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Showing posts with label Congressional Research Service. Show all posts

Monday, April 10, 2017

Why Should Palestinians Negotiate When Their Pockets Are Filled With Money From The US?

From: FLAME

Tens of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are spent annually to pay salaries to Palestinian terrorists who murder innocent civilians in Israel.

To prop up the virtually bankrupt Palestinian Authority (P.A.), the U.S. sends Palestinians more than $400 million a year in aid. The P.A., however, spends some $140 million annually to reward jihadists and their families for murderous acts that kill innocent Americans and Israelis.

What are the facts?

“You can’t be a partner in peace when you are paying people to commit terrorist acts.” Senator Lindsey Graham

In June 2016, 13-year-old Hallal Yaffa Ariel was stabbed to death in her bed by a Palestinian terrorist who broke into her family’s home.
In March of this year, 28-year-old Taylor Force, a West Point graduate and two-tour U.S. army veteran from Texas, was killed as he strolled with his wife in Jaffa by a knife-wielding Palestinian.

Hailed as heroic jihadist martyrs by the Palestinian Authority, both terrorists and their families now receive monthly stipends from the P.A.

For more than 20 years, the Palestinian government has openly used aid donations from the U.S. and other countries to motivate and reward terrorists.

Depending on the number of people murdered in a terrorist attack, salaries range from $364 to $3,100 per month. Terrorists with families and who die in the act or are captured and sentenced to 30 years or more receive the highest allowances.

These expenditures—a hefty $140 million per year—make up an estimated 10% of the Palestinian Authority’s total budget.

In addition to financial incentives for terror, jihadists also receive abundant moral support from the Palestinian government. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has said, “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood . . . With the help of Allah, every martyr will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward.”

U.S. Payments to the Palestinian Authority. According to a Congressional Research Service report, the U.S. since the mid-1990s has contributed more than $5 billion in security assistance and bilateral economic aid to the P.A., and American taxpayers’ current annual commitment is now some $400 million. In fact, Palestinians are the world’s largest per-capita recipients of international aid.

While a 2014 State Department report praised the Palestinian Authority for making “terrorism financing a criminal offense,” the P.A. still has laws on its books mandating payments to terrorists and their families.

In the face of mounting criticism of such hypocrisy from Western nations, however, the P.A. concocted a deceitful shell game, seeking to hide its support of terror by changing what used to be termed “salaries” to “assistance” and shifting distribution duties from the P.A. to the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which does not directly receive foreign funding.

So far, this sham seems to have satisfied some of the gullible nations that support the Palestinian Authority.

Time to End U.S. Funding of Terror. At last, members of Congress are introducing legislation to prevent U.S. aid from supporting this culture of jihadist terror. Senators Dan Coats, Roy Blunt and Lindsey Graham, for example, have introduced legislation to end financial aid to the Palestinian Authority until it stops incentivizing terrorism.

Senator Graham has noted that “You can’t be a partner in peace when you are paying people to commit terrorist acts.”

However, both the U.S. and Israel fear that cutting funding to the Palestinian Authority could destabilize the Palestinian government, preferring a duplicitous P.A. to Hamas or Islamic State. Lamentably, those familiar with the corrupt P.A. know that expectations of reforming it anytime soon are fantasy.

But surely funding a Palestinian terror program that kills Americans and Israelis cannot serve the long-term interests of the United States or Israel.

Cutting off aid to the P.A. is a move in the right direction, but it is inadequate, since it doesn’t address the Palestinian culture of Jew hatred and denial of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, both of which beliefs make any notion of peace impossible.

Unfortunately, the Palestinian government perpetuates in its media, mosques and schools the myths that Jews have no rights to sovereignty in the Holy Land and that all non-Muslims, even innocent civilians, are laudable targets for terrorist attacks.

In order to achieve a secure and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, convicted terrorists or who those die while committing terrorism must not compensated by the Palestinian government for these crimes.

It is a travesty that American taxpayer dollars subsidize this hateful practice, and Congress should move urgently to stop it.

FLAME – Facts and Logic About the Middle East

www.factsandlogic.org

PO Box 3460, Berkeley, CA 94703

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Tuesday, April 19, 2016

Illegal Alien Children Coming To This Country In Unprecedented Numbers

Report: Children Crossing US Border Illegally up 1,200 Percent Between 2011 and 2014

(Getty Images)

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Saturday, 16 Apr 2016 12:20 PM

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The number of unaccompanied children crossing the U.S. border illegally has jumped by more than 1,200 percent in the past five years, a newCongressional Research Service report says, and another new record could be set this year.

"This unexpected surge of children strained U.S. government resources and created a complex crisis with humanitarian implications," the report says, according to The Washington Free Beacon.

"Experts warn that significant migration flows will continue until policymakers in the countries of origin and the international community address the poor socioeconomic and security conditions driving Central Americans to leave their homes."

According to the agency, the flow of unaccompanied children has already increased in the first five months of fiscal year 2016, with nearly 20,000 already being apprehended. The illegal immigration record is 2014, when U.S. officials caught more than 52,000 children.

Saturday, August 2, 2014

Impeachment A Bad Idea As Senate Would NEVER Convict Regardless Of Crimes Obama Has Done!

RUSH: HOW 'BOUT THESE 'HIGH CRIMES, MISDEMEANORS'?

Cites Obama breaking law more than 1,800 times since 2012

Published: 16 hours ago

DREW ZAHN About | Email | Archive

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If the U.S. Constitution requires “high crimes and misdemeanors” to justify impeaching a president, talk-radio giant Rush Limbaugh reasoned on his program Thursday, would nearly 2,000 illegal actions be enough to qualify?

Limbaugh quoted a July 29 Washington Post article by Juliet Eilperin – whom Rush called “so in the tank for Democrats it’s impossible to categorize” – that nonetheless reported the Obama administration has put into force 1,800 “technically illegal” executive branch regulations since 2012 alone.

“Over the past 2 1/2 years, the Obama administration has published hundreds of rules – on how wheelchairs should be stowed aboard U.S. aircraft, how foreign trade zones should be regulated, how voting assistance should be provided for U.S. citizens overseas and so on,” Eilperin reported. “There’s a problem, however: Technically speaking, these and about 1,800 other regulations shouldn’t be in effect, because they weren’t reported to Congress as required.”

In fact, according to Eiliperin’s report, Robert Cramer of the Government Accountability Office explained Obama’s failure to report the regulations to Congress is a “technical violation” of a 1996 statute and said, “The law says they can’t take effect.”

Nonetheless, they have.

“Since 2012, this administration has simply implemented nearly 2,000 regulations they didn’t report to anybody except the enforcement agencies. Two thousand!” Limbaugh exclaimed. “President Obama has just created 2,000 laws without Congress and without telling Congress. High crimes and misdemeanors!

“He’s acting outside the authority granted him by the Constitution over and over and over again, and yet, Republicans say his behavior has not risen to the level of ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’” Limbaugh continued. “They’re just bending over every which way possible to try to convince people that they don’t hate Obama.”

Sign the petition demanding Congress follow through on impeaching Obama.

Listen to the audio of Limbaugh’s statements below:

The day previous, on his Wednesday program, Limbaugh argued many people misunderstand what it takes to justify impeaching a president: “‘High crimes and misdemeanors’ does not mean theft, larceny, murder, any of that. ‘High crimes and misdemeanors’ means dereliction of duty! ‘High crimes and misdemeanors’ means action outside the Constitution. ‘High crimes and misdemeanors’ means action detrimental to the country in violation of the oath of office. It’s an entirely different thing than a criminal definition.”

“Another member of Congress said, ‘No, no, no, we’re not going to impeach Obama. What he’s done doesn’t even rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.’ And it does. It specifically does,” Limbaugh continued on Thursday. “‘High crimes and misdemeanors’ is a phrase that the founders borrowed from the ancient Brits, but it has a specific meaning and it can’t mean murder and all that because those are not misdemeanors. … This is where you have to go look at original intent. ‘High crimes and misdemeanors’ simply says, all it means is, has somebody gotten to the point where we can’t trust them with the power that the Constitution gives them? That’s the root of it.

“There are specifics to high crimes and misdemeanors,” Limbaugh concluded, “and Obama has engaged in them.”

According to Eilperin’s article, Curtis Copeland, a retired Congressional Research Service staffer, discovered the 1,800 unreported regulations after conducting a study of the more than 9,000 rules issued by Obama’s executive branch since the start of 2012.

The 1996 Congressional Review Act – which stemmed from the Republican Party’s “Contract with America” – requires most federal rules to be reported to the House and Senate in paper form and the Government Accountability Office electronically.

Former Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla., one of the law’s original sponsors, told the Post the statute helps lawmakers hold hearings and use other tactics to influence regulations before they take effect. During Bill Clinton’s administration, Congress even overturned one of the president’s directives. Major rules, Eilperin reported, are not supposed to go into force until 60 days after they are reported to Congress or published in the Federal Register, whichever is later.

When informed about the hundreds of missing rules, Nickles told the Post, “It sounds like they’re breaking the law.”

Eilperin further reported of the 1,800 unreported regulations, 43 have been deemed “significant” by the Office of Management and Budget, and six of those count as major. Three rules published in early 2013 carried out the Pentagon’s sexual-assault prevention and response program; one was estimated to cost nearly $15 billion to implement.

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/08/rush-how-bout-these-high-crimes-misdemeanors/#i1ejyQlhK3EtdwlG.99