The Hard Truth

Journal of Political News & Constitutionalism

Posts Tagged ‘jobs

Detention Camps? In America?

leave a comment »

Posted: February 05, 2009                                      
1:00 am Eastern by Joseph Farah, WorldNetDaily

© 2009 

 

What goes on here?

Jerome Corsi’s breathtaking story in WND earlier this week is giving me heart palpitations.

In case you missed it, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., a former judge impeached in 1981 by a Democratic House of Representatives and only the sixth federal judge ever to be removed by the U.S. Senate, has introduced a bill to establish at least six emergency centers for U.S. civilians in the event of some future, unspecified crisis.

“The bill also appears to expand the president’s emergency power, much as the executive order signed by President Bush on May 9, 2007, that, as WND reported, gave the president the authority to declare an emergency and take over the direction of all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments without even consulting Congress,” the story continues.

And here’s some further context: “As WND also reported, DHS has awarded a $385 million contract to Houston-based KBR, Halliburton’s former engineering and construction subsidiary, to build temporary detention centers on an ‘as-needed’ basis in national emergency situations.”

I don’t like it.

I don’t trust Washington.

And I sure don’t trust Alcee Hastings.

In 1981, the former judge, appointed by Jimmy Carter, was charged with accepting a $150,000 bribe in exchange for a lenient sentence and a return of seized assets for 21 counts of racketeering by Frank and Thomas Romano, and of perjury in his testimony about the case. He was acquitted by a jury after his alleged co-conspirator, William Borders, refused to testify. Borders went to jail.

In 1988, the Democratic-controlled U.S. House of Representatives took up the case, and Hastings was impeached for bribery and perjury by a vote of 413-3. Even Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers and Charlie Rangel voted to impeach Hastings. He was then easily convicted by the U.S. Senate and removed from office.

The Senate had the option to forbid Hastings from ever seeking federal office again, but – unwisely – did not do so.

So Hastings came back in 1993 to win his House seat.

Now he is promoting the building of “camps” for U.S. civilians.

It is Hastings who clearly belongs behind bars, not in the House of Representatives sponsoring draconian legislation.

The biggest “emergency” this nation faces is the overreaching of our federal government and its lack of concern over constitutional limits on its power.

Maybe we need detention facilities for out-of-control Washington powerbrokers.

I don’t know what’s behind this move.

Maybe it’s no more than a distraction to make us nervous and persuade Americans to keep their big mouths shut and follow orders.

Maybe it’s no more than an effort to create more make-work jobs for the constituents of Alcee Hastings and his colleagues.

Maybe it’s all just a big misunderstanding.

But, whatever it is, I don’t like the way it smells.

I don’t like the way it tastes.

And I know it is spawned in this the-Constitution-be-damned mentality that pervades Washington.

So let’s expose it.

Let’s kill it.

Let’s lock it up and throw away the key.

And let’s declare a real emergency – one that has already hit us like a smack in the face with a baseball bat: The Constitution is daily being breached by the very people sworn to uphold and defend it. If anyone in America deserved to be rounded up and detained for the good of the country, it is those who are blatantly exceeding the strict limits on their authority and remaking our nation in their own corrupt and power-hungry image.

Obama Adviser: White Males Need Not Apply

leave a comment »

Posted: January 22, 2009
12:17 pm Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily

 


Obama economic adviser Robert Reich

A top economic adviser to President Obama has told a congressional panel the billions of dollars in the proposed economic stimulus plan should be allocated with social issues in mind, to make sure the money doesn’t go to just “white male construction workers” or the highly skilled.

Robert Reich, who served as labor secretary under President Clinton, was speaking to the House Steering and Policy Committee Jan. 7 about funding infrastructure projects across the nation.

“It seems to me that infrastructure spending is a very important and good way of stimulating the economy. The challenge will be to do it quickly, to find projects that can be done that will have a high social return, that also can be done with the greatest speed possible,” Reich said.

“I am concerned, as I’m sure many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high skilled people who are already professionals or to white male construction workers,” he said.

Reich’s statements were highlighted in a video by NakedEmporerNews, which is embedded here:

The hearing took place two weeks before Obama was inaugurated.

“I have nothing against white male construction workers,” Reich said. “I’m just saying there are a lot of other people who have needs as well.

“There are ways in which the money can be, criteria can be set so the money does go to others, the long term unemployed, minorities, women,” he said.

Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., appeared to agree, suggesting federal money be directed to specific groups of people.

The federal government, he said, must “remove the discretion” about where the funds go, or what projects would be involved, even to the point of eliminating any input from governors or state legislatures.

Reich agreed: “Governors ought to be, should be given a choice of signing on the bottom line or not.”

Then Rangel noted the “middle class” would be unlikely to create any opposition to funds directed to minorities.

“One thing that you can depend on, you don’t have to be worried about what the middle class is going to do. Things are so bad, they have to put food on their tables, get clothes for their kids, get them in school,” he said.

Who is Barack Obama REALLY? Get the book that says his “change” is designed to uproot American culture and replace it with the failed, secular, socialist policies of the past.

Commentator Michelle Malkin said Reich’s statements expose “the lie that the Obama administration is actually interested in revitalizing basic infrastructure for the good of the economy.”

“No, what Team Obama really wants is to ensure that the least skilled, least qualified workers get jobs based on their chromosomes and pigment,” she said.

Malkin cited Reich’s own blog, where the Obama adviser wrote of the economic stimulus plan: “I’d suggest that all contracts entered into with stimulus funds require contractors to provide at least 20 percent of jobs to the long-term unemployed and to people with incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.”

This, Malkin wrote, is “spoken like a true-blue wealth redistributor. The ‘needs’ (read: demands) of politically protected minorities trump the need for competently build roads and bridges.”


Reich’s blog headline

On his blog, Reich makes his case for, “The Stimulus: How to Create Jobs Without Them All Going to Skilled Professionals and White Male Construction Workers.”

“At least 2 percent of project funds should be allocated to such training. In addition, advantage should be taken of buildings trades apprenticeships — which must be fully available to women and minorities,” he wrote.

Race already has become an issue several times in the Obama administration.

As WND reported, Democratic Party strategist Donna Brazile admitted she swiped Obama’s complimentary blanket from his inauguration ceremony and then joked it was not a criminal offense because, “We have a black president … this was free.”

Outrage also erupted over the inauguration benediction by Rev. Joseph Lowery, the 87-year-old civil rights pioneer, for asking God to help mankind work for a day when “white would embrace what is right.”

Obama reacted to the benediction with a smile.