[The Daily caller] In the pages of The Nation, the oldest continuously published weekly in the country and the self-described “flagship of the left,” a former member of the House of Representatives has called for the impeachment of the president over revelations of massive government surveillance of ordinary citizens. ...and leftests.
Democrat Elizabeth Holtzman of New York, who sat on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate era, powerfully yet dispassionately lays out the case for the immediate impeachment of the president.
“Nothing less is necessary to protect our constitutional system and preserve our democracy,” she declares.
The last straw for the retired Congresswoman was the revelation that the president “directed the wiretapping of hundreds, possibly thousands, of Americans” (a number that is likely conservative). ....but might not be under a future Republican administration.
“As a matter of constitutional law, these and other misdeeds constitute grounds for the impeachment,” writes Holtzman in her bombshell treatise. “A President, any President, who maintains that he is above the law — and repeatedly violates the law — thereby commits high crimes and misdemeanors, the constitutional standard for impeachment and removal from office.”
The eloquent Harvard Law grad provides a devastating legal critique of the vast executive-branch scheme to log every phone call in the United States.
“It now appears that thousands of calls were monitored and that the information obtained may have been widely circulated among federal agencies,” Holtzman writes. Calls, e-mails, texts, the lot.
The skilled jurist also draws eerily ominous parallels between whatÂ’s happening right now and the actions of the corrupt Nixon administration.
“Among his other abuses of power, President Nixon ordered the FBI to conduct warrantless wiretaps of seventeen journalists and White House staffers,” Holtzman sagely explains. “In fact, the first illegal Nixon wiretap was of a reporter who, in 1969, revealed the secret bombing of Cambodia, a program that President Nixon wanted to hide from the American people and Congress.”
The president, Holtzman says, “has been guilty of such gross incompetence or reckless indifference to his obligation to execute the laws faithfully as to call into question whether he takes his oath seriously or is capable of doing so.”
Holtzman makes a remarkably unqualified argument against the president, leaving little doubt that The Nation is laying down strict principles, rather than engaging in some cheap situational attack that it would hypocritically abandon if, for example, the same abuses were being carried out by a president whose party and agenda the flagship left-wing magazine found more palatable.
To show just how serious she is about impeachment proceedings, the former House member concludes with expert guidance for Americans who want to see the president impeached.
“Drumming up public support means organizing rallies, spearheading letter-writing campaigns to newspapers, organizing petition drives, door-knocking in neighborhoods, handing out leaflets and deploying the full range of mobilizing tactics,” she writes. Don't forget to vote Republican next time. That helps as well.
“An energized public must in turn bear down on Congress. Constituents should request meetings with their Senators and Representatives to educate them on impeachment,” Holtzman concludes. They can also make their case through e-mail, letters and phone calls.” You may wish to make certain your IRS affairs are in order over at the Nation.
#1
If the Hussein regime wishes to continue to pursue this clearly intrusive and unlawful "surveilance", surely Mr Snowden can provide details of the infrastructure to the proper Congressional agencies to insure the dismantlement of those components that are in violation of US Constitutional and International law, as a part of the impeachment process.
[NEWS.INVESTORS] Barack Obama I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go... cashiered yet another battle-seasoned American general Tuesday, even as the war in Afghanistan continues along with numerous other serious global threats to United States security.
This is the fourth senior officer Obama has forced from the country's service.
All four were tied somehow to the Afghanistan mess that Obama has long argued was the most important war. Each departure was staged as a resignation. They were usually tied to some personal indiscretions to save face for Obama, who would know of indiscretions as a product of the corrupt reliably Democrat Chicago, aka The Windy City or Mobtown ... home of Al Capone, a succession of Daleys, Barak Obama, and Rahm Emmanuel,... Democrat machine.
There was Gen. David McKiernan, the four-star who lead U.S. ground forces during the successful lightning Iraq invasion. He was asked to resign command of allied forces in Afghanistan just four months into Obama's presidency in 2009. Never fully explained, but the implication was administration dissatisfaction with the war's progress.
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, a special ops veteran who was McKiernan's successor. He resigned when his staff was quoted making derogatory comments to an embedded journalist about the administration in general and VP Joe Foreign Policy Whiz Kid Biden The former Senator-for-Life from Delaware, an example of the kind of top-notch Washington intellect to be found in the World's Greatest Deliberative Body... in particular. If mocking Megamind Biden is worthy of resignation, then most of America needs to step down by lunch today.
Gen. David Petraeus, the archictect of the surge and successful counter-insurgency strategy in Iraq, was demoted from Central Command to return to lead the Afghan war. After that successful tour Obama named him director of the Central Intelligence Agency, which required his military resignation after nearly four decades of service.
Obama and Biden were too busy to attend the traditional farewell ceremonies for such a general officer across town. But they were willing to let Petraeus take a large part of the fall for their unexplained absences during the 9/11 terror attack that killed four Americans in Benghazi and denied the consulate's repeated pleas for rescue.
Then somehow word got out that Petraeus, regularly rumored as a Republican presidential candidate someday, had an affair with his biographer. He "offered" to resign and, by golly, Obama felt he had to accept.
Now, comes Marine Gen. John Allen, the latest Afghan war commander. He did such a good job in that military quagmire that Obama named him to lead all U.S. and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... forces in Europe. But then somehow word leaked that Allen had engaged in flirtatious e-mail exchanges with a married socialite in Tampa. A Pentagon investigation declined any misconduct charges.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Post-2015 OWG Amerika has no need of Top Egg Commanders anymore because we no longer have the ability to mobilize for war because all of our jobs + companies are now controlled by overseas foreign Govts-Corporations + OWG Global Fed "Unions" + related.
As per China MilBlogs, PERTS + BLOGGERS = technically, ITO there is no need of China to fight the US - ALL CHINA HAS TO DO IS DEMAND THAT THE US PAYOFF ITS DEBT TO CHINA OR ELSE SURRENDER SOVEREIGN US TERRITORIES + OTHER IN LIEU OF SAME.
WELL THERE YA GO - A FAIR-N-REASONABLE POLITICAL SETTLEMENT WHERE THE US CAN PROUDLY UNILATERALLY SURRENDER LIKE FRANCE, + GIVE UP GUAM-WESTPAC, HAWAII, + POSSIBLY 1/2 [or More?]OF CONUS-NORAM WIDOUT FIRING A SHOT.
Ala "MUNICH II" or "MUNICH 21" [21st Century] ...
> HE KEPT US OUT OF WAR.
> HE KEPT US OUT OF LIMITED OR FULL NUCLEAR WAR.
> HE'S REDUCING THE DEFICIT.
> HE CAN BORROW MORE FROM CHINA TO PAY OUR DEBT [wink-wink] + PAY FOR THE AMERIKAN WAY-OF-LIFE.
Clearly a Bammer 3rd-4th term as POTUS is not enuff a reward for staying handsome in surrender.
#2
Lest we fergit, "GLOBALISM" + OWG-NWO = "MULTIPOLAR WORLD" where the Superpower USA is just one world nation among nation, + JUST ONE GREAT POWER AMONG MANY INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO "POST-US" WANNABE CHINA + NUCLEAR CALIPHATE.
* RECENT ANTI-DOMA SCOTUS RULING = JUST ANOTHER REASON FOR THE ACLU + DEMOLEFT - YOU KNOW, THE GOP-RIGHT - TO SUPPORT LEGAL SHARIA IN AMERIKA!
Radical Islam's banners will fly over Washington DC + White House, BECAUSE AMERIKA WILL DEMAND IT BE SO.
#4
Isn't it odd how the latest two were essentially forced by 'leaked' personal information. Leaked from where?
And isn't it odd how the NSA just happens to have been storing private emails, call records, etc...
But I'm sure there isn't any connection. It's not like Obama's from Chicago where such things are common or anything.
#5
Welcome to the Afghanistan Military Career Ending Roller Coaster, where you can delight in thrills and chills, watch your career rise and quickly fall and be sent into retirement at the end. All brought to you by B.H.O., Proprietor in Chief.
Posted by: Au Auric ||
07/01/2013 9:46 Comments ||
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#8
Dial it in. There were 24 flag officers in the service a year ago (4 stars). Six of them are now out the door. The military is being deliberately decapitated. The remainder are either opportunists or keeping their head down for the good of the troops. Hopefully a few will survive to the end of the Champ's term. Presuming he doesn't finagle a 3rd term . . .
H/T Instapundit -
IN SEARCH OF CHEAP HELP: The Hill: Silicon Valley prepares to push House toward immigration reform. I was talking a few weeks ago to a friend who chares an IEEE chapter in Silicon Valley. He says they bring over Chinese coders, pay them $500/month and put them in corporate apartments with a van that goes back and forth to the office, then send them back to China after a year. But they donate to Democrats, so there's not much press scrutiny.
#3
H1B for software needs to be completely terminated. Hell, H1B itself needs to be completely terminated. If we need technical expertise, then give them a damn green card, or other form of unrestricted work permit. If we truly are shot of a skill set, we need them, let them compete fairly and openly - instead of the H1B way, which is basically an indentured servant, wage slave who must work whatever his sponsor says or be sent home.
#6
That's old school Thing. Used to read Computerworld with the want ads in the back. Whole page columns of prerequisites that no one on the planet had. Just an excuse to get one of these visas. No one ever checked up whether the foreign hire had the qualifications posted in the scam. Kids bright enough to get an IEEE type degree were also smart enough to know that after investing the time and accumulating the debt for the degrees, they would face competition with one of these visa holders who were not free agents but indentured servants, with matching pay. Why waste your time? We killed 'growing our own' for over two decades now by this program.
#7
Yeah P2K, this sounds like a bad deal for the educated youth of America, but I have got to remember, they have overwhelmingly voted for the Democratic Party and the economic policies that party represents. Well, maybe these educated American youth can become English teachers and teach the Chinese workers a thing or two.
I call shenanigans. H1B requires that the employers pay "minimum wage or prevailing wage." This is part of the application itself, and if someone is lying or not paying what they said they would it is not an H1B problem -- it is a criminal problem.
I am personally a fan of H1Bs. It's a great way to cherry pick other nations of some of their best and brightest, and get those people working for us. Many do wind up with green cards.
In Silicon Valley over HALF of new companies are started by foreign-born entrepreneurs. We want these people here.
#9
You miss out about free agents. They can negotiate wages. If they get a better offer, they take it and move on. Employers don't like that. If they have a 'lock' on the employee, he's not a free agent to negotiate his wages at will. Technically, they can do that with a contract, but it then obligates the employer as well as the employee to the salary. From the bean counters point of view, that shifts the labor from asset to liability. With a 'indentured' employee, that means obligation upon the employees part, but not on the employers part. He can't take a better offer but the employer has the ability to terminate his visa at will.
#11
H1Bs aren't as locked in as you may think. They can and do switch jobs. There is no restriction on their securing new employment. There just can't be a break in between.
It's actually pretty remarkable how familiar foreign nationals are with our immigration laws. So long as this is a land of economic freedom and opportunity, high performers will want to come here. Smart, highly motivated people who want something tend to be exceptionally well informed. The idea of dumb coolies working in caves, eating dog food and sleeping on cardboard is a union construct -- i.e. ad campaign of people who want to protect highly subsidized jobs and a source of mandatory political contributions.
Policing may be bad, but again, that's not an H1B problem.
I call shenanigans. H1B requires that the employers pay "minimum wage or prevailing wage." This is part of the application itself, and if someone is lying or not paying what they said they would it is not an H1B problem -- it is a criminal problem.
Except they're used for jobs that pay many, many times more than minimum wage. And "prevailing wage" is a term, AFAIK, that applies to union wages, not professional salaries.
I am personally a fan of H1Bs. It's a great way to cherry pick other nations of some of their best and brightest, and get those people working for us.
While leaving OUR best and brightest unemployed.
No thanks.
It's actually pretty remarkable how familiar foreign nationals are with our immigration laws.
So what? I'm sure drug smugglers are familiar with our customs regulations, too.
So long as this is a land of economic freedom and opportunity, high performers will want to come here.
So why does the government subsidize them? Let them come in through the same line as everyone else.
I'd be THRILLED if we shifted our immigration policies to favor skilled people and booted the day laborers. Instead, we let the illegal day laborers stay while subsidizing the importation of (supposedly) skilled labor. Seems like the government wants to squeeze Americans out of the job market...
(Which, with Obamacare and the latest Amnesty bill, they clearly do.)
people who want to protect highly subsidized jobs and a source of mandatory political contributions
Such as the companies who use H1B visas rather than pay citizens (who might desire things like "vacation" and "time for family") to do the work.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
07/01/2013 15:45 Comments ||
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#13
Keep the cap, let the H1B be a free agent with card four months after arrival in the US and make the company go back through the process again, see how long the program is still lobbied for.
#14
My response is quite simple. I don't care if there is a heaven but I pray there is a hell for people like the supporters of H1B.
You ruined the end years of my life and millions of others. Seem that justice would require your afterlife in hell.
#15
I'm a little surprised at the reaction, but this is no time to go wobbly.
"Minimum wage or prevailing wage" is poorly worded. Here's the text from USCIS: "Employers affirm in the labor condition application that the wage offered to the applicant is at least as high as that paid by the employer [to its other employees] for the same type of job, and the number equals or exceeds the prevailing wage for the job in the same geographical area."
But you didn't know that RC. You just flamed me thinking it is legal to pay an H1B worker $7.25/hr. H1B program is NOT a way to save money on wages, especially with the extra legal costs.
Seriously, ask yourselves why employers are willing to spend months and/or years bringing people from overseas when they no longer pay relocation within the US for most positions. Hint -- it's not the cost.
H1B workers are not day laborers. They have to have a 4 year degree or higher. They primarily work in high tech, one of the few industries in which the US continue to lead the world.
And it is illegal to treat your H1B employees differently than your w-2 employees. If your w-2 Americans are getting 2 weeks vacation then so do your H1Bs. They also get all the federal and state employment goodies like family leave.
So, repeat after me. It's not about cost. It's not a way to get slaves. It's not for people who make minimum wage. It's not for unskilled laborers. These are educated people paid good money because they have highly sought after skills. Want to put up a wall along our southern border? So do I! Want to deport people here illegally. So do I! But I would also keep the H1B program.
Respectfully Iblis, that really has to be the minority view of minority views. Does your "hint" also apply to the Delta Airline sales representative that answers my call from her phone shop in Bombay, or the SW development office [which will remain unnamed] on the north side of Atlanta which is scheduled to outsource it's entire developmental activity to Asia in January, 2015 ?
#17
So what's the H1B worker gonna do when he finds out he's classified as one kind of low paid worker and doing the work of another higher paid classification? What's he gonna do when he finds out his employer lied and just plain isn't paying what was promised? Forget what happens to the employer because it ain't gonna happen because if the worker loses his job he loses his visa and he goes back to Bangalore. He's not gonna say a thing. And it's no joke about advertising for skill sets that nobody has in this country and then using the resulting lack of applicants as an excuse to get an H1B visa. This a SCAM.
It's just like when Bush said we need illegal aliens to do the work that Americans won't do. The truth is American workers need not apply for the kind of entry level jobs that American teenagers used to get as their first rung on the economic ladder. It's easier and cheaper for the employers to hire the "immigrants".
You wanna end up living in a United States where we have a billion people just like India and China just because lettuce growers and sleazoid Silicon Valley "entrepreneurs" wanna cut corners? I don't.
Don't mind being in the minority, so long as I'm right.
I have personally been involved in the hiring of dozens of foreign workers, including H1Bs. Not once was it done for cost reasons. In fact, more often than not there was genuine regret that we couldn't find anyone local.
The call center people you reference are low end employees. Not one of them, not even their managers, could come over as an H1B. Apples and oranges.
#20
At the end of the day, nearly everything done in the business world is done as a result of some form of cost-benefit analysis, ie, "cost reasons", and this is not a minority view,
#21
Iblis give me an email. I will send you a resume and then you can explain how I am not qualified for jobs in the USA and how some foreign workers are.
Don't forget to disparage my patents and published papers either.
Just look at the sport entertainment business. When free agency hit, salaries went up. There was always high school and college sports, but it all took a hard turn to careerism when the price went up. Colleges and universities opted to become minor league training systems for the pros. Big money, big incentive. Lots of recruits.
Now imagine if free agency was stopped. That the business could control their labor market by flooding the market with 'other talent'. Suddenly the incentive to put all those resources into the programs and recruit starts to slide.
I've watched this since the 80s. It has created disincentives to go into the fields. Business wants unlimited labor - keeps it relatively cheap to what it would be in scarcity. Simple economics.
And I've heard the argument they could take it overseas - except they understand the cost of doing business with vibrant corruption and running afoul of local foreign laws which mean they personally could be unable to leave the country if they ever step foot there because of some infraction.
#23
"Employers affirm ... that the wage offered to the applicant is at least as high as that paid by the employer [to its other employees] for the same type of job,
The way this worked at Enron was we hired Indian and Chinese nationals as junior software developers when they all had the chops to fill a senior spot. They got a job, we saved money. Hey, we were masters of playing by (and with) the rules!
#24
I will take every damn H1B eligible person in the world over what we are getting now. What moron decided we could only take in tens of thousands of people who can program your lawn mower while de-facto bringing in hundreds of thousands to use your lawn mower.
And anyone who is whining that these H1B people keep programmer's wages lower than they could be, can bite my lily white a$$, because the vastly more low skilled immigrants the "high-skilled" hire to do service work have already destroyed the wages of everyone else.
Using Government power to keep sucking your thumb in a comfy corner of the economy isn't working in Egypt, Turkey, Brazil, China, Greece, Italy, or France. Don't expect it to work in the U. S. of A. either.
We must let as many of these these people in as we can persuade to come, and get them green cards, and let them start families, and join the American experiment.
#25
Sure, I remember the H1bs. Dozens.
A contracting firm builds a pool and negotiates a rate with them they could never find on their own. The firm then negotiates a contract pay rate with an employer that is 'equivalent' to direct hires. The private contract rate between the firm and the individual is never exposed and IS NOT REGULATED by DoL. The employer pays and reports the going rate, the firm pays the people less and the difference gets skimmed by both parties. One in three are good enough to carry the other two, who are paid an even lower rate. They are incentivized to get the work done by the threat of all three losing their jobs. So they work longer, billable hours than direct employees.
#26
H1Bs are drones, not entrepreneurs. Java monkeys with at most 4 years of experience.
The evidence is overwhelming: this is an indentured servant program designed to shave 20% or more off the cost of mud- and low-level production employees.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Joe 
