All posts tagged Obama administration

Dem Rep. Luis Gutierrez: I Worked With La Raza To Draft Amnesty Language For White House…

Have no doubts, Obama will ram amnesty through if he wins a second term.

Via Daily Caller:

In stark contrast to prior Obama administration statements, Illinois Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez told The Daily Caller that he and the National Council of La Raza were deeply involved in the crafting and implementation of a controversial Obama administration memo that many conservatives believe amounts to a policy of amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants.

President Obama, Gutierrez said, told him in December 2010 that comprehensive immigration reform could not be achieved legislatively because of fears Democrats would lose future elections. Instead, he said, the president suggested exploring administrative options to accomplish their mutual goals. [...]

Gutierrez, speaking exclusively with The Daily Caller following that event, said Obama’s declaration motivated him to draft a plan of action for the White House.

“I begin to write a ‘prosecutorial discretion’ memorandum,” Gutierrez said. “We take that prosecutorial discretion memorandum and take it to the White House. We meet with Bill Daley. Then we take it to the president.”

Keep reading…

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Judiciary Chairman Unleashes on Holder for ‘Partisan’ Ignorance of Constitution

With a scathing roll call of Eric Holder’s sins, Lamar Smith paves the way for the attorney general’s upcoming appearance before his committee.

Via: PJMedia, by BRIDGET JOHNSON

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee launched a scathing attack on the Department of Justice today with a report outlining how Attorney General Eric Holder’s agency is “ignoring the Constitution to impose a partisan agenda.”

“The pattern of pushing partisan ideology rather than neutrally enforcing the law began nearly as soon as the Administration took office and has continued unabated since,” the report from Rep. Lamar Smith states.

The Texas Republican said that under the Obama administration, the Justice Department “has become more partisan than ever.”

Smith has called Holder to testify before the committee on June 7 to answer for that partisanship.

“The Obama administration has ignored the constitutional balance of power between co-equal branches of government and blocked investigations of its actions. When the Administration doesn’t like a law, they refuse to enforce it. And if the Senate’s constitutional authority to approve political appointees gets in their way, the Administration ignores the Constitution,” Smith said.

“All government officials are bound by the limits of the Constitution and the rule of law, including the President and the Attorney General,” the chairman added.

The report delves into several high-profile examples of the DoJ’s quest to “impose the Administration’s partisan agenda on the American people.”

The first of these: Operation Fast and Furious.

“Since the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) Operation Fast and Furious first became public in January, 2011, the Department has responded with a consistent focus on avoiding responsibility rather than addressing institutional flaws,” the report states.

Smith’s chairman’s report calls out Holder for his May 3, 2011, testimony before the committee in which he said that he “probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”

Months before the hearing, though, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) had personally handed Holder a copy of his Jan. 27, 2011, letter regarding the matter, and documents later revealed by the DoJ that fall included memos to Holder with summaries of the gun-walking scandal.

Holder denied giving untruthful testimony, but under pressure from lawmakers eventually said he’d meant to say “a few months” before the committee.

The Department of Justice responded to a CBS News Freedom of Information Act request on Fast and Furious last week by sending mostly blank pages to the news network.

Smith’s report also faults the DoJ for “rushing to court to oppose state laws aimed at improving immigration enforcement while ignoring sanctuary cities and other policies which explicitly violate federal immigration law,” knocking its legal action against Arizona’s SB1070.

“Even if the Department’s argument were not entirely frivolous, it is a much weaker case than could be mounted against states like New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois that openly violate their duty to support federal immigration enforcement,” it says. “While Arizona’s law complements and strengthens federal immigration policy, the laws of these states and some of the cities within them explicitly violate the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996—yet DOJ refuses to take any action against them.”

The report asserts that since the DoJ has not brought a single court action to block sanctuary city policies or tuition breaks for illegal immigrants, the choice to focus limited resources on strained, weaker arguments shows the department’s bias.

“The glaring inconsistency can best be explained by highly partisan decision making influencing which cases to pursue,” it says.

“The Justice Department claims to be acting to protect the interests of Congress, arguing that except in narrow circumstances only Congress can legislate immigration enforcement. In truth, the Department ignores Congress except when it can help the Administration achieve its partisan goals, in this case its fiercely anti-enforcement immigration agenda.”

Smith then goes after Holder & Co. for challenging voter ID laws, asserting that it’s due to partisan bias that the Justice Department puts taxpayer dollars to “waste” with its challenges.

“The Justice Department claims that in South Carolina minorities are 20 percent more likely than whites to lack photo ID,” the report states. “This sounds significant until you examine the original data. 90% of minorities have photo IDs compared with 91.6% of whites. The Department’s presentation is mathematically true (because 10% is technically 20 percent more than 8.4%) but it masks that in reality, the Department is battling over a difference of less than 2%.”

The report faults the DoJ for blocking congressional inquiries, including oversight requests — five from the Judiciary Committee alone since July 2011 — probing just how deep of a role Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan had in shaping ObamaCare before her appointment to the court.

The Justice Department has claimed that the Judiciary Committee — studying her background to ensure that federal law governing recusals is adequate — “has no legitimate legislative interest in the material,” according to the chairman’s report.

“The Administration’s lack of cooperation only heightens concerns that they have something to hide,” the report states. “Unfortunately, the Administration’s stonewalling of Congress could result in an unconstitutional law being upheld.”

Smith proceeds to take on the DoJ for refusing to stand behind the Defense of Marriage Act. Holder informed Congress on Feb. 23, 2011, that his department would no longer defend DOMA in court, arguing that it violated the constitutional guarantee of equal protection.

“The unprecedented nature of the Attorney General’s arguments and the evasion of accountability represented by continuing to enforce the law while not defending it combine to support the inference that the Administration’s stance is based on its partisan agenda rather than on a sincere analysis of the Constitution and, as such, the Administration’s non-defense of the Defense of Marriage Act is a usurpation of Congress’s legislative function,” the report states.

Finally, the chairman goes after Justice for turning a blind eye to constitutional limits of President Obama’s recess appointment power.

Obama sparked fury in Congress with three recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and another to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Jan. 4. The Senate was not technically in recess at the time, but in pro forma sessions with no business to be conducted — which could be reversed if senators were asked to conduct any business — as agreed by both parties.

Smith linked the appointment to bad advice given to Obama by Justice Department counsel, who found that the President “has discretion to conclude that the Senate is unavailable to perform its advise-and-consent function and to exercise his power to make recess appointments.”

“The invocation by the President of the recess appointment power when the Senate was not in recess was an unconstitutional evasion of the Senate’s power of advice and consent,” the report said. “It encroached upon the Senate’s constitutional prerogatives and aggrandized power to the President.”

After a roll call of Justice Department sins, the chairman concludes that “the Constitution has not been guarded with care.”

“[Holder] promised that under his leadership, the Department of Justice would be free from partisanship,” Smith’s report states. “He testified that in his tenure ‘law enforcement decisions must be untainted by partisanship.’”

“The reality has been different from the promise.”

 

Bridget Johnson is PJ Media’s Washington, D.C., editor.
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‘FAST AND FURIOUS’ EXPOSES WHITE HOUSE ANTI-GUN AGENDA, COVERUP

Katie Pavlich’s new book, “Fast and Furious,” assembles the devastating evidence that implicates the Obama administration for its botched gun-walking operation and ensuing coverup to mislead Congress and the American people.

Few journalists have devoted as much time reporting on Fast and Furious as Pavlich. As the news editor of Townhall, she has asked questions the mainstream media ignored. Now her book pieces the story together for a complete picture of how a government-run operation turned deadly.

She’ll speak on Tuesday at noon ET at The Bloggers Briefing. Breitbart TV, in partnership with The Heritage Foundation, will air it live.

Operation Fast and Furious began in 2009 as an effort to eliminate high-level arms trafficking networks. Guns were allowed to “walk,” and rather than arresting straw purchasers and cartel buyers, hundreds were used to commit crimes in the United States and Mexico. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was killed with one in 2010, and an estimated 1,400 guns remain missing.

As previously documented by Breitbart News Network, Pavlich’s book contains new information questioning Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s testimony to Congress as well as the media’s efforts to shield the Obama administration from criticism.

The book details President Obama’s lifelong mission to subvert the Second Amendment, long before he was seeking federal office. Pavlich also documents how Fast and Furious plays into his administration’s anti-gun agenda. She cites a Washington Post story from Dec. 15, 2010, before details of Fast and Furious had emerged, in which federal authorities attempt to blame the rise in gun violence on U.S. gun shops.

The Post story referred to Project Gunrunner as an operation to inspect, interdict, and seize guns from straw purchasers. It did not mention an ATF operation to allow straw purchasers to buy guns for the Mexican drug cartels. Some of the very same ATF and Justice Department officials who blamed American gun shops for the spike in Mexican gun crime had in fact been helping the drug cartels to help themselves for over a year.

The book provides information from sources and whistleblowers who offer a behind-the-scenes perspective about the botched operation. One of them, ATF agent John Dodson, was punished for his decision to question why arrests weren’t made before the guns fell into the hands of ruthless criminals in Mexico.

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VAST LEFT WING CONSPIRACY: DOJ REFERS REPORTER TO MEDIA MATTERS, SOURCE CLAIMS

Katie Dixon, a ‘confidential assistant’ in the Office of Public Affairs at the Department of Justice, reportedly sent an email to Washington Free Beacon writer C.J. Ciaramella that she had been directed to send him a link to Media Matters for America, which holds weekly “strategy calls” with the White House, in response to an inquiry  regarding the Operation Fast and Furious scandal. In a tweet Friday evening, @CJCiaramella said:

Requested comment from DOJ re: @KatiePavlich‘s #fastandfurious book. DOJ sent me a link to a Media Matters article

He then linked to what appears to be an email from Friday, April 20th at 5:15pm from Dixon.

The screenshot of that email shows Dixon saying:

Per your request for information on a Fast and Furious book, I was told to direct your questions to the FBI and also to provide you with a link to this story:

The message then linked to a story titled Fast And Fallacious: Pavlich’s Book On ATF Operation Filled With Falsehoods. At the time of this writing, Dixon has not responded to Breitbart News to confirm that she sent the email shown in the tweet.

Pavlich’s book, which is currently a top seller on Amazon.com, is described as telling readers “in chilling detail, just what this operation conducted by the ATF, under the supervision of the Justice Department, entailed” and saying that “equally appalling is the blatant cover-up of wrongdoing by the Obama administration.”

In a statement to Breitbart News, Pavlich said…

For more than a year now, Americans have been stonewalled, ignored and disrespected in our quests for information about the Obama administration’s lethal Operation Fast and Furious. The fact that the Obama Justice Department, headed by Attorney General Eric Holder, is now sending reporters to the far left, George Soros funded, Media Matters for factual information about one of the bloodiest scandals in U.S. history, is no surprise and totally predictable. This is just an extension of the Obama administration’s shameless coverup and refusal to tell the truth about Fast and Furious.

The Justice Department has blood on its hands, there are at least 300 Mexican citizens dead and two of our federal agents have been murdered as a result of this program. The Obama administration as a whole refuses to take responsibility and provide transparency for an American public outraged by this scandal. The Justice Department is responsible for upholding the law in a fair, unbiased and non-political manner, but the current politically appointed DOJ leadership has chosen to engage in promoting a far Left and controversial agenda. Apparently, the new spokesperson for the Justice Department is Media Matters. If you want the truth, read my bookFast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal and Its Shameless Coverup. It is clear we won’t be getting it from the Justice Department on this crucial issue.

Ciaramella concluded via Twitter, “The Media Matters article doesn’t address my specific question at all. Keep up the good work, DOJ.”

UPDATE : Deparment of Justice PR  Katie Dixon also worked for the Democratic National Committee and Organizing For America, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Nonprofit; 51-200 employees; Political Organization industry

September 2009 – December 2009 (4 months) Washington D.C. Metro Area

Fulfilled multimedia requests for Democratic congressional offices and state parties, including national media coverage of the death and funeral of Senator Ted Kennedy for family and staff. Also tracked and monitored major national political events for both Democratic and Republican figures to include in daily media tracker schedule for use by the DNC and the White House. Also researched and organized public record archives on major GOP figures, including former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Nonprofit; 51-200 employees; Political Organization industry

July 2009 – August 2009 (2 months) Washington D.C. Metro Area

Used VoteBuilder and the Voter Activation Network to search and organize personal health care stories on behalf of Organizing for America for public use in campaign literature, the Organizing for America website and speeches by the President and federal elected officials in support of the Affordable Care Act.

She also worked for the Sunlight Foundation and tweeted enthusiastically about Obama’s Bundler List on 7/15/11, saying “Now this is f**king awesome: http://bit.ly/n4dqQ4(@sunfoundation).” Ms. Dixon’s tweets are protected butare viewable here. (h/t Twitter user @teezieldors)

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Is the Muslim Brotherhood Winning?

CBN News 18 April 2012

By Erick Stakelbeck

On this week’s episode of the Stakelbeck on Terror show, we examine the Muslim Brotherhood’s alarming recent strides in the United States—including a visit by a Brotherhood delegation to the White House to meet with Obama administration officials. We also show how radical, Brotherhood-linked American groups like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) are benefiting from the group’s newfound “mainstream” status.

Plus, General Jerry Boykin joins us for an exclusive interview about CAIR’s pressure campaign against him and we also sit down with a leading Egyptian dissident—a former Muslim turned Christian–who warns about the Brotherhood’ rise.

And you won’t want to miss Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert as he calls the Obama administration on its open door policy for Islamists.

Click on the viewer below to watch.

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Gohmert: Government Dictating Health Choices Is Not a Slippery Slope but a Cliff

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo

Via: Roll Call

As the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the case of Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida, one thing is certain: The Obama administration has diametrically changed its position in arguments before the Supreme Court, revealing supreme hypocrisy and vulnerability.

We desperately needed heath care reform, but this cure is worse than the disease.

Claims were made by the bill’s proponents throughout the Obamacare debate that the mandate to buy government prescribed health insurance was so fundamental to the bill that it could not be omitted. If some Americans could decline the mandate without a massive fine, then the whole health care scheme would not work. We were also told repeatedly that these payments were not taxes but were punitive fees. Now Obama administration officials state it is a tax.

In six separate parts of the bill, Congress asserted the critical nature of the mandate to the overall bill. In court documents, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen
Sebelius characterized the individual mandate as the linchpin of Obamacare’s statutory scheme.

Although former Solicitor General (now Supreme Court Justice) Elena Kagan still maintains that she shirked her duty by failing to give any advice on Obamacare, the current solicitor general conceded that Congress did not intend for the guaranteed-issue and community-rating provisions in the statute to take effect without the individual mandate.

The president assured us repeatedly that if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it. Now we know that if you liked your health care plan, it is gone or materially changed to comply with the Obama-Pelosi-Reid new prescription.

As this administration constantly changes its fundamental positions, the facts remain unchanged. A presumption of severability applies if Congress includes a severability clause. In Obamacare, however, Congress deliberately removed the severability clause from the House version. Numerous statements of Congressional leaders during debate made it clear that if the mandate falls, so should the entire bill.

Some have argued that all states mandate the purchase of car insurance as a parallel to the health insurance mandate. Courts have dealt with the issue, unequivocally adjudicating that driving on a state’s road is a privilege, not a right. Note also, not a single state requires the purchase of insurance to cover the driver. They only require insurance to cover potential damage to others. Obamacare is the first time the U.S. government has mandated the purchase of a product not for a privilege but simply to live.

Fortunately, before the Supreme Court rules, the president has illustrated that when there is a conflict between religious beliefs and Obamacare decrees, the executive branch decrees take priority. For example, administration orders in health care coverage recently trumped the First Amendment religious rights of those who believe it is wrong to pay into an insurance system where fungible money can be used for abortions or contraceptives.

This override of constitutional rights sounds alarms for other potential violations of the First, Fourth and Fifth amendments, as well as creating “equal protection” issues. Obamacare’s threat to our liberties cannot be overstated. If the federal government can mandate health insurance of a specific type alleging the greatest good for the greatest number of people, then previously protected activities must yield to the new Obamacare trump over constitutional rights. Religious and personal beliefs of all, including justices on this case, will have to yield to the tyranny of the majority as its whims ebb and flow under the guise of health care if this law is upheld.

If the Supreme Court decides that the federal government has the right to dictate health insurance requirements and policies, then the federal government will have the duty to dictate how we live so as to avoid unjust expenses on the rest of the insured in America. The thought of a conservative president with that same power should scare liberals into joining conservatives in proclaiming the constitutional overreach of Obamacare.

Besides the mandate, Obamacare tells insurers what provisions must be in all policies. Under Obamacare, activities that are potentially hazardous or could cause increased medical costs must be stopped, fined or taxed whenever a federal bureaucrat says so. So if Obamacare is upheld by the Supreme Court in whole or in part, then the federal government’s early override of constitutionally expressed religious rights for the purported greatest good of Obamacare’s insureds must stand.

Consider, however, that a different president could easily assert that he or she has the same authority to override unstated privacy rights just as effectively as this administration has overridden expressly stated religious rights, so long as it saves money for the greatest number of people.

The slope created by a federal right to dictate health insurance is not slippery, it is a cliff. The overriding of liberties, once begun, will know no obvious bounds.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) is vice chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security. Prior to being elected to Congress, Gohmert was elected to three terms as a district judge in Smith County, Texas, and also served as chief justice of Texas’ 12th Court of Appeals.

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Congressman blasts ICE for releasing alleged child rapist

WASHINGTON - OCTOBER 06: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (R) speaks at a news conference with Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton October 6, 2010 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released an illegal immigrant and alleged child rapist — who is accused of incest — because he has a child who is a U.S. citizen and has no prior criminal convictions or immigration violations.

After being released, the suspect, Amado Espinoza-Ramirez, escaped his ankle bracelet. He skipped out on his next immigration court hearing and is now a fugitive from justice, free in the United States.

ICE’s explanation for Espinoza-Ramirez’s release is part of a press release by Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas. The Judiciary Committee has oversight over immigration policy.

Smith was moved to act following a report from The Daily Caller on Espinoza-Ramirez, who was picked up in Chicago and ultimately charged with 42 counts of predatory sexual acts. On Sept. 2, ICE took custody of Espinoza-Ramirez, releasing him with an ankle bracelet monitor later that same day.

The suspect failed to show up for his scheduled hearing on Nov. 18. ICE would provide no information on how he might have maneuvered out of the bracelet.

ICE issued a statement to Smith that was identical to one quoted in TheDC report, except for one additional sentence: “The decision to release Mr. Espinoza-Ramirez from ICE custody was made based on the fact that he had no prior criminal convictions, no prior immigration violations, and is the parent of a U.S. citizen child.”

As a result of that added information, Smith issued this statement:

“It’s insulting to Americans that ICE deliberately released a criminal immigrant suspected of multiple counts of child rape back onto our streets. This reckless decision is ultimately a failure of the Obama administration’s lax immigration policies. And it shows that this administration is willing to put illegal and criminal immigrants ahead of the safety of our children.”

“Obama administration officials have made clear that it is not their priority to deport and detain all illegal and criminal immigrants. The administration has issued new deportation guidelines that could allow potentially millions of illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. without a vote of Congress. And the president’s budget slashes funding for detention space and instead funds programs that release illegal and criminal immigrants into our communities.”

Smith’s office stated that the case of Amado Espinoza-Ramirez is an extreme example of a larger problem. Back in November, the House Judiciary Committee issued a subpoena for the records of every suspect that was brought to the attention of ICE, but ICE decided not to act on the information.

The House Judiciary Committee wanted to use the data to cross-reference against criminal records to determine how many people who wound up in ICE custody were ultimately released and went on to commit further crimes.

The House Judiciary Committee would specifically like to investigate the effectiveness of a June 2011 memo from ICE Director John Morton, which was supposed to guide ICE agents in identifying dangerous suspects.

Initially, critics of the Obama administration seized on the fact that Morton directed ICE agents not to pursue suspects whose only violation was of immigration law. The memo has since come under fire because its implementation has led to numerous dangerous criminals being released. Amado Espinoza-Ramirez is the latest example to gain media attention.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/24/congressman-blasts-ice-for-releasing-alleged-child-rapist/#ixzz1q4aX3x9A

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Obama Regime Flips Congress The Bird, Will Resume $1.5 Billion In Military Aid For Muslim Brotherhood-Run Egypt…

Via: Zip

So Congress passes a law forbidding military aid to Egypt and Obama decides he’s doing it anyway? How very dictatorish of him.

(WaPo) — The Obama administration intends to resume funding for Egypt’s military, despite congressional restrictions and objections from human rights and democracy advocates.

For months, the money for Egypt — more than $1.5 billion, with the bulk earmarked for the military — has been withheld amid that country’s crackdown on pro-democracy groups, including several U.S.-based organizations with close ties to political parties in Washington.

A law passed by Congress in December forbids funding unless the State Department certifies that Egypt is making progress on basic freedoms and human rights.

But Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is close to announcing plans to bypass those restrictions on national security grounds, according to senior administration officials and others who have been briefed on the deliberations but were not authorized to speak publicly. The administration believes failure to provide the funds would risk worsening already fraying ties with Egypt’s leaders, most notably the Egyptian military, which still controls the country.

Keep reading…

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OBAMACARE SUBJECTS NEARLY EVERY PHONE AND COMPUTER TO GOVERNMENT CONTROL

English: Barack Obama signing the Patient Prot...

Via: Big Government

As we have been again reminded by the Barack Obama Administration’s fraudulent Sandra Fluke, abortion-pill-and-birth-control assault on the First Amendment, we are staring down the barrel of the ObamaCare gun.

Its 2014 full-on implementation will lead inexorably to more and more rescissions of our Constitutional rights, a downward spiral of poorer, slower medical attention, rationing thereof – and ultimately all of us herded into the government-only Communal Care Pit.

The Administration will slide ever-smaller bowls of health care meat into the Pit – keeping the very best bits for themselves, of course.  And watch while we 300+ million Americans fight for and over the ever-dwindling scraps.

This is the President Obama vision.  He deems it unfair that some are at the bottom – so there he will consign us all.  This is the Left’s definition of Equality – everyone having equal amounts of nothing.

But as we race towards this ObamaCare dystopia, technology is every day making individualized and ever better medicine more readily available to everyone.

Which is why the Obama Administration is again targeting it for totalitarian control.

—–

This is not just another assault on individual health care.  It is yet another attack on the entire Internet and technology free market Xanadu that exists – and has only just begun to develop.

See: Neutrality, Network.

The completely absurd Fluke-esque demand for birth control “freedom” – from charge – obfuscates and distracts from the dramatic, sweeping freedom losses that ObamaCare imposes.

On July 19, 2011, the Obama Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released Draft Guidance for Industry and Food and Drug Administration Staff on Mobile Medical Applications.

I.e. our smartphone, tablet and computer apps.

The Obama Administration – the most unilateral-power-grab Presidency in our nation’s history – is asserting that these mobile medical apps may pose “risks.”  And thusly should be regulated as medical devices.

The only “risks” posed by these individualized medical marvels – are to the Administration’s push to consign us all to the Communal Care Pit.  The more control we each have over our own health care, the less Communal control our Overlords have.

And this obviously must be stopped.

—–

According to the Administration, the two dollar app that takes your blood pressure should be regulated like an MRI machine.

(And does anyone doubt that one day in the not-too-distant future we’ll be able on these wondrous devices to self-MRI?)

And because your phone has on it the two dollar blood pressure app – the Obama FDA asserts that they can thusly regulate your entire phone.  Because according to them that one app has turned your phone into a “medical device.”

Under the FDA’s expansive parameters, almost any device on which you do almostanything regarding your health – your smartphones, your tablets, your desktop and laptop computers – will be regulated.

Did you use your smartphone/tablet/computer camera or microphone to monitor something health-related?  It just became an Obama FDA-regulated medical device.

Did you save your health care data on any smartphone/tablet/computer?  That too is now regulated.

Did you send an email containing any health care information to your doctor?  The device from which you sent said missive is too now regulated.

Think we’re exaggerating?

Here’s the Obama FDA’s long litany of “Mobile Medical Apps.”  A virtually limitless expansion of regulatory authority over not just the:

List of functionalities to illustrate types of mobile medical apps.

But also the:

Mobile medical apps that transform or make the mobile platform into a regulated medical device by using attachments or sensors or similar medical device functions.

And the:

Mobile medical apps that allow the user to input patient-specific information and – using formulae or a processing algorithm - output a patient-specific result, diagnosis, or treatment recommendationthat is used in clinical practice or to assist in making clinical decisions.

In other words – almost any device on which you do almost anything regarding your health.

Still think we’re exaggerating?

Obama’s FDA is concurrently asserting that the adult stem cells in your body are a “drug” – and that therefore your body is now government regulatory property.

In another outrageous power-grab, FDA says your own stem cells are drugs—and stem cell therapy is interstate commerce because it affects the bottom line of FDA-approved drugs in other states!…

Remember when the Left’s battle cry was “Get Your Hands Off My Body?”

In the Age of Fluke, it is now “Let me get my hands on your wallet, so that others can cost-free get their hands on my body.”

The government has gone from protecting your life, liberty and property from others – to guaranteeing others access to your life, liberty and property.

The implication of the FDA’s interpretation of the law, if upheld by the court, would mean that all food, drugs, devices, and biologic or cosmetic products would be subject to FDA jurisdiction. The FDA is expanding its reach even to commerce within (a single) state….

Still think we’re exaggerating?

—–

The choice in November is yours.

You can be snow-blinded by a corrupt, Fluke-ish “War on Woman” – where free-from-cost birth control is allegedly the greatest freedom problem facing our nation.

Or you can with your untrammeled sight view the gi-normous usurpations of our freedom in which President Obama and his Democrat cohorts have serially engaged.

Perhaps most gi-normous of all being ObamaCare.  Under which the government is doing what government always does – expanding boundlessly the parameters of its authoritarian control.

Up to and including over nearly every computer device we own – and the very stem cells our bodies contain.

Tell you what – I’ll co-opt the Left’s old mantra. I’ll pay for my birth control, and you Get Your Hands Off My Body – and my smartphones, tablets and computers.

As freedom trade-offs go, that’s a pretty good one.

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Eric Holder: Targeted killings legal, constitutional

Attorney General Eric Holder is pictured at a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing.

Holder is the highest ranking administration official yet to defend the administration’s position. | Jay Westcott/POLITICO

CHICAGO — Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday presented the Obama administration’s most detailed justification for armed drone strikes against Al Qaeda leaders, arguing that the U.S. government doesn’t legally need judicial review to kill terrorist operatives overseas — even when they’re Americans.

“It’s clear that United States citizenship alone does not make such individuals immune from being targeted. But it does mean that the government must take into account all relevant constitutional considerations with respect to United States citizens — even those who are leading efforts to kill innocent Americans,” Holder said in a speech delivered at Northwestern University School of Law.

Questions about the legal basis for lethal U.S. drone operations have swirled for years, particularly as the Obama administration stepped up drone strikes in Pakistan. However, the queries and criticism became more intense after reports in 2010 that a New Mexico-born cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki — killed in a Sept. 2011 drone strike — was on a list of terror suspects that the U.S. had decided to target using deadly force.

Holder is the highest-ranking administration official yet to defend the administration’s position, arguing that placing terror suspects on a so-called kill list is subject to “robust oversight” but should not and need not involve the courts.

“Some have argued that the president is required to get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen who is a senior operational leader of Al Qaeda or associated forces. This is simply not accurate,” Holder said. “Due process and judicial process are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The Constitution guarantees due process, it does not guarantee judicial process.”

Holder’s half-hour speech came in the wake of months of internal administration debate about how to respond to calls for the release of a still-secret Justice Department legal opinion justifying the use of deadly force against al-Awlaki. The address appeared to reflect a decision to shed some more light on the legal standards the administration applies in such cases but stopped short of the transparency demanded by many critics and even some supporters of the policy.

Al-Awlaki’s father filed a lawsuit in 2010 challenging the targeted-killing policy, but U.S. District Court Judge John Bates dismissed the case, saying courts were unsuited to make the judgments involved in singling out terrorists for death.

However, Bates said the suit presented “stark, and perplexing, questions” and called his own dismissal of it “somewhat unsettling.” The judge noted that if the U.S. government wanted to wiretap al-Awlaki’s phone calls, even in Yemen, a court-issued warrant would be required, but to kill him required no judicial warrant or review.

In his speech, Holder rejected claims by some legal scholars and human-rights groups that the use of lethal force off the battlefield must be limited only to instances of imminent threat, such as cases in which authorities have indication that a terror suspect is in the midst of plotting a specific attack.

Continue Reading

 

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