By Stanley Renshon, CIS.org

ACT NOW to stop immigration amnesty from destroying the American dream

One of the most alarming effects of the Schumer-Rubio amnesty, if enacted in anything close to its current form, would be the legalization of tens of thousands of illegal aliens who have already been a public safety threat in their community. The eligibility criteria established for the amnesty and most of the new guestworker provisions excuse a wide variety of criminal behavior, including gang membership, drunk driving, vehicular manslaughter, identity theft, and immigration fraud (see this analysis). In addition, the bill offers amnesty to those who have repeatedly and flagrantly violated immigration laws.

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By Barry Rubin

Consider five factors that had no effect on the very warm reception given by President Barack Obama to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan:

–While the U.S. government has pressured Erdogan not to visit the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, Erdogan announced in the White House Rose Garden that he would do so. An alleged U.S. ally says publicly in front of Obama while being hosted by him that he is going to defy the United States.

This is not some routine matter. With previous presidents, if an ally was going to do something like that he would say nothing at the time and then months later would subvert U.S. policy. Or better yet the foreign leader would not do so. To announce defiance in such a way is a serious sign of how little respect Middle East leaders have for Obama — and U.S. policy nowadays — and how little Obama will do about it.

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by Raymond Ibrahim*

American Middle East analysts often claim that Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate organization, nothing like the more radical Salafis. If true, what do we make of the fact that the most intolerant, anti-American, hate-filled Salafis and jihadis also happen to be the greatest and staunchest supporters of Morsi? Doesn’t such unequivocal support indicate shared ideologies and goals?

Consider: A few weeks ago, while discussing the ongoing protests against Egypt’s President Muhammad Morsi—himself a leader of the Brotherhood—Sheikh Abdullah Badr, an Al Azhar trained scholar and professor of Islamic exegesis, made the following assertion on live TV:

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U.S. Representative Mike Kelly, representing the 3rd congressional district of Pennsylvania, left Acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller speechless as he testified before the House Ways and Means Committee today. You should watch the exchange between Miller and Kelly below — though Miller sat there with his mouth agape, obviously on the verge of diarrhea, probably realizing the gravity of the words levelled against him by Kelly, who did most of the talking. Kelly spoke the hard cold truth about the egregious nature of the obviously politically-motivated IRS witchhunt. Here’s a great synopsis from the Houston Chronicle of the IRS’s Orwellian and very anti-American activities:

… How would you feel if that scrutiny were being triggered by some wacky word association game made up by the agency and including seemingly harmless words such as “Tea Party” and “Patriot,” “Constitution” and “good government” in a list of suspicious words and phrases?

You’d feel like Big Brother was watching, and you’d be right. What is being revealed about IRS targeting of conservative groups over a period of two years because of words like those mentioned above is Orwellian. For those unfamiliar with the term, it derives from the British writer’s classic work “1984,” in which a character known as “Big Brother” tracked the thought processes of ordinary citizens through a system of omnipresent government surveillance. …

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By Stanley Renshon, CIS.org

Democrats and many Republicans view the current immigration legislation now being considered in Congress primarily through a political prism. For Democrats, the new legislation presents the opportunity to add many millions of new immigrants — sympathetic to their party’s perspective of larger and more “helpful” government — to the country’s voting rolls and thus help bring about their dream of a permanent Democratic majority.

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By Ronald W. Mortensen, CIS.org

am·nes·ty (am-nuh-stee) an act of forgiveness for past offenses, especially to a class of persons as a whole.

Synonym: par·don (pahr-dn) a release from the penalty of an offense; forgiveness of a serious offense or offender; to release (a person) from liability for an offense; to remit the penalty of (an offense)

Led by Senator Marco Rubio, the “Gang of Eight” is attempting to hide the fact that their “comprehensive immigration reform” bill would provide amnesty for illegal aliens and their employers.

Rubio argues that illegal aliens would not be forgiven of past, harmless infractions, but would be required to pay for them. However, a review of the bill shows that the token penalties, when they do exist, are not commensurate with the employment-related felonies committed by the vast majority of illegal aliens, nor are they commensurate with the benefits received by illegal aliens. The penalties are, therefore, no more than thinly veiled attempts to hide the amnesty provisions of S. 744.

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by Daniel Pipes*

The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s list of “Ten Most Wanted” fugitives dates back to 1950 but the list of “Most Wanted Terrorists” dates back to just after 9/11 and a sense that terrorism had become a strategic threat. Today, the list includes 31 individuals, all of them male and with a single exception (Daniel Andreas San Diego, an animal rights extremist), all of them Muslim:

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One of the Senate’s supposedly most conservative Republicans, Patrick J. Toomey, and one of the Senate’s supposedly most conservative Democrats, Joe Manchin III, agreed to a “compromise” on gun control — purportedly during an “Amtrak trip from New York to Washington where they happened to intersect.” They claim their bill will strengthen background checks as a prerequisite to gun purchases. Then — voila — a Republican Representative, Peter King, appears saying he will support the Toomey/Manchin “compromise” if it makes it to the House. Coincidence? Or was all of this a done deal long ago? This is worrisome — almost too “coincidental.” THAT’S WHY YOU MUST ACT NOW, CONTACTING YOUR SENATORS, BUT REALLY TURNING UP THE HEAT ON THE HOUSE.

From the New York Times:

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Senators Joe Manchin (R) and Pat Toomey (D) today announced a so-called “compromise” bill/amendment which they claim would increase gun safety through improving “background checks,” but is in truth a flawed piece of legislation, WHICH IS WHY YOU SHOULD ACT NOW TO STOP THE MEASURE (or click here for more options). The title of their bill is Orwellian: “The Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act.” It is double-speak, as their measure infringes on the Second Amendment — it doesn’t “protect” anything. It will in fact push the U.S. towards the establishment of a national gun registry, the eventual effect of which will be the possibility of gun confiscation.

As usual with “gun control,” law-abiding citizens — the people least likely to commit gun crimes — will be punished while little to nothing will be done to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and crazies. Stolen guns and the black market will provide criminals and crazies with all the guns they want. Under Toomey/Manchin, law-abiding citizens may have their medical privacy rights violated; they may be denied gun ownership because of invasion of their privacy:

“Under an amendment in the bill to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), you could have your guns taken away because your private shrink thinks you’re ‘dangerous’ and could send your name directly to the FBI Instant Check system.”

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By David North, CIS.org

Many people think that the only way to buy your way into legal presence in the United States is through the EB-5 (immigrant investor) program. Not so.

There are three different ways that an alien can buy his or her way into legal status; each pathway has a different price, sometimes involving more than just money; and each pathway has its own advantages and disadvantages. Here is a summary, more or less in the style of Consumer Reports, for the three routes to buy legal status:

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ACT NOW! if you want to keep your guns. This article provides citizens all the resources they need to stop extremist “gun control” advocates and explains why NOW is the time to act. If you think the democratic process doesn’t work, remember that New Mexicans just beat ALL state gun control legislation in the 2013 session. Please read on…

When citizens rose up in a grassroots campaign and stopped the “background check” bill and other anti-Second Amendment legislation in April, we had cause to celebrate our victory. But President Obama and Senate Democrats, like Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Charles Schumer (D-NY), and Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), are going to continue to do everything they can to destroy the Second Amendment, our great Constitution’s guarantee that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” These anti-gun proponents have no scruples, and will do and/or say practically anything to disarm good citizens. Purportedly, Harry Reid is going to “use his gun bill to portray Republicans as ‘rape supporters.’”

Still quietly lurking in the background is the specter of a new Senate and House push for consideration of legislation “that would criminalize the private transfer of firearms between law-abiding Americans,” would ban “assault weapons” and many other semi-autos, would ban “large-capacity magazines,” would require a national gun registry (see here also), and impose taxes on the gun registration process.

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By Jerry Kammer, CIS.org

As I read news reports of congressional efforts to forge agreement on immigration reform, I have the queasy feeling that in their determination to get something done our elected representatives will repeat the mistakes of 1986.

That was the year when Congress passed the poorly named Immigration Reform and Control Act. Now, I fear, they will once again pass a law that will deliver sweeping legalization while failing to deliver credible worksite enforcement.

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by Teri Blumenfeld*

More than a decade after the deadliest attack on U.S. soil, the U.S. administration seems no closer to identifying let alone repelling Islamist terrorists in the homeland. The 9/11 committee used the term “failure of imagination” to explain why the U.S. government was unable to prevent the catastrophic events of that day.[1] But although the enemy was identified at that time, the Federal government and one of its most important branches, the FBI, have adopted a policy of scrubbing Islamism from public consciousness[2] though since bin Laden’s 2011 demise, “at least nine publicly known Islamist-inspired terror plots against the United States have been foiled, bringing the total number of foiled plots as of April 2012, to 50.”[3]

The Obama administration’s response to the 2009 Fort Hood terror attack by U.S. Army major Nidal Hasan offers a vivid illustration of this practice. In August 2012, an independent commission charged with reviewing the FBI’s failure to prevent the attack issued its report, recommending eighteen changes in policies and operations. However, the commission, headed by Judge William H. Webster, upheld the government’s policy of excluding Islamism from the findings, concluding that despite the intelligence failure, FBI personnel had faithfully followed protocols and procedure, and there occurred “no misconduct that would warrant administrative or disciplinary action.”[4]

There appeared to be little appetite for finding the attack’s root causes and its failed detection. Nor was corrective action an apparent priority. Instead, the directive focused on exploring “whether there are other policy or procedural steps the FBI should consider … while still respecting privacy and civil-liberty interests” and “whether any administrative action should be taken against any employee.”[5]

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… It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, November 19, 1863

At the time, President Lincoln was speaking in the context of the horrors of the American Civil War. But his words are most appropriate at a time when Americans face great societal, economic, and political problems, be it health care, the national debt, and/or “gun control.” In some ways, our country is divided. It doesn’t have to be so. If people get involved with the democratic process, they can surely bring about astonishing changes for the betterment of our great nation. With a little effort, Americans can have “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” We just proved it New Mexico.

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by Daniel Pipes*

Comes the news that Frederick Cohn, the Jewish defense lawyer for Abdel Hameed Shehadeh, asked Brooklyn-based federal judge Eric Vitaliano to exclude Jews from the jury. Shehadeh is charged with three counts of making false statements in connection with his attempts to join jihadis in Pakistan. “Your Honor” Cohn explained in February, “I’m not wild about having Jews on the jury in this case. Given that there’s going to be inflammatory testimony about Jews and Zionism, I think it would be hard for Jews to cast aside any innate antipathy. The American Jewish community is heavily aligned with Israel and Zionism.”

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