Columnist.
This week, President Obama launched a prominent social media campaign on behalf of "net neutrality" and urged the FCC to "keep the Internet free and open." The man has gall. This is the same speech-squelcher in chief whose administration snooped on reporters; vengefully audited tea party pro-life activists and conservative election watchdogs and slow-walked the probe into the IRS witch hunt against them; entertained a government scheme to monitor story selection in TV newsrooms; and forked over $1 million to a researcher building a Twitter-snooping database.
Enough is enough. An important bloc of voters made their voices heard on Tuesday. Their message: Quit rewarding people who violate our immigration laws. They chose a sovereign nation over an illegal alien sanctuary nation, and they told politicians in both parties loud and clear: Put Americans first. Will D.C. listen? These voters are tired of politicians creating magnets for illegal immigrants. They're tired of preferential treatment for defiant border-crossers, visa overstayers and deportation fugitives. They're tired of the heavy costs and consequences of the government's systemic refusal to protect its borders and fully implement interior enforcement.
Gird your loins, Beltway Republicans. Election Day is barely over, but the progressive left is locked and loaded for battle over President Obama's next U.S. attorney general. Liberals unhappy with the administration's failure to deliver a mass illegal alien amnesty fast enough want a consolation prize. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus sent Obama a demand letter last week promoting Labor Secretary Tom Perez as Eric Holder's replacement. Mother Jones ran with "Why Picking Tom Perez for Attorney General Would Be a Smart Move for Obama."
Nasty New York Times editorial writer David Firestone pretends to care about campaign scare-mongering. But what he and his elitist ilk really fear are independent-thinking women who have dared to exercise their First Amendment powers to defend their Second Amendment rights. This week, Firestone took aim at "attack ads" sponsored by the National Rifle Association. The "worst commercial," he says, "features a rape victim describing her assault and accusing" former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg "of wanting to take away her right to defend herself." That rape victim has a name and a story Firestone couldn't even bother to mention. She is Kimberly Weeks, a brave and fierce Colorado woman who testified against the Bloomberg-backed gun-control measures that beleaguered Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper now admits he passed "without basic facts" and concedes were ineffective from the get-go.
Wendy Russell Davis is on fire. And I don't mean that in a good way. I mean it in a five-alarm, set-her-own-skirt-aflame, billowing-human-torch kind of way. To say that Davis is smokin' hot is not a compliment. It's a campaign incineration status update. The Democratic darling of the Hollywood Left and glamour gal of abortion thought her path to the Texas governor's mansion would be a pink-sneakered walk in the park. Instead, her single-issue campaign has combusted.
President Obama says he's "shaken" by this week's violent attacks on three soldiers in Ottawa by an Islamic jihadist. He immediately phoned Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to offer support and "solidarity." He vowed to "remain vigilant." Too bad Obama didn't show the same resolve after multiple attacks and plots against *our* troops by Muslim terrorists on *our* soil. And I'm not just talking about the "workplace violence" of jihadist Nidal Hasan, whose Koran-inspired Fort Hood rampage took the lives of 13 American servicemen and servicewomen and one unborn baby.
Everything you need to know about Beltway nepotism, corporate cronyism and corruption can be found in the biography of Robert Hunter Biden. Where are the Occupy Wall Street rabble-rousers and enemies of elitist privilege when you need them? Straining their neck muscles to look the other way. The youngest son of Vice President Joe Biden made news last week after The Wall Street Journal revealed he had been booted from the Navy Reserve for cocaine use. His drug abuse was certainly no surprise to the Navy, which issued him a waiver for a *previous* drug offense before commissioning him as a public affairs officer at the age of 43. The Navy also bent over backward a *second* time with an age waiver so he could secure the cushy part-time job.
Free at last! I'm silent no more. Now, the story can be told. Democrats here in my adopted state of Colorado did not want the new political documentary I hosted to see the light of day. They lost. This week, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an emergency injunction declaring that our movie deserved the same free-speech rights as a "traditional" (translation: old-guard liberal) news organization. "Rocky Mountain Heist," produced by David Bossie's Citizens United and directed by Jason Killian Meath, tells the story of how a wealthy quartet of liberal millionaires and billionaires in Colorado -- known as the "Gang of Four" -- took over the once-red state of Colorado in the course of a decade.
So now the federal health bureaucrats in charge of controlling diseases and pandemics want more money to do their jobs. Hmph. Maybe if they hadn't been so busy squandering their massive government subsidies on everything *but* their core mission, we taxpayers might actually feel a twinge of sympathy. At $7 billion, the Centers for Disease Control 2014 budget is nearly 200 percent bigger now than it was in 2000. Those evil, stingy Republicans actually approved CDC funding increases in January larger than what President Obama requested. What are we getting for this ever-increasing amount of money? Answer: A power-hungry busybody brigade of politicized blame-mongers.
Attention, parents: Have your little ones been subjected to "TS Gold" in school yet? If you care about student privacy, data mining and classroom intrusions, you might want to start asking questions and protecting your children now before it's too late. What's happening here in Colorado with this onerous testing regime is happening everywhere. Informed families and teachers from all parts of the political spectrum agree: It's a Big Government/Big Business "gold" rush you don't want to join. "TS Gold" stands for Teaching Strategies Gold. This "school readiness assessment system" was mandated in our state several years ago. It has already permeated private day-care centers and preschools; pilot testing in publicly funded preschools and kindergartens is currently taking place. More than 42,000 kids in Colorado alone have been subjected to the assessments.
A Dallas hospital's bizarre bungle of the first U.S. case of Ebola leaves me wondering: Is someone covering up for a crony billionaire Obama donor and her controversy-plagued, taxpayer-subsidized electronic medical records company? Last week, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital revealed in a statement that a procedural flaw in its online health records system led to potentially deadly miscommunication between nurses and doctors. The facility sent Ebola victim Thomas Duncan home despite showing signs of the disease -- only to admit him with worse symptoms three days later.
Ebola has reached our shores from Africa. Dozens of children are reportedly suffering paralysis from a deadly virus with unknown origins. Medical providers across the country have warned of a looming public health crisis as communicable diseases spread unmonitored and uncontrolled. Other countries are cracking down. But America is stuck on open-borders stupid. The Diversity Visa (DV) program, to take just one glaring example of government insanity, is still going. On October 1, the State Department opened the annual DV random lottery to applicants from around the world. Yes, it's completely random like a Powerball drawing. Up to 55,000 lucky winners will snag permanent residency visas (green cards), which put them on the path to American citizenship ahead of millions of other foreigners patiently waiting to come to this country.
So the five Afghan soldiers who went missing from two separate U.S. military bases are now all accounted for and apparently headed back to their home country. Feel safer now? Don't. The Pentagon, State Department and Department of Homeland Security would like this story to be over and done. (Just like they wanted the White House "fence-jumper" story to be buried. But then we found out he didn't just jump the fence; he also overpowered a Secret Service agent, burst through the halls and invaded the East Room wielding a knife.)
There's a big battle brewing in the Jefferson County, Colorado, school system. The manufactured controversy over a proposed curriculum review is generating national headlines. But the fight is not about what misguided students and biased reporters say it's about. "Censorship" is a red herring. The real issue is union control. Here's the deal: Public school teachers in this Denver-area district walked out of their classrooms this week to protest the implementation of performance-based pay. The JeffCo school board approved the new compensation system last week, which rewards the most highly effective teachers with 4.2 percent raises, effective teachers with 2.4 raises and inferior teachers with nothing. Only 2 percent of teachers received no pay raises.
D.C. journalists called the latest Quinnipiac University poll results in Colorado's tight gubernatorial race a "shocker." But it's a surprise only if you've been hopelessly trapped in a Beltway echo chamber. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper is down 10 points against former GOP Rep. Bob Beauprez among all likely voters. The Q poll also shows him behind Beauprez by 13 points among independents. A survey conducted last week by Suffolk University for USA Today shows the beleaguered incumbent in a statistical dead heat with Beauprez.
Fresh terror busts in Australia expose a common Achilles' heel of the West: Indiscriminate refugee policies turn free countries into breeding grounds for jihad. It's the same game in America. Soldiers of Islam have weaponized our blind generosity against us. In Sydney this week, authorities detained a half-dozen Muslim plotters and arrested a top collaborator in an alleged conspiracy to kidnap and behead a random Australian citizen. The accused mastermind? Afghan refugee turned Aussie Islamic State recruiter Mohammad Ali Baryalei. He and his aristocratic family were welcomed Down Under decades ago. Baryalei returned the favor by taking to the streets of Sydney to recruit and radicalize dozens of fellow Muslim immigrants or their children.
Something's fouling Colorado's crisp air -- and I'm not talking about the pot smoke. In my adopted home state, the toxic fumes of Islamic jihad have penetrated the most unlikely hamlets and hinterlands. Obama administration officials are vehemently denying plots by ISIS operatives to cross our borders. But the lesson here is clear: Thanks to laptop recruitment, reckless visa policies and homegrown treachery, the U.S.-based jihad export-import business is and has been thriving. Last week, 19-year-old Shannon Conley of Arvada (a Denver suburb once known as the "Celery Capital of the World") pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.
"If you see something, say something." That's what our homeland security apparatchiks incessantly preach. But 13 years after the 9/11 attacks, the freedom to warn is in danger and vigilant whistleblowers are under fire. Listen to Robert MacLean. He's a former Air Force nuclear weapons specialist and Border Patrol agent recruited by the government to serve as one of the first federal air marshals after 9/11. In 2003, MacLean underwent emergency training to prepare for a new round of al-Qaida hijacking threats. Jihadists exploiting visa and screening loopholes had planned to target East Coast airliners, according to intelligence analysts. For unknown reasons, however, the Transportation Security Administration abruptly called off air marshals from duty on nonstop, long-distance flights -- just two days before the anticipated hijacking.
Here's the first and last rule of Islamic jihad: If at first you don't succeed, plot, plot again. 9/11 wasn't the first. 9/11 won't be the last. It's not "fear-mongering" to face reality. These head-chopping, throat-slitting, bloodthirsty hijackers -- of planes, freedom and civilization -- have conspired for decades to inflict modern mass murder on the West. Their homicidal mission is spectacular destruction in the name of the Koran. Never forget: Eternal Muslim hatred of infidels didn't start with George W. Bush. Or George Herbert Walker Bush. Or Ronald Reagan. Or the creation of Gitmo. Or the birth of Israel. Or the Twin Towers. Or the Khobar Towers. Or Lockerbie. Or the U.S.S. Cole. Or Fort Hood. Or the Beirut Marine barracks bombings. Or the bombings of the U.S. embassy in Africa, the bombing of U.S. military headquarters in Riyadh and the attack on the U.S. embassy in Benghazi.
Black caliphate flags flap in the open air. Islamic head-choppers wreak bloody havoc around the world. Nearly a dozen commercial airliners disappear in Libya. And America's immigration and entrance systems remain in shambles. Now is a good time to ask a question I first posed 10 summers ago: Where is Adnan Shukrijumah? A decade later, the question is still unanswered. The FBI has yet to track down this homicidal plotter. Have you forgotten? Saudi-born Shukrijumah, billed as the "next Mohammed Atta," has been a fugitive since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. His father, Gulshair, was a Wahabi cleric funded by the Saudi government. The elder Shukrijumah headed mosques in New York and Miami, consorted with Israel-bashing black Muslim agitators, and also served as one-time interpreter for convicted 1993 World Trade Center mastermind Omar Abdel Rahman (the Blind Sheik). The radical Muslim apple didn't fall far from the tree.
