October 25, 2012

NEWSMAX

Napolitano: 200K Illegals Seek Deferred Deportation Under Obama Program

by Todd Beamon

October 24, 2012

More than 3,000 young illegal immigrants are applying every day for deferred deportation under the Obama administration’s new immigration policy, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Wednesday.

So far, about 200,000 young people who are in the US illegally have applied to defer their deportation for at least two years and get a temporary work permit, Napolitano said, The Hill reports.

The Department of Homeland Security began accepting applications under the new rules two months ago. Napolitano said in June that immigrants 31 years old and younger who were brought to the country illegally before they were 16 could apply for a permit to stay in the US for a two-year, renewable period.

Immigrants must have lived in the United States for five years to be eligible. They must attend school or have an equivalency diploma, graduated from high school, or been honorably discharged from the military.

They also must not be a felon or have been convicted of more than two misdemeanor crimes.

Applications takes at least four months to process, during which time the applicant will not be deported from the country, Napolitano said.

“I suspect that we may see a bulge of applications after the New Year when there’s either this administration or a new administration and when the policies are going to be become more clear,” she said, according to The Hill.

Read more: http://goo.gl/iqIkZ

TOWNHALL

Obama: No Regrets Over Prioritizing Obamacare Over Jobs

by Guy Benson

October 24, 2012

President Obama recently sat down with the editorial board of Iowa's largest newspaper, the Des Moines Register, for what his campaign stipulated would be an off-the-record discussion:

The Des Moines Register’s publisher and I spoke with President Barack Obama this morning — but we can’t tell you what he said. Just four days before the Register’s presidential endorsement is released, Laura Hollingsworth and I received a phone call from the president. He was calling from Florida, on the heels of a morning campaign appearance and about 14 hours after his debate with GOP nominee Mitt Romney at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla. The conference call lasted nearly 30 minutes and was an incredibly informative exchange of questions, answers and an insightful glimpse into the president’s vision for a second term. He made a genuine and passionate case for our endorsement and for reelection. Just two weeks before Election Day, the discussion, I believe, would have been valuable to all voters, but especially those in Iowa and around the country who have yet to decide between the incumbent Democrat and his Republican opponent. Unfortunately, what we discussed was off-the-record. It was a condition, we were told, set by the White House.  

The Register's editors contrast this rigmarole from the most transparent administration evah with the access they were granted by Mitt Romney's campaign:

Romney appeared before our board Oct. 9. We literally met in a barn on a family farm owned by Jeff Koch, just west of Van Meter. We had a wide-ranging conversation in a little under an hour of access. He squeezed us in just before a campaign stop that spotlighted his agriculture policies. With the exception of one final question (“Why have you earned the Des Moines Register’s endorsement?”) his camp said the interview could not be videotaped, which has become our typical practice with politicians meeting our editorial board. But the audio was digitally recorded and posted on DesMoinesRegister.com.

That full audio is available here, by the way.  With Iowa looking like a dead heat, an endorsement from a major newspaper could help tip the scales -- so after a protracted battle, Team Obama finally relented and agreed to allow the content of meeting to be released for the record.  During that roundtable conversation, Obama predicted Latino voters would push him over the top in November because Republicans have alienated the growing demographic.  The president was also asked about his decision to spend his substantial political capital, and exploit his large Congressional majorities, to aggressively push his partisan health care law, rather than in pursuit of other economic priorities.  Obama's answer?  "Absolutely" no regrets:

QUESTION: “Some say you had a super majority in your first two years and had this incredible opportunity, but because of what you were talking about, as you were running, you had to go to get Obamacare done. Do you have any regrets taking on some of the economic issues, some of the issues that we're talking about for your second term, that when you had the chance, so to speak, during your first -- do you have any regrets that you didn’t do that at that time?” 

OBAMA: “Absolutely not, Laura.”  

Obama projects unflinching confidence that he was entirely correct to put jobs, economic growth, immigration reform -- everything -- on the back burner in order to jam through Obamacare.  He's proud of his law, which raises government healthcare spending, hikes family premiums, adds to the deficit, rations care through an unelected panel of bureaucrats, exacerbates our doctor shortage, and boots millions off of plans they hoped to keep.  All of these outcomes explicitly violate promises the president made during the national healthcare debate.  Meanwhile, the nation's economic outlook remains bleak.  That's not in spite of Obamacare; it's because of Obamacare, which the CBO estimates will destroy 800,000 American jobs.

Read more: http://goo.gl/pxyk5

REDSTATE

Voter Fraud Scheme Caught on Film: “Faking a utility bill would be easy enough”
by Jason Hart
October 24, 2012

A Democrat campaign worker instructed an undercover reporter on the simplest way to subvert Virginia’s voter identification laws – which strongly resemble Ohio’s – in the latest hidden camera exposé from James O’Keefe and his team at Project Veritas.

In Moran’s own words, “If they just have – you know, just the utility bill or bank statement – bank statement would obviously be tough, but faking a utility bill would be easy enough.”

“I would look at the law, look at what you need, but I imagine it’s gonna be something — you know, they’re just gonna have to have a name and address on there, it looks like you’ll be able to satisfy that,” Moran explained later in the conversation. “But it’s gonna have to look legit.”

In Virginia, a voter can present a utility bill as proof of identification when casting a ballot. A utility bill is also accepted as proof of identification in Ohio, where Secretary of State Jon Husted derailed a proposed photo ID law in 2011.

“I believe that if you have a government-issued check, a utility bill in your name with your address on it, that no one made that up,” Husted, a Republican, told reporters as the General Assembly was discussing the possibility of requiring photo ID to vote.

At the end of August, elections integrity groups True The Vote and Judicial Watch sued Husted’s office for failing to maintain accurate voter rolls. With tens of thousands of outdated registrations on the books, the fraud recommended by Patrick Moran could be committed with relative ease.

Opposition to True The Vote from liberal politicians, labor unions, and the legacy media has heated up as the November election approaches. Critics generally assert that voter fraud is inconsequential or nonexistent, and is merely used as a pretext by racist volunteers and partisan operatives.

In Congress, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) began agitating in early October for a congressional investigation of True The Vote. Ohio Democrats have worked to impugn True The Vote and partner Ohio Voter Integrity Project (Ohio VIP), aided by an array of union bosses. On October 17, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) filed a complaint to the IRS demanding that True The Vote’s tax-exempt status be revoked.

Given the importance of Ohio in the presidential race, reporters from across the country have opined on elections integrity efforts in the state. As a rule, “mainstream” journalists seem taken aback by any suggestion that groups reliant on big government would commit fraud for political gain – while charging full-speed at the motives and political connections of any group that tries to prevent fraud.

A New York Times reporter began a September 16 attack piece by writing that voter fraud “might as well be Harry Potter’s invisible Knight Bus, because no one can prove it exists.” A September 26 LA Times column also downplayed the threat of fraud while accusing True The Vote and Ohio VIP of disenfranchising minority voters.

A New Yorker story titled “The Voter-Fraud Myth” is set to appear in the magazine’s October 29 print edition.

Contrary to left-wing rhetoric, the latest Project Veritas video is not the only proof that voter fraud is possible or that liberal activists are willing to cheat to win elections.

Project Veritas has previously released undercover footage of an election worker giving U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s ballot to an undercover reporter, and earlier this month released video of an Obama for America employee instructing another reporter how to vote in two different states.

In September, Ohio Watchdog  released an exhaustive analysis of how easy it would be to commit voter fraud under current Ohio law.

On October 2, True The Vote submitted 34 cases of potential voter fraud in Ohio to authorities. On October 16, three central Ohio women were indicted on felony illegal voting charges.

These facts are of little consequence to labor unions and other liberal groups, who are currently attempting to boost turnout in the election by smearing fraud-prevention measures as “suppression.”

Read more: http://goo.gl/cVm7h