Why? Well that's the real question, isn't it?

"The how and the who is just scenery for the public... Keeps 'em guessing like some kind of parlor game, prevents 'em from asking the most important question, why?... Who benefited? Who has the power to cover it up? Who?"
~ Donald Sutherland, JFK

 Many on the left are quick to dismiss the idea of a conspiracy or cover-up with regards to the IRS's extra scrutiny given to conservative/libertarian organizations.  They make claims like "no conservative organizations were ever denied tax exempt status" or "no one in the White House new of the practice" or "it was just the actions of a small group of low level employees".  But, as we now know for a fact, those claims were purposefully misleading or outright false.

While it is true no conservative organizations were denied, they were delayed, for years, most still waiting for approval.  In the meantime, liberal/progressive organizations had their tax exempt applications fast tracked.  not a single one was targeted for additional scrutiny.

We also know through congressional testimony that it wasn't just a small group of low-level employees responsible for the IRS's actions.  They testified they were following orders.  They routinely referred organizations, such as pro-Israeli groups, to the IRS's Washington D.C. offices for additional scrutiny, which shows the practice was wide spread across agency departments.

Finally, we know both through testimony and recent White House admissions that they in fact did know the practice was going on.  They even conspired to release the information just days before an official report of the practice was made public so that they could appear to be forthcoming and not purposefully ignoring the scandal. While they still claim to be absent any blame for the policy, it is clear they willfully ignored the problem to the benefit of the president.

To what benefit you may be wondering.

That's just it, isn't it.  The heart of "why".  The simple answer is the 2012 re-election of president Obama.

According to official reports, the IRS targeting of conservative/libertarian groups began as early as 2010 after tea party Republicans swept into the House and Senate, stealing control of the House from Democrats and breaking their stranglehold on the federal government.  The groups targeted are permitted by law to spend up 49% of the donations they receive on political activities.  By subjecting these groups to extra scrutiny and delaying their approval until after the elections, the Obama administration was able to block potentially millions in additional campaign spending and GOP get out the vote efforts.

As we know via post-election exit polls, GOP turnout was significantly down as a result.

The damage the extra scrutiny the IRS gave to these groups isn't limited to the 2012 election.  As most senators have been quoted as saying of late, it has created a chilling affect among potential conservative/libertarian donors because they fear giving money to these kinds of organization will wind up with them being audited and targeted for harassment by the IRS.  And as anyone who has been audited by the IRS knows, that is something you want to avoid at all cost because they IRS will find something, even if their is nothing to find.  They will look and look and mike your life miserable until they find something.

Unfortunately, the "Why" of this IRS scandal is not getting enough attention from both the mainstream media and conservative radio hosts and bloggers.  It is crucial that the why of it gets out, because the why leads directly to who benefited, who has a vested interested in keeping the scandal covered up, and ultimately who is responsible.

Million Gun March Opponents Resort to Fear and Intimidation

"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
~ Second Amendment to the US Constitution

"There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms... Putting all of these textual elements together, we find that they guarantee the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation. This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it “shall not be infringed.”"
~ Justice Antonin Scalia, D.C. v. Heller

With the understanding that the second amendment, to keep and BEAR arms, is one of the most basic rights an individual has, why are so many on the right quick to attack the organizers of the upcoming July 4 gun march on D.C?

Opponents of the march on the right side of the political isle are trying to scare away supporters:

"Within the boundaries of the District of Columbia, the illegal possession of all ammunition, even a single round of .22 short, can, has and will result in arrest and conviction on firearms charges... Will your family and community be better off and more well protected if you are taken away from them and imprisoned?" write DC based blogger, T. Stephen Eggleston

They've resorted to attacking the march's organizers:

"Many gullible gun-rights activists have been promoting a July 4th armed march on Washington organized by Adam Kokesh...For crying out loud, just Google him and his pals. IVAW is the group whose members included one loon who threatened to bomb the Gathering of Eagles and assassinate me," pens Michelle Malkin on her blog.

The mainstream media, fearing the strangle hold of power in Washington might be shaken, has joined critics of the event:

Kokesh’s plan has been laid out on a Facebook page: his group, with loaded rifles slung on their backs, will march peacefully around the Capitol and the White House. Then they will return across the Potomac River to Arlington Cemetery, where they began. The point: “to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated.”

For that to happen, a number of laws will have to be broken: Carrying a loaded weapon, concealed or unconcealed, is against the law in the District. Even possession of a firearm not registered in the District carries a penalty up to one year in prison. If that firearm is a pistol: five years.

D.C. police have said they won’t let it happen.

“There’s a pretty good chance we’ll meet them on the D.C. side of the bridge,” Police Chief Cathy Lanier said in a TV interview this week.

Why are those on the right so worried about this march?  Could it be they only find support of the second amendment when it can be used to raise money and score political points?  

None of the organizers have called for violence.  Just the opposite, they have stated any weapons carried will be strapped to their backs, making them difficult to get a hold of.  The only opportunity for violence that can occur is if the D.C. police or federal government try to interfere with the protesters exercise of their natural and constitutional right to keep and bear arms, which would constitute a clear act of provocation.

Many on the right have questioned what the protesters hope to gain.  March organizers say the event is to put the government on notice that the people will no longer stand by as their rights are stripped from them, a noble and worthy cause in and of itself.  But another benefit includes the right of open carry, a key component of the second amendment that has yet to be really challenged in court.  

What good is the second amendment if you are only allowed to bear arms within your home? Does your right of self defense of protection from tyranny end at your door step?

I applaud organizers of this event and proudly support all those who are willing to risk their freedoms to stand in opposition to a tyrannical government and so should you.

Divided We Fall

Something that has bothered me over the last several years and what only seems to be getting worse is the coalition that makes up the GOP can't seem to put their pet issues aside for the greater good.  Many of the conservative/constutitionalist/liberty activists I know are focused on a single issue.  They care about many, but there is one issue in particular that they will put above all others.

For me that issue is immigration policy, mostly because I see how it directly impacts all the other issues that are of critical importance to the conservative coalition.  But, what happens when we activists fail to make sacrifices on our pet issues in order to advance the overall cause of liberty and prosperity for our country?

One of the best examples of what can and will happen is Obamacare.  Now that it is law, conservatives seem united in opposition to the intrusive legislation.  But, that wasn't the case for some when it was being debated in congress.

In March of 2010, I wrote about the missed opportunity we had to kill Obamacare before it got started.  At issue was opposition to Obamacare by pro-life Democrats who feared the bill would be used to provide publicly funded abortion.  In order to get pro-life Democrats on board Obama and Pelosi agreed to push through the Stupak amendment which would guarantee there would be no public funding of abortion.  Rep Stupak and other Democrat congressmen publicly stated they would not support Obamacare if the amendment were not included.

Some Republicans crafted a plan to kill the amendment by voting present on the action.  Th amendment would have lacked the votes to pass and in so doing would have kept pro-life Democrats from voting in favor of the larger Obamacare bill.  In comes the NRLC (National Right to Life Council).

Because they were so hyper-focused on the issue of abortion, they threatened Republicans considering to vote present on the Stupak amendment.  They argued a 'present' vote would be the equivalent of a vote endorsing abortion and would go after any Republicans who voted that way in their next elections.  As a result, they caved, the amendment passed, and with it Obamacare.

Once signed into law, it only took the HHS secretary a few short months to implement tax payer funded abortion.  To get around the limitations of the amendment that led to executive orders being issued by Obama to prevent tax payer funding the HHS secretary implemented an optional $1 per month premium for abortion coverage, leaving taxpayers on the hook for the bulk of the costs associated with abortions.

Even before that confrontation the NRA agreed to not fight the passing of Obamacare if they got key concessions inserted into the bill.  In addition, they refused to support Republican challengers in elections against pro-gun Democrats like Indiana's Joe Donnelly.  Now that Obamacare is law, those provisions are attempting to be circumvented by executive orders issued by President Obama in combination with various state and federal gun restriction laws.

In both these cases, the advocates for these issues were so short sighted and hyper-focused on their issues that they failed to put underlying principles of conservatism first and in the end were left with nothing but less freedom.  The concessions they once believed they had were swept away and the federal government got bigger and more powerful.

Now that the idea of comprehensive immigration reform has reared its ugly head again, again we see conservative groups jockeying for their pet issues at the expense of the very ideals that gave them those freedoms.  Business organizations like the chambers of commerce, libertarian groups like the Cato Institute, and low tax activists like Grover Norquist are so delighted with the idea of adding 33 million new, unskilled cheap laborers from the third-world that they can use to depress wages and benefits that they are willing to look past the fact that those same workers will became burdens on society, using up welfare benefits and displacing native workers, and, as statistics have shown over the last 100 plus years, will dramatically increase Democrat voter rolls.  All of which will lead to higher taxes, increased government interference in the formerly free-market, and a general loss of freedom as the progressives seek to grow the power of the central government.

The time for unity is now.  We all must be willing to temporary set aside our pet issues if it means we can increase liberty and decrease the size and power of government.  We can have our cake and eat it to as long as we are willing to stop putting the cart before the horse.  Failure to do that will simply mean more of what we have seen since the earlier 1900's, a slow steady slide into tyranny and socialism.

Kansas Responds to AG Holder's Threats

I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I Can Illegally Immigrate to America

From Mail Online:

The freight train known as The Beast travels from the southern Mexican town of Arriaga up to Mexico City.

And every day hundreds of migrants, mostly from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras or Nicaragua, sit on top of the notorious train, often for days at a time. 

It is also known as the Train Of Death. Riding precariously on top of the moving containers, migrants are often maimed or killed if they fall due to dehydration or fatigue.

Then there is the human threat. These vulnerable travelers have been increasingly targeted by criminal gangs, people smugglers, kidnappers and corrupt officials.

Driven by poverty at home many are hoping for a better life in the U.S. The journey north take leads them closer to the Mexican border with the United States.

According to Amnesty International thousands of migrants are ill-treated, abducted or raped.When the travelers reach Mexico City, more organized criminals are often lying in wait. Jorgé Andrade told the Independent that gangs charge the migrants to get to shelter. 

'If they don’t pay, they kidnap, beat them, ask for sexual favours. In the worst case, they’ll be forced to work for the gangs or be killed.' Andrade said.

 

Apparently Italy Needs Illegal Immigants

Italy needs illegal immigrants, at least that's what the wizards of economics prescribes to help Italy meet its dwindling supply of pizza makers.

Despite a long recession and high unemployment, Italians are shunning the job because of the long hours and modest pay.

Long hours, modest pay?  What could possibly convince Italians to fill those much needed jobs?  Nope, not higher pay and better hours.  It seems the solution is to throw open the doors to the third world's poor and low-skilled workers:

Italians may be reluctant to get their hands dirty by stoking ovens and kneading dough, but foreign immigrants have no such qualms and are now filling the gap, producing an increasing share of the three billion pizzas that Italians eat each year.

But without a Mexico right next door, where will Italy get it's third world, low-skilled workers from?

Egyptians have shown themselves to be particularly adept at mastering the art of the perfect pizza and now run many of the pizza restaurants and hole-in-the-wall takeaways in big cities like Rome, Milan and Turin.

"I would say about 80 per cent of Egyptians who come to work in Italy end up as pizza makers," Amadeo Al-Wikel, who emigrated from Cairo to Rome 12 years ago and now runs his own pizzeria on a street corner near Rome's Trevi Fountain, told The Daily Telegraph.

The advocates of this mass immigration turn to attacking Italy's native workforce in order to push their agenda for cheap labor.  If they are to be believed, Italians are pretentious, greedy bastards who don't believe in earning a fare wage:

"The Italian mindset is that being a pizza-maker is humiliating, it is a manual labour job," he said. "Young Italians want to own 40,000 euro cars and wear nice clothes but they are not prepared to work for it. So the gap is being filled by the Egyptians, the Filipinos and the Arabs."

Instead of raising pizza prices by a few pennies per pie in order to increase wages and attract native workers, the pro-mass immigration crowd would rather import low-skilled labor from countries known as breeding grounds for terrorists.  Surely that reckless policy won't have any dire consequences.

MA Gov Blocking Investigation Into Extent of Welfare Benefits Paid to Boston Terrorists

Yes, at least one of the Boston terrorist received welfare payments.  Yes, it is absurd that any new immigrant to this country is able to immediately start collecting welfare benefits paid for by American tax payers, let alone one hell bent on killing Americans.  But, none of that matters and is only being put out to distract the public from asking the real question.  Why were these terrorist allowed to immigrate to begin with?

The government released just enough information to get people wondering to what extent these terrorist received government benefits, but not enough to be useful for any analysis.  They have blocked repeated requests citing the terrorists' need for privacy.  As if a dead murderer needs their privacy.

Fortunately, others aren't falling for the misdirection.  They realize the problem with our immigration policies aren't just with illegal immigration, legal immigration is a problem too.

The people of Boston are no longer being terrorized by the Marathon bombers, but amnesty supporters sure are.

On CNN's "State of the Union" last weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham's response to the Boston Marathon bombers being worthless immigrants who hate America -- one of whom the FBI cleared even after being tipped off by Russia -- was to announce: "The fact that we could not track him has to be fixed."

Track him? How about not admitting him as an immigrant?

As if it's a defense, we're told Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (of the Back Bay Tsarnaevs) were disaffected "losers" -- the word used by their own uncle -- who couldn't make it in America. Their father had already returned to Russia. Tamerlan had dropped out of college, been arrested for domestic violence and said he had no American friends. Dzhokhar was failing most of his college courses. All of them were on welfare.

(Dzhokhar was given everything America had to offer, and now he only has one thing in his future to look forward to ... a tenured professorship.)

My thought is, maybe we should consider admitting immigrants who can succeed in America, rather than deadbeats.

But we're not allowed to "discriminate" in favor of immigrants who would be good for America. Instead of helping America, our immigration policies are designed to help other countries solve their internal problems by shipping their losers to us.

The problem isn't just illegal immigration. I would rather have doctors and engineers sneaking into the country than legally arriving ditch-diggers.

Teddy Kennedy's 1965 immigration act so dramatically altered the kinds of immigrants America admits that, since 1969, about 85 percent of legal immigrants have come from the Third World. They bring Third World levels of poverty, fertility, illegitimacy and domestic violence with them. When they can't make it in America, they simply go on welfare and sometimes strike out at Americans.

In addition to the four dead and more than 100 badly wounded victims of the Boston Marathon bombing, let's consider a few of the many other people who would be alive, but for Kennedy's immigration law:

-- The six Long Island railroad passengers murdered in 1993 by Jamaican immigrant Colin Ferguson. Before the shooting, Ferguson was unemployed, harassing women on subways, repeatedly bringing lawsuits against police and former employers, applying for workman's compensation for fake injuries and blaming all his problems on white people. Whom he then decided to murder.

-- The two people killed outside CIA headquarters in 1993 by Pakistani illegal immigrant Mir Qazi. He had been working as a driver for a courier company. (It's nearly impossible to find an American who can drive.)

-- Christoffer Burmeister, a 27 year-old musician killed in a mass shooting by Palestinian immigrant Ali Hassan Abu Kamal in 1997 at the Empire State Building. Hassan had immigrated to America with his family two months earlier at age 68. (It's a smart move to bring in immigrants just in time to pay them Social Security benefits!)

-- Bill Cosby's son, Ennis, killed in 1997 by 18-year-old Ukrainian immigrant Mikhail Markhasev, who had come to this country with his single mother eight years earlier -- because we were running short on single mothers.

Markhasev, who had a juvenile record, shot Cosby point-blank for taking too long to produce his wallet. He later bragged about killing a "n*gger."

-- The three people murdered at the Appalachian School of Law in 2002 by Nigerian immigrant Peter Odighizuwa, angry at America because he had failed out of law school. At least it's understandable why our immigration policies would favor a 43-year-old law student. It's so hard to get Americans to go to law school these days!

-- The stewardess and passenger murdered by Egyptian immigrant Hesham Mohamed Hadayet when he shot up the El Al ticket counter at the Los Angeles airport in 2002. Hesham, a desperately needed limousine driver, received refugee status in the U.S. because he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Apparently, that's a selling point if you want to immigrate to America.

-- The six men murdered by Mexican immigrant Salvador Tapia at the Windy City Core Supply warehouse in Chicago in 2003, from which he had been fired six months earlier. Tapia was still in this country despite having been arrested at least a dozen times on weapons and assault charges. Only foreign newspapers mentioned that Tapia was an immigrant. American newspapers blamed the gun.

-- The six people killed in northern Wisconsin in 2004 by Hmong immigrant Chai Soua Vang, who shot his victims in the back after being caught trespassing on their property. Minnesota Public Radio later explained that Hmong hunters don't understand American laws about private property, endangered species, or really any laws written in English. It was an unusual offense for a Hmong, whose preferred crime is raping 12- to 14-year-old girls -- as extensively covered in the Fresno Bee and Minneapolis Star Tribune.

-- The five people murdered at the Trolley Square Shopping Mall in Salt Lake City by Bosnian immigrant Sulejman Talovic in 2007. Talovic was a Muslim high school dropout with a juvenile record. No room for you, Swedish doctor. We need resentful Muslims!

-- The 32 people murdered at Virginia Tech in 2007 by Seung-Hui Cho, a South Korean immigrant.

-- The 13 soldiers murdered at Fort Hood in 2009 by "accused" shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, son of Palestinian immigrants. Hasan's parents had operated a restaurant in Roanoke, Va., because where are we going to find Americans to do that?

-- The 13 people killed at the American Civic Association in Binghamton, N.Y., by Vietnamese immigrant Jiverly Wong, who became a naturalized citizen two years after being convicted of fraud and forgery in California. Wong was angry that people disrespected him for his poor English skills.

-- Florence Donovan-Gunderson, who was shot along with her husband, and three National Guardsmen in a Carson City IHOP gunned down by Mexican immigrant Eduardo Sencion in 2011.

-- The three people, including a 15-year-old girl, murdered in their home in North Miami by Kesler Dufrene, a Haitian immigrant and convicted felon who had been arrested nine times, but was released when Obama halted deportations to Haiti after the earthquake. Dufrene chose the house at random.

-- The many African-Americans murdered by Hispanic gangs in Los Angeles in the last few years, including Jamiel Shaw Jr., a star football player being recruited by Stanford; Cheryl Green, a 14-year-old eighth-grade student chosen for murder solely because she was black; and Christopher Ash, who witnessed Green's murder.

During the three years from 2010 through 2012, immigrants have committed about a dozen mass murders in this country, not including the 9/11 attack.

The mass murderers were from Afghanistan, South Korea, Vietnam, Haiti, South Africa, Ethiopia and Mexico. None were from Canada or Western Europe.

I don't want to hear about the black crime rate or the Columbine killers. We're talking about immigrants here! There should be ZERO immigrants committing crimes.There should be ZERO immigrants accepting government assistance. There should be ZERO immigrants demanding that we speak their language.

We have no choice about native-born losers. We ought to be able to do something about the people we chose to bring here.

Meanwhile, our government officials just keep singing the praises of "diversity," while expressly excluding skilled immigrants who might be less inclined to become "disaffected" and lash out by killing Americans.

In response to the shooting at Fort Hood, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said: "As horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that's worse."

On "Fox News Sunday" this week, former CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden said of the Boston bombing suspects, "We welcome these kinds of folks coming to the United States who want to be contributing American citizens."

Unless, that is, they have a college degree and bright prospects. Those immigrants are prohibited.

COPYRIGHT 2013 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL UCLIC

Judge Likely to Block Obama's Dream Nightmare Executive Order

A small bit of potentially good news for the rule of law in this country, that is if Obama follows the judges orders, something he hasn't exactly been willing to do in the past.

“The court finds that DHS does not have discretion to refuse to initiate removal proceedings” when the requirements for deportation under a federal statute are met, O’Connor said today in a 38-page decision, referring to the Department of Homeland Security.

Still, the judge said he can’t decide the case based on the arguments he’s heard so far.

“Accordingly, the court hereby defers ruling on the plaintiffs’ application for preliminary injunction until the parties have submitted additional briefing,” O’Connor said.

Once again, Kansas very own, Kris Kobach finds himself the driving force behind enforcing the federal immigration laws the Washington establishment seem so willing to break and ignore:

The case was filed by attorney Kris Kobach, who also serves as Kansas Secretary of State and is a national Republican Party adviser. Lead plaintiff Christopher L. Crane is president of the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council, a 7,600- member federal immigration agents’ union. 

“Officers are applying the directive to people detained in jails, not kids in school,” Crane testified at the April 8 hearing. “It is now the story in the jails for aliens to use to avoid arrest and deportation.”

And what is the Obama administration's response to ignoring the law?  You guessed it, they require a guaranteed 100% success rate in order to be able to enforce the law:

“The executive cannot remove 11 million people,” Kirchner said of the branch of the U.S. government led by Obama. “The executive has authority to exercise its discretion.”

I wonder if we will see this standard attached to other federal laws, like tax law where Obama's own administration officials owes hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes and have been caught lying on their tax forms for years.

Do we have an Immigration gap?

During the Cold War America had a couple of "gaps", real or imagined, with the Soviet Union that resulted in massive political and economic capital being expended to close them.  The first gap was known as the "Bomber/Missile Gap".

The "bomber gap" was the unfounded belief in the Cold War-era United States that the Soviet Union had gained an advantage in deploying jet-powered strategic bombers. Widely accepted for several years, the gap was used as a political talking point in order to justify greatly increased defense spending. One result was a massive buildup of the United States Air Force bomber fleet, which peaked at over 2,500 bombers, in order to counter the perceived Soviet threat. Surveillance flights utilizing the Lockheed U-2 aircraft indicated that the bomber gap did not exist. Realizing that mere belief in the gap was an extremely effective funding source, a series of similarly nonexistent Soviet military advances were constructed in a tactic now known as "policy by press release." These included claims of a nuclear-powered bomber, supersonic VTOL flying saucers, and only a few years later, the "missile gap."

Armed with the political implications of this "gap", the United States spent a great deal of its treasure on defense items it ultimately did not need.

Also during the Cold War we had the "Sputnik Crisis" or "Space Gap".

The Sputnik crisis was America's reaction to the success of the Sputnik program.^[1] It was a key Cold War event that began on October 4, 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite.

The launch of Sputnik I and the failure of its first two Project Vanguard launch attempts rattled the American public; President Dwight D. Eisenhower referred to it as the “Sputnik Crisis”. Although Sputnik was itself harmless, its orbiting greatly accentuated the continual threat the United States had perceived from the Soviet Union since the Cold War began after World War II. The same rocket that launched Sputnik could send a nuclear warhead anywhere in the world in a matter of minutes, breaching the oceanic moat that had successfully protected the continental United States from attack during both World Wars. The Soviets had demonstrated this capability on August 21 with a successful 6,000 km test flight of the R-7 booster; TASS announced it five days later and the event was widely reported in Aviation Week and other media.

Less than a year after the Sputnik launch, Congress passed the National Defense Education Act (NDEA). The act was a four-year program that poured billions of dollars into the U.S. education system. In 1953 the government spent $153 million, and colleges took $10 million of that funding; however, by 1960 the combined funding grew almost sixfold because of the NDEA.^[2]After the initial public shock, the Space Race began, leading to the first human launched into space, Project Apollo and the first humans to land on the Moon in 1969.^[1]

We are still reaping the benefits of the National Defense Education Act today as undoubtedly the development of the Internet in the 1960s can be attributed to it.

Today we are still involved in competition with rival nations, though fortunately, without the animosity of the Cold War.  We are concerned that other nations are further along in broadband and broadband wireless deployment.  We are worried that other nations are further along in developing renewable energy.  We are worried that other nations are modernizing their infrastructure making our own less competitive.  And we are always concerned that our education system is not producing graduates as qualified as our rivals.

Our rivals too seem to share these concerns as nations such as Japan, South Korea and the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) all vie to out compete one another to lure investment capital to their nations which has beneficial results to their workers and economy.

But seeming alone among these nations, the USA is competing to be number one in another area, immigration.  Evidently by the rhetoric that is coming out of Washington, DC, one might think the USA is facing an "immigration gap", as we are told we must keep taking well over one million immigrants per year in order to remain competitive.  In fact the hot topic of the day is immigration reform in which we will legalize the millions of illegal aliens already in our nation and make provisions to accept as many as one and a half million legal immigrants on an ongoing basis.

We are told that without these immigrants, our nation will fall behind our competitors.  We will no longer lead the world in innovation, and we will soon become a second rate economy.  But if this is so, then why aren't our competitors competing for these immigrants too?  We take in more immigrants per year than Japan, South Korea and the BRICs combined.  If immigration was the key to economic success, then why aren't our competitors trying to take them from us?  And if we are getting so many already, why do many of our competitors have better growth rates and lower unemployment figures?

Additionally if immigration is the key to being on the cutting edge of technology, then why does our immigration system overwhelmingly welcome masses of people who do not even have high school diplomas let alone advanced technical degrees?

Also, why do nations like Japan and South Korea, who had little to do with the development of the automobile, cellular telephone, personal computer and the Internet, compete so successfully, and profitably, in these markets while the USA, instrumental in the development of all these technologies, seems to have more trouble?  Why do the BRICs lead the world in growth when they do so little in terms of innovation?

If the United States were not the world's leader in high-tech innovation, how would it hurt?  Currently we develop many of the latest technologies, but our competitors seem to profit from the exploitation of them more than we do.

So to sum up.  Does the USA have a real immigration gap, like the "Sputnik Crisis", that must be closed lest we fall behind our major economic competitors?  Or do we face an imagined problem, like the "bomber gap", which is being used by a politically connected class to exploit for their own economic and political gain?
Before you answer, look at the behavior of our competitors.  If mass immigration is the key to economic riches, then why aren't our competitors out competing us?  Why do we apparently have the only economy that is utterly dependent upon immigration?

An Open Letter on Comprehensive Immigration Reform to the Senate Judiciary Committee

Dear Senator(s),

I am writing you today to urge you to oppose the Comprehensive Immigration Reform plan drafted behind closed doors by the aptly named Gang of 8.

I could overwhelm you with the litany of data available that shows the devastation economic impacts of our current immigration policy and that would only be exacerbated by the latest CIR plan, data like that presented by renowned immigration expert Professor George Borjas of Harvard University that found that America’s native work force loses $402 billion annually in wages and benefits due to the downward pressure low-skilled immigrants put on the labor market.  Instead, I would like you to consider the national security implications of this plan.

Much has been made of the fact the terrorists who carried out the attacks in Boston were recent immigrants.  What is more alarming is that they were Islamic immigrants from a country known as a hotbed for radical Islamic terror.  The events of the Beslan school siege and the Moscow theater hostage should have been enough warning to the United States that allowing immigration from the area presented a clearly dangerous situation, that I am sad to say was 100% preventable.

I would also like to remind you that 15 of the 19 hijackers who carried out the 9/11 attacks which resulted in the loss of more than 3,000 lives and led to two wars in the Middle East were illegal immigrants, having over stayed their visas.  Once again, I am sad to say, their attacks were 100% preventable had the U.S. government been enforcing immigration laws already on the books.

It is only fortune that has prevented these tragedies from being played out again and again.  The shoe bomber, underwear bomber, and time square bomber all legally entered this country from countries with known radical Islamic activities.  Even though their incompetence kept lives from being lost, American immigration policy gave them the opportunity to try.

Increased and enhanced security, though that beneficial, will not stop future attacks.  Real immigration reform and enforcement can.

The country is actively involved in conflicts with radical Islam throughout the world.  Is it not commonsense to temporarily halt immigration from countries known to breed radical Islam?

In both WWI and WWII the federal government had the wherewithal to protect the homeland by suspending naturalization from our enemies.  While the US is involved in the global war on terror, so too should immigration be suspended for anyone coming from or having spent large amounts of time in these countries.

Better yet, immigration from all countries should be temporarily halted or reduced to replacement levels while those already here have time to assimilate to America’s unique and exceptional culture.

True comprehensive immigration reform would do just that.  It would also give preferential treatment to the best and brightest.  It would require mandatory E-verify for all businesses, no exceptions, and stream line deportation for illegal immigrants.  Most importantly, it would enforce the provisions of Section 8 USC 1324 (a)(1)(A)(iv)(b)(iii) which makes it a felony to hire illegal immigrants. 

When most people complain the current CIR provides amnesty to illegal immigrants, they are right in so far as they are given immediate legal status.  But, I go one step further.  It grants amnesty to the ruthless and unscrupulous employers who have for years knowingly flaunted immigration laws and hired illegal immigrants to try and gain an unfair labor subsidy against their competitors.

These employer’s actions have depressed wages, given rise to disastrous levels of unemployment against America’s native low-skilled labor force, and stifled innovation.

When Senator Rubio says the time for comprehensive immigration reform is now, he is half right.  Now is the time, but his plan is not the plan. 

Real comprehensive immigration reform should include the following and nothing more or less:

• Restrict new immigration to replacement levels until those who are already here have assimilated.
• Suspend immigration from countries with known terrorist activities and from any person having spent any significant time in these countries.
• Allow high-skilled immigrants in fields such as math, science, and medicine to be moved to the front of the line.
• End chain migration, allowing only for the minor children of immigrants.
• End birthright citizenship.
• End all welfare benefits for immigrants and their minor children.
• Institute an immigration tax on foreign-born citizens to subsidize the cost of enforcing immigration laws and subsidizing medical care for illegal immigrants.
• Suspension of low-skilled (i.e. those with no secondary or college education) immigration during periods when the federal unemployment level for low-skilled workers is above 4.5%.
• Most importantly, mandatory enforcement of existing immigration laws with regards to employers who hire illegal immigrants.
• Mandatory use of E-verify for all employers.

I urge you to STRONGLY oppose any CIR plan that doubles down on the mistakes of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965.

Sincerely,

The Kansas Citian