Protesting immigration law enforcement

About those protests over immigration on Friday:

message /art via Lucianne.com

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Today’s Excellent Read: High Crimes and Misdemeanors

art credit: gallerycartoon.blogspot.com

Douglas MacKinnon at Investor’s Business Daily brings a lot of the dossier-DOJ-FBI-Russia-collusion-spy scandals into clearer focus, and it is not pretty. A few morsels:

As ever more deliberately concealed evidence is being uncovered of factual "collusion" between the Obama White House, the failed presidential campaign of Hillary Clinton and Russia; of professional operatives in our intelligence services openly trying to first, cripple the campaign of Donald Trump, and then, having failed at that criminal objective, to delegitimize his presidency; and of secretly funded far-left anarchist groups proudly preaching violence against those they oppose, it seems the perfect time to ask three questions:

First, what is the definition of a "Police State?

Second, what is the definition of "Treason?"

And last, what – as defined in the Constitution of the United States of America – is the meaning of "High Crimes and Misdemeanors?"

. . .

When you collude with foreign espionage agents to manufacture evidence to obtain a warrant to spy on citizens of the United States for purely political and ideological reasons, you are not only breaking the laws of the United States, but are introducing those very questions of treason, bribery and high crimes and misdemeanors into the conversation.

. . .

What is happening now is not only chilling to the bone, it's dramatically more dangerous because these crimes are being aided, abetted and covered-up by a number of partisans in the mainstream media.

Read the rest here.

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Devin Nunes, a deplorable dairy farmer

photo credit: impactlab.net

Historian Victor Davis Hanson always comes up with insights on today’s headlines, and in his latest, he offer perspectives not only as a scholar and professor, but also as a California farmer. His column at American Greatness on “Counterfeit Elitism” starts off:

Those damn dairy farmers. Why do they insist on trying to govern? Or, put another way:

Why are Republicans trusting Devin Nunes to be their oracle of truth!? A former dairy farmer who House intel staffers refer to as Secret Agent Man because he has no idea what’s going on.

Thus spoke MSNBC panelist, Yale graduate, former Republican “strategist,” and Bush administration speechwriter Elise Jordan.

Jordan likely knows little about San Joaquin Valley family dairy farmers and little notion of the sort of skills, savvy, and work ethic necessary to survive in an increasingly corporate-dominated industry. Whereas dairy farmer Nunes has excelled in politics, it would be hard to imagine Jordan running a family dairy farm, at least given the evidence of her televised skill sets and sobriety.

Republicans “trust” Devin Nunes, because without his dogged efforts it is unlikely that we would know about the Fusion GPS dossier or the questionable premises on which FISA court surveillance was ordered. Neither would we have known about the machinations of an array of Obama Administration, Justice Department and FBI officials who, in addition to having possibly violated the law in monitoring a political campaign and unmasking and leaking names of Americans to the press, may have colluded with people in the Clinton campaign who funded the Steele dossier.

The rest of his article is here. It’s a long look at the insulated elites who know better than the basketfuls of deplorables.

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Alicia Colon on political hysteria

 (Jake Fuller's cartoon appeared with the article at Jewish World Review)

Alicia Colon’s column on the occasion of President Trump’s birthday is, as usual, thoughtful. Her title is “When Losing an Election Makes You Lose Your Mind” – and it will probably resonate with Cleveland Tea Party people. Here are a few extracts:

The presidential election of 2016 was an entirely different ball game because the man who won was a completely different animal.

A billionaire nonpolitician was elected who was also very dangerous to the settled bureaucratic elite in both parties because he is uncontrollable by the special interests that rule Congress. The wrath and derangement that spilled forth after the election and continues still is unprecedented yet not completely surprising.

Although it made absolutely no sense, the hype for a Hillary Clinton presidency was relentless and overpoweringly waged in all sources, including the media, the Internet and social networks.

There were very few critics asking the important question --- why this woman?

She carried more baggage than an airport porter yet only one candidate (Trump) chose to call her a criminal.

. . .

It is clear that the Democrat Party has become the amoral party of progressives aka Marxists and not the one my family grew up with. There are no Zell Millers or like-minded thinkers left here.

. . .

If you're a conservative who voted for Donald Trump even though he wasn't your first choice, you may have ended up ostracized by the Democrats in your family or have ended up writing off a number of friends who've expressed contempt for your choice. It's a very wise policy not to discuss politics or religion but hard to do when your career is about politics.

I've been called a moron, a deplorable, unhinged, and worse by those whom I once believed were reasonable but have now lost their minds. I choose not to return that vitriol for those I care for and hope that one day they will come to their senses and realize the sky is not falling and our POTUS may succeed in making America great again.

He will do this in spite of all the mainstream media, leftwing pundits, social media, the entire Democrat Party, RINOs, Hollywood celebrities and Soros minions spending his billions waging phony protests against him.

I will continue to pray for President Trump's success and I encourage the rest of the deplorables to wish him well.

Happy Birthday, Mr. President!

Read the rest here.

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Democrats boycott the inauguration tomorrow

photo credit: mediatrackers

Adelle Nazarian at Breitbart reports:

At last count, over 50 Democrats have announced they will be skipping President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Friday, January 20.

The majority of them are from the deep blue state of California.

The full list is here. Ohio Representative Marcia Fudge is on that list. Cleveland.com article is here.

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Fascism: redefining the word

woody.typepad via Steven Crowder/Twitter

  

If you managed to wade through Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism, you already know that the term “fascism” has been misappropriated by Communists, Progressives, and other left-of-center isms to mean the opposite of its original far left definition. Several online dictionaries today reflect the switch in meaning, and even the Wikipedia entry shows the difficulty of navigating the origins of the term and its current usage by the political Left as a pejorative.

Today Bookworm (of the Bookworm Room blog) has a piece at American Thinker that summarizes the origin of the left/right nomenclature and the sleight-of-hand in redefining “fascism” – all in the context of a short history lesson. The entire article is here. Below are a couple of extracts:

For months now, the Democrat-Progressive fever swamps have been using the word “fascist” in connection with Donald Trump and those who voted for him. It took Michael Kinsley to elevate this shoddy claim onto pages of the Washington Post: Trump, he asserts, is a fascist.

. . .

Given that conservatives Republicans, including the majority of Trump supporters, are on the liberty side of the spectrum, far from the world’s most brutal tyrants, what gave rise to the glaringly false syllogism that “Republicans are right-wing fascists and Hitler was a right-win fascist, so all Republicans are Hitler”? 

You can blame it on a nasty little historic and linguistic trick American communists pulled, which was to make “fascism” synonymous with the political “right.” Once having done that, they could claim that American conservatives, being “right wing,” are therefore fascist. This is pure disinformation.

. . .

“Fascism,” another historic term, is one that American statists embraced until Hitler tainted it. It first gained political traction in Italy in the 1920s. Mussolini defined it to mean “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” In other words, fascism is purely on the statist side of the continuum.

Savvy readers will have noticed that fascism sounds remarkably like communism: It’s all about concentrating all power in the state, leaving the individual entirely subordinate to the state. The primary difference between the two ideologies is that in communism the government nationalizes private property, whereas in fascism the government does not nationalize it but nevertheless completely controls — as is the case, for example, with Obamacare, which saw the government establish the rules for the private insurance market and mandate that Americans buy the product.

. . .

One more thing: Obama said that the biggest disappointment of his presidency was his failure to grab more guns from American hands.  Statists always grab guns because their regimes are fundamentally hostile to the citizens they control, making it impossible for those citizens to defend themselves against tyrannical government. Trump’s promise to protect the Second Amendment is the antithesis of a statist, especially a “fascist,” regime.

Read the rest here. 

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Weekend video schadenfreude fun

Via Instapundit and Michael Walsh at PJ Media on Trump and the media / celebrities:

"As Oscar Wilde famously said, "One must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little Nell without laughing." Ditto with these cocksure pronunciamentos about the impossibility of a Trump presidency from the usual suspects. (The Ann Coulter clip is especially funny!) Enjoy":

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Eric Holder named to lead effort to destroy GOP

art credit: OtterLimits

If this doesn’t scare you, nothing will. It's not a headline from The Onion, either. From Thomas Lifson at AmericanThinker:

Eric Holder named to lead effort to destroy GOP

after Hillary wins the presidency

This election is for keeps: plans are being implemented, with President Obama already signed on, staff hired, and money being raised.  Perhaps lulled into complacency by the MSM polls, the Democrats have already constructed and staffed their strategy to permanently disable the Republican Party.  Eric Holder is the perfect henchman, a man above nothing in his quest for political dominance, unbound by old-fashioned concepts of justice.

The GOP will remain in existence as the token opposition, useful for legitimizing the actual one-party regime, the essential element of the election rituals reminding us of the Republic we once enjoyed.

Edward Isaac-Dovere of Politico has the scoop:

As Democrats aim to capitalize on this year’s Republican turmoil and start building back their own decimated bench, former Attorney General Eric Holder will chair a new umbrella group focused on redistricting reform—with the aim of taking on the gerrymandering that’s left the party behind in statehouses and made winning a House majority far more difficult.

The new group, called the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, was developed in close consultation with the White House. President Barack Obama himself has now identified the group—which will coordinate campaign strategy, direct fundraising, organize ballot initiatives and put together legal challenges to state redistricting maps—as the main focus of his political activity once he leaves office.

The group is moving forward in a systematic way, assembling talent and money:

Though initial plans to be active in this year’s elections fell short, the group has been incorporated as a 527, with Democratic Governors Association executive director Elizabeth Pearson as its president and House Majority PAC executive director Ali Lapp as its vice president. They’ve been pitching donors and aiming to put together its first phase action plan for December, moving first in the Virginia and New Jersey state elections next year and with an eye toward coordination across gubernatorial, state legislative and House races going into the 2018 midterms.

Redistricting, aka Gerrymandering (depending on the eye of the beholder), is now a science, thanks to the data-mining capabilities of all the Silicon Valley Big Money corporatist allies of the Democrats.  Assembling masses of data from Google, Facebook, and others, they can put together districts micro-targeted with just enough Democrats to win and shove the GOP voters into 90% majority districts, shut out forever from control of state legislatures and the House of Representatives.

As Richard Baehr emailed me, "so long as there is an opposition, it must be destroyed."

It will be, if these well designed, politically connected, well financed efforts are implemented under a President Rodham.  

Combined with a Supreme Court committed to the living Constitution fantasy, the Uniparty will rule us all any way it desires.

The continuing avalanche of Wikileaks confirms just how corrupt the entire political and governmental structures are. Sharyl Attkisson (who quit her CBS job a couple of years ago amid concerns of media bias) has a long column focusing on the corrupt corporate media scandal she is calling “Newsgate.” It looks like it's merely the tip of the iceberg. 

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Obama's illegal Internet giveaway

photo credit: wnd.com

State AGs sue to stop Obama's internet transition

  

Politico’s Tony Romm reports:

Four Republican state Attorneys General [Mike DeWine is not one of them] are suing to stop the Obama administration from transferring oversight of the internet to an international body, arguing the transition would violate the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit — filed Wednesday in a Texas federal court — threatens to throw up a new roadblock to one of the White House’s top tech priorities, just days before the scheduled Oct. 1 transfer of the internet’s address system is set to take place.

In their lawsuit, the attorneys general for Arizona, Oklahoma, Nevada and Texas contend that the transition, lacking congressional approval, amounts to an illegal giveaway of U.S. government property. They also express fear that the proposed new steward of the system, a nonprofit known as ICANN, would be so unchecked that it could “effectively enable or prohibit speech on the Internet.”

The four states further contend that ICANN could revoke the U.S. government’s exclusive use of .gov and .mil, the domains used by states, federal agencies and the U.S. military for their websites. And the four attorneys general argue that ICANN’s “current practices often foster a lack of transparency that, in turn, allows illegal activity to occur.”

“Trusting authoritarian regimes to ensure the continued freedom of the internet is lunacy,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a statement. “The president does not have the authority to simply give away America’s pioneering role in ensuring that the internet remains a place where free expression can flourish.”

Read the rest here. Ohio AG Mike DeWine’s website is here. 

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Britain’s Independence Day

art credit: neogaf.com

From Breitbart: 

British voters chose to “leave” the European Union on Thursday, defying the polls — and President Barack Obama, who had urged Britain to “remain” in the EU. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had also urged Britain to stay in the EU. Only Donald Trump had backed the campaign to leave.

Republican strategists had panned Trump’s decision to travel to the UK in the midst of campaign turmoil, and in the wake of his blistering attack on Hillary Clinton earlier this week.

Now, however, it looks like a risk that paid off handsomely, in the currency of foreign policy credibility.

. . .

Hillary Clinton also backed a “remain” vote in April, with a senior policy adviser issuing a statement on her behalf:

Hillary Clinton believes that transatlantic cooperation is essential, and that cooperation is strongest when Europe is united. She has always valued a strong United Kingdom in a strong EU. And she values a strong British voice in the EU.

But my favorite headline is from one of my favorite columnists, James Delingpole, at Breitbart London:

We Did It! Britain’s Independence Day Is Here!

My take-away from his column: “The British people sensed the momentousness of the occasion — a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a real difference and shake the status quo by depriving the anti-democratic elite of their ill-gotten gains — and seized their chance.”

Read the rest of his column here.

If Great Britain can reclaim its sovereignty, so can America.

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Sen. Rob Portman does not oppose Obama’s executive amnesty

art credit: politicususa.com

From Caroline May at Breitbart Big Government:

Many Senate Republicans are offering their support to the 26 states challenging the president’s executive amnesty programs. They’re filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court arguing Obama’s November 2014 unilateral actions are in violation of the “spirit” of immigration law and a threat to the separation of powers.

“Given that the Executive has asserted that the acts challenged here are not even subject to judicial review, what is at stake in this matter is nothing less than an effort to supplant Congress’s constitutional power to ‘establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization.’ Such an action stands in stark contravention to federal law and to the constitutional principle of the separation of powers,” the Senators’ brief reads.

It adds, “There is little doubt that the Executive adopted the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (‘DAPA’) program as part of an explicit effort to circumvent the legislative process.”

Led by Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), 43 GOP senators signed on to the brief. The names of 11 senators were noticeably absent from the list, many of whom are up for reelection in relatively tough November races, including Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) (R-CO), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). . . .

Repeat. Sen.Rob Portman is up for reelection this November.

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Millions Spent Illegally on Obama Amnesty Plan; So Who is Going to Prison?

From Ernest Istook --

Some bureaucrats could end up in prison for implementing President Obama’s amnesty plan for illegal aliens. Even if they don’t violate the brand-new court injunction, they are accountable under a special federal statute.

It’s illegal to spend federal money on purposes never approved by Congress. Yet Mr. Obama has bureaucrats going full-speed ahead to create the mechanism that would process amnesty for millions, even while a court injunction requires that actual processing cannot yet begin.

Preparations are proceeding “full-throttle,” according to Judicial Watch, which works to make government accountable. The group has uncovered details about some of the tens of millions of dollars already being spent to launch Mr. Obama’s amnesty plan and called for a full investigation. Billions more in tax dollars are also on the line.

However, there is personal risk for all who do Mr. Obama’s bidding rather than obey the laws that govern federal payments.

Each person who violates what’s called the Anti-Deficiency Act (31 U.S. Code Sec. 1341) could be fined $5,000, sent to prison for two years, lose their job, or all of these. That law makes no exceptions for those who claim they merely obeyed orders from superiors, including the president.

Mr. Obama did not personally sign an executive order to put his amnesty plan in place. Although Mr. Obama claims credit and blame, the orders technically come from a Cabinet secretary. Orders then are carried out by subordinate agency heads plus a small army of bureaucrats who process the paperwork and get checks issued.

Those payments are already happening despite being spent on a program not authorized by law. Congress has never approved spending money for this purpose.

While Mr. Obama avoided a personal signature on the incriminating paperwork, a multitude of clerical workers don’t have that luxury. They are risking their jobs and freedom. So is Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who issued the formal instructions to do Mr. Obama’s bidding.

Carrying out illegal orders is no excuse under federal law. Because there evidently is no statute of limitations on the Anti-Deficiency Act, therefore a new president and attorney-general in 2017 could pursue criminal charges as well as firings or job disciplines against all persons who approve payments on the amnesty program. And these fall guys would likely have to pay their own legal fees.

Federal Judge Andrew Hanen last week enjoined the government from launching the amnesty program. Judge Hanen’s order did not dispute Mr. Obama’s authority to avoid deportations by applying prosecutorial discretion. But the judge pointed out that Mr. Obama was creating new law by going farther, namely by issuing certifications of “lawful presence” plus work permits.

Even if the executive branch had legal power to create new programs — which the judge’s order questioned — Judge Hanen ruled that it still would require months of prior public notice and comments about the details, as required by the Administrative Procedures Act.

Instead, Mr. Obama had things prepared secretly in advance, then launched his blitzkrieg before opponents could learn the details. To enable processing 4 million to 5 million expected amnesty applications, since the end of November, the Department of Homeland Security:

• Has received 5,000 applications for 1,000 workers it is hiring at salaries up to $157,000 a year (One estimate says these salaries will run $50-million a year.);

• Signed a $7.8-million lease to provide them with office space in Arlington, Virginia;

• Solicited for hundreds of contractors to assist with managing the program and its data;

• Requested proposals to purchase 39-million high-tech plastic ID cards with built-in RF chips (used to create “lawful presence” and “work authorization” identity cards for millions of illegal aliens) 

Plus, the IRS is ready to respond to Obama’s actions by unleashing billions in federal cash payments directly to those receiving executive amnesty.

The amount actually spent so far is a secret closely-guarded by the Obama team, as are projections of future expenses. A group of Republican senators on Jan. 22 sent a formal request to find out the full costs. Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican; Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican; and Sen. Ron Johnson, Wisconsin Republican, wrote the Citizenship and Immigration Services to ask for a detailed accounting.

The eventual answers may reveal that a lot of federal workers are in trouble for going along with Obama’s secret and unauthorized plan.

Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican, has labeled it illegal for money to be spent on Obama’s amnesty program.

Training materials for federal workers are chock-full of warnings about not violating the Anti-Deficiency Act.

For example, materials from the General Services Administration warns never to initiate any purchases or contracts without obtaining approvals that include “written assurance from responsible fiscal authority,” plus checking with their legal department and budget officers.

The 2013 Fiscal Law Deskbook published by the federal Judge Advocate School advises federal workers they can only “incur … obligations for expenditures within the limits and purposes of appropriations.”

The White House claims that the massive expenses of amnesty processing will be covered by fees charged to applicants, but that fails the laugh test because: 1) expenses are already massive, but zero fees have been collected to date; 2) there have been no calculations released to match expenses with fees; and 3) the Constitution forbids spending any money unless it first is approved by Congress.

Mr. Obama’s disregard for the law seemingly has no limits. His publicly-stated goal is to use his last two years to determine the shape of America for the next ten years. Changing the composition of America is just part of his strategy.

Smirking, Mr. Obama considers himself immune from consequences. But he can only usurp power with the assistance of others within the bureaucracy.

If those now spending millions of our money without authority are punished eventually, they may finally realize that their proper loyalty is to obey the laws of our land instead of a blind loyalty to President Obama. 

Federal Judge Puts a Temporary Halt to Obama's Executive Action Amnesty for Illegals

Currently the Democrats in the U.S. Senate have shown they are willing to put protecting President Obama's Constitutionally questionable Executive Action on immigration over the national security of our country with their continuing to block a funding bill that would allow the Department of Homeland Security to stay open.

Yesterday a federal judge in Texas, Judge Andrew Hanen, hearing the lawsuit filed by 26 states against President Obama's Executive Action on immigration, issued an injunction to temporarily put a halt to this backdoor amnesty for illegals....

From Huff-Po --

A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on Monday that will temporarily prevent the Obama administration from moving forward with its executive actions on immigration while a lawsuit against the president works its way through the courts.

The order, by Judge Andrew Hanen of the U.S. District Court in Brownsville, Texas, was an early stumble for the administration in what will likely be a long legal battle over whether President Barack Obama overstepped his constitutional authority with the wide-reaching executive actions on immigration he announced last November.

While the injunction does not pronounce Obama's actions illegal, it prevents the administration from implementing them until the court rules on their constitutionality. 

The federal government is expected to appeal the ruling.

The impact of the order will be felt almost immediately: One of Obama's actions is set to take effect on Feb. 18. On that day, the administration was set to begin accepting applications for an expanded version of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. DACA allows undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to stay in the country and work legally.

Now, newly eligible immigrants seeking to apply will be unable to do so while the lawsuit is pending. The administration will also be unable to move forward, for now, with a DACA-like program created under Obama's executive actions. That program confers similar relief to undocumented immigrants who are parents of legal permanent residents or of U.S. citizens.

Hanen, who was appointed to the court by former President George W. Bush, said in the ruling that the 26 states who brought the suit had standing to do so, and indicated he was sympathetic to their arguments.

The lawsuit against the executive actions was filed in December. Texas is leading the effort, joined by Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

According to the suit, Obama's executive actions violate the Constitution, and allowing them to move forward would cause "dramatic and irreparable injuries" to the plaintiff states.

"This lawsuit is not about immigration," the complaint reads. "It is about the rule of law, presidential power, and the structural limits of the U.S. Constitution."

The White House has said that Obama acted within his authority and that the policies will allow immigration enforcement agents to focus on deporting higher-priority offenders such as convicted criminals, recent border-crossers and those who pose national security threats. Attorney Generals from 12 states and the District of Columbia signed onto an amicus brief in support of Obama's actions, asking the judge not to issue an injunction.

"The truth is that the directives will substantially benefit states, will further the public interest, and are well within the President’s broad authority to enforce immigration law," the amicus brief reads.

Obama's executive actions are at the center of a congressional impasse over funding the Department of Homeland Security. The dispute could cause an agency shutdown once funding runs out on Feb. 27. Most Republicans say they will only support a DHS funding bill if it includes measures to stop Obama's immigration policies, but those measures are being blocked by Senate Democrats. Even if such a bill were to reach the president's desk, Obama has said he would veto it.

The district court ruling was considered a potential game-changer for the funding fight, since some Republicans might be convinced to support a DHS funding bill with no immigration measures if Obama's actions were not moving forward anyway.

UPDATE: 8:20 a.m. -- White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest put out a statement early Tuesday defending the executive actions, which he said "are consistent with the laws passed by Congress and decisions of the Supreme Court, as well as five decades of precedent by presidents of both parties who have used their authority to set priorities in enforcing our immigration laws."

"The Department of Justice, legal scholars, immigration experts, and the district court in Washington, D.C. have determined that the President’s actions are well within his legal authority," Earnest continued. "Top law enforcement officials, along with state and local leaders across the country, have emphasized that these policies will also benefit the economy and help keep communities safe. The district court’s decision wrongly prevents these lawful, commonsense policies from taking effect and the Department of Justice has indicated that it will appeal that decision."

Unity Rally in Paris: World Leaders lock arms

This report from Hot Air, in case you missed it over the weekend:

The President sent Eric Holder. I know he was there because he was doing all of the Sunday shows from Paris. Then cable news ground to a halt for one of the more impressive shots you will ever see; one of the biggest collections of world leaders to be found anywhere, and they were outside in the cold and the rain, locking arms and marching in unity with the people of France as they stood up to Islamic terrorism. Above is just one of the many media shots which captured the rather historic moment.

But wait… isn’t somebody missing from this picture? In what is possibly one of the worst games of Where’s Waldo in history, the fine folks at Weasel Zippers notice that Eric Holder doesn’t seem to be on the scene.

There’s a photo at the link of Holder with some of the leaders standing on the steps of a building for a photo op, but he was otherwise busy for the actual rally.

Attorney General Eric Holder is in Paris this week to attend a meeting on fighting terrorism, but did not participate in a march with world leaders Sunday to honor the 17 people killed last week in France.

More than 40 world leaders marched arm in arm through Paris to rally for unity and freedom of expression and to honor the victims of the three days of terrorist attacks.

Swinging back to WZ for the full list, here are the world leaders who actually showed up and walked the walk.

Left to right: Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Union President Donald Tusk, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, Jordan’s Queen Rania, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenkoand other guests...

Oh, man. We didn’t even manage to qualify for … and other guests.

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Also in this report is a Tweet from Dana French:

CNN just reported Eric Holder did not attend #ParisMarch because he was attending high level meetings. With whom? Everyone was at rally.

Obama Takes Lead Over Speaker Boehner in 2014 Lie of the Year Competition

With the deadline fast approaching for 2014 Lie of the Year, President Obama has just one upped his closest challenger & golfing partner Speaker John Boehner.

Speaker Boehner has been working hard to keep it close and recently closed the gap in this heated competition with his lie that he "will fight tooth & nail" against the Obama's Executive Action on Amnesty. Then ratcheting up the competition, Boehner put the race in a dead heat with his fib's on the Cromnibus.

Refusing to be out done & showing why he IS the Pontiff of Prevarication, President Obama is now clearly the front runner with his doozy's on Cuba....

From Breitbart -- 

President Barack Obama unveiled a new U.S. policy toward Cuba on Wednesday as part of a deal that brought American Alan Gross home in exchange for three convicted Cuban spies. As he has done so often in the past, Obama tried to channel the perspective of America’s enemies and critics, as if his job were to act as a neutral mediator instead of defending U.S. interests and values. In the course of his address, Obama told American ten major lies, both of omission and commission.

Here they are, in order of appearance:

1. No mention of the Cuban missile crisis. “I was born in 1961 just over two years after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba….Over the next several decades, the relationship between our countries played out against the backdrop of the Cold War and America’s steadfast opposition to communism.” Cuba’s role in helping the Soviet Union project a direct threat to the U.S. mainland is carefully elided (though Obama, as he has done before, refers to his own birth as a kind of watershed.)

2. Suggesting that the president can establish a U.S. embassy on his own. “Going forward, the United States will reestablish an embassy in Havana and high ranking officials will visit Cuba.” An embassy needs to be funded by Congress, and needs an ambassador to be approved by the Senate. None of that is going to happen–nor should it, especially after the disastrous experiment in re-establishing an embassy in Syria, which Obama did in 2009, to no good effect whatsoever.

3. No mention of Cuba’s role in repressing democracy abroad. “Cuba has sent hundreds of healthcare workers to Africa to fight Ebola.” Yes, and Cuba has also sent experts in repression to Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Cuban agents also allegedly beat and raped Venezuelan protestors earlier this year. For decades, Cuba assisted guerrilla armies abroad, fomenting bloody revolution in some countries and propping up communist regimes elsewhere. It continues to do so.

4. Suggesting that Cuba does not support terrorism. “At a time when we are focused on threats from al Qaeda to ISIL, a nation that meets our conditions and renounces the use of terrorism should not face this sanction.” Yet Cuba was caught, only last year, smuggling “missile equipment” to North Korea, the dictatorship that targeted America with a cyber-terror attack on the day Obama announced the new Cuba policy. Cuba continues to offer other kinds of support to terrorists.

5. False claim that the U.S. is to blame for lack of information in Cuba. “I believe in the free flow of information. Unfortunately, our sanctions on Cuba have denied Cubans access to technology that has empowered individuals around the globe.” This is perhaps the most offensive lie of all, since Gross was detained for trying to help Cubans access technology. The reason Cubans lack news and communication is because the regime censors them brutally, not because of the U.S. embargo.

6. False promise to consult Congress on Cuba, when his administration broke that promise. “As these changes unfold, I look forward to engaging Congress in an honest and serious debate about lifting the embargo.” And yet when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) asked White House official Tony Blinken whether the administration planned any major Cuba policy changes, Blinken (now Deputy Secretary of State) lied and said any change would come in consultation with Congress.

7. False claim that Cuba agreed to release political prisoners as part of a deal with the U.S. “In addition to the return of Alan Gross and the release of our intelligence agent, we welcome Cuba’s decision to release a substantial number of prisoners whose cases were directly raised with the Cuban government by my team.” As the Washington Post noted, these political prisoners were already set to be released as the result of negotiations four years ago with the Vatican and Spain.

8. False commitment to principle of changing policies that do not work. “I do not believe we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades and expect a different result.” If that were really what Obama believed, we would not see the administration pursuing policies whose failure is already evident as a matter of historical record: high taxes, economic redistribution, socialized medicine, union-dominated schools, restrictive labor and environmental regulations, and so on.

9. Conflating the collapse of the Castro regime with the collapse of Cuba. “Moreover, it does not serve America’s interests or the Cuban people to try to push Cuba towards collapse.” A false “binary choice.” By failing to differentiate between the regime and the country, Obama signaled his intention to allow the Castros and their heirs to entrench their power–abandoning the cause of freedom and reform, just as he did with the mullahs in Iran during the 2009 uprising.

10. Falsely identifying the U.S. as a colonial power. “Others have seen us as a form of colonizer intent on controlling your future..…Let us leave behind the legacy of both colonization and communism, the tyranny of drug cartels, dictators and sham election.” America actually liberated Cuba from Spanish colonialism, and though the U.S. influenced the island heavily for decades afterward, Obama’s attempted moral equivalence between “colonization” and communist tyranny is a false one.

Obama borrowed a quote from the Cuban literary giant José Martí: “liberty is the right of every man to be honest.” Yet as my colleague Frances Martel has pointed out, Obamashortened that quote, leaving out the phrase ” and to think and to speak without hypocrisy.” Obama’s speech was both dishonest and hypocritical. It was an ominous introduction to a new policy that might have deserved a chance, were it not based on such evident disregard for American interests and Cuban freedom.

For more on the dishonesty of Obama’s speech, see Martel’s “Line by Line: Every Empty Promise in Obama’s Cuba Speech.”