities and contribute to our economy every day. We should be doing everything possible under the law to provide them relief from the specter of deportation.”
U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas echoed the sentiment, tweeting that today’s SCOTUS decision isn’t the death knell for DAPA nor does it affect another program intended for immigrant children — Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
“Today’s Supreme Court ruling is a setback, but not the end of the road for #DAPA and expanded #DACA,” Castro said.
Established the rules for naturalized citizenship, as per Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, but placed no restrictions on immigration. Citizenship was limited to white persons, with no other restriction on non-whites.
Extended the duration of residence required for immigrants to become citizens to 14 years. Enacted June 18, 1798, with no expiration date, it was repealed in 1802.
Authorized the president to deport any resident immigrant considered “dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States.” It was activated June 25, 1798, with a two-year expiration date.
Authorized the president to apprehend and deport resident aliens if their home countries were at war with the United States of America. Enacted July 6, 1798, and providing no sunset provision, the act remains intact today as 50 U.S.C. § 21
The first federal immigration law and prohibited the entry of immigrants considered as “undesirable”
The law classified as “undesirable” any individual from Asia who was coming to America to be a contract laborer
strengthen the ban against “coolie” laborers, by imposing a fine of up to $2,000 and maximum jail sentence of one year upon anyone who tried to bring a person from China, Japan, or any oriental country to the United States “without their free and voluntary consent, for the purpose of holding them to a term of service”
Imposed a 50 cent head tax to fund immigration officials.
The Supreme Court ruled that a child of Chinese descent born in the United States – whose parents at the time of his birth are subjects of the Emperor of China but who are domiciled in the United States as permanent residents; are carrying on business there; and are not employed in any diplomatic or other official capacity under the Emperor of China – is a citizen of the United States by virtue of having been born “in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” per the first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.Several years later, in the wake of the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, a number of Chinese immigrants who were otherwise subject to the Chinese Exclusion Act were nonetheless able to claim American citizenship by alleging they were born in San Francisco, and that their birth certificates had been destroyed along with those of everyone else who had been born in San Francisco. “Papers for fictitious children were sold in China, allowing Chinese to immigrate despite the laws.” [1]
Restricted immigration from Asia by creating an “Asiatic Barred Zone” and introduced a reading test for all immigrants over fourteen years of age, with certain exceptions for children, wives, and elderly family members.
Limited the number of immigrants from any country to 3% of those already in the US from that country as per the 1910 census.
“An unintended consequence of the 1920s legislation was an increase in illegal immigration. Many Europeans who did not fall under the quotas migrated to Canada or Mexico, which [as Western Hemisphere nations] were not subject to national-origin quotas; [and] subsequently they slipped into the United States illegally.” [6]
1922
The Cable Act of 1922 (ch. 411, 42 Stat. 1021, “Married Women’s Independent Nationality Act”)
Reversed former immigration laws regarding marriage, also known as the Married Women’s Citizenship Act or the Women’s Citizenship Act. Previously, a woman lost her US citizenship if she married a foreign man, since she assumed the citizenship of her husband, a law that did not apply to men who married foreign women. The law repealed sections 3 and 4 of the Expatriation Act of 1907.
Total annual immigration was capped at 150,000. Immigrants fit into two categories: those from quota-nations and those from non-quota nations.
Immigrant visas from quota-nations were restricted to the same ratio of residents from the country of origin out of 150,000 as the ratio of foreign-born nationals in the United States. The percentage out of 150,000 was the relative number of visas a particular nation received.
Non-quota nations, notably those contiguous to the United States only had to prove an immigrant’s residence in that country of origin for at least two years prior to emigration to the United States.
Laborers from Asiatic nations were excluded but exceptions existed for professionals, clergy, and students to obtain visas.
Allowed foreign-born children of American mothers and alien fathers who had entered America before age 18 and lived in America for five years to apply for American citizenship for the first time.
Made the naturalization process quicker for American women’s alien husbands.
1930s
Federal officials deported “Tens of thousands, and possibly more than 400,000, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans… Many, mostly children, were U.S. citizens.” [7] “Applications for legal admission into the United States increased following World War II — and so did illegal immigration.” [8] Some used fraudulent marriages as their method of illegal entry in the U.S. “Japanese immigration became disproportionately female, as more women left Japan as “picture brides”, betrothed to emigrant men into the U.S. whom they had never met.” [9]
The Supreme Court found, “The Bill of Rights is a futile authority for the alien seeking admission for the first time to these shores. But once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders”.
Cuban nationals who enter, or were already present in the United States, legal status.
1970s
The United States saw a total number of illegal immigrants estimated at 1.1 million, or half of one percent of the United States population.[11]
1980s
About 1.3 million illegal immigrants entered the US.[12]
1982
Plyler v. Doe,[13]457U.S.202 (1982)The court also stated that illegal immigrants are “within the jurisdiction” of the states in which they reside and, therefore, receive 14th amendment protections and stated, “We have never suggested that the class of persons who might avail themselves of the equal protection guarantee is less than coextensive with that entitled to due process. To the contrary, we have recognized [457 U.S. 202, 212] that both provisions were fashioned to protect an identical class of persons, and to reach every exercise of state authority.”
Over 5.8 million illegal immigrants entered the US in the 1990s.[15] Mexico rose to the head of the list of sending countries, followed by the Philippines, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, and China.[16]
the court reiterated the finding of Kwong Hai Chew v. Colding, 344 U.S. 590, 596 (1953), “The Bill of Rights is a futile authority for the alien seeking admission for the first time to these shores. But once an alien lawfully enters and resides in this country he becomes invested with the rights guaranteed by the Constitution to all people within our borders”.Stated, “those cases in which aliens have been determined to enjoy certain constitutional rights establish only that aliens receive such protections when they have come within the territory of, and have developed substantial connections with, this country. See, e. g., Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 212 .”
Phone verification for worker authentication by employers.
Access to welfare benefits more difficult for legal aliens.
Increased border enforcement.
Reed Amendment attempted to deny visas to former U.S. citizens, but was never enforced[19]
1999
Rodriguez v. United States, 169 F.3d 1342, (11th Cir. 1999)
Held that statutes which discriminate within the class of aliens comport with the Due Process Clause of theFifth Amendment (and the equal protection principles it incorporates) so long as they satisfy rational basis scrutiny.
Post 9/11/2001
An estimated 3.1 million immigrants entered the United States illegally between 2000 and 2005.[17]
From 1998 to 2001, Mexicans accounted for 68% of immigrants who entered the United States illegally. That percentage jumped to 78% for the years between 2001 and 2005, mostly due to stricter security measures that followed the September 11, 2001 Attacks upon the United States (which more efficiently prevented illegal entry from nations that did not share a land or maritime boundary with the United States).[20]
Story 1: Part 2 of 2, Trump Destroys The CLIPPER — Crooked Lying Incompetent Progressive Politician Eugenics Racist Hillary Clinton — Sink — The CLIPPER, Sink The CLIPPER, Sink The CLIPPER –Sink Hillary Clinton — Elect Donald J. Trump — Videos
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FULL SPEECH: Donald Trump Destroys Hillary Clinton In New York City Speech – 6/22/2016 Part 4!
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– JUNE 22, 2016 –
DONALD J. TRUMP ON THE STAKES OF THE ELECTION
Today I‘d like to share my thoughts about the stakes in this election.
People have asked me why I am running for President.
I have built an amazing business that I love and I get to work side-by-side with my children every day.
We come to work together and turn visions into reality.
We think big, and then we make it happen.
I love what I do, and I am grateful beyond words to the nation that has allowed me to do it.
So when people ask me why I am running, I quickly answer: I am running to give back to this country which has been so good to me.
When I see the crumbling roads and bridges, or the dilapidated airports, or the factories moving overseas to Mexico, or to other countries, I know these problems can all be fixed, but not by Hillary Clinton – only by me.
The fact is, we can come back bigger and better and stronger than ever before –Jobs, jobs, jobs!
Everywhere I look, I see the possibilities of what our country could be. But we can’t solve any of these problems by relying on the politicians who created them.
We will never be able to fix a rigged system by counting on the same people who rigged it in the first place.
The insiders wrote the rules of the game to keep themselves in power and in the money.
That’s why we’re asking Bernie Sanders’ voters to join our movement: so together we can fix the system for ALL Americans. Importantly, this includes fixing all of our many disastrous trade deals.
Because it’s not just the political system that’s rigged. It’s the whole economy.
It’s rigged by big donors who want to keep down wages.
It’s rigged by big businesses who want to leave our country, fire our workers, and sell their products back into the U.S. with absolutely no consequences for them.
It’s rigged by bureaucrats who are trapping kids in failing schools.
It’s rigged against you, the American people.
Hillary Clinton who, as most people know, is a world class liar –
just look at her pathetic email and server statements, or her phony landing in Bosnia where she said she was under attack but the attack turned out to be young girls handing her flowers, a total self-serving lie.
Brian Williams’ career was destroyed for saying far less.
Yesterday, she even tried to attack me and my many businesses. But here is the bottom line: I started off in Brooklyn New York, not so long ago, with a small loan and built a business worth over 10 billion dollars. I have always had a talent for building businesses and, importantly, creating jobs. That is a talent our country desperately needs.
I am running for President to end the unfairness and to put you, the American worker, first.
We are going to put America First, and we are going to Make America Great again.
This election will decide whether we are ruled by the people, or by the politicians.
Here is my promise to the American voter:
If I am elected President, I will end the special interest monopoly in Washington, D.C.
The other candidate in this race has spent her entire life making money for special interests – and taking money from special interests.
Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and theft.
She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund – doing favors for oppressive regimes, and many others, in exchange for cash.
Then, when she left, she made $21.6 million giving speeches to Wall Street banks and other special interests – in less than 2 years – secret speeches that she does not want to reveal to the public.
Together, she and Bill made $153 million giving speeches to lobbyists, CEOs, and foreign governments in the years since 2001.
They totally own her, and that will never change.
The choice in this election is a choice between taking our government back from the special interests, or surrendering our last scrap of independence to their total and complete control.
Those are the stakes.
Hillary Clinton wants to be President. But she doesn’t have the temperament, or, as Bernie Sanders’ said, the judgement, to be president.
She believes she is entitled to the office.
Her campaign slogan is “I’m with her.”
You know what my response to that is? I’m with you: the American people.
She thinks it’s all about her.
I know it’s all about you – I know it’s all about making America Great Again for All Americans.
Our country lost its way when we stopped putting the American people first.
We got here because we switched from a policy of Americanism – focusing on what’s good for America’s middle class – to a policy of globalism, focusing on how to make money for large corporations who can move their wealth and workers to foreign countries all to the detriment of the American worker and the American economy.
We reward companies for offshoring, and we punish companies for doing business in America and keeping our workers employed.
This is not a rising tide that lifts all boats.
This is a wave of globalization that wipes out our middle class and our jobs.
We need to reform our economic system so that, once again, we can all succeed together, and America can become rich again.
That’s what we mean by America First.
Our country will be better off when we start making our own products again, bringing our once great manufacturing capabilities back to our shores.
Our Founders understood this.
One of the first major bills signed by George Washington called for “the encouragement and protection of manufactur[ing]” in America.
Our first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, warned us by saying:
“The abandonment of the protective policy by the American government will produce want and ruin among our people.”
I have visited the cities and towns across America and seen the devastation caused by the trade policies of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton supported Bill Clinton’s disastrous NAFTA, just like she supported China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization.
We’ve lost nearly one-third of our manufacturing jobs since these two Hillary-backed agreements were signed.
Our trade deficit with China soared 40% during Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State — a disgraceful performance for which she should not be congratulated, but rather scorned.
Then she let China steal hundreds of billions of dollars in our intellectual property – a crime which is continuing to this day.
Hillary Clinton gave China millions of our best jobs, and effectively let China completely rebuild itself.
In return, Hillary Clinton got rich!
The book Clinton Cash, by Peter Schweitzer, documents how Bill and Hillary used the State Department to enrich their family at America’s expense.
She gets rich making you poor.
Here is a quote from the book: “At the center of US policy toward China was Hillary Clinton…at this critical time for US-china relations, Bill Clinton gave a number of speeches that were underwritten by the Chinese government and its supporters.”
These funds were paid to the Clinton bank account while Hillary was negotiating with China on behalf of the United States.
She sold out our workers, and our country, for Beijing.
Hillary Clinton has also been the biggest promoter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will ship millions more of our jobs overseas – and give up Congressional power to an international foreign commission.
Now, because I have pointed out why it would be such a disastrous deal, she is pretending that she is against it. She has even deleted this record of total support from her book – deletion is something she is very good at — (at least 30,000 emails are missing.)
But this latest Clinton cover-up doesn’t change anything: if she is elected president, she will adopt the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and we will lose millions of jobs and our economic independence for good. She will do this, just as she has betrayed the American worker on trade at every single stage of her career – and it will be even worse than the Clintons’ NAFTA deal.
I want trade deals, but they have to be great for the United States and our workers.
We don’t make great deals anymore, but we will once I become president.
It’s not just our economy that’s been corrupted, but our foreign policy too.
The Hillary Clinton foreign policy has cost America thousands of lives and trillions of dollars – and unleashed ISIS across the world.
No Secretary of State has been more wrong, more often, and in more places than Hillary Clinton.
Her decisions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched.
Among the victims is our late Ambassador, Chris Stevens. He was left helpless to die as Hillary Clinton soundly slept in her bed — that’s right, when the phone rang at
3 o’clock in the morning, she was sleeping.
Ambassador Stevens and his staff in Libya made hundreds of requests for security.
Hillary Clinton’s State Department refused them all.
She started the war that put him in Libya, denied him the security he asked for, then left him there to die.
To cover her tracks, Hillary lied about a video being the cause of his death.
Here is what one of the victim’s mothers had to say:
“I want the whole world to know it: she lied to my face, and you don’t want this person to be president.”
In 2009, before Hillary Clinton was sworn in, it was a different world.
Libya was cooperating.
Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence.
Syria was under control.
Iran was being choked by sanctions.
Egypt was governed by a friendly regime that honored its peace treaty with Israel.
ISIS wasn’t even on the map.
Fast forward to 2013: In just four years, Secretary Clinton managed
to almost single-handedly destabilize the entire Middle East.
Her invasion of Libya handed the country over to the ISIS barbarians.
Thanks to Hillary Clinton, Iran is now the dominant Islamic power in the Middle East, and on the road to nuclear weapons.
Hillary Clinton’s support for violent regime change in Syria has thrown the country into one of the bloodiest civil wars anyone has ever seen – while giving ISIS a launching pad for terrorism against the West.
She helped force out a friendly regime in Egypt and replace it with the radical Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian military has retaken control, but Clinton has opened the Pandora’s box of radical Islam.
Then, there was the disastrous strategy of announcing our departure date from Iraq, handing large parts of the country over to ISIS killers.
ISIS threatens us today because of the decisions Hillary Clinton has made.
ISIS also threatens peaceful Muslims across the Middle East, and peaceful Muslims across the world, who have been terribly victimized by horrible brutality – and who only want to raise their kids in peace and safety.
In short, Hillary Clinton’s tryout for the presidency has produced one deadly foreign policy disaster after another.
It all started with her bad judgment in supporting the War in Iraq in the first place.
Though I was not in government service, I was among the earliest to criticize
the rush to war, and yes, even before the war ever started.
But Hillary Clinton learned nothing from Iraq, because when she got into power,
she couldn’t wait to rush us off to war in Libya.
She lacks the temperament, the judgment and the competence to lead.
In the words of a Secret Service agent posted outside the Oval Office:
“She simply lacks the integrity and temperament to serve
in the office…from the bottom of my soul, I know this to be true…Her leadership style – volcanic, impulsive…disdainful of the rules set for everyone else – hasn’t changed a bit.”
Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy is that she refuses to acknowledge the threat posed by Radical Islam.
In fact, Hillary Clinton supports a radical 550% increase in Syrian refugees coming into the United States, and that’s an increase over President Obama’s already very high number.
Under her plan, we would admit hundreds of thousands of refugees from the most dangerous countries on Earth – with no way to screen who they are or what they believe.
Already, hundreds of recent immigrants and their children have been convicted of terrorist activity inside the U.S.
The father of the Orlando shooter was a Taliban supporter from Afghanistan, one of the
most repressive anti-gay and anti-women regimes on Earth.
I only want to admit people who share our values and love our people.
Hillary Clinton wants to bring in people who believe women should be enslaved
and gays put to death.
Maybe her motivation lies among the more than 1,000 foreign donations Hillary failed to disclose while at the State Department.
Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency.
Here is some more of what we learned from the book,
Clinton Cash:
A foreign telecom giant faced possible State Department sanctions for providing technology to Iran, and other oppressive regimes. So what did this company do? For the first time ever, they decided to pay Bill Clinton $750,000 for a single speech. The Clintons got their cash, the telecom company escaped sanctions.
Hillary Clinton’s State Department approved the transfer of 20% of America’s uranium holdings to Russia, while 9 investors in the deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Hillary Clinton appointed a top donor to a national security board with top secret access – even though he had no national security credentials.
Hillary Clinton accepted $58,000 in jewelry from the government of Brunei when she was Secretary of State – plus millions more for her foundation. The Sultan of Brunei has pushed oppressive Sharia law, including the punishment of death by stoning for being gay. The government of Brunei also stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Hillary’s Trans-Pacific Partnership, which she would absolutely approve if given the chance.
Hillary Clinton took up to $25 million from Saudi Arabia, where being gay is also punishable by death.
Hillary took millions from Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and many other countries that horribly abuse women and LGBT citizens.
To cover-up her corrupt dealings, Hillary Clinton illegally stashed her State Department emails on a private server.
Her server was easily hacked by foreign governments – perhaps even by her financial backers in Communist China – putting all of America in danger.
Then there are the 33,000 emails she deleted.
While we may not know what is in those deleted emails, our enemies probably do.
So they probably now have a blackmail file over someone who wants to be President of the United States.
This fact alone disqualifies her from the Presidency.
We can’t hand over our government to someone whose deepest, darkest secrets may be in the hands of our enemies.
National security is also immigration security –
and Hillary wants neither.
Hillary Clinton has put forward the most radical immigration platform in the history of the United States.
She has pledged to grant mass amnesty and in her first 100 days, end virtually all immigration enforcement, and thus create totally open borders in the United States
The first victims of her radical policies will be poor African-American and Hispanic workers who need jobs. They are the ones she will hurt the most.
Let me share with you a letter our campaign received from Mary Ann Mendoza.
She lost her amazing son, Police Sergeant Brandon Mendoza, after he was killed by an illegal immigrant because of the open borders policies supported by Hillary Clinton.
Sadly, the Mendoza family is just one of thousands who have suffered the same fate.
Here is an excerpt from Mrs. Mendoza’s letter:
“Hillary Clinton, who already has the blood of so many on her hands, is now announcing that she is willing to put each and every one of our lives in harms’ way – an open door policy to criminals and terrorists to enter our country. Hillary is not concerned about you or I, she is only concerned about the power the presidency would bring to her. She needs to go to prison to pay for the crimes she has already committed against this country.”
Hillary also wants to spend hundreds of billions to resettle Middle Eastern refugees in the United States, on top of the current record level of immigration.
For the amount of money Hillary Clinton would like to spend on refugees, we could rebuild every inner city in America.
Hillary’s Wall Street immigration agenda will keep immigrant communities poor, and unemployed Americans out of work. She can’t claim to care about African-American and Hispanic workers when she wants to bring in millions of new low-wage workers
to compete against them.
Here are a few things a Trump Administration will do for America in the first 100 days:
Appoint judges who will uphold the Constitution. Hillary Clinton’s radical judges will virtually abolish the 2nd amendment.
Change immigration rules to give unemployed Americans an opportunity to fill good-paying jobs
Stand up to countries that cheat on trade, of which there are many
Cancel rules and regulations that send jobs overseas
Lift restrictions on energy production
Repeal and replace job-killing Obamacare — it is a disaster.
Pass massive tax reform to create millions of new jobs.
Impose tough new ethics rules to restore dignity to the Office of Secretary of State.
There is one common theme in all of these reforms.
It’s going to be America First.
This is why the stakes in November are so great.
On election day, the politicians stand trial before the people.
The voters are the jury. Their ballots are the verdict. We don’t need or want another Clinton or Obama.
Come November, the American people will have a chance to issue a verdict on the politicians that have sacrificed their security, betrayed their prosperity, and sold out
their country.
They will have a chance to vote for a new agenda with big dreams, bold ideas and enormous possibilities for the American people.
Hillary Clinton’s message is old and tired. Her message is that can’t change.
My message is that things have to change – and this is our one chance do it. This is our last chance to do it.
Americans are the people that tamed the West, that dug out the Panama Canal, that sent satellites across the solar system, that built the great dams, and so much more.
Then we started thinking small.
We stopped believing in what America could do, and became reliant on other countries, other people, and other institutions.
We lost our sense of purpose, and daring.
But that’s not who we are.
Come this November, we can bring America back – bigger and better, and stronger than ever.
We will build the greatest infrastructure on the planet earth – the roads and railways and airports of tomorrow.
Our military will have the best technology and finest equipment – we will bring it back all the way.
Massive new factories will come roaring into our country – breathing life and hope into our communities.
Inner cities, which have been horribly abused by Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party, will finally be rebuilt.
Construction is what I know — nobody knows it better.
The real wages for our workers have not been raised for 18 years — but these wages will start going up, along with the new jobs. Hillary’s massive taxation, regulation and open borders will destroy jobs and drive down wages for everyone.
We are also going to be supporting our police and law enforcement — we can never forget the great job they do.
I am also going to appoint great Supreme Court Justices.
Our country is going to start working again.
People are going to start working again.
Parents are going to start dreaming big for their children again – including parents in our inner cities.
Americans are going to start believing in the future or our country.
We are going to make America rich again.
We are going to make America safe again.
We are going to make America Great Again – and Great Again For EVERYONE.
Story 1: Part 1 of 2, Trump Destroys The CLIPPER — Crooked Lying Incompetent Progressive Politician Eugenics Racist Hillary Clinton — Sink — The CLIPPER, Sink The CLIPPER, Sink The CLIPPER –Sink Hillary Clinton — Elect Donald J. Trump — Videos
Full Speech : Donald Trump Delivers Anti Hillary Clinton Speech in New York City 6/22/16
FULL SPEECH: Donald Trump Destroys Hillary Clinton In New York City Speech – 6/22/2016 Part 1!
FULL SPEECH: Donald Trump Destroys Hillary Clinton In New York City Speech – 6/22/2016 Part 2!
FULL SPEECH: Donald Trump Destroys Hillary Clinton In New York City Speech – 6/22/2016 Part 3!
FULL SPEECH: Donald Trump Destroys Hillary Clinton In New York City Speech – 6/22/2016 Part 4!
Gutfeld: Meet the anti-Romney
Donald Trump seeking to destroy Hillary Clinton
The Real Story: June 22, 2016- Chris Wallace: Trump’s case has got to be against Clinton
Anonymous – Hillary Clinton: The Hillary Files Full Documentary
“Hillary’s America” Trailer | Official Teaser Trailer HD
Peter Schweizer talks Clinton Cash on CNN
Clinton Cash The Movie Official Trailer
Peter Schweizer
“Money and Politics” – Peter Schweizer
Peter Schweizer reacts to State Department IG report on Clinton Emails
• The Tangled Clinton Web • Clinton Cash • 4/24/15 •
Hillary Clinton lying for 13 minutes straight.
YouTube Debate: Hillary – Are You a Liberal?
Hillary Clinton honors Margaret Sanger
Hillary Clinton admires Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood
– JUNE 22, 2016 –
DONALD J. TRUMP ON THE STAKES OF THE ELECTION
Today I‘d like to share my thoughts about the stakes in this election.
People have asked me why I am running for President.
I have built an amazing business that I love and I get to work side-by-side with my children every day.
We come to work together and turn visions into reality.
We think big, and then we make it happen.
I love what I do, and I am grateful beyond words to the nation that has allowed me to do it.
So when people ask me why I am running, I quickly answer: I am running to give back to this country which has been so good to me.
When I see the crumbling roads and bridges, or the dilapidated airports, or the factories moving overseas to Mexico, or to other countries, I know these problems can all be fixed, but not by Hillary Clinton – only by me.
The fact is, we can come back bigger and better and stronger than ever before –Jobs, jobs, jobs!
Everywhere I look, I see the possibilities of what our country could be. But we can’t solve any of these problems by relying on the politicians who created them.
We will never be able to fix a rigged system by counting on the same people who rigged it in the first place.
The insiders wrote the rules of the game to keep themselves in power and in the money.
That’s why we’re asking Bernie Sanders’ voters to join our movement: so together we can fix the system for ALL Americans. Importantly, this includes fixing all of our many disastrous trade deals.
Because it’s not just the political system that’s rigged. It’s the whole economy.
It’s rigged by big donors who want to keep down wages.
It’s rigged by big businesses who want to leave our country, fire our workers, and sell their products back into the U.S. with absolutely no consequences for them.
It’s rigged by bureaucrats who are trapping kids in failing schools.
It’s rigged against you, the American people.
Hillary Clinton who, as most people know, is a world class liar –
just look at her pathetic email and server statements, or her phony landing in Bosnia where she said she was under attack but the attack turned out to be young girls handing her flowers, a total self-serving lie.
Brian Williams’ career was destroyed for saying far less.
Yesterday, she even tried to attack me and my many businesses. But here is the bottom line: I started off in Brooklyn New York, not so long ago, with a small loan and built a business worth over 10 billion dollars. I have always had a talent for building businesses and, importantly, creating jobs. That is a talent our country desperately needs.
I am running for President to end the unfairness and to put you, the American worker, first.
We are going to put America First, and we are going to Make America Great again.
This election will decide whether we are ruled by the people, or by the politicians.
Here is my promise to the American voter:
If I am elected President, I will end the special interest monopoly in Washington, D.C.
The other candidate in this race has spent her entire life making money for special interests – and taking money from special interests.
Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and theft.
She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund – doing favors for oppressive regimes, and many others, in exchange for cash.
Then, when she left, she made $21.6 million giving speeches to Wall Street banks and other special interests – in less than 2 years – secret speeches that she does not want to reveal to the public.
Together, she and Bill made $153 million giving speeches to lobbyists, CEOs, and foreign governments in the years since 2001.
They totally own her, and that will never change.
The choice in this election is a choice between taking our government back from the special interests, or surrendering our last scrap of independence to their total and complete control.
Those are the stakes.
Hillary Clinton wants to be President. But she doesn’t have the temperament, or, as Bernie Sanders’ said, the judgement, to be president.
She believes she is entitled to the office.
Her campaign slogan is “I’m with her.”
You know what my response to that is? I’m with you: the American people.
She thinks it’s all about her.
I know it’s all about you – I know it’s all about making America Great Again for All Americans.
Our country lost its way when we stopped putting the American people first.
We got here because we switched from a policy of Americanism – focusing on what’s good for America’s middle class – to a policy of globalism, focusing on how to make money for large corporations who can move their wealth and workers to foreign countries all to the detriment of the American worker and the American economy.
We reward companies for offshoring, and we punish companies for doing business in America and keeping our workers employed.
This is not a rising tide that lifts all boats.
This is a wave of globalization that wipes out our middle class and our jobs.
We need to reform our economic system so that, once again, we can all succeed together, and America can become rich again.
That’s what we mean by America First.
Our country will be better off when we start making our own products again, bringing our once great manufacturing capabilities back to our shores.
Our Founders understood this.
One of the first major bills signed by George Washington called for “the encouragement and protection of manufactur[ing]” in America.
Our first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, warned us by saying:
“The abandonment of the protective policy by the American government will produce want and ruin among our people.”
I have visited the cities and towns across America and seen the devastation caused by the trade policies of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton supported Bill Clinton’s disastrous NAFTA, just like she supported China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization.
We’ve lost nearly one-third of our manufacturing jobs since these two Hillary-backed agreements were signed.
Our trade deficit with China soared 40% during Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State — a disgraceful performance for which she should not be congratulated, but rather scorned.
Then she let China steal hundreds of billions of dollars in our intellectual property – a crime which is continuing to this day.
Hillary Clinton gave China millions of our best jobs, and effectively let China completely rebuild itself.
In return, Hillary Clinton got rich!
The book Clinton Cash, by Peter Schweitzer, documents how Bill and Hillary used the State Department to enrich their family at America’s expense.
She gets rich making you poor.
Here is a quote from the book: “At the center of US policy toward China was Hillary Clinton…at this critical time for US-china relations, Bill Clinton gave a number of speeches that were underwritten by the Chinese government and its supporters.”
These funds were paid to the Clinton bank account while Hillary was negotiating with China on behalf of the United States.
She sold out our workers, and our country, for Beijing.
Hillary Clinton has also been the biggest promoter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will ship millions more of our jobs overseas – and give up Congressional power to an international foreign commission.
Now, because I have pointed out why it would be such a disastrous deal, she is pretending that she is against it. She has even deleted this record of total support from her book – deletion is something she is very good at — (at least 30,000 emails are missing.)
But this latest Clinton cover-up doesn’t change anything: if she is elected president, she will adopt the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and we will lose millions of jobs and our economic independence for good. She will do this, just as she has betrayed the American worker on trade at every single stage of her career – and it will be even worse than the Clintons’ NAFTA deal.
I want trade deals, but they have to be great for the United States and our workers.
We don’t make great deals anymore, but we will once I become president.
It’s not just our economy that’s been corrupted, but our foreign policy too.
The Hillary Clinton foreign policy has cost America thousands of lives and trillions of dollars – and unleashed ISIS across the world.
No Secretary of State has been more wrong, more often, and in more places than Hillary Clinton.
Her decisions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched.
Among the victims is our late Ambassador, Chris Stevens. He was left helpless to die as Hillary Clinton soundly slept in her bed — that’s right, when the phone rang at
3 o’clock in the morning, she was sleeping.
Ambassador Stevens and his staff in Libya made hundreds of requests for security.
Hillary Clinton’s State Department refused them all.
She started the war that put him in Libya, denied him the security he asked for, then left him there to die.
To cover her tracks, Hillary lied about a video being the cause of his death.
Here is what one of the victim’s mothers had to say:
“I want the whole world to know it: she lied to my face, and you don’t want this person to be president.”
In 2009, before Hillary Clinton was sworn in, it was a different world.
Libya was cooperating.
Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence.
Syria was under control.
Iran was being choked by sanctions.
Egypt was governed by a friendly regime that honored its peace treaty with Israel.
ISIS wasn’t even on the map.
Fast forward to 2013: In just four years, Secretary Clinton managed
to almost single-handedly destabilize the entire Middle East.
Her invasion of Libya handed the country over to the ISIS barbarians.
Thanks to Hillary Clinton, Iran is now the dominant Islamic power in the Middle East, and on the road to nuclear weapons.
Hillary Clinton’s support for violent regime change in Syria has thrown the country into one of the bloodiest civil wars anyone has ever seen – while giving ISIS a launching pad for terrorism against the West.
She helped force out a friendly regime in Egypt and replace it with the radical Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian military has retaken control, but Clinton has opened the Pandora’s box of radical Islam.
Then, there was the disastrous strategy of announcing our departure date from Iraq, handing large parts of the country over to ISIS killers.
ISIS threatens us today because of the decisions Hillary Clinton has made.
ISIS also threatens peaceful Muslims across the Middle East, and peaceful Muslims across the world, who have been terribly victimized by horrible brutality – and who only want to raise their kids in peace and safety.
In short, Hillary Clinton’s tryout for the presidency has produced one deadly foreign policy disaster after another.
It all started with her bad judgment in supporting the War in Iraq in the first place.
Though I was not in government service, I was among the earliest to criticize
the rush to war, and yes, even before the war ever started.
But Hillary Clinton learned nothing from Iraq, because when she got into power,
she couldn’t wait to rush us off to war in Libya.
She lacks the temperament, the judgment and the competence to lead.
In the words of a Secret Service agent posted outside the Oval Office:
“She simply lacks the integrity and temperament to serve
in the office…from the bottom of my soul, I know this to be true…Her leadership style – volcanic, impulsive…disdainful of the rules set for everyone else – hasn’t changed a bit.”
Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy is that she refuses to acknowledge the threat posed by Radical Islam.
In fact, Hillary Clinton supports a radical 550% increase in Syrian refugees coming into the United States, and that’s an increase over President Obama’s already very high number.
Under her plan, we would admit hundreds of thousands of refugees from the most dangerous countries on Earth – with no way to screen who they are or what they believe.
Already, hundreds of recent immigrants and their children have been convicted of terrorist activity inside the U.S.
The father of the Orlando shooter was a Taliban supporter from Afghanistan, one of the
most repressive anti-gay and anti-women regimes on Earth.
I only want to admit people who share our values and love our people.
Hillary Clinton wants to bring in people who believe women should be enslaved
and gays put to death.
Maybe her motivation lies among the more than 1,000 foreign donations Hillary failed to disclose while at the State Department.
Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency.
Here is some more of what we learned from the book,
Clinton Cash:
A foreign telecom giant faced possible State Department sanctions for providing technology to Iran, and other oppressive regimes. So what did this company do? For the first time ever, they decided to pay Bill Clinton $750,000 for a single speech. The Clintons got their cash, the telecom company escaped sanctions.
Hillary Clinton’s State Department approved the transfer of 20% of America’s uranium holdings to Russia, while 9 investors in the deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.
Hillary Clinton appointed a top donor to a national security board with top secret access – even though he had no national security credentials.
Hillary Clinton accepted $58,000 in jewelry from the government of Brunei when she was Secretary of State – plus millions more for her foundation. The Sultan of Brunei has pushed oppressive Sharia law, including the punishment of death by stoning for being gay. The government of Brunei also stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Hillary’s Trans-Pacific Partnership, which she would absolutely approve if given the chance.
Hillary Clinton took up to $25 million from Saudi Arabia, where being gay is also punishable by death.
Hillary took millions from Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and many other countries that horribly abuse women and LGBT citizens.
To cover-up her corrupt dealings, Hillary Clinton illegally stashed her State Department emails on a private server.
Her server was easily hacked by foreign governments – perhaps even by her financial backers in Communist China – putting all of America in danger.
Then there are the 33,000 emails she deleted.
While we may not know what is in those deleted emails, our enemies probably do.
So they probably now have a blackmail file over someone who wants to be President of the United States.
This fact alone disqualifies her from the Presidency.
We can’t hand over our government to someone whose deepest, darkest secrets may be in the hands of our enemies.
National security is also immigration security –
and Hillary wants neither.
Hillary Clinton has put forward the most radical immigration platform in the history of the United States.
She has pledged to grant mass amnesty and in her first 100 days, end virtually all immigration enforcement, and thus create totally open borders in the United States
The first victims of her radical policies will be poor African-American and Hispanic workers who need jobs. They are the ones she will hurt the most.
Let me share with you a letter our campaign received from Mary Ann Mendoza.
She lost her amazing son, Police Sergeant Brandon Mendoza, after he was killed by an illegal immigrant because of the open borders policies supported by Hillary Clinton.
Sadly, the Mendoza family is just one of thousands who have suffered the same fate.
Here is an excerpt from Mrs. Mendoza’s letter:
“Hillary Clinton, who already has the blood of so many on her hands, is now announcing that she is willing to put each and every one of our lives in harms’ way – an open door policy to criminals and terrorists to enter our country. Hillary is not concerned about you or I, she is only concerned about the power the presidency would bring to her. She needs to go to prison to pay for the crimes she has already committed against this country.”
Hillary also wants to spend hundreds of billions to resettle Middle Eastern refugees in the United States, on top of the current record level of immigration.
For the amount of money Hillary Clinton would like to spend on refugees, we could rebuild every inner city in America.
Hillary’s Wall Street immigration agenda will keep immigrant communities poor, and unemployed Americans out of work. She can’t claim to care about African-American and Hispanic workers when she wants to bring in millions of new low-wage workers
to compete against them.
Here are a few things a Trump Administration will do for America in the first 100 days:
Appoint judges who will uphold the Constitution. Hillary Clinton’s radical judges will virtually abolish the 2nd amendment.
Change immigration rules to give unemployed Americans an opportunity to fill good-paying jobs
Stand up to countries that cheat on trade, of which there are many
Cancel rules and regulations that send jobs overseas
Lift restrictions on energy production
Repeal and replace job-killing Obamacare — it is a disaster.
Pass massive tax reform to create millions of new jobs.
Impose tough new ethics rules to restore dignity to the Office of Secretary of State.
There is one common theme in all of these reforms.
It’s going to be America First.
This is why the stakes in November are so great.
On election day, the politicians stand trial before the people.
The voters are the jury. Their ballots are the verdict. We don’t need or want another Clinton or Obama.
Come November, the American people will have a chance to issue a verdict on the politicians that have sacrificed their security, betrayed their prosperity, and sold out
their country.
They will have a chance to vote for a new agenda with big dreams, bold ideas and enormous possibilities for the American people.
Hillary Clinton’s message is old and tired. Her message is that can’t change.
My message is that things have to change – and this is our one chance do it. This is our last chance to do it.
Americans are the people that tamed the West, that dug out the Panama Canal, that sent satellites across the solar system, that built the great dams, and so much more.
Then we started thinking small.
We stopped believing in what America could do, and became reliant on other countries, other people, and other institutions.
We lost our sense of purpose, and daring.
But that’s not who we are.
Come this November, we can bring America back – bigger and better, and stronger than ever.
We will build the greatest infrastructure on the planet earth – the roads and railways and airports of tomorrow.
Our military will have the best technology and finest equipment – we will bring it back all the way.
Massive new factories will come roaring into our country – breathing life and hope into our communities.
Inner cities, which have been horribly abused by Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party, will finally be rebuilt.
Construction is what I know — nobody knows it better.
The real wages for our workers have not been raised for 18 years — but these wages will start going up, along with the new jobs. Hillary’s massive taxation, regulation and open borders will destroy jobs and drive down wages for everyone.
We are also going to be supporting our police and law enforcement — we can never forget the great job they do.
I am also going to appoint great Supreme Court Justices.
Our country is going to start working again.
People are going to start working again.
Parents are going to start dreaming big for their children again – including parents in our inner cities.
Americans are going to start believing in the future or our country.
We are going to make America rich again.
We are going to make America safe again.
We are going to make America Great Again – and Great Again For EVERYONE.
Story 1: Timeline of Radical Islamic Terrorist Jihadist Shootings at Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida –The Missing 911 Transcript Pages, Audio and Videos Not Released — For Three Hours Victims Were Bleeding Out From Wounds — Do Not Depend On Government To Protect You!
“I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may Allah (God) protect him [Arabic], on behalf of the Islamic State.”
~Omar Marteen, Islamic Soldier
Judge Nap Blasts DOJ for ‘Trying to Rewrite History’ With Orlando Transcripts
Orlando nightclub shooting: Shooter used SIG Sauer MCX to kill 49 people and not a AR-15 – TomoNews
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AR-15 – The Beginner’s Guide – What to Know About the AR-15
ULTIMATE AR-15 MELTDOWN!
In this video we attempt to burn out an AR-15 upper on an M16 lower. We are testing the durability of not only the upper receiver assemby but few specific products as well including the SRC Relia-Bolt BCG, Geissele Super Gas Block, and one of the most affordable AR barrels on the market from Faxon Firearms.
The results may surprise you.
Tavor TAR-21 Assault Rifle
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AR vs AK: Practical Accuracy
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Transcript of Orlando Police Department 911 Calls, June 12, 2016
Transcript of Orlando Police Department 911 Calls, June 12, 2016
2:35 a.m.: Shooter contacted a 911 operator from inside Pulse. The call lasted approximately 50 seconds, the details of which are set out below:
(OD) Orlando Police Dispatcher
(OM) Omar Mateen
OD: Emergency 911, this is being recorded.
OM: In the name of God the Merciful, the beneficent [Arabic]
OD: What?
OM: Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God [Arabic]. I wanna let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings.
OD: What’s your name?
OM: My name is I pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State.
OD: Ok, What’s your name?
OM: I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may God protect him [Arabic], on behalf of the Islamic State.
OD: Alright, where are you at?
OM: In Orlando.
OD: Where in Orlando?
[End of call.]
Patrial 911 transcript released by the FBI (including redacted material):
The following is based on Orlando Police Department (OPD) radio communication (times are approximate): 2:02 a.m.: OPD call transmitted multiple shots fired at Pulse nightclub. 2:04 a.m.: Additional OPD officers arrived on scene. 2:08 a.m.: Officers from various law enforcement agencies made entrance to Pulse and engaged the shooter. 2:18 a.m.: OPD S.W.A.T. (Special Weapons & Tactics) initiated a full call-out. 2:35 a.m.: Shooter contacted a 911 operator from inside Pulse. The call lasted approximately 50 seconds, the details of which are set out below:
Orlando Police Dispatcher (OD)
Shooter (OM)
OD: Emergency 911, this is being recorded.
OM: In the name of God the Merciful, the beneficial [in Arabic]
OD: What?
OM: Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God [in Arabic]. I let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings.
OD: What’s your name?
OM: My name is I pledge of allegiance to [omitted].
OD: Ok, What’s your name?
OM: I pledge allegiance to [omitted] may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of [omitted].
OD: Alright, where are you at?
OM: In Orlando.
OD: Where in Orlando?
[End of call.]
(Shortly thereafter, the shooter engaged in three conversations with OPD’s Crisis Negotiation Team.) 2:48 a.m.: First crisis negotiation call occurred lasting approximately nine minutes. 3:03 a.m.: Second crisis negotiation call occurred lasting approximately 16 minutes. 3:24 a.m.: Third crisis negotiation call occurred lasting approximately three minutes.
In these calls, the shooter, who identified himself as an Islamic soldier, told the crisis negotiator that he was the person who pledged his allegiance to [omitted], and told the negotiator to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq and that is why he was “out here right now.” When the crisis negotiator asked the shooter what he had done, the shooter stated, “No, you already know what I did.” The shooter continued, stating, “There is some vehicle outside that has some bombs, just to let you know. You people are gonna get it, and I’m gonna ignite it if they try to do anything stupid.” Later in the call with the crisis negotiator, the shooter stated that he had a vest, and further described it as the kind they “used in France.” The shooter later stated, “In the next few days, you’re going to see more of this type of action going on.” The shooter hung up and multiple attempts to get in touch with him were unsuccessful. 4:21 a.m.: OPD pulled an air conditioning unit out of a Pulse dressing room window for victims to evacuate.
(While the FBI will not be releasing transcripts of OPD communication with victims, significant information obtained from those victims allowed OPD to gain knowledge of the situation inside Pulse.) 4:29 a.m.: As victims were being rescued, they told OPD the shooter said he was going to put four vests with bombs on victims within 15 minutes.
(An immediate search of the shooter’s vehicle on scene and inside Pulse ultimately revealed no vest or improvised explosive device.) 5:02 a.m.: OPD SWAT and OCSO Hazardous Device Team began to breach wall with explosive charge and armored vehicle to make entry. 5:14 a.m.: OPD radio communication stated that shots were fired. 5:15 a.m.: OPD radio communication stated that OPD engaged the suspect and the suspect was reported down.
American ISIS Video Praises Orlando & Threatens Euro 2016
Published on Jun 20, 2016
ISIS has released a new video in the wake of the mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando, which left 49 people dead. The video shows a man named Abu Isma’il Al-Amriki, who claims to be an American ISIS fighter, along with other alleged fighters identified as American, French, Russian and Uzbek. In the video, the fighters praise Orlando shooter Omar Mateen and urge other Muslims to follow his example by carrying out more “lone wolf” attacks on the US. One fighter also mentions a “surprise” operation at the Euro 2016 soccer tournament in France. We take a look at the video on the Lip News with Jo Ankier, Mark Sovel and Elliot Hill.
Orlando Shooting Video Inside Nightclub Bathroom
Orlando Shooting 911 Transcripts Reveal Timeline
Government Censors, Then Restores Terror Details of Orlando Shooting
How the Pulse nightclub shooting unfolded
Orlando nightclub survivor: He wanted to kill us all
From nightclub to room full of bodies: The Orlando shooting timeline
Orlando: New footage and survivor accounts
‘He was right next to me’: Orlando shooting survivor – BBC Newsnight
Extended cut: Orlando shooting survivor describes horror of attack
RAW VIDEO: Patience Carter recalls Orlando shooting massacre
Orlando Nightclub Massacre: A Timeline of What Happened
Orlando Shooting Latest: Unredacted Transcript of Gunman’s 911 Call Released [UPDATE]
The FBI has released transcripts of Omar Mateen’s conversation with a 911 operator the night of the Pulse Orlando massacre.
Just more than a week after Omar Mateen walked into a crowded Orlando nightclub and opened fire on those gathered there, the FBI has shed more light on just what happened during the early morning hours of June 12.
Ron Hooper, the FBI’s special agent in charge, on Monday spoke of Mateen’s 911 calls to Orlando dispatchers the night of the worst mass shooting in American history. Mateen, Hooper said, was “chilling, calm and deliberate” during those calls.
The FBI released transcripts of Mateen’s calls on Monday. The agency also provided a timeline of events that unfolded at the Pulse Orlando Night Club & Ultra Bar, a popular gay club. Audio of Mateen’s 911 calls and those placed by victims are not being released.
Initially, authorities released only a partial transcript of calls, redacting Mateen’s pledges of allegiance to the Islamic State. U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in interviews on various news channels on Sunday that the purpose of redacting the transcripts was to not re-victimize those that lived through the attack.
Shortly after the transcripts were released, the government came under criticism for redacting the transcripts, prompting the FBI and the Department of Justice to release a joint statement with the full transcript from the 911 call.
“The purpose of releasing the partial transcript of the shooter’s interaction with 911 operators was to provide transparency, while remaining sensitive to the interests of the surviving victims, their families, and the integrity of the ongoing investigation. We also did not want to provide the killer or terrorist organizations with a publicity platform for hateful propaganda,” the joint FBI and DOJ statement said. “Unfortunately, the unreleased portions of the transcript that named the terrorist organizations and leaders have caused an unnecessary distraction from the hard work that the FBI and our law enforcement partners have been doing to investigate this heinous crime. As much of this information had been previously reported, we have re-issued the complete transcript to include these references in order to provide the highest level of transparency possible under the circumstances.”
The FBI’s investigation into Mateen’s past remains very much active, Hooper said. So does its probe into what motivated Mateen to kill 49 people and wound 53 others before he was shot and killed by authorities.
Hooper on Monday said the FBI has found no evidence that Mateen was connected to an Islamic terrorist group. Instead, he said, the 29-year-old was “radicalized domestically.”
Lynch is expected to visit Orlando on Tuesday. Lynch will be updated on the investigation and is expected to speak to survivors of the attack, authorities said Monday.
The timeline and transcripts of the calls are as follows, quoted directly from the FBI’s release of information. The transcript of the 911 call is not redacted, however the transcripts of the calls with hostage negotiators remain redacted:
2:35 a.m.: Shooter contacted a 911 operator from inside Pulse. The call lasted approximately 50 seconds, the details of which are set out below:
(OD) Orlando Police Dispatcher
(OM) Omar Mateen
OD: Emergency 911, this is being recorded.
OM: In the name of God the Merciful, the beneficent [Arabic]
OD: What?
OM: Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God [Arabic]. I wanna let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings.
OD: What’s your name?
OM: My name is I pledge of allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of the Islamic State.
OD: Ok, What’s your name?
OM: I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may God protect him [Arabic], on behalf of the Islamic State.
OD: Alright, where are you at?
OM: In Orlando.
OD: Where in Orlando?
[End of call.]
(Shortly thereafter, the shooter engaged in three conversations with OPD’s Crisis Negotiation Team.)
2:48 a.m.: First crisis negotiation call occurred lasting approximately nine minutes.
3:03 a.m.: Second crisis negotiation call occurred lasting approximately 16 minutes.
3:24 a.m.: Third crisis negotiation call occurred lasting approximately three minutes.
In these calls, the shooter, who identified himself as an Islamic soldier, told the crisis negotiator that he was the person who pledged his allegiance to [omitted], and told the negotiator to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq and that is why he was “out here right now.” When the crisis negotiator asked the shooter what he had done, the shooter stated, “No, you already know what I did.” The shooter continued, stating, “There is some vehicle outside that has some bombs, just to let you know. You people are gonna get it, and I’m gonna ignite it if they try to do anything stupid.” Later in the call with the crisis negotiator, the shooter stated that he had a vest, and further described it as the kind they “used in France.” The shooter later stated, “In the next few days, you’re going to see more of this type of action going on.” The shooter hung up and multiple attempts to get in touch with him were unsuccessful.
4:21 a.m.: OPD pulled an air conditioning unit out of a Pulse dressing room window for victims to evacuate.
(While the FBI will not be releasing transcripts of OPD communication with victims, significant information obtained from those victims allowed OPD to gain knowledge of the situation inside Pulse.)
4:29 a.m.: As victims were being rescued, they told OPD the shooter said he was going to put four vests with bombs on victims within 15 minutes.
(An immediate search of the shooter’s vehicle on scene and inside Pulse ultimately revealed no vest or improvised explosive device.)
5:02 a.m.: OPD SWAT and OCSO Hazardous Device Team began to breach wall with explosive charge and armored vehicle to make entry.
5:14 a.m.: OPD radio communication stated that shots were fired.
5:15 a.m.: OPD radio communication stated that OPD engaged the suspect and the suspect was reported down.
In a media release, the FBI noted that there were no reports of shots fired inside the Pulse nightclub between the initial exchange of gunfire with Mateen and the time of the final breach.
The FBI is still asking for anyone with information about Mateen to contact it by calling 1-800-CALL-FBI or by going to tips.fbi.gov.
730 mm (28.75 in) SBG
610 mm (24.0 in) stock extended
length
165 mm (6.5 in)
The SIG Sauer MCX is a gas-operated NATOSTANAG compatible semi-automatic rifle that is convertible to fire several ammunition sizes. Manufactured by SIG Sauer, it was designed for U.S. Special Forces and released to the general public in 2015. It features a SIG Sauer short stroke push-rod gas system to reduce recoil and improve the reliability of the weapon. The weapon features a system that allows for conversion between 300 AAC Blackout (7.62×35mm), 7.62×39mm or 5.56×45mm NATO ammunition, all using AR-15 compatible magazines with 30-round capacity.
The AR-15 comes in many sizes and has many options, depending on the manufacturer. The part shown bottom center is the lower receiver with pistol grip and trigger assembly.
The prototype AR-15 rifle was designed by ArmaLite as a selective fire weapon for military purposes. Armalite sold the design to Colt due to financial difficulties. After some modifications, the rifle eventually became the US Army’s M16 rifle.
The term “AR-15” signifies “Armalite rifle, design 15”.[8] Today, Colt uses “AR-15” for its semi-automatic civilian rifles, and thus many use the term only for Colt AR-15s and clones made by other manufacturers. This article discusses the original design intended for military users and its major variants.
AR-15 rifles are lightweight, gas-operated, magazine-fed, and air-cooled. They fire an intermediate cartridge, and are manufactured with extensive use of aluminum alloys and synthetic materials. The design splits the rifle into two major components: the lower half, containing the trigger and buttstock, and the upper half, which contains the bolt and barrel. This approach allows modular replacement of components.
The name AR-15 remains a Colt registered trademark, but variants of the firearm are made, modified, and sold under various names by multiple manufacturers.
History
The AR-15 is based on the 7.62 mmAR-10 designed by Eugene Stoner, Robert Fremont, and L. James Sullivan of the Fairchild Armalite corporation.[9] The AR-15 was developed as a lighter, 5.56 mm version of the AR-10. The “AR” in all ArmaLite pattern firearms simply stands for “ArmaLite Rifle”,[10] and can be found on most of the company’s firearms: AR-5, a .22 caliber rifle; the AR-7, another .22 caliber; the AR-17shotgun; the AR-10 rifle; and the AR-24 pistol.[11][12]
1973 Colt AR-15 SP1 rifle with ‘slab side’ lower receiver (lacking raised boss around magazine release button) and original Colt 20-round box magazine
In 1959, ArmaLite sold its rights to the AR-10 and AR-15 to Colt. After a tour by Colt of the Far East, the first sale of AR-15s was made to Malaya on September 30, 1959, and Colt manufactured their first 300 AR-15s in December 1959.[13] Colt marketed the AR-15 rifle to various military services around the world. After modifications (most notably the relocation of the charging handle from under the carrying handle to the rear of the receiver), the redesigned rifle was adopted by the United States military as the M16 rifle.[14]
In 1963, Colt started selling the semi-automatic version of the M16 rifle as the Colt AR-15 for civilian use and the term has been used to refer to semiautomatic-only versions of the rifle since then.[15] Colt continued to use the AR-15 trademark for its semi-automatic variants (AR-15, AR-15A2) which were marketed to civilian and law-enforcement customers. The original AR-15 was a very lightweight weapon, weighing less than 6 pounds with empty magazine. Later heavy-barrel versions of the civilian AR-15 can weigh upwards of 8.5 lb.[16]
Today, the AR-15 and its variations are manufactured by many companies and are popular among civilian shooters and law enforcement forces around the world due to their accuracy and modularity.[citation needed](For more history on the development and evolution of the AR-15 and derivatives, see M16 rifle.)
The trademark “AR15” or “AR-15” is registered to Colt Industries, which maintains that the term should only be used to refer to their products. Other AR-15 manufacturers make AR-15 clones marketed under separate designations, although colloquially these are sometimes referred to by the term AR-15.
Some notable features of the AR-15 include:
Aircraft-grade forged 7075-T6 aluminumreceiver that is lightweight, highly corrosion-resistant, and machinable.
Straight-line stock design that eliminates the fulcrum created by traditional bent stocks, reducing muzzle climb.
Small caliber, accurate, lightweight, high-velocity round (.223/5.56×45mm)
Support for numerous other rounds with easy conversions
Front sight adjustable for elevation
Rear sight that is adjustable for windage (most models) and elevation (some models)
Wide array of optical aiming devices available in addition to or as replacements of iron sights
Stoner gas system (as designed), with short or long stroke gas piston, or direct blowback operating systems available
Synthetic pistol grip and butt stock that do not swell or splinter (regulated in some states)
Various magazine capacities, ranging from 10 to 30-round or more
Ergonomic design that makes the charging handle, selector switch (which also engages the safety), magazine release, and bolt catch assembly easy to access.
Semi-automatic AR-15s for sale to civilians are internally different from the full automatic M16, although nearly identical in external appearance. The hammer and trigger mechanisms are of a different design. The bolt carrier and internal lower receiver of semi-automatic versions are milled differently, so that the firing mechanisms are not interchangeable. The design changes were done to satisfy United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) requirements that civilian weapons may not be easily convertible to full-automatic. Even so, the full automatic M16 bolt carrier is now the most popular type, and is approved by ATF.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, items such as the “Drop In Auto Sear” or “lightning link,” made conversion to full automatic straightforward. In some cases such conversion did require machining the lower receiver with use of a mill, as well as the substitution of a M16 bolt carrier group.[17][18] Such modifications, unless made using registered and transferable parts prior to May 19, 1986, are illegal. The Firearm Owners Protection Act in 1986 has redefined a machine gun to include individual components with which a semi-automatic firearm can be converted to full-automatic, based on a 1981 ATF ruling on machine gun parts. Since 1993, the bolt carrier groups used in AR-15 type rifles for civilians have employed additional measures to prevent modification to full auto. Colt AR-15’s use a metal alloy wall separating the fire control group from the sear, preventing use of full automatic parts.
Automatic variants have a three-position rotating selective fire switch, allowing the operator to select between three modes: safe, semi-automatic, and either automatic or three-round burst, depending on model. Civilian Colt AR-15 models do not have three-round burst or automatic settings; they can only be fired as a semi-automatic, and are therefore not selective fire weapons. In semi-automatic-only variants, the switch only selects between safe and fire modes. Some other manufacturers may mark their rifles with three-positions for collectors and re-enactors, though the guns will not fire in those modes. Weapons modified to full automatic using a lightning-link are capable only of full automatic fire unless a special full automatic fire select mechanism and a modified selector-switch are substituted.[17] Many AR-15’s made before 1986 were converted to be M16’s by gunsmiths who legally turned them into Form One rifles in the U.S.[19] A converted AR will have an auto sear in a lower receiver marked as an AR-15.[19]
Today, while the civilian manufacture, sale, and possession of post-1986 select-fire AR-15 variants is prohibited, it is still legal to sell templates, tooling, and manuals to complete such conversion. These items are typically marketed as being “post-sample” materials for Federal Firearm Licensees, and are used in the manufacturing of select-fire variants of the AR-15 for law enforcement, military and overseas customers.[20]
U.S. Patent 2,951,424 describes the cycling mechanism used in the AR-15. The bolt carrier acts as a movable cylinder, and the bolt itself acts as a stationary piston. This mechanism is often called “direct gas impingement“, but it differs from prior gas systems.
direct impingement
Gas is tapped from the barrel as the bullet moves past a gas port located above the rifle’s front sight base. The gas rushes into the port and down a gas tube, located above the barrel, which runs from the front sight base into the AR-15’s upper receiver. Here, the gas tube protrudes into a “gas key” (bolt carrier key), which accepts the gas and funnels it into the bolt carrier.
At this point, the bolt is locked into the barrel extension by locking lugs, so the expanding gas forces the bolt carrier straight backward a short distance. As the bolt carrier moves toward the butt of the gun, the bolt cam pin, riding in a slot on the bolt carrier, forces the bolt to rotate and thus unlocks it from the barrel extension. Once the bolt is fully unlocked it begins its rearward movement along with the bolt carrier. The bolt’s rearward motion extracts the empty cartridge case from the chamber. As soon as the neck of the case clears the barrel extension, the bolt’s spring-loaded ejector forces it out the ejection port in the side of the upper receiver.
Behind the bolt carrier is a plastic or metal buffer, which rests in line with a return spring. The buffer spring begins to push the bolt carrier and bolt back toward the chamber once it is compressed sufficiently. A groove machined into the upper receiver guides the bolt cam pin and prevents it and the bolt from rotating into a closed position. The bolt’s locking lugs push a fresh round from the magazine as the bolt moves forward. The round is guided by feed ramps into the chamber. As the bolt’s locking lugs move past the barrel extension, the cam pin twists into a pocket milled into the upper receiver. This twisting action follows the groove cut into the carrier and forces the bolt to twist and “lock” into the barrel extension.
The AR-15 rifle is available in a wide range of configurations from a large number of manufacturers. These configurations range from short carbine-length models with features such as adjustable length stocks and optical sights, to heavy barrel models.
Colt AR-15 A3 Tactical Carbine. Rifle is shown with a CQB Tactical Sling and a Colt 4×20 scope.
When installing a new complete upper receiver, particularly one designed to handle a different caliber of ammunition (i.e., other than .223 Remington or 5.56×45mm NATO), some modification to the lower receiver may be required, depending on the particular conversion. For example, a conversion to 9 mm typically would involve the installation of a magazine well block (to accommodate a typical 9 mm magazine, such as Uzi or Colt SMG), replacing the .223 hammer with one designed for 9 mm ammunition, and depending on the original stock, replacing the buffer, action spring and stock spacer with those designed for the new 9 mm AR-15 configuration. The 9mm cartridge fires from an unlocked breech, or straight blow-back—rather than a locked breech, because the spring and bolt provide enough weight to allow this type of functioning. These guns do not utilize the direct gas impingement method of operation like the original.
Some AR-15s like the POF, LWRCI, H&K, Sturm Ruger, SIG Sauer, United Defense Manufacturing Corporation, CMMG, and Adams Arms offerings replace the DGI (direct gas impingement) operating system with a short stroke/long stroke gas piston system. These guns usually have modified bolt carriers, gas keys, and gas blocks. When fired, DGI systems dump high pressure hot gas through the gas tube to the bolt carrier key and into the bolt carrier group. This can rapidly heat up the bolt carrier group and cause excessive fouling, one of the main complaints about the design. Gas piston operating systems alleviate these problems, but can cause other issues, such as carrier tilt, which can lead to increased bolt fractures.
Some manufacturers offer upper and lower receivers machined from a solid billet (block) of aluminum as opposed to an aluminum forging. Forgings typically have a comparatively higher strength to weight ratio than billet-based receivers.
Upper receivers that combine a railed hand guard and upper receiver into one unit are made by companies like Colt’s Manufacturing Company, Lewis Machine and Tool (LMT MRP), POF-USA, and VLTOR. This is done to provide a continuous rail section that runs along the top of the gun from the weapon’s charging handle to the front sight/gas block. This rail section is used for the mounting of sights, laser aiming devices, night vision devices, and lighting systems.
A side charging upper receiver has been developed by LAR Grizzly. Blackwood Arms has also developed a side charging upper receiver.[24] The charging handle can be had in a left side, right side, or ambidextrous configuration. The side charging handle is attached to the bolt carrier, making it a reciprocating design. The handle thus can be used as a forward assist device.
Early models had a 1:14 rate of twist for the original 55 grain (3.6 g) bullets. This was changed to 1:12 when it was found that 1:14 was insufficient to stabilize a bullet when fired in cold weather. Most recent rifles have a 1:9 or 1:7 twist rate. There is much controversy and speculation as to how differing twist rates affect ballistics and terminal performance with varying loads, but heavier, longer projectiles tend to perform better with faster rifling rates.[25] Additionally, the various non .223 / 5.56 calibers have their own particular twist rate, such as 1:10, 1:11 and 1:12 for 6.8×43mm SPC, 1:10 for 7.62×39mm, 1:9 for the 6.5 Grendel, and 1:8 for .300 Blackout.
A Colt AR-15 on display at the National Firearms Museum. This example is fitted with an early waffle-patterned 20-round magazine.
Standard issue magazines are 20- or 30-round staggered-column magazines and traditional box magazines exist in 40- and 45-round capacities. Drum magazines with 90- and 100-round capacities, such as Beta C-Mags are available, as well. Low-capacity magazines, usually of a 5- or 10-round capacity, are available to comply with some areas’ legal restrictions, for hunting, and for benchrest shooting, where a larger magazine can be inconvenient. Surefire is now offering extended capacity magazines in 60- and 100-round capacity configurations. These are of a staggered column design, dubbed casket magazines due to their shape. Usable magazines have been constructed from a variety of materials including steel, aluminum, and high-impact plastics.
Muzzle devices
Most AR-15 rifles have a barrel threaded in 1⁄2″-28 threads to incorporate the use of a muzzle device such as a flash suppressor, sound suppressor or muzzle brake.[26] The initial design had three tines or prongs and was prone to breakage and getting entangled in vegetation. The design was later changed to close the end to avoid this problem. Eventually, on the A2 version of the rifle, the bottom port was closed to reduce muzzle climb and prevent dust from rising when the rifle was fired in the prone position.[27] For these reasons, the US military declared this muzzle device a compensator, but it is more commonly known as the “GI” or “A2” flash suppressor.[28]
Flash suppressors are designed to reduce the muzzle flash from the weapon to preserve the shooter’s night vision. A flash suppressor does not improve the ballistic performance of a rifle or make it more lethal, but some jurisdictions have banned or severely restrict usage of flash suppressors. In most of these areas, AR-15 shooters have installed muzzle brakes or compensators on their rifles.
The threaded barrel allows sound suppressors with the same thread pattern to be installed directly to the barrel, however this can result in complications such as being unable to remove the suppressor from the barrel.[29] A number of suppressor manufacturers have turned to designing “direct-connect” sound suppressors which can be installed over an existing flash suppressor as opposed to using the barrel’s threads.[29]
AR-15 rifles, like all semi-automatic rifles, are subject to strong restrictions on ownership in all states and territories in Australia. The only means of legally owning a functional AR-15-type rifle in Australia today (other than law enforcement uses) is to have a Category D Firearms License (e.g. a professional animal culler). Individuals with a Firearms Collector’s License may own a deactivated firearm (with the barrel plugged up and the action welded shut), and members of a military re-enactment organization may own rifles converted to firing only blanks.[citation needed]
Restrictions on semi-automatic rifles were introduced in 1996 in response to the Port Arthur massacre – one of the firearms used was an AR-15. Previously, AR-15 rifles were legal to own in Queensland and Tasmania.[citation needed]
Imported AR-15 rifles are too expensive for television and film production because the company must destroy or export semi-automatic rifles after use. Warwick Firearms & Militaria, a Melbourne prop maker, manufactures AR-15-type “WFM4” rifles locally,[30][31] with approximately three dozen having been sold.[32] They are fully functional, but may be purchased only with government permission.[citation needed]
Austria
In Austria, semi-automatic centerfire rifles have to be classified as sporting or hunting firearms in order to obtain civilian-legal status. After this classification, they are considered “category B” firearms, which means that holders of gun licenses may own them. These licenses are may-issue items if the applicant specifies a valid reason (self-defense at home for example is considered valid by law in any case), passes a psychological test and attends a gun-basics course.[citation needed]
Three AR-15 manufacturers (“Hera Arms”, “Schmeisser” and “Oberlandarms”), all producing in Germany have had versions of their AR-15 models successfully classified as class B weapons. These Austrian versions differ slightly from the original design in order to ensure that no military full-auto trigger, bolt and barrel may be installed. Additionally, bayonet lugs, flash hiders and weapon lights are prohibited on semi-automatic rifles while muzzle brakes and compensators are legal. There is no minimum length for barrels, therefore even barrel lengths as short as 7.5″ are possible, and there are no magazine capacity limits.[citation needed]
Belgium
Semi-automatic firearms and thus AR-15 type rifles are legal to own, if in possession of the correct license.[citation needed]
Canada
The Government of Canada classifies the AR-15 (and its variants) as a restricted firearm. For anyone wanting to lawfully own an AR-15, they must obtain a Possession and Acquisition License (PAL) valid for restricted firearms (RPAL) and then each acquisition of a restricted class firearm is subject to approval by the Chief Firearms Officer (CFO) of the would-be buyer’s province of residence.[33][34] With the introduction of strict gun control measures by former Prime MinisterJean Chretien (Bill C-68), the AR-15 had been intended to be classified as a prohibited firearm, making it impossible to privately own one. However, due to the presence of nationwide Service Rifle target shooting competitions, the AR-15 was granted a sporting exception.[citation needed]
As with all Restricted firearms (including most pistols, some shotguns, and some rifles) AR-15s are allowed to be fired only at certified firing ranges since the CFOs of all provinces and territories have agreed to issue ATTs (Authority To Transport) for these guns only to certified ranges. Since owners cannot legally take these guns anywhere else that shooting is allowed, they can in effect only shoot them on certain ranges. In order to legally own and transport a Restricted firearm, the firearm must be registered with the Royal Canadian Mounted PoliceCanadian Firearms Program and must apply for an Authorization to Transport (or ATT) from the Chief Firearms Officer (CFO) for their province or territory. Additionally, the firearm must be unloaded, deactivated by a trigger or action lock, and be in a locked, opaque “hard to break into” container during transport.[35] (“Hard to break into” is not legally defined within the Canadian firearms act or the CCC.)
The issuance of ATTs varies considerably from province to province, and is generally reflective of a particular province’s political and social levels of acceptance of gun ownership. In Ontario the “policy” of the CFO (currently Chris Wyatt) for obtaining an ATT for restricted firearms is to become a member of a range. However policy is not law and when challenged they have no choice but to either issue the ATT requested or do a formal refusal which can be challenged (for free) in court since they must abide by the law. It is not legal for them to refuse on the phone since the only acceptable method for that is in writing as per FA s.72(1).[36]
The Czech Firearms Act categorizes semi-automatic rifles as “Class B” firearm. Class B firearms are available to anyone with a firearm license, which is shall issue (i.e. cannot be denied) subject to fulfillment of the act’s conditions (e.g. clean criminal record, no history of mental illness, no DUI in past three years, passing gun license exam). Prior to purchase, a licensed civilian needs to fill a permit to “buy, possess and carry”, which is also shall issue and takes about 15 minutes to process, with the local police station. The purchase permit is valid for one year. Any firearm must be registered with the police within ten days of purchase.[citation needed]
There is no magazine capacity limitation for sport or self-defense use. On the other hand, only magazines with maximum capacity of two rounds may be used for hunting. AR-15 as well as any other semi-automatic rifle may be carried loaded for self-defense only inconcealed manner. Hunters may carry the firearm openly to and from the area of a hunt in way preventing its immediate use (i.e. unloaded, with empty magazines). There are no limitations on flash suppressors and bayonets, while lasers and silencers fall into “Class A” category requiring a may-issue permit (usually difficult to obtain). Night vision falls also into “Class A” category; however, the permit process for it has been simplified since 2014 for hunters. Moreover, in 2015 the Ministry of Agriculture started subsidizing up to 80% of purchase price of night vision equipment to hunters who shoot more than 20 wild boar a year in order to cull boar infestation.[citation needed]
AR-15s are quite popular in the Czech Republic. As of 2015, there are three manufacturers of AR-15 in the Czech Republic: V-AR, Proarms Armory and LUVO.[citation needed]
Finland
In Finland, possession of semi-automatic rifles, including the AR-15, is legal, provided that the rifle’s owner acquires a permit for owning one. A license is required for each individual firearm and there needs to be a specific reason for ownership such as participation in the shooting sports and hunting. In Finland maximum magazine capacity in hunting is 3 rounds. But in addition a hunter can have 1 round chambered which brings their direct ammo capacity up to 4 rounds. There is no magazine capacity limit on guns for target or other sporting shooting.[citation needed]
Germany
The AR-15, like other semi-automatic rifles, is categorized as a “Class B” firearm. Possession of semi-automatic rifles, including the AR-15, is legal with a gun license (Waffenbesitzkarte). These licenses are shall-issue, if all criteria defined by the law are met. The applicant must specify a valid reason (collecting, hunting or sports shooting), have no criminal background and attend a gun-basics course.[citation needed]
While hunting in Germany, if a semi-automatic firearm is used, the magazine must be blocked to accept no more than two rounds of ammunition, meaning that when hunting game animals only three shots in total can be fired (as one additional round is loaded in the chamber) without reloading. This rule is stated in German hunting law and not in German gun law, and does not apply to handguns. Also, it is not allowed to use a magazine that is capable of accepting more than 10 rounds of ammunition while sports shooting in Germany; however, ownership of a magazine that can accept more than two rounds (for hunters) or ten rounds (for sports shooters) is legal in Germany without a license.[citation needed]
The acquisition and possession of ammunition requires a license in Germany, which is usually given with the gun license itself. When purchasing ammunition at a shooting range for immediate use, no license is required.[citation needed]
France
In France, any semi-automatic firearms using military calibers (9mm, 5.56 NATO, 7.62×39, 7.62 NATO, .45 ACP, .50 BMG, .50 AE.) are authorized as ‘B category’ weapons. While fully automatic ‘A category’ weapons are highly restricted, semi-automatic ones are legal for civilian possession. A hunting or sports shooting license is required to possess and purchase any firearm, as well as ammunition, in France.[citation needed]
Ireland
In Ireland, legal possession of a semi-automatic AR-15 requires a restricted firearms licence from the applicant’s local Garda chief superintendent, who has wide discretion to approve or deny the license. Semi-automatic centrefire rifles are generally may-issue items and the requirements to own one can vary greatly from province to province. Upgraded security measures may be a pre-condition of granting this licence.[37]
Italy
In Italy, the AR-15 rifle belongs to B7 class and can be owned by civilians, provided it is incapable of fully automatic fire. Like every other gun, it must be registered and to purchase it citizens must have a valid license, which is granted to every person who qualifies.[citation needed]
The rifles are chambered in .223 or 5.56×45 (M193 ball). NATO ammo in 5.56 mm is illegal for civilian use. Due to the Italian legal catalog of rifles, an AR-15 can be considered for hunting use or sports use. If the rifle is classified for hunting use, it is legal to own any number of AR-15s. If the rifle is classified for sporting use, it is possible to own only 6 guns with the same “sporting” classification.[citation needed]
New Zealand
The AR-15 rifle is treated like any other semi-automatic rifle. They are legal to own by individuals holding a firearms license; however, specific features (folding stock, pistol grip, magazines holding more than 7 rounds, etc.) will require it to be registered as a Military-Style Semi-Automatic (MSSA) requiring an ‘E Category’ endorsement on their license.[citation needed]
Poland
According to Polish laws on firearms, AR-15s and clones do not have any special status. Any civilian holder of firearm licence can purchase and use one without any restrictions, excluding full auto versions. Stock types, magazine capacity, and barrel length are not regulated, although hunting is allowed only with magazines holding six or fewer rounds.[citation needed]
Russia
Russian laws on weapons treat AR-15 rifles as any other rifle. In general, semi-auto only versions with magazine capacity not exceeding 10 rounds are legal for civilians to own, provided that a special “rifled firearm license” is acquired by that individual.[citation needed]
Sweden
The AR-15, like all other semi-automatic rifles, is legal for individuals who need one for competitive use (IPSC rifle or 3-gun matches). A valid competition license is required, and all weapons are registered with the police. The AR-15 is not allowed for hunting use.[citation needed]
South Africa
The AR-15 like any other semi-automatic long arm in South Africa, is legal for anyone who holds any of the following licenses:
Licence to possess firearm for dedicated hunting and dedicated sports-shooting
Licence to possess firearm for business purposes
Licence to possess restricted firearm for self-defence
While not prohibited, common citizens can only own semi-automatic AR-15s if they are members of a hunting or target club, and possess dedicated sport person or dedicated hunter status granted by organisations accredited by the South African Police Service(SAPS).[38][39] Other licenses allowing the possession of semi-automatic rifles are only available to people who require their use in the conduct of their business (e.g. security personnel), and citizens who can convincingly prove to the Registrar that non-restricted firearms are not sufficient to provide protection. The latter requires a specific motivation for the need of a restricted firearm for self-defence[38] and have been granted to rhino farmers.[40][41][42]
United Kingdom
As with all semi-automatic, centerfire rifles, AR-15s are classed as a Section 5 weapon (Prohibited), i.e., a person must provide an exceptional reason and gain permission from the Home Secretary, making ownership all but impossible for a private citizen. However, centerfire AR-15s in a manually operated straight pull configuration or semi-automatic AR-15s that are chambered to fire a .22 rimfire cartridge are legal and can be held on a standard Section 1 Firearms Certificate. There are no restrictions on assault weaponfeatures in the UK, and no restrictions on magazine capacity. There are a number of UK manufacturers of “straight-pull” AR-15 variants. Southern Gun Company has tried to introduce a 9mm “self-ejecting” variant for gallery rifle shooting nicknamed the “Unicorn” but, despite numerous units being sold on the understanding that the rifle was a compliant Section 1 firearm, the rifles were seized and subjected to stringent testing by the UK Forensic Science Service (FSS). A small number of pre-production models were found to be non-compliant with section 1 status. However, later models were deemed Section 1 compliant and were returned to their owners.[citation needed]
United States
At the federal level, AR-15s are legal and considered the same as any other rifle.
During the period 1994–2004, variants with certain features such as collapsible stocks, flash suppressors, and bayonet lugs were prohibited for sales to civilians by the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, with the included Federal Assault Weapons Ban. Included in this was a restriction on the pistol grip that protrudes beneath the stock, which was considered an accessory feature under the ban and was also subject to restrictions. Some rifles were manufactured with a grip not described under the Ban installed in its place. Those AR-15s that were manufactured with the restricted features, as well as the accompanying full capacity magazines, were stamped “Restricted Military/Government/Law Enforcement/Export Only”. The restrictions only applied to guns manufactured after the ban took effect. It was legal to own, sell, or buy any gun built before 1994. Hundreds of thousands of pre-ban ARs were sold during the ban as well as new guns redesigned to be legal.
Since the expiration of the Federal AWB in September 2004,[43] these features became legal in most states.[44] Also, the manufacture and sale of formerly-restricted rifles has resumed.
Six states, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, California, Maryland, and Connecticut, heavily regulate possession of AR-15 type rifles either by the restriction of certain features or outright bans of certain manufacturers’ models. California residents may own certain AR-15 type rifles, but they are required to have a fixed magazine not exceeding 10 rounds. Massachusetts and New Jersey have essentially continued following the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban criteria on numerous semiautomatic rifles. New York, Maryland, and Connecticut enacted a ban on sales of AR-15 (and other types of firearms) in response to the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting Massacre. These various state laws have been heavily criticized by many pro-gun organizations.
Under U.S. firearms laws, the lower receiver of the AR-15 is considered a firearm and is subject to purchasing restrictions. The AR-15 upper receiver assembly is considered a part, and may be purchased and mail-ordered in most locations. This is a desirable feature for enthusiasts, who can purchase a number of upper receivers (often in different calibers and barrel lengths) and interchange them with the same lower receiver.
Adding a shoulder stock to an AR-15 with a barrel shorter than 16″ would constitute constructing a Short-Barreled Rifle (SBR) under NFA rules, and thus is subject to a $200 tax stamp. The receiver, or serial-numbered part, is still considered a firearm, but a receiver has unique status assigned by the Gun Control Act of 1968 as amended, and by ATF regulations or rulings. ATF ruling July 7, 2009 illustrates a receiver’s unique legal status even if the receiver can only be made into a rifle.[45] Under the United States v. Thompson-Center Arms Company Supreme Court ruling, an individual can possess parts for both the rifle and pistol so long as they are not assembled improperly.[46] This ruling has been further clarified by the ATF Director in a ruling (ATF Ruling 2011-4[47]) dated July 25, 2011 which restates most of the findings in the Thompson case.
Following the 1992 ruling, the ATF claimed that the finding in United States v. Thompson-Center Arms Company only applies to products of Thompson Contender, and not to any other companies’ products.[48] This has changed under ATF ruling 2011–4, which states
A firearm, as defined by the National Firearms Act (NFA), 26 U.S.C. 5845(a)(3), is made when unassembled parts are placed in close proximity in such a way that they: (a) serve no useful purpose other than to make a rifle having a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length; or (b) convert a complete weapon into such an NFA firearm.[49] A firearm, as defined by 26 U.S.C. 5845(a)(3) and (a)(4), is not made when parts within a kit that were originally designed to be configured as both a pistol and a rifle are assembled or re-assembled in a configuration not regulated under the NFA (e.g., as a pistol, or a rifle with a barrel or barrels of 16 inches or more in length).[49] A firearm, as defined by 26 U.S.C. 5845(a)(3) and (a)(4), is not made when a pistol is attached to a part or parts designed to convert the pistol into a rifle with a barrel or barrels of 16 inches or more in length, and the parts are later unassembled in a configuration not regulated under the NFA (e.g., as a pistol).[49] A firearm, as defined by 26 U.S.C. 5845(a)(4), is made when a handgun or other weapon with an overall length of less than 26 inches, or a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length, is assembled or produced from a weapon originally assembled or produced only as a rifle.[49] Such a weapon would not be a “pistol” because the weapon was not originally designed, made, and intended to fire a projectile by one hand.
Furthermore, adding a forward pistol grip to an AR-15 designated as a pistol constitutes manufacture of an AOW (any other weapon).[50] Both of these actions require an approved “Form 1” and payment of a $200 tax prior to the actual construction of the item. Current wait times for approval average 5–8 months, during which time no modifications or construction may be done.
As of 2012, there are an estimated 2.5-3.7 million rifles from the AR-15 family in civilian use in the United States.[51][unreliable source?] They are favored for target shooting, hunting, and personal protection, and have become the most popular rifle in the U.S.[52]
The Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act of 1989 banned Colt AR-15 rifles by name in the State of California. California’s assault weapons ban following the Supreme Court of California‘s 2000 decision in Kasler v. Lockyer went further and banned AR-15s made by other manufacturers by name.[53] AR-15-style rifles that are not named specifically by the Roberti-Roos or other restricted lists can be purchased in the state with some major modifications. Since these are not on the various lists of prohibited firearms, their lower receivers (the part that is legally the firearm) are referred to as “Off List Lowers” (OLL). These OLLs are very common in California, and at least several hundred thousand of them have been sold in the state since the ban went into effect.[citation needed]
Reliability
This section may need to be rewritten entirely to comply with Wikipedia’s quality standards, as it is not written in encyclopedia prose, and has no article links. You can help. The discussion page may contain suggestions.(June 2016)
Early versions of the AR-15 were often considered unreliable due to problems encountered by American soldiers in Vietnam. At least part of the problems were due to the ammunition.[54] The choice of propellant (powder) went through a number of alternatives, starting with IMR 4475 for the Army, and WC 846 for the Air Force. Continued testing of WC 846 (a ball powder) showed problems with fouling and issues with the cyclic rate being too high.[55] Other powders showed problems, as well. The rifles were also issued without any cleaning kits, and many soldiers were not trained to use the M16s when they were first issued.[56]
Malfunctions
With the plethora of manufacturers of complete weapons and aftermarket barrels, there is a potential hazard associated with chamber specifications. Both civilian (SAAMI) specification .223 Remington and 5.56mm NATO are available. Though the external dimensions of the two cases are the same and both chambers typically accept both types of ammunition, the firing of military specification ammunition in civilian specification chambers can produce chamber pressures greater than the barrel is designed to handle. Internally the 5.56×45mm case wall is identical to the .223, though the NATO round is typically loaded to produce higher pressure than the .223. The most common malfunction resulting from firing military 5.56×45mm ammunition in a .223 Remington chamber is that the primer can be forced out of the case by chamber pressure, often resulting in the primer becoming lodged somewhere in the action of the rifle. Disassembly of the rifle is often necessary to remove the jammed primer.[57]
A few AR-15 manufacturers incorporate the use of a hybrid chamber specification known as the Wylde chamber. Designed by and named after Bill Wylde of Greenup, Illinois, this chambering was designed to accurately shoot the military ball ammo of the day while still feeding reliably. Coincidentally, it shoots the longer 80 gr bullets commonly used in the sport of Highpower Rifle Competition very well and is one of the preferred chambers for that use. While the Wylde chamber allows for optimal seating depth of 80 grain bullets over .223 Remington and 5.56 NATO, it is capable of accepting both ammunition types. The Wylde chamber is used by many manufacturers who sell “National Match” configuration AR-15 rifle, barrels, and upper receivers. The type of chamber, manufacturer, and rifling twist in inches is typically found stamped into the barrel in front of the front sight assembly.
An additional point of concern in the design is the inertial firing pin. A lightweight firing pin rides in a channel inside the bolt unrestrained. When the bolt locks forward during loading, the firing pin typically rides forward and impacts the primer of the chambered round. In military specification ammunition and quality civilian ammunition, this is not normally enough to fire the round and only leaves a small “ding” on the primer. With more sensitive primers or improperly seated primers, this can cause a slamfire during loading.[58]Another type of malfunction, hammer follow, is also a potential problem for AR type rifles.
In addition, the AR-15 lower receiver can be used as a trigger mechanism for single shot or side-fed upper receivers for a variety of larger calibers, including .50 BMG[59] and crossbow[60] bolts.
Story 2: It is Jobs, The Economy and National Security — Stopping and Reversing The 30-50 Million Illegal Alien Invasion of The United States — Hillary Reads Prepared Speech On Economy and Attacks Trump To Small Ohio Audience — Indict Hillary and Vote Trump — Videos
Trump Fires Back at Hillary After She Bashes Him in Economic Speech
Hillary Clinton Columbus Ohio FULL Speech On Economy & Trump 6/21/16
DONALD TRUMP FULL INTERVIEW WITH BILL O’REILLY FOX NEWS (6/20/2016) [MONDAY, JUNE 20, 2016]
DONALD J TRUMP FULL INTERVIEW ON FOX & FRIENDS | FOX NEWS (6/21/2016)
Exclusive : Trump Insider On Lewandowski Firing and Future of Campaign
“I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of the Islamic State,”
~Omar Mateen, Dead Orlando Killer
The hunt for Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
Story 1: Trump Fires Campaign Manager Corey Lewandowski — Trump Should Announce Cruz as Vice President Pick and Sessions As Secretary of State —
Donald Trump fires campaign manager Corey Lewandowski
Trump senior adviser: Paul Manafort is now totally in charge
FIRED: Trump Campaign Manager Went Too Far
How Lewandowski’s dismissal impacts Trump campaign
Story 2: Commonsense Radical Islamic Terrorist Control — Profiling and Banning Radical Islamists From U.S. vs. Lying Lunatic Left No Sense Gun Control and Limiting Second Amendment Rights of American People and Politically Correct Justice Department and FBI See No Radical Islamic Terrorist — Lynch’s Partial Transcript Eliminating Pledge To Islamic State and Leader Abu-Bakr al-Baghdadi —
FBI RELEASES PARTIAL TRANSCRIPTS OF 911 PHONE CALLS WITH ORLANDO GUNMAN
Omar Mateen 911 Call
Lynch: Editing Transcript Of Mateen/Police Conversation; 6-19-2016
Mateen Professed Loyalty To ISIS Leader On 911 Call Transcript
FBI Will Release Orlando Gunman And Police Transcript
Orlando Shooter Call 911 Talked To Police About Boston Bombers (Other Terrorists FBI Investigated)
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FBI, DOJ release new, full transcript of Orlando shooter’s 911 call
Under pressure from Republican leaders, the Justice Department on Monday afternoon reversed itself and released a full, uncensored transcript of the Orlando terrorist’s 911 call on the night of the massacre, calling the morning’s furor over omissions in the document “an unnecessary distraction.”
An earlier version of the transcript had deleted the word “Islamic State” and the name of ISIS leader “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.” Omar Mateen made the 50-second 911 call in which he claimed responsibility for the terror attack and pledged allegiance to Islamic State’s leader at 2:35 a.m. The call came just over a half hour into the June 12 slaughter at gay nightclub Pulse.
“I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of the Islamic State,” Mateen says on the new transcript.
The old version had several words scrubbed and read: “I pledge allegiance to [omitted] may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of [omitted].”
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called the earlier decision by DOJ and the FBI to release only a partial transcript “preposterous.”
“We know the shooter was a radical Islamist extremist inspired by ISIS,” Ryan said in a statement. “We also know he intentionally targeted the LGBT community. The administration should release the full, unredacted transcript so the public is clear-eyed about who did this, and why.”
Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott also took aim at the edited accounting of Mateen’s statements the night he killed 49 and wounded 53 more.
“This is evil, this is ISIS. It’s radical Islam,” Scott told Fox News earlier Monday. “At some point, we lost 49 lives here and we lost a journalist who was beheaded by ISIS. We need a president that’s going to say I care about destroying ISIS.”
Attorney General Loretta Lynch went on numerous Sunday talk shows with the news that the partial transcripts would be released on Monday, immediately generating controversy from not only elected officials, but media outlets. On Monday, the White House said the decision was made solely by the Justice Department.
“All of the decisions about releasing the transcripts were made by Justice Department officials,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at the daily press briefing at the White House. “The view of the White House is that we should not interfere with an ongoing investigation and rather that those decisions should be made consistent with the assessment by law enforcement officials about the best way to advance the investigation.”
The FBI and DOJ reversed the morning decision and released the full transcript in an afternoon news release.
“Unfortunately, the unreleased portions of the transcript that named the terrorist organizations and leaders have caused an unnecessary distraction from the hard work that the FBI and our law enforcement partners have been doing to investigate this heinous crime,” the organizations said in a statement.
The only complete transcript released was of the 911 calls. Several calls made later to crisis negotiators were only released in summarized form with few direct quotes provided.
According to the Justice Department report, Mateen said twice during the 911 call and at least once during later negotiations that he pledged ISIS or al-Baghdadi. Investigators said he spoke to negotiators in three different calls at 2:48 a.m., 3:03 a.m. and 3:24 a.m. The longest call was the second at 16 minutes. The third call, at three minutes, was the shortest. The first call lasted nine minutes.
“As the killer made these statements, he did so in a chilling, calm and deliberate manner,” Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ron Hopper said during a Monday morning news conference.
During one call, Mateen told negotiators that the U.S. should stop bombing Syria and Iraq — the countries with regions that comprise ISIS’ so-called caliphate. He said the bombings were why he was “out here right now.”
The calls with crisis negotiators may explain why officials waited three hours — until 5:14 a.m. — before ramming a hole in the side of the club to free hostages and engage Mateen in a final, deadly fight. During those three hours, Mateen was holed up in a bathroom with several hostages, though authorities have said no gun shots were fired during this period. Mateen later died during a shootout with police.
The summary shows that Mateen told negotiators he had a “vehicle outside that has some bombs. Just to let you know. You people are gonna get it, and I’m gonna ignite it if they try to do anything stupid.”
Mateen claimed he had an explosive vest similar to the kind used by terrorists “in France,” referencing the November terror attack in Paris.
“In the next few days, you’re going to see more of this type of action going on,” Mateen said.
He also reportedly told hostages that he would put suicide vests on them.
No explosives were ever found on Mateen inside the club or in any vehicles outside. Mateen was armed with two guns during the rampage.
Despite claims by the administration and law enforcement officials that ISIS did not direct Mateen to carry out the attack, Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Monday used the massacre as an example of why the terror group must be defeated.
“Orlando further steels our resolve to carry out all aspects of our coalition military campaign plan,” Carter said at a conference organized by the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank. “First, destroying ISIL’s parent tumor in Iraq and Syria, which is necessary, but not sufficient; second, combating ISIL’s metastases worldwide wherever it appears; and third helping protect the homeland.”
Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report
Story 3: Beware of Polls That Overweight Democrats — Big Lie Media Are Misleading You On Purpose! — American People Are Not Stupid But Obama and Lynch Protecting Hillary Clinton and The J.V. Team Radical Islamic Terrorists! — Never Mind — Here Is The Full Transcript — Videos — Videos
Donald Trump fired his hard-charging campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, in a dramatic shake-up designed to calm panicked Republican leaders and reverse one of the most tumultuous stretches of Trump’s unconventional White House bid.
Lewandowski, in some ways as brash and unconventional as the candidate himself, had been by Trump’s side since the beginning of his unlikely rise to presumptive GOP nominee. But he clashed with longtime operatives brought in to make the seat-of-the-pants campaign more professional. The former conservative activist played a central role in daily operations, fundraising, and Trump’s search for a running mate, but Lewandowski’s aggressive approach also fueled near-constant campaign infighting that complicated Trump’s shift toward the general election.
Reached on Monday, Lewandowsky deflected any criticism of his approach, pointing instead to campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
“Paul Manafort has been in operational control of the campaign since April 7. That’s a fact,” Lewandowski said, declining to elaborate on his dismissal.
Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks described Lewandowski’s departure as a “parting of ways.” A person close to Trump said Lewandowski was forced out largely because of his poor relationship with the Republican National Committee and GOP officials. That person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.
The move came as Trump faced continued deep resistance from many quarters of his party concerned by his contentious statements and his reluctance to engage in traditional fundraising. Trump was upset that so many Republicans — House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell among them — were reluctant to support him, the person said, and at least partially blamed Lewandowski.
“Firing your campaign manager in June is never a good thing,” said veteran Republican operative Kevin Madden. “The campaign will have to show dramatic changes immediately on everything from fundraising and organizing to candidate performance and discipline in order to demonstrate there’s been a course correction. Otherwise it’s just cosmetics.”
Lewandowski has long been a controversial figure in Trump’s campaign, but benefited from his proximity to the presumptive Republican nominee. Often mistaken for a member of the candidate’s security team, he traveled with Trump on his private plane to nearly every campaign stop, giving him more direct access to the businessman than nearly any other campaign staffer.
He was a chief promoter of the idea that the best campaign strategy was to “Let Trump be Trump.” Lewandowski frequently dismissed the notion that Trump needed to hire more experienced political hands, spend on polling and sophisticated data operations, and moderate his rhetoric as he moved toward the general election. That approach clashed with seasoned operatives hired in recent months.
Minutes after news of Lewandowski’s departure was announced, Trump aide Michael Caputo tweeted, “Ding dong the witch is dead!” and included a link to the song from the film, “The Wizard of Oz.”
Lewandowski was charged with misdemeanor battery in the spring for an altercation involving a female reporter during a rally. The charges were later dropped. Trump defended Lewandowski throughout the episode and repeatedly framed his own actions as a sign of loyalty and a demonstration that he would not give in to outside pressure.
“Folks, look, I’m a loyal person,” Trump told voters at the time.
“It’s so important,” he said of loyalty in a subsequent interview. “And it’s one of the traits that I most respect in people. You don’t see it enough.”
Yet Lewandowski’s approach within the campaign sparked intense criticism from experienced Republican operatives inside and outside of the campaign.
The move comes a day before Trump is to attend a major New York City fundraiser, organized by longtime GOP financier Woody Johnson, the NFL Jets owner. Trump will spend part of Tuesday and Wednesday at finance events in his home city.
Many of the top Republican fundraisers had encountered turbulence between worried donors and a campaign manager who did not seem fully onboard with the idea that Trump and the party needed to buckle down and raise the money needed to build a robust general election operation.
Republican strategist Ryan Williams, a frequent Trump critic, said that Lewandowski’s dismissal “is the first major public admission from Donald Trump that his campaign is not going well.”
“This shows donors, activists and party officials that he is willing to make significant changes, even if it means parting ways with a trusted political aide,” Williams said. “Now Trump needs to demonstrate that he is willing to change his own approach by toning down his rhetoric and becoming a more disciplined general election candidate.”
___
AP writers Steve Peoples and Julie Bykowicz in Washington contributed to this report.
FBI, DOJ release new, full transcript of Orlando shooter’s 911 call
Under pressure from Republican leaders, the Justice Department on Monday afternoon reversed itslef and released a full, unredacted transcript of the Orlando terrorist’s 911 call on the night of the massacre, calling the morning’s furor over omissions in the document “an unnecessary distraction.”
An earlier version of the transcript had deleted the word “Islamic State” and the name of ISIS leader “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.” Omar Mateen made the 50-second 911 call in which he claimed responsibility for the terror attack and pledged allegiance to Islamic State’s leader at 2:35 a.m. The call came just over a half hour into the June 12 slaughter at gay nightclub Pulse.
“I pledge allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of the Islamic State,” Mateen says on the new transcript.
The old version had several words scrubbed and read: “I pledge allegiance to [omitted] may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of [omitted].”
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., called the earlier decision by DOJ and the FBI to release only a partial transcript “preposterous.”
“We know the shooter was a radical Islamist extremist inspired by ISIS,” Ryan said in a statement. “We also know he intentionally targeted the LGBT community. The administration should release the full, unredacted transcript so the public is clear-eyed about who did this, and why.”
Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott also took aim at the edited accounting of Mateen’s statements the night he killed 49 and wounded 53 more.
“This is evil, this is ISIS. It’s radical Islam,” Scott told Fox News earlier Monday. “At some point, we lost 49 lives here and we lost a journalist who was beheaded by ISIS. We need a president that’s going to say I care about destroying ISIS.”
Attorney General Loretta Lynch went on numerous Sunday talk shows with the news that the partial transcripts would be released on Monday, immediately generating controversy from not only elected officials, but media outlets. On Monday, the White House said the decision was made solely by the Justice Department.
“All of the decisions about releasing the transcripts were made by Justice Department officials,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at the daily press briefing at the White House. “The view of the White House is that we should not interfere with an ongoing investigation and rather that those decisions should be made consistent with the assessment by law enforcement officials about the best way to advance the investigation.”
The FBI and DOJ reversed the morning decision and released the full transcript in an afternoon news release.
“Unfortunately, the unreleased portions of the transcript that named the terrorist organizations and leaders have caused an unnecessary distraction from the hard work that the FBI and our law enforcement partners have been doing to investigate this heinous crime,” the organizations said in a statement.
The only complete transcript released was of the 911 calls. Several calls made later to crisis negotiators were only released in summarized form with few direct quotes provided.
According to the Justice Department report, Mateen said twice during the 911 call and at least once during later negotiations that he pledged ISIS or al-Baghdadi. Investigators said he spoke to negotiators in three different calls at 2:48 a.m., 3:03 a.m. and 3:24 a.m. The longest call was the second at 16 minutes. The third call, at three minutes, was the shortest. The first call lasted nine minutes.
“As the killer made these statements, he did so in a chilling, calm and deliberate manner,” Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ron Hopper said during a Monday morning news conference.
During one call, Mateen told negotiators that the U.S. should stop bombing Syria and Iraq — the countries with regions that comprise ISIS’ so-called caliphate. He said the bombings were why he was “out here right now.”
The calls with crisis negotiators may explain why officials waited three hours — until 5:14 a.m. — before ramming a hole in the side of the club to free hostages and engage Mateen in a final, deadly fight. During those three hours, Mateen was holed up in a bathroom with several hostages, though authorities have said no gun shots were fired during this period. Mateen later died during a shootout with police.
The summary shows that Mateen told negotiators he had a “vehicle outside that has some bombs. Just to let you know. You people are gonna get it, and I’m gonna ignite it if they try to do anything stupid.”
Mateen claimed he had an explosive vest similar to the kind used by terrorists “in France,” referencing the November terror attack in Paris.
“In the next few days, you’re going to see more of this type of action going on,” Mateen said.
He also reportedly told hostages that he would put suicide vests on them.
No explosives were ever found on Mateen inside the club or in any vehicles outside. Mateen was armed with two guns during the rampage.
Despite claims by the administration and law enforcement officials that ISIS did not direct Mateen to carry out the attack, Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Monday used the massacre as an example of why the terror group must be defeated.
“Orlando further steels our resolve to carry out all aspects of our coalition military campaign plan,” Carter said at a conference organized by the Center for a New American Security, a Washington think tank. “First, destroying ISIL’s parent tumor in Iraq and Syria, which is necessary, but not sufficient; second, combating ISIL’s metastases worldwide wherever it appears; and third helping protect the homeland.”
Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.
Newly released transcripts: ‘I am in Orlando, and I did the shootings’
Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY
In the midst of a tense standoff with police, Orlando nightclub gunman Omar Mateen calmly claimed credit for the massacre and identified himself as an “Islamic soldier” while calling on U.S. authorities to stop the bombing in Iraq and Syria, according to partial transcripts of the attacker’s telephone contacts with dispatchers and crisis negotiators released on Monday.
“Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God,” Mateen told a 911 dispatcher in Arabic just after 2:30 a.m., June 12. “I am in Orlando, and I did the shootings.”
Mateen provided his full name during the 50-second call and then went on to pledge allegiance to a terror group, whose identity was redacted from the transcripts. Law enforcement officials, however, have said that the gunman pledged his solidarity to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, as well as to the Boston Marathon bombers and an American suicide bomber who died in a 2014 attack in Syria.
Ron Hopper, the FBI’s lead investigator in Orlando, said the terror group’s name and other references were redacted from the documents so as not to call undue attention to their causes.
USA TODAY
Read: Partial 911 transcripts from Orlando shootings
House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., however, called the decision to edit the transcript “preposterous.”
“We know the shooter was a radical Islamist extremist inspired by ISIS,” Ryan said. “We also know he intentionally targeted the LGBT community. The administration should release the full, un-redacted transcript so the public is clear-eyed about who did this, and why.”
Hopper said there was no evidence to indicate that Mateen was specifically directed to act by a terror group, though investigators believe he was “radicalized domestically.”
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said all decisions about the release of the transcript were made by the Justice Department. He declined to weigh in on the controversy. “The position of the White House is that we shouldn’t interfere with a pending law enforcement investigation,” he said.
But President Obama himself has repeatedly said that the shooter pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, most recently in his weekly radio address Saturday. “During his killing spree, he pledged allegiance to ISIL, a group that’s called on people around the world to attack innocent civilians,” Obama said of the gunman.
Meanwhile, a short summary of the gunman’s communications during three calls with crisis negotiators indicated that Mateen was asked directly what he had done inside the club, prompting an ominous warning to police.
“No, you already know what I did,” he said. “There is some vehicle outside that has some bombs, just to let you know. You people are gonna get it, and I’m gonna ignite it if they try to do anything stupid.”
He later indicated that he had an explosive vest, similar to the type “used in France” during last year’s Islamic State attacks in Paris.
“In the next few days, you’re going to see more of this type of action going on,” he said.
No explosives were ultimately found in the gunman’s vehicle or inside the club.
Mateen, 29, was killed when police stormed the gay nightclub Pulse after a three-hour standoff. The attack ultimately left 49 dead and 53 wounded.
Eighteen of the of the wounded remained hospitalized Monday. Four were in critical condition, Orlando Health said.
Authorities previously have said Mateen made two calls to 911 during the attack, and that police called him back once. Mateen also made a “goodbye” call to a friend, called a local television station, made posts to Facebook and exchanged texts with his wife while holed up in the club.
USA TODAY
Orlando marks week after Pulse massacre: tears and questions
Included with Monday’s partial disclosure of the gunman’s communications was a timeline based on Orlando police radio transmissions, which showed that officers from various agencies entered the nightclub and “engaged the shooter” at 2:08 a.m., six minutes after the initial alert that “multiple shots” had been fired at the club.
By 2:18 a.m., Orlando police had deployed its full SWAT force, an action that preceded the shooter’s three contacts with 911 dispatchers and three separate exchanges with crisis negotiators, lasting a total of 28 minutes.
Between the initial exchange of gunfire with police and the final assault that left the gunman dead — a period of about three hours — there were no reports of gunfire, according to the radio transmissions.
During that three-hour period, police disclosed that they launched a rescue operation during which they pulled an air conditioning unit from a nightclub dressing room, allowing an undisclosed number of victims to evacuate.
Thirteen minutes after after police finally breached a nightclub wall with explosives and an armored vehicle at 5:02 a.m., radio transmissions indicated that officers had “engaged the suspect and the suspect was reported down.”
Attorney General Loretta Lynch is scheduled to travel to Orlando Tuesday to meet with investigators for an update on the inquiry. On Sunday, she declined to say if a federal grand jury was likely to charge Mateen’s wife, Noor Salman, who officials say may have known her husband was planning the attack.
Investigators are trying to learn more not just about Mateen, but also about others who knew him, including members of the mosque he attended. Hopper said Monday that investigators had conducted 500 interviews in the case so far and gathered 600 pieces of evidence as part of an inquiry that could take “months or even years.”
Mateen had been on the FBI radar prior to the Orlando tragedy. FBI Director James Comey has provided a history of the FBI’s contacts with Mateen, which included a 10-month investigation of possible terror connections. The inquiry was prompted by provocative statements Mateen made to co-workers in 2013 while working as a security guard at a Florida courthouse.
USA TODAY
FBI chief Comey stakes out unusually public profile on biggest issues
Mateen drew the attention of agents in 2014 when he was identified as a suspected associate of American-born suicide bomber Moner Mohammad Abu Salha, who died in an attack in Syria. Investigators concluded that Mateen had no association of consequence with the bomber.
Contributing: John Bacon, Gregory Korte and Rick Hampson
A Mass Shooter ‘Pledges Allegiance’ To ISIS. What Does This Mean?
June 13, 20164:32 PM ET
By GREG MYRE
Tashfeen Malik (left) pledged allegiance to the Islamic State on Facebook just before she and her husband, Syed Farook, went on a shooting spree that left 14 dead in San Bernardino, Calif., last December. The couple is shown here in a 2014 photo. In just over a year, three separate attackers have declared support for ISIS as they carried out shootings in the U.S.
AP
The Orlando nightclub killings mark the third time in just over a year an attacker has claimed allegiance to the Islamic State, a group that has aggressively advocated for such lone wolf attacks.
So how significant is this?
One school of thought is that individual shooters are simply seeking maximum publicity by invoking the Islamic State, yet have no real links, and therefore the claim is of limited value in understanding the motive or preventing future attacks.
A countervailing view is that the Islamic State’s extremist ideology is inspiring shootings that are likely to continue as long as ISIS is seen as a powerful force. Therefore, the argument goes, the Islamic State needs to be routed as quickly as possible to strip the group of its appeal for radicals.
Omar Mateen, the man blamed for the Orlando shooting, pledged his allegiance to ISIS in 911 calls in the early stages of the attack Sunday morning. He targeted the LGBT community, which the Islamic State has dealt with in the most brutal fashion,throwing suspected gay men to their deaths from rooftops in Syria.
The FBI said it questioned Mateen in 2013 and again in 2014 over possible links to terrorist groups, but found no compelling evidence after an inquiry that lasted nearly a year. FBI Director James Comey said Monday there were “strong indications of radicalization by this killer,” but no evidence that he was acting on orders by ISIS or any other group.
Similar Pledges
The investigation is still in the early stages, though Mateen’s pledge to ISIS has echoes in two earlier cases.
Tashfeen Malik declared her allegiance to ISIS in a Facebook post last December as she and her husband launched a shooting spree that left 14 dead in San Bernardino, Calif. The FBI and other law enforcement agencies have investigated, but haven’t announced any ties between the couple and ISIS.
And in May 2015, Elton Simpson directed his Twitter followers to an ISIS supporter who tweeted on his behalf as he opened fire with another man in a Texas parking lot outside a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest. Simpson and his fellow gunman were both killed.
In all three cases, the Islamic State claimed credit after the pledges by the shooters were publicized.
Analysts say the pledges are troubling, but it’s difficult to determine what role, if any, ISIS played in inspiring these attacks.
“These individuals were already radicalized before the Islamic State was on the radar screen,” said Daniel Byman, who tracks terrorism at the Brookings Institution. “But it’s reasonable to assume that Islamic State propaganda has some impact. Groups do this for a reason. And from the Islamic State’s point of view, as they have more failures in Iraq and Syria, they will seek more successes with attacks abroad.”
“What I don’t know is whether the propaganda is a determining factor when it comes to carrying out an attack,” Byman added.
A Call To Target Westerners
After the U.S. and its allies began bombing ISIS in August 2014, the ISIS online magazine Dabiq urged supporters to kill Westerners wherever they could. Here’s an excerpt from it’s October 2014 edition:
“At this point of the crusade against the Islamic State, it is very important that attacks take place in every country that has entered into the alliance against the Islamic State, especially the U.S., U.K., France, Australia, and Germany. Rather, the citizens of crusader nations should be targeted wherever they can be found.”
Since then, ISIS has been linked to attacks in France, Belgium and the U.S. But analysts say it’s important to distinguish between attacks directed by ISIS and those in which the attacker may have acted alone.
The mass killings in Paris last November and in Brussels in March were coordinated by multiple attackers with direct ties to the extremist group, according to authorities in France and Belgium.
In the U.S., the links are much fuzzier, though terrorism immediately became the focus of the presidential campaign on Monday.
“The threat is metastasizing,” the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton,said in Cleveland. “We saw this in Paris, and we saw it in Brussels. We face a twisted ideology and poisoned psychology that inspires the so-called lone wolves: radicalized individuals who may or may not have contact and direction from any formal organization.”
Republican Donald Trump, meanwhile, criticized President Obama for not describing the Orlando shooting as “radical Islamic terrorism.”
“Unless you know the words and unless you know what’s going on, you’re never going to solve the problem,” Trump said on NBC’s Today show.
The U.S. bombing campaign against ISIS has contributed to its steady loss of territory in both Syria and Iraq. However, some critics have called for a stepped-up campaign, saying the current one is not sufficient to fully defeat ISIS.
Greg Myre is the international editor of NPR.org. Follow him @gregmyre1.
he Islamic State of Iraq and Syria extended its geographic influence on Monday when Egypt’s most deadly militant outfit pledged obedience to ISIS’ self-declared caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The group, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, operates in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Egyptian security forces within the last two years. Formed in the wake of Egypt’s Arab Spring, the group has attacked both Egyptian and Israeli targets.
While Ansar Beit al-Maqdis may be the deadliest group to pledge allegiance to ISIS in the last few months, it isn’t the first. In October, extremist militants in control of the Libyan city of Derna likewise pledged allegiance to Baghdadi, giving ISIS its first toehold in the turbulent country. Activists in Libya said a new “emir” was named to lead the city, and government buildings were converted into offices of the so-called Islamic State, according to the Associated Press.
[Update: On Thursday, ISIS released an audio recording purportedly of Baghdadi, accepting the new pledge.]
Earlier this year, lesser-known Islamic extremist groups such as Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, and Indonesia’s Jama’ah Ansharut Tauhid also voiced their support for ISIS. Similarly, small groups of individual fighters from two of Al Qaeda’s most powerful branches in Yemen and North Africa have defected to ISIS.
For ISIS, the growing support from militants operating beyond Syria and Iraq has helped strengthen the group in important ways. ISIS has sought such pledges of allegiance to bolster its reputation as the world’s leading jihadist group. More worrying, say global terror experts, it has increased its ability to both recruit foreign fighters and carry out attacks in territories far from its self-declared caliphate.
“The concern is that some of these groups will start carrying out attacks on behalf of the Islamic State,” according to J.M. Berger, co-author of the forthcoming book, ISIS: The State of Terror. “What we’ve seen with [Ansar Beit al-Maqdis] is they seem to be emulating some of the Islamic State’s tactics. Another concern is that the very, very brutal and very active pace that the Islamic State sets will spill over in some of these other areas.”
In a grim illustration of that point, three young activists were found beheaded in the Libyan city of Derna on Tuesday.
For now, at least, it remains unclear what tangible benefits such groups gain from pledging allegiance to ISIS, but at least one factor could be financial support. With the millions it has made through oil production and kidnapping ransoms, ISIS has more money than it can spend, according to Berger, who noted recent reports of ISIS offering money in exchange for pledges.
“What I would be looking for is evidence that when these groups pledge to ISIS, they’re going to get funding to step up their global operations,” Berger said.
Such benefits aside, pledges of support for ISIS may be splintering the global jihadi movement more broadly, according to Berger.
A recent, prominent example was when a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban and five commanders pledged loyalty to ISIS’ leader, saying, “I will obey and listen to [Baghdadi’s] every instruction, no matter what the circumstances and whether I like it or not.” The declaration led the Pakistani Taliban to fire the spokesman and all five commanders, and then restate its oath of allegiance to Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader that Al Qaeda recognizes as “emir.”
“From the perspective of the West, in some ways this is playing out favorably to us in that ISIS is causing dissent within existing jihadi organizations,” Berger said. “What we don’t want to see is ISIS winning this competition with Al Qaeda. We don’t want to see ISIS become the standard bearer for global jihad.”
Story 1: First The CIA Director Now The State Department Contradict Obama’s Islamic State, Syria and Iraq Policies — The Hillary Clinton Support Network Of Lying Lunatic Leftists Throws Obama Under The Bus — Work Place Violence — Hate Crime — Terrorist Act — Radical Islam — Radical Islamic Terrorist — Radical Islamic Terrorist Jihadists — Face Reality and Stopping Lying Obama — Radical Islamists Are A Majority of The World’s 1,600+ Million Muslims And Want Sharia Law — Ban All Radical Islamists From United States Permanently — Videos
Radical Islam: The Most Dangerous Ideology
What ISIS Wants
The rise of ISIS, explained in 6 minutes
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Robert Spencer Moment: Trump Was Right.
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The Basics of Islam 1: Robert Spencer on “Islamophobia”
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Gorka: CIA director no longer spreading Obama’s narrative
CIA CHIEF CONTRADICTS PRESIDENT OBAMA ON ISIS
Robert Spencer speaks on the Syrian refugee crisis and the Islamic idea of hijrah
State Department diplomats slam Obama’s Syria policy
Diplomats slam Obama’s Syria policy
Dozens of State Department officials just revolted against Obama’s Syria policy
How will Trump react to the diplomats’ memo on Syrian war?
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The war in Syria explained in five minutes | Guardian Animations
State Department dissent memo critical of Obama policy on Syria and Assad
State Department Demands Policy Shift In Syria | MSNBC
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DHS Whistleblower Exposes Government’s Submission To Jihad (FULL Press Conference)
Government Insider BLOWS WHISTLE on Obama’s ‘Countering Violent Extremism’ Policy
State Dept Under Fire For Including Syria In Top Foreign Policy Moments – America’s Newsroom
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Obama gives speech in Orlando
Obama goes on tirade against Trump over ‘dangerous’ Muslim ban, ‘radical Islam’
Obama on ‘Radical Islam’
Speech by President Barack Obama After Counter-ISIL Meeting
President Obama On Orlando Shooting
Top Ex-CIA Agent Has ‘Chilling Warning’ About Obama’s Plans for Islamic State!
CIA Director on Islamic State
CIA Director John Brennan on ISIS and Global Threats at CSIS
CIA Chief Warns Islamic State Isn’t Finished Yet
CIA’S Brennan: Islamic State’s Momentum Blunted in Syria, Iraq
Shariamerica: Islam, Obama, and the Establishment Clause
Full Event: Donald Trump Rally in Dallas, TX (6-16-16)
An ’embarrassing’ break: Dozens of State Department officials just revolted against Obama’s Syria policy
At least 51 “mid-to-high-level State Department officials” have signed a dissent channel cable breaking with President Barack Obama’s policy on Syria and calling for US airstrikes on the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
“Failure to stem Assad’s flagrant abuses will only bolster the ideological appeal of groups such as Daesh, even as they endure tactical setbacks on the battlefield,” the cable reads, according to The Journal.
Daesh is an alternate name for ISIS, aka the Islamic State or ISIL.
“We are aware of a dissent channel cable written by a group of State Department employees regarding the situation in Syria,” State Department spokesman John Kirby told The Wall Street Journal.
“We are reviewing the cable now, which came up very recently, and I am not going to comment on the contents,” he said.
The officials who signed the document “range from a Syria desk officer in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs to a former deputy to the American ambassador in Damascus,” and have all been involved in formulating or carrying out the administration’s Syria policy.
That policy has largely emphasized defeating the Islamic State over bolstering Syria’s anti-Assad rebel groups.
According to the American Foreign Service Association, the dissent channel is “a serious policy channel reserved only for consideration of responsible dissenting and alternative views on substantive foreign policy issues that cannot be communicated in a full and timely manner through regular operating channels and procedures.”
It is available to all “regular or re-employed annuitant employees” of the State Department and the US Agency for International Development.
The number of officials – at least 50 – who have signed the internal document calling for military action against Assad is unusual, a former State Department official who worked on Middle East policy told The Journal.
“It’s embarrassing for the administration to have so many rank-and-file members break on Syria,” they said.
Fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces sit in a lookout position in the western rural area of Manbij.Thomson Reuters
The cable calls for the Obama administration to place more emphasis on defeating Assad – whose brutality is seen by many experts as the driver of Syria’s jihadist problem – by arming and regaining the trust of Syria’s moderate opposition.
That, in turn, will “turn the tide of the conflict against the regime [to] increase the chances for peace by sending a clear signal to the regime and its backers that there will be no military solution to the conflict,” the cable reportedly says.
The CIA-backed factions of the Free Syrian Army – the majority of which are Arab and battling forces loyal to Assad – have at times clashed with Pentagon-trained fighters associated with the Syrian Democratic Forces, who are predominantly Kurdish and focused on defeating the Islamic State.
Their divergent military objectives and ethnicities have bred mistrust and fighting that is ultimately counterproductive to the cause of the revolution.
Several high-ranking government officials, moreover – including Robert S. Ford, a former ambassador to Syria, and Obama’s former defense secretary, Chuck Hagel – have left their positions over Obama’s failure to act decisively against Assad, whose brutality continues to fuel a bloody revolution that has left over 400,000 people dead and millions displaced.
“Many people working on Syria for the State Department have long urged a tougher policy with the Assad government as a means of facilitating arrival at a negotiated political deal to set up a new Syrian government,” Ford told The New York Times on Thursday.
Protesters carry Free Syrian Army flags and chant slogans during an antigovernment protest in the town of Marat Numan in Idlib Province, Syria, on March 4.REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
“The moral rationale for taking steps to end the deaths and suffering in Syria, after five years of brutal war, is evident and unquestionable,” the cable said. ” The status quo in Syria will continue to present increasingly dire, if not disastrous, humanitarian, diplomatic and terrorism-related challenges.”
Assad crossed Obama’s now infamous “red line” for airstrikes in 2013, when he used chemical weapons to kill more than 1,000 people in the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta. Obama backed away from that red line when Assad agreed to a Russia-brokered deal to destroy his chemical-weapons stockpile.
Some experts say, however, that the entire stockpile has not been destroyed as promised.
“The US’ Syria policy has always been in the head of one man, and one man only: Barack Obama. No one else has ever really had a say in what happens in Syria,” Tony Badran, a Middle East expert and researcher at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Business Insiderin a previous interview.
“Obama has owned it since day one – and from day one, he never intended to remove Assad,” he said.
The cable addresses Russia’s bombing campaign in Syria as well, asserting that Moscow and Assad have not taken past ceasefires and “consequential negotiations” seriously.
Russia entered the war in late September 2015 on behalf of Assad under the guise of fighting ISIS. Russian warplanes have primarily targeted non-jihadist, anti-Assad rebel groups, however, many of which are backed by the US, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia.
Government warplanes bombarded the besieged Syrian town of Darayya with barrel bombs last weekend, shortly after food aid was delivered to the town for the first time in nearly four years.
Chart: Obama Admin. On Pace to Issue One Million Green Cards to Migrants from Majority-Muslim Countries
SWEN PFOERTNER/AFP/Getty Images
by CAROLINE MAY
The Obama Administration is on pace to issue more than a million green cards to migrants from majority-Muslim countries, according to an analysis of Department of Homeland Security data.
A chart released by the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest Friday details the surge in immigration to the U.S. from majority-Muslim countries since President Barack Obama took office in 2009.
Specifically, in the first six fiscal years of Obama’s presidency (FY2009 – FY2014), his administration issued 832,014 green cards to migrants majority-Muslim countries, the most of which were issued to migrants from Pakistan (102,000), Iraq (102,000), Bangladesh (90,000), Iran (85,000), Egypt (56,000), and Somalia (37,000).
The total 832,014 new permanent residents do not include migrants on temporary, nonimmigrant visas — which allow foreign nationals to come to the U.S. temporarily for work, study, tourism and the like. As the subcommittee notes, the number also does not include those migrants who overstayed the terms of their visas.
Regardless, as the subcommittee explained in its analysis, the U.S. is playing host to immigrants from majority Muslim countries at an increasing pace.
Between FY 2013 and FY 2014, the number of green cards issued to migrants from Muslim-majority countries increased dramatically – from 117,423 in FY 2013, to 148,810 in FY 2014, a nearly 27 percent increase. Throughout the Obama Administration’s tenure, the United States has issued green cards to an average of 138,669 migrants from Muslim-majority countries per year, meaning that it is nearly certain the United States will have issued green cards to at least 1.1 million migrants from Muslim-majority countries on the President’s watch. It has also been reported that migration from Muslim-majority countries represents the fastest growing class of migrants.
Green cards, or Lawful Permanent Residency, puts immigrants on the path to citizenship and allows for lifetime residency, federal benefits, and work authorization. Included in the totals are refugees, who are required to apply for a green card after one year of residency in the U.S. Unlike other types of immigrants, refugees are immediately eligible for welfare benefits including Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), food stamps, and Medicaid.
A report from the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) indicated that in FY 2013, 91.4 percent of Middle Eastern refugees (accepted to the U.S. between 2008-2013) received food stamps, 73.1 percent were on Medicaid or Refugee Medical Assistance and 68.3 percent were on cash welfare.
Green Card Totals, FY09-FY14:
Pakistan (102K), Iraq (102K), Bangladesh (90K), Iran (85K), Egypt (56K), Somalia (37K), Uzbekistan (30K), Turkey (26K), Morocco (25K), Jordan (25K), Albania (24K), Afghanistan (21K), Lebanon (20K), Yemen (20K), Syria (18K), Indonesia (17K), Sudan (15K), Sierra Leone (12K), Guinea (9K), Senegal (8K), Saudi Arabia (9K), Algeria (8K), Kazakhstan (8K), Kuwait (6K), Gambia (6K), United Arab Emirates (5K), Azerbaijan (4K), Mali (4K), Burkina Faso (3K), Kyrgyzstan (3K), Kosovo (3K), Mauritania (3K), Tunisia (2K), Tajikistan (2K), Libya (2K), Turkmenistan (1K), Qatar (1K), Chad (1K)
Really, what did you expect? A considerable portion of U.S. domestic and foreign policy is based on the assumption that Islam in the U.S. will be different: that Muslims here believe differently from those elsewhere, and do not accept the doctrines of violence against and subjugation of unbelievers that have characterized Islam throughout its history. But on what is that assumption based? Nothing but wishful thinking. And future generations of non-Muslims will pay the price.
“Meanwhile, An Islamic Fifth Column Builds Inside America,” by Paul Sperry, IBD, October 1, 2015 (thanks to Pamela Geller)
In berating GOP presidential hopeful Ben Carson for suggesting a loyalty test for Muslims seeking high office, CNN host Jake Tapper maintained that he doesn’t know a single observant Muslim-American who wants to Islamize America.
“I just don’t know any Muslim-Americans — and I know plenty — who feel that way, even if they are observant Muslims,” he scowled.
Tapper doesn’t get out much. If he did, chances are he’d run into some of the 51% of Muslims living in the U.S. who just this June told Polling Co. they preferred having “the choice of being governed according to Shariah,” or Islamic law. Or the 60% of Muslim-Americans under 30 who told Pew Research they’re more loyal to Islam than America.
Maybe they’re all heretics, so let’s see what the enlightened Muslims think.
If Tapper did a little independent research he’d quickly find that America’s most respected Islamic leaders and scholars also want theocracy, not democracy, and even advocate trading the Constitution for the Quran.
These aren’t fringe players. These are the top officials representing the Muslim establishment in America today.
Hopefully none of them ever runs for president, because here’s what he’d have to say about the U.S. system of government:
• Muzammil Siddiqi, chairman of both the Fiqh Council of North America, which dispenses Islamic rulings, and the North American Islamic Trust, which owns most of the mosques in the U.S.: “As Muslims, we should participate in the system to safeguard our interests and try to bring gradual change, (but) we must not forget that Allah’s rules have to be established in all lands, and all our efforts should lead to that direction.”
• Omar Ahmad, co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the top Muslim lobby group in Washington: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Quran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”
• CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper: “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future.”
• Imam Siraj Wahhaj, director of the Muslim Alliance in North America: “In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing. And the only thing that will remain will be Islam.”
• Imam Zaid Shakir, co-founder of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, Calif.: “If we put a nationwide infrastructure in place and marshaled our resources, we’d take over this country in a very short time. . . . What a great victory it will be for Islam to have this country in the fold and ranks of the Muslims.”…
John Owen Brennan (born September 22, 1955)[1][2] is an American government official who is the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He has served as chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama; his title was Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and Assistant to the President.[1][3][4] His responsibilities included overseeing plans to protect the country from terrorism and respond to natural disasters, and he met with the President daily.[5][6]Previously, he advised President Obama on foreign policy and intelligence issues during the 2008 presidential campaign and transition.[7] Brennan withdrew his name from consideration for Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the first Obama administration over concerns about his support for transferring terror suspects to countries where they may be tortured while serving under President George W. Bush.[3][5] Instead, Brennan was appointed Deputy National Security Advisor, a position which did not require Senate confirmation.[3][5][8]
President Barack Obama nominated Brennan as his next director of the CIA on January 7, 2013.[11][12][13] The ACLU called for the Senate not to proceed with the appointment until it confirms that “all of his conduct was within the law” at the CIA and White House.[14] John Brennan was approved by the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 5, 2013 to succeedDavid Petraeus as the Director of the CIA by a vote of 12 to 3.[15]
While riding a bus to class at Fordham, he saw an ad in The New York Times that said the CIA was recruiting, and he felt a CIA career would be a good match for his “wanderlust” and his desire to do public service.[5] He received a B.A. in political science from Fordham in 1977.[3] His studies included a junior year abroad learning Arabic and taking Middle Eastern studies courses at the American University in Cairo.[3][5] He also received a Master of Arts in government with a concentration in Middle Eastern studies from the University of Texas at Austin in 1980.[5] He speaks Arabic fluently.[9]
Brennan is married to Kathy Pokluda Brennan, with whom he has had one son and two daughters.[2][3][16]
Brennan began his CIA career as an analyst, presumably in the Washington D.C. area, and spent 25 years with the agency.[1][5][17] At one point in his career, he was a daily intelligence briefer for President Bill Clinton.[5] In 1996 he was CIA station chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia when the Khobar Towers bombing killed 19 U.S. servicemen.[5] In 1999 he was appointed chief of staff to George Tenet, then-Director of the CIA.[3][5] Brennan became deputy executive director of the CIA in March 2001.[3] He was director of the newly created Terrorist Threat Integration Center from 2003 to 2004, an office that sifted through and compiled information for President Bush’s daily top secret intelligence briefings and employed the services of analysts from a dozen U.S. agencies and entities.[18] One of the controversies in his career involves the distribution of intelligence to the Bush White House that helped lead to an “Orange Terror Alert“, over Christmas 2003. The intelligence, which purported to list terror targets, was highly controversial within the CIA and was later discredited. An Obama administration official does not dispute that Brennan distributed the intelligence during the Bush era but said Brennan passed it along because that was his job.[19] His last post within the Intelligence Community was as director of the National Counterterrorism Center in 2004 and 2005, which incorporated information on terrorist activities across U.S. agencies.[3][20]
Brennan then left government service for a few years, becoming Chairman of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance (INSA) and the CEO of The Analysis Corporation (TAC). He continued to lead TAC after its acquisition by Global Strategies Group in 2007 and its growth as the Global Intelligence Solutions division of Global’s North American technology business GTEC, before returning to government service with the Obama administration as Homeland Security Advisor on January 20, 2009.[10]
On January 7, 2013, Brennan was nominated by President Barack Obama to be director of the Central Intelligence Agency.[21]
Counterterrorism advisor to President Obama
In late 2008 Brennan was the reported choice for Director of the CIA in the incoming Obama administration. Brennan withdrew his name from consideration because of opposition to his CIA service under President George W. Bush and past public statements he had made in support of enhanced interrogation and the transfer of terrorism suspects to countries where they might be tortured (extraordinary rendition).[3][5][22] President Obama then appointed him to be his chief counterterrorism advisor, a position that did not require Senate confirmation.[3][5][8]
Brennan and President Barack Obama at a meeting of the Homeland Security Council, May 2009
In August 2009, Brennan criticized some Bush-administration anti-terror policies, saying that waterboarding had threatened national security by increasing the recruitment of terrorists and decreasing the willingness of other nations to cooperate with the U.S.[23] He also described the Obama administration’s focus as being on “extremists” and not “jihadists“. He said that using the second term, which means one who is struggling for a holy goal, gives “these murderers the religious legitimacy they desperately seek” and suggests the US is at war with the religion of Islam.[23]
In an early December 2009 interview with the Bergen Record Brennan remarked, “the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities have to bat 1.000 every day. The terrorists are trying to be successful just once”.[5] At a press conferences days after the failed Christmas Day bomb attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Brennan said U.S. intelligence agencies did not miss any signs that could have prevented the attempt but later said he had let the President down by underestimating a small group of Yemeni terrorists and not connecting them to the attempted bomber.[1][24] Within two weeks after the incident, however, he produced a report highly critical of the performance of U.S. intelligence agencies, concluding that their focus on terrorist attempts aimed at U.S. soil was inadequate.[17] In February 2010, he claimed on Meet the Press that he was tired of Republican lawmakers using national security issues as political footballs, and making allegations where they did not know the facts.[25]
Drone program
In April 2012 Brennan was the first Obama administration official to publicly acknowledge CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. In his speech he argued for the legality, morality, and effectiveness of the program.[26][27][28] The ACLU and other organizations disagreed. In 2011/2012 he also helped reorganize the process, under the aegis of the Disposition Matrix database, by which people outside of war zones were put on the list of drone targets. According to an Associated Press story, the reorganization helped “concentrate power” over the process inside the White House administration.[29][30][31]
In June 2011, Brennan claimed that US counter-terrorism operations had not resulted in “a single collateral death” in the past year because of the “precision of the capabilities that we’ve been able to develop.”[32][33] Nine months later, Brennan claimed he had said “we had no information” about any civilian, noncombatant deaths during the timeframe in question.[33][34] The Bureau of Investigative Journalism disagreed with Brennan, citing their own research[35] that initially led them to believe that 45 to 56 civilians, including six children, had been killed by ten US drone strikes during the year-long period in question.[33] Additional research led the Bureau to raise their estimate to 76 deaths, including eight children and two women.[33] According to the Bureau, Brennan’s claims “do not appear to bear scrutiny.”[33]The Atlantic has been harsher in its criticism, saying that “Brennan has been willing to lie about those drone strikes to hide ugly realities.”[36]
According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Brennan’s comments about collateral death are perhaps explained by a counting method that treats all military-aged males in a strike zone as combatants unless there is explicit information to prove them innocent.[33][37]
CIA Director (2013–present)
Nomination
Brennan being sworn in as CIA Director, March 8, 2013
Morris Davis, a former Chief Prosecutor for the Guantanamo Military Commissions compared Brennan to Canadian Omar Khadr, who was convicted of “committing murder in violation of the law of war”.[38] He suggested that Brennan’s role in targeting individuals for CIA missile strikes was no more authorized than the throwing of the grenade Khadr was accused of.
On February 27, 2013, the Senate Intelligence Committee postponed a vote, expected to be taken the next day on the confirmation of Brennan until the following week. On March 5, the Intelligence Committee approved the nomination 12–3. The Senate was set to vote on Brennan’s nomination on March 6, 2013. However, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul began a talking Senate filibuster of the vote, citing President Barack Obama and his administration’s use of combat drones, stating “No one politician should be allowed to judge the guilt, to charge an individual, to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an individual. It goes against everything that we fundamentally believe in our country.”[39][40] Paul’s filibuster continued for 13 hours, after which Brennan was confirmed by a vote of 63–34.
Brennan was sworn into the office of CIA Director on March 8, 2013.[41]
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The Pronk Pops Show 704, June 22, 2016, Story 1: Part 1 of 2, Trump Destroys The CLIPPER — Crooked Lying Incompetent Progressive Politician Eugenics Racist Hillary Clinton — Sink — The CLIPPER, Sink The CLIPPER, Sink The CLIPPER –Sink Hillary Clinton — Elect Donald J. Trump — Videos
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The Pronk Pops Show Podcasts
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Story 1: Part 1 of 2, Trump Destroys The CLIPPER — Crooked Lying Incompetent Progressive Politician Eugenics Racist Hillary Clinton — Sink — The CLIPPER, Sink The CLIPPER, Sink The CLIPPER –Sink Hillary Clinton — Elect Donald J. Trump — Videos
Full Speech : Donald Trump Delivers Anti Hillary Clinton Speech in New York City 6/22/16
FULL SPEECH: Donald Trump Destroys Hillary Clinton In New York City Speech – 6/22/2016 Part 1!
FULL SPEECH: Donald Trump Destroys Hillary Clinton In New York City Speech – 6/22/2016 Part 2!
FULL SPEECH: Donald Trump Destroys Hillary Clinton In New York City Speech – 6/22/2016 Part 3!
FULL SPEECH: Donald Trump Destroys Hillary Clinton In New York City Speech – 6/22/2016 Part 4!
Gutfeld: Meet the anti-Romney
Donald Trump seeking to destroy Hillary Clinton
The Real Story: June 22, 2016- Chris Wallace: Trump’s case has got to be against Clinton
Anonymous – Hillary Clinton: The Hillary Files Full Documentary
“Hillary’s America” Trailer | Official Teaser Trailer HD
Peter Schweizer talks Clinton Cash on CNN
Clinton Cash The Movie Official Trailer
Peter Schweizer
“Money and Politics” – Peter Schweizer
Peter Schweizer reacts to State Department IG report on Clinton Emails
• The Tangled Clinton Web • Clinton Cash • 4/24/15 •
Hillary Clinton lying for 13 minutes straight.
YouTube Debate: Hillary – Are You a Liberal?
Hillary Clinton honors Margaret Sanger
Hillary Clinton admires Margaret Sanger’s Planned Parenthood
– JUNE 22, 2016 –
DONALD J. TRUMP ON THE STAKES OF THE ELECTION
Today I‘d like to share my thoughts about the stakes in this election.
People have asked me why I am running for President.
I have built an amazing business that I love and I get to work side-by-side with my children every day.
We come to work together and turn visions into reality.
We think big, and then we make it happen.
I love what I do, and I am grateful beyond words to the nation that has allowed me to do it.
So when people ask me why I am running, I quickly answer: I am running to give back to this country which has been so good to me.
When I see the crumbling roads and bridges, or the dilapidated airports, or the factories moving overseas to Mexico, or to other countries, I know these problems can all be fixed, but not by Hillary Clinton – only by me.
The fact is, we can come back bigger and better and stronger than ever before –Jobs, jobs, jobs!
Everywhere I look, I see the possibilities of what our country could be. But we can’t solve any of these problems by relying on the politicians who created them.
We will never be able to fix a rigged system by counting on the same people who rigged it in the first place.
The insiders wrote the rules of the game to keep themselves in power and in the money.
That’s why we’re asking Bernie Sanders’ voters to join our movement: so together we can fix the system for ALL Americans. Importantly, this includes fixing all of our many disastrous trade deals.
Because it’s not just the political system that’s rigged. It’s the whole economy.
It’s rigged by big donors who want to keep down wages.
It’s rigged by big businesses who want to leave our country, fire our workers, and sell their products back into the U.S. with absolutely no consequences for them.
It’s rigged by bureaucrats who are trapping kids in failing schools.
It’s rigged against you, the American people.
Hillary Clinton who, as most people know, is a world class liar –
just look at her pathetic email and server statements, or her phony landing in Bosnia where she said she was under attack but the attack turned out to be young girls handing her flowers, a total self-serving lie.
Brian Williams’ career was destroyed for saying far less.
Yesterday, she even tried to attack me and my many businesses. But here is the bottom line: I started off in Brooklyn New York, not so long ago, with a small loan and built a business worth over 10 billion dollars. I have always had a talent for building businesses and, importantly, creating jobs. That is a talent our country desperately needs.
I am running for President to end the unfairness and to put you, the American worker, first.
We are going to put America First, and we are going to Make America Great again.
This election will decide whether we are ruled by the people, or by the politicians.
Here is my promise to the American voter:
If I am elected President, I will end the special interest monopoly in Washington, D.C.
The other candidate in this race has spent her entire life making money for special interests – and taking money from special interests.
Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and theft.
She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund – doing favors for oppressive regimes, and many others, in exchange for cash.
Then, when she left, she made $21.6 million giving speeches to Wall Street banks and other special interests – in less than 2 years – secret speeches that she does not want to reveal to the public.
Together, she and Bill made $153 million giving speeches to lobbyists, CEOs, and foreign governments in the years since 2001.
They totally own her, and that will never change.
The choice in this election is a choice between taking our government back from the special interests, or surrendering our last scrap of independence to their total and complete control.
Those are the stakes.
Hillary Clinton wants to be President. But she doesn’t have the temperament, or, as Bernie Sanders’ said, the judgement, to be president.
She believes she is entitled to the office.
Her campaign slogan is “I’m with her.”
You know what my response to that is? I’m with you: the American people.
She thinks it’s all about her.
I know it’s all about you – I know it’s all about making America Great Again for All Americans.
Our country lost its way when we stopped putting the American people first.
We got here because we switched from a policy of Americanism – focusing on what’s good for America’s middle class – to a policy of globalism, focusing on how to make money for large corporations who can move their wealth and workers to foreign countries all to the detriment of the American worker and the American economy.
We reward companies for offshoring, and we punish companies for doing business in America and keeping our workers employed.
This is not a rising tide that lifts all boats.
This is a wave of globalization that wipes out our middle class and our jobs.
We need to reform our economic system so that, once again, we can all succeed together, and America can become rich again.
That’s what we mean by America First.
Our country will be better off when we start making our own products again, bringing our once great manufacturing capabilities back to our shores.
Our Founders understood this.
One of the first major bills signed by George Washington called for “the encouragement and protection of manufactur[ing]” in America.
Our first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, warned us by saying:
“The abandonment of the protective policy by the American government will produce want and ruin among our people.”
I have visited the cities and towns across America and seen the devastation caused by the trade policies of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton supported Bill Clinton’s disastrous NAFTA, just like she supported China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization.
We’ve lost nearly one-third of our manufacturing jobs since these two Hillary-backed agreements were signed.
Our trade deficit with China soared 40% during Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State — a disgraceful performance for which she should not be congratulated, but rather scorned.
Then she let China steal hundreds of billions of dollars in our intellectual property – a crime which is continuing to this day.
Hillary Clinton gave China millions of our best jobs, and effectively let China completely rebuild itself.
In return, Hillary Clinton got rich!
The book Clinton Cash, by Peter Schweitzer, documents how Bill and Hillary used the State Department to enrich their family at America’s expense.
She gets rich making you poor.
Here is a quote from the book: “At the center of US policy toward China was Hillary Clinton…at this critical time for US-china relations, Bill Clinton gave a number of speeches that were underwritten by the Chinese government and its supporters.”
These funds were paid to the Clinton bank account while Hillary was negotiating with China on behalf of the United States.
She sold out our workers, and our country, for Beijing.
Hillary Clinton has also been the biggest promoter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will ship millions more of our jobs overseas – and give up Congressional power to an international foreign commission.
Now, because I have pointed out why it would be such a disastrous deal, she is pretending that she is against it. She has even deleted this record of total support from her book – deletion is something she is very good at — (at least 30,000 emails are missing.)
But this latest Clinton cover-up doesn’t change anything: if she is elected president, she will adopt the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and we will lose millions of jobs and our economic independence for good. She will do this, just as she has betrayed the American worker on trade at every single stage of her career – and it will be even worse than the Clintons’ NAFTA deal.
I want trade deals, but they have to be great for the United States and our workers.
We don’t make great deals anymore, but we will once I become president.
It’s not just our economy that’s been corrupted, but our foreign policy too.
The Hillary Clinton foreign policy has cost America thousands of lives and trillions of dollars – and unleashed ISIS across the world.
No Secretary of State has been more wrong, more often, and in more places than Hillary Clinton.
Her decisions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched.
Among the victims is our late Ambassador, Chris Stevens. He was left helpless to die as Hillary Clinton soundly slept in her bed — that’s right, when the phone rang at
3 o’clock in the morning, she was sleeping.
Ambassador Stevens and his staff in Libya made hundreds of requests for security.
Hillary Clinton’s State Department refused them all.
She started the war that put him in Libya, denied him the security he asked for, then left him there to die.
To cover her tracks, Hillary lied about a video being the cause of his death.
Here is what one of the victim’s mothers had to say:
“I want the whole world to know it: she lied to my face, and you don’t want this person to be president.”
In 2009, before Hillary Clinton was sworn in, it was a different world.
Libya was cooperating.
Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence.
Syria was under control.
Iran was being choked by sanctions.
Egypt was governed by a friendly regime that honored its peace treaty with Israel.
ISIS wasn’t even on the map.
Fast forward to 2013: In just four years, Secretary Clinton managed
to almost single-handedly destabilize the entire Middle East.
Her invasion of Libya handed the country over to the ISIS barbarians.
Thanks to Hillary Clinton, Iran is now the dominant Islamic power in the Middle East, and on the road to nuclear weapons.
Hillary Clinton’s support for violent regime change in Syria has thrown the country into one of the bloodiest civil wars anyone has ever seen – while giving ISIS a launching pad for terrorism against the West.
She helped force out a friendly regime in Egypt and replace it with the radical Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian military has retaken control, but Clinton has opened the Pandora’s box of radical Islam.
Then, there was the disastrous strategy of announcing our departure date from Iraq, handing large parts of the country over to ISIS killers.
ISIS threatens us today because of the decisions Hillary Clinton has made.
ISIS also threatens peaceful Muslims across the Middle East, and peaceful Muslims across the world, who have been terribly victimized by horrible brutality – and who only want to raise their kids in peace and safety.
In short, Hillary Clinton’s tryout for the presidency has produced one deadly foreign policy disaster after another.
It all started with her bad judgment in supporting the War in Iraq in the first place.
Though I was not in government service, I was among the earliest to criticize
the rush to war, and yes, even before the war ever started.
But Hillary Clinton learned nothing from Iraq, because when she got into power,
she couldn’t wait to rush us off to war in Libya.
She lacks the temperament, the judgment and the competence to lead.
In the words of a Secret Service agent posted outside the Oval Office:
“She simply lacks the integrity and temperament to serve
in the office…from the bottom of my soul, I know this to be true…Her leadership style – volcanic, impulsive…disdainful of the rules set for everyone else – hasn’t changed a bit.”
Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy is that she refuses to acknowledge the threat posed by Radical Islam.
In fact, Hillary Clinton supports a radical 550% increase in Syrian refugees coming into the United States, and that’s an increase over President Obama’s already very high number.
Under her plan, we would admit hundreds of thousands of refugees from the most dangerous countries on Earth – with no way to screen who they are or what they believe.
Already, hundreds of recent immigrants and their children have been convicted of terrorist activity inside the U.S.
The father of the Orlando shooter was a Taliban supporter from Afghanistan, one of the
most repressive anti-gay and anti-women regimes on Earth.
I only want to admit people who share our values and love our people.
Hillary Clinton wants to bring in people who believe women should be enslaved
and gays put to death.
Maybe her motivation lies among the more than 1,000 foreign donations Hillary failed to disclose while at the State Department.
Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency.
Here is some more of what we learned from the book,
Clinton Cash:
To cover-up her corrupt dealings, Hillary Clinton illegally stashed her State Department emails on a private server.
Her server was easily hacked by foreign governments – perhaps even by her financial backers in Communist China – putting all of America in danger.
Then there are the 33,000 emails she deleted.
While we may not know what is in those deleted emails, our enemies probably do.
So they probably now have a blackmail file over someone who wants to be President of the United States.
This fact alone disqualifies her from the Presidency.
We can’t hand over our government to someone whose deepest, darkest secrets may be in the hands of our enemies.
National security is also immigration security –
and Hillary wants neither.
Hillary Clinton has put forward the most radical immigration platform in the history of the United States.
She has pledged to grant mass amnesty and in her first 100 days, end virtually all immigration enforcement, and thus create totally open borders in the United States
The first victims of her radical policies will be poor African-American and Hispanic workers who need jobs. They are the ones she will hurt the most.
Let me share with you a letter our campaign received from Mary Ann Mendoza.
She lost her amazing son, Police Sergeant Brandon Mendoza, after he was killed by an illegal immigrant because of the open borders policies supported by Hillary Clinton.
Sadly, the Mendoza family is just one of thousands who have suffered the same fate.
Here is an excerpt from Mrs. Mendoza’s letter:
“Hillary Clinton, who already has the blood of so many on her hands, is now announcing that she is willing to put each and every one of our lives in harms’ way – an open door policy to criminals and terrorists to enter our country. Hillary is not concerned about you or I, she is only concerned about the power the presidency would bring to her. She needs to go to prison to pay for the crimes she has already committed against this country.”
Hillary also wants to spend hundreds of billions to resettle Middle Eastern refugees in the United States, on top of the current record level of immigration.
For the amount of money Hillary Clinton would like to spend on refugees, we could rebuild every inner city in America.
Hillary’s Wall Street immigration agenda will keep immigrant communities poor, and unemployed Americans out of work. She can’t claim to care about African-American and Hispanic workers when she wants to bring in millions of new low-wage workers
to compete against them.
Here are a few things a Trump Administration will do for America in the first 100 days:
There is one common theme in all of these reforms.
It’s going to be America First.
This is why the stakes in November are so great.
On election day, the politicians stand trial before the people.
The voters are the jury. Their ballots are the verdict. We don’t need or want another Clinton or Obama.
Come November, the American people will have a chance to issue a verdict on the politicians that have sacrificed their security, betrayed their prosperity, and sold out
their country.
They will have a chance to vote for a new agenda with big dreams, bold ideas and enormous possibilities for the American people.
Hillary Clinton’s message is old and tired. Her message is that can’t change.
My message is that things have to change – and this is our one chance do it. This is our last chance to do it.
Americans are the people that tamed the West, that dug out the Panama Canal, that sent satellites across the solar system, that built the great dams, and so much more.
Then we started thinking small.
We stopped believing in what America could do, and became reliant on other countries, other people, and other institutions.
We lost our sense of purpose, and daring.
But that’s not who we are.
Come this November, we can bring America back – bigger and better, and stronger than ever.
We will build the greatest infrastructure on the planet earth – the roads and railways and airports of tomorrow.
Our military will have the best technology and finest equipment – we will bring it back all the way.
Massive new factories will come roaring into our country – breathing life and hope into our communities.
Inner cities, which have been horribly abused by Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party, will finally be rebuilt.
Construction is what I know — nobody knows it better.
The real wages for our workers have not been raised for 18 years — but these wages will start going up, along with the new jobs. Hillary’s massive taxation, regulation and open borders will destroy jobs and drive down wages for everyone.
We are also going to be supporting our police and law enforcement — we can never forget the great job they do.
I am also going to appoint great Supreme Court Justices.
Our country is going to start working again.
People are going to start working again.
Parents are going to start dreaming big for their children again – including parents in our inner cities.
Americans are going to start believing in the future or our country.
We are going to make America rich again.
We are going to make America safe again.
We are going to make America Great Again – and Great Again For EVERYONE.
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-on-the-stakes-of-the-election
“You can’t change Donald” – Longtime Trump…
Donald J. Trump: The Long Road to the White House (1980 – 2015)
Full Event: Donald Trump Rally in Dallas, TX (6-16-16)
Clinton ‘gets rich making you poor,’ Trump charges
Donald Trump launched a broad rebuke of his presidential rival Hillary Clinton Wednesday, accusing her of being “a world class liar” who personally profited from her tenure at the State Department. “She gets rich making you poor,” Trump said.
Seeking to steady his campaign after a difficult stretch, the presumptive Republican nominee cast himself as the White House candidate best positioned to address Americans’ economic interests.
“This election will decide whether we’re ruled by the people or the politicians,” Trump said during an address at his hotel in New York’s SoHo neighborhood. He made his arguments in a pointed yet measured tone, less loud and strident than has been typical in most previous campaign speeches.
Yet his remarks included erroneous statements and distortions about Clinton’s record, and he frequently referenced sources of information that have been widely questioned, including the book “Clinton Cash” by Peter Schweizer.
The speech marked an opening salvo against Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in the general election campaign. It came as the real estate mogul faced growing questions about his readiness not just for the presidency, but for the campaign he will need to run to get there.
Trump made a direct appeal to supporters of Clinton’s primary rival Bernie Sanders, urging them to help him fix a “rigged system.” He also argued his trade and immigration policies would be more beneficial than Clinton’s for blacks and Hispanics, two groups that have overwhelmingly voted for Democrats in recent presidential elections.
Still, the central goal of Trump’s speech appeared to be uniting the Republican Party and appealing to people who may be skeptical of him but vigorously oppose Clinton. He unleashed a grab bag of Republicans’ favorite criticisms of Clinton, including her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, her response to the deadly 2012 attacks on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, and accusations that she and former President Bill Clinton profited from their family foundation.
“Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency,” Trump said.
Some of Trump’s charges come from Schweizer’s book, which has been criticized for failing to provide evidence of direct connections between business dealings by foreign interests, sometimes involving the Clinton Foundation, and decisions by Clinton when she was secretary of state.
The Republican candidate also argued that Clinton’s opposition to a massive Asia-Pacific trade pact was an example of her political opportunism, noting that she had worked on the agreement while at the State Department and has previously backed free trade accords. And he took aim at her immigration policies, saying her call for providing those in the U.S. illegally with a path to citizenship amounted to “mass amnesty.”
Trump’s remarks came one day after Clinton launched her own blistering attacks on her White House rival. She moved to undercut Trump’s argument that his business record would help him create jobs as president, arguing instead that he had been “reckless” with his companies and “shouldn’t have his hands on our economy.”
Trump also tried to turn Clinton’s strengths into negatives. He spent much of his speech trying to undercut her foreign policy record, highlighting her early support of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which she now says was a mistake, and linking the policies she promoted at the State Department to the rise of the Islamic State terror group.
“The Hillary Clinton foreign policy has cost America thousands of lives and trillions of dollars and trillions of dollars and unleashed ISIS across the world,” Trump said.
Trump’s speech came on the heels of his firing Monday of campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, a controversial figure who was seen as an impediment to efforts to build out a more robust campaign organization. A new fundraising report released hours after Lewandowski’s firing underscored how much ground Trump has to make up: he started June with just $1.3 million in the bank.
Trump allies cast Lewandowski’s firing this week as the start of a new phase for the campaign. Paul Manafort, the campaign chairman and Lewandowski’s internal rival, signaled on a conference call with aides that a rapid staffing expansion would be coming soon.
Tennessee Republican Sen. Bob Corker, who has been seen as a potential vice presidential pick, said he was “pretty excited” to learn of the changes.
“I think that what appears to be occurring over the last 24 hours is a movement in a direction that I think could be very, very positive,” Corker said.
___
Pace reported from Washington. AP writers Jonathan Lemire in New York and Steve Peoples and Erica Werner in Washington contributed.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/e8b73258b2314ef7a7e6aa2e8bc7cd91/speech-trump-ramp-critique-clinton-failure
The Pronk Pops Show Podcasts Portfolio
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