Boots on the Ground 073014

Instead of impeachment, can House vote to overturn Obama executive order?

The White House has fueled talk that House Republicans might move to impeach President Obama if he uses executive authority to enact far-reaching changes in immigration policy. "The president acting on immigration reform will certainly up the likelihood that [Republicans] would contemplate impeachment at some point," top White House aide Dan Pfeiffer told reporters Friday at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. "I would not discount that possibility."

White House spokesman Josh Earnest echoed Pfeiffer's remarks later Friday, and Democratic fundraisers seized on the topic to raise the specter of the GOP attempting to remove the president from office. In an effort to rouse the party base, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out a series of "IMPEACHMENT RED ALERT" fundraising appeals over the weekend.
Some Republicans have obliged the talk. "From my standpoint, if the president [enacts more executive actions], we need to bring impeachment hearings immediately before the House of Representatives," Rep. Steve King told Breitbart News. On Fox News Sunday, Rep. Steve Scalise, the new House Majority Whip, declined to rule out impeachment -- but certainly did not rule it in, either.
Impeachment would, of course, fail. Even if House Republicans gathered the 218 votes required to bring articles of impeachment -- a far-fetched scenario -- conviction in the Senate requires a two-thirds vote, or 67 votes. There are now 45 Republicans in the Senate. In 1999, when the GOP impeached Bill Clinton, Republicans held 55 Senate seats, and got 50 votes to convict the president. So impeachment will not succeed now, any more than it did then.
The fact is, there is nothing House Republicans can do by themselves, short of another self-defeating government shutdown, to stop Obama if Senate Democrats are determined to block any move to assert congressional prerogatives and establish limits on executive overreach. But there is something House Republicans could do that would at least specifically target Obama's immigration action: They could vote to overturn the president's executive order.
Congress can overturn an executive order. It can overturn parts of an executive order. If the executive order is based on a statute, Congress can change the statute, thereby nullifying the order. Congress can also refuse to fund activities stemming from all or part of the executive order.
The only instance in which the above does not apply is if the president is acting pursuant to an exclusive power granted to him by the Constitution. Obama's immigration order would not be such a case. "As long as it is not constitutionally based, Congress may repeal a presidential order, or terminate the underlying authority upon which the action is predicated," the Congressional Research Service noted in a December 2011 report.
It's not very complicated. The CRS report mentioned Congress' revocation of an executive order by President George H.W. Bush concerning fetal tissue research. "Congress simply directed that the 'the provisions of Executive Order 12806 shall not have any legal effect,'" the report says. It was as simple as that.
If Obama chooses not to act by executive order, but instead issues some sort of "policy directive" -- the way he implemented the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals initiative that stopped the deportations of thousands of illegal immigrants -- then Congress would have the same authority to get rid of all or part of the president's directive.
Of course, Senate Democrats would block it. And even if Democrats, in some amazingly unforeseen scenario, went along with a move to overturn an executive order, Obama could veto it, requiring a two-thirds vote to override the veto. So a move to overturn an executive order would fail. But it would be specific, targeted, and proportional — not an over-the-top action like impeachment.

BREAKING: Obama Caught Funding The ISIS

If there is one thing the American people have learned as of recent, it is that there is the truth, and then there is the administration’s version of the truth. And the most recent truth is that the government is continuing to fund terrorist groups to fuel their own agenda.
We’ve been told that we have been funding ‘rebels’ in Syria. What we are not told is what this actually means.
What President Obama and his administration has been doing is actually funding ISIS, the same terrorist organization that has been causing major devastation in Iraq. Of course, skeptics assume that the president is hoping that the funding eventually makes more money on the back end.

US Says China Tested Anti-Satellite Missile

The U.S. says China has tested a missile designed to destroy satellites and is urging Beijing to refrain from destabilizing actions.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said the "non-destructive" test occurred Wednesday. She said a previous destructive test of the system in 2007 created thousands of pieces of dangerous debris in space.

Harf said Friday that the continued development and testing of destructive anti-satellite systems threaten the long-term security and sustainability of the outer-space environment that all nations depend upon.

China's state-run Xinhua (shihn-wah) news agency, citing a Defense Ministry statement, reported a successful missile interception test conducted from land within Chinese territory late Wednesday.

Xinhua did not refer to it as an anti-satellite system. It said such tests could strengthen Chinese air defense against ballistic missiles.

Guess Where Mother-in-Law of Hamas Leader is Getting Medical Care

BuzzPo will not apologize for this piece of click bait; if it’s good enough for Glenn Beck and Upworthy, who are we to be snobs?
Guess Where Mother-in-Law of Hamas Leader is Getting Medical Care. Seriously. Guess.
The laughing boy in the photo, above, is the head of the terrorist group, Hamas. They like to cut people’s heads off, kidnap and murder people, locate the rockets they shoot at Israeli school children in UN Schools in Gaza so they can say Israelis target schools when they defend themselves. Laughing boy’s name is Ismail Haniyeh, his group of miscreant mass murderers have taken a pledge to kill as many Jewish people as they can.
So, where does laughing boy send his mother-in-law for medical care? Israel, of course.
To all of the mind-numbed, low information robots who are about to fill our comment section with  “yeah, because Israel won’t let Gaza build hospitals”: Israel donated 800,000 TONS of concrete to the people of Gaza so they could build just such things. What did they build instead? Tunnels into Israel so Hamas terrorists could sneak into people’s homes and murder their sleeping children.
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As the carefully crafted Hamas narrative crumbles… 

 As the carefully crafted Hamas narrative crumbles, activists, journalists and politicians and other such propaganda-pushers are faced with a dilemma. Do they now throw the weight of their support behind the embattled Israel, who – as it turns out – has been exercising “unimaginable restraint” in responding to missile attacks originating from the terrorists?

Throughout the recent conflict with Israel and Gaza, the mainstream media has dutifully repeated the talking points doled out by the terrorist organization regarding the biggest bone of contention: civilian casualties. As time goes on, however, even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was forced to acknowledge a “rumor” that civilian casualties are the result of the terror organization Hamas’s use of “children and families as human shields.”

It is not a “rumor,” however, when they admit to it. It is not a rumor that “Palestinian children as young as five years old are taught to be willing to take their own lives to achieve Hamas’s goals,” as recently reported by the son of the terror group’s founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef. It is not a rumor that Hamas employs children to create “terror tunnels” into Israel. According to the pro-Palestine group, Palestine-Studies.org, “At least 160 children have been killed in the tunnels.”
It is not a secret or a rumor that rockets from Gaza are often launched from heavily populated areas. It is no secret that the terror group is “using Gaza City’s biggest hospital as its de facto headquarters.” It is also no secret that the militants intimidate the workers at the hospital.

The Sheikh Who Wants to Put the Hurt on Hezbollah in Lebanon

Lebanon’s Sunni extremists, inspired by the jihadists of Syria and Iraq, are preaching revolution against the dominance of Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon — He is a revolutionary man, this 46-year-old Sunni, Salafist sheik and father of six with the graying beard, twinkling dark eyes, immaculately ironed thawb and manicured fingernails. He endorses the jihadist-led uprising against the Shia-dominated regime in Iraq and he warns the marginalization of Sunni Muslims will lead to an insurrection in Lebanon, too. “The way they are dealing with us they are pushing us to it,” he says.
“They” are Hezbollah, the militant Lebanese Shia movement, and its patron Iran, working with the Americans and Israelis. (Yes, it is an unlikely combination, but in the conspiracy-minded Middle East, all your enemies must be each other’s friends.)
Sheikh Mohammed Gamil Nizah, also known as Abu Houzaifa, is one of a growing band of revolutionary Salafist clerics in Lebanon agitating for a revolt against Shia dominance. One can talk about the delicate balance of Christians, Druze, Sunnis and Shia in this country, with its patchwork government apportioned by sect. But there’s little question the dominant power on the ground is Hezbollah.
In Abu Houzaifa’s view, if his Sunni co-religionists have had the gumption to rise up against the Shia-Alawite suzerainty of Bashar Assad in Syria and Iraq’s Nouri al Maliki, why shouldn’t they follow suit and take Hezbollah down a peg or two?
Abu Houzaifa’s voice climbs higher in pitch and volume and his finger starts jabbing the air. “Hezbollah is kidnapping Lebanon,” he says. “It is only loyal to the Iranian leadership,” he concludes with a crescendo.
The sheikh’s views are not out of step with sentiment on the streets of Tripoli, where anger is mounting at Hezbollah, its political domination of Lebanon and its role fighting Sunni rebels in Syria.
On Sunday, large protests were mounted across Tripoli to demand the release of dozens of Sunni militants held in prison over alleged involvement in terrorism or violence.
On the main shopping street of downtown Tripoli, meanwhile, souvenir shops are doing a brisk trade in pennant flags and stickers promoting Jabhat al-Nusra, the al Qaeda affiliate fighting against Assad.

Shock and terror: Islamic State boasts mass executions in Iraq (GRAPHIC)

As part of their psychological war to create a medieval-style caliphate, the Islamic State has released a new shocking video showing scenes of mass executions, warning Iraqi soldiers and others who dare to resist that they will be rounded up and killed.

The Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS/ISIL, stormed through areas of northern Iraq last month, building on territory they had already seized in western Iraq and Syria.
The 36-minute video clip was released for the Eid holiday marking the end of Ramadan, sheds a disturbing light on the mentality of the Islamic State extremists and the methods they use as the organization presses on with its campaign of hatred and murder.

Sheikh Insists ‘Israel Is The Land Of The Jewish People’

The My Yesha Shabbat pamphlet, sponsored by the Yesha Council, features an article this week calling Israel “the Land of the Jews” – by none other than a Muslim Sheikh.

By Tova Dvorim
Sheikh Ahmad Adwan, a Muslim scholar living in Jordan, has published articles in the past dispelling the myth that the Koran designates the Land of Israel as a Muslim holy site.
“There are classes in Islam which claim that the Koran seeks to abolish the Torah and Bible,” the Sheikh wrote this week. “There is no truth to that. The direction of prayer of the Muslim people is to Mecca, and the direction of Jewish prayer is to Jerusalem – and this is meaningful, because this is expressly stated in the Koran.”
“Allah chose to call this land ‘Israel’ and not ‘Palestine.’ The term ‘Palestine’ does not appear in the Koran either,” he continued. “According to our faith, Allah promised Israel to the Jewish people, and they are the sole official inheritors of that land. Therefore, the war of Muslims and Arabs against the Jews must stop, and they must let the Jews live in peace on their land.”
Adwan has maintained on numerous occasions that the Muslim world “distorts the Koran” and that the Jews are a peaceful people who have the right to defend themselves.
He has also slammed the Palestinian Arab community before, calling them “the killers of children, the elderly and women” in using them as human shields in order to falsely accuse the Jews of targeting them.
“This is their habit and custom, their viciousness, their having hearts of stones towards their children, and their lying to public opinion, in order to get its support,” he added.
Adwan is not the first authority on Muslim scriptures to note that the Koran has no reference to Israel as a homeland for Muslims. Middle Eastern affairs professor Nissim Dana recently told Arutz Sheva that Muslim scholars have maintained the Jews’ right to the Jewish homeland before, using the Koran and other Muslim holy texts as proof.
For rest of this article click Link

China Ramping Up Persecution of Christians

Chinese authorities are ramping up their persecution of Christian churches in response to what they perceive as an emerging threat to the communist regime, according to reports.
Public security officials in recent days forcibly removed crosses from two churches in the southeastern coastal province of Zhejiang, the New York Times reported. Authorities have now issued orders to demolish more than 100 churches in the province—most of them state-approved, as opposed to the illegal underground communities suppressed by officials.
Additionally, government officials have disrupted services, confiscated and destroyed church property, and in some cases detained members in the capital in Beijing, the eastern coastal province of Shandong, and the autonomous Xinjiang region in the northwest.
At the Wenling Church in the coastal city of Taizhou, congregants told the Times that as many as 4,000 officers removed two crosses from the building on Friday and detained as many as 40 people—while most of the members sang hymns.

Average Price of Electricity Climbs to All-Time Record

(CNSNews.com) - For the first time ever, the average price for a kilowatthour (KWH) of electricity in the United States has broken through the 14-cent mark, climbing to a record 14.3 cents in June, according to data released last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Before this June, the highest the average price for a KWH had ever gone was 13.7 cents, the level it hit in June, July, August and September of last year.
The 14.3-cents average price for a KWH recorded this June is about 4.4 percent higher than that previous record.
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