President

Carlos Slim and Bill Gates are two of the richest men in the world. Slim with his Mexican telecommunication monopolies has done little to make either Mexico or the world a more prosperous place. In contrast, the computer revolution, in which Bill Gates was a major player, enriched the lives of people all over the world. In their book Why Nations Fail, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson claim that the reasons why Slim’s and Gates’ wealth bear such different fruit are the same reasons why Nogales, Arizona is so much more prosperous than Nogales, Mexico, although the cities are divided by no more than a fence which marks an international border. For the most part the people on both sides of the international line in Nogales are of the same ethnicities and share the same history and geographic constraints, but the incentives in each nation are radically different.

The authors claim that broadly-based prosperity is possible only in a nation with the rule of law, protection of private property, constitutionally-limited government, and relatively broadly-based political and economic power.

In failing nations, political control is held in a few hands and a single party. The institutions have been set up so that the people in power can stay in power and benefit themselves and their friends. In Mexico there were only three banks, no real elections, no publicly acknowledged system for registering private property ownership, and no way in which inventors of new ideas could expect to prosper from those new ideas. Except for those in political power, most of the population was consigned to grinding poverty. Mexico has periodically faced bankruptcy and the International Monetary Fund, as a condition of bailing out the government, insisted that some of the many government monopolies be privatized. The Mexican government privatized the telephone monopoly by handing it over to one of its cronies – Carlos Slim. He didn’t put up any money. He “paid” for it out of the proceeds of the company itself, and he picked up other assets at “distressed” prices. With his monopolies, he continued to soak high telephone rates from the Mexican people. In contrast, Bill Gates, after dropping out of Harvard, invented his software in his garage with a couple of his friends, marketed Microsoft products fiendishly, and competed as ruthlessly as he could with his rivals like Steven Jobs who had built Apple in a similar way. In doing so, Microsoft and its competitors computerized the world and raised living standards in places like India and Mexico.

Under the rule of law, Bill Gates was sued by Netscape for building a monopoly. And although Netscape’s case was relatively weak, Gates lost in court, was humiliated on the witness stand, was fined, and was almost forced to break up his company. The flip side of the equation is that he could not have acquired his wealth if he had been operating in a nation without the rule of law.

Without the rule of law the only way to gain economic wealth is to pay bribes, seek patronage from the government, and rely on the police and the state to eliminate your competition. Technological improvement, so essential to real economic growth, is always a threat because it will lead to political change and any political change is likely to lead to major loss of property and life to those at the top of the heap. And so, historically, those governments have granted monopolies on every aspect of the economy and monopolies tend to charge the highest possible prices and provide the lowest quality of goods. Monopolies cannot exist without the force of government behind them.

Acemoglu and Robinson demonstrate it doesn’t matter what the ideology of the people in power is. They always act to preserve their power and that requires eliminating the rule of law and concentrating all economic and political power in a small group of people. These governments routinely kill and imprison their political opponents, confiscate the wealth of their middle classes, and impoverish and starve the mass of their people. And if those political opponents gain power, they do the same. Thus, using radically egalitarian propaganda, the economic inequality in China and Russia increased after their revolutions and tens of millions of their citizens were starved to death because all the food the peasants grew was expropriated by the government. In Africa, with a few exceptions like Botswana, the post-colonial governments exploited their people in much the same ways, and to an even greater degree, than the colonial powers had. Rhodesia’s government may have been unjust, but Zimbabwe’s government is murderous. In too many of these countries, the leaders and their friends are all fabulously wealthy. The other people are fabulously poor.

But times are changing. The Mexican government is turning toward the rule of law and the privatization of large and inefficient state monopolies. Meanwhile, in this country, we are moving away from the rule of law and constitutionally-limited government and toward unlimited government power and cronyism. Government is becoming the only available source of funding for many people and many businesses, and politically, the force of government is being used to silence the government’s political opposition. And perhaps Bill Gates and Microsoft may finally get a real monopoly. It is called the Common Core. Read more about Why Some Nations Succeed and Many Nations Fail

Republicans will be unlikely to compromise on immigration reform unless U.S. borders are first secured, and the possibility of a broad immigration bill reaching President Barack Obama's desk this year is "clearly in doubt," Representative Paul Ryan said on Sunday.

"Security first, no amnesty, then we might be able to get somewhere," Ryan said on ABC's "This Week."...

Last June, the Senate passed a comprehensive bill that would provide a path to citizenship for the approximately 11 million immigrants living in the United States illegally and tighten border security.

The bill stalled in the House, and some conservative Republicans in both chambers remain staunchly opposed to offering legal status for millions of adults who live in the United States unlawfully.

Obama last week hinted in an interview that he might be open to a plan that would first give undocumented workers legal status, as long as they were not permanently barred from becoming citizens....

"This is not one of those issues that has a deadline," he said in the ABC interview. Ryan emphasized that securing the U.S.-Mexico border was a crucial first step before changing rules around legal residency.

"We don't know who's coming and going in this country. We don't have control of our borders," he said. "Doing nothing on the security side of this isn't the responsible thing to do."

House leaders must contend with several conservatives who are suspicious of Obama's agenda and are reluctant to give the president a long-sought legislative victory....

Incumbents facing a primary challenge or a close general election in this year's campaign season may have an incentive to oppose the plan's path to citizenship.

Still, many lawmakers agreed to revamp U.S. policy on immigration after exit polling showed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney won just 27 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2012. The Republican National Committee made it a priority to reach out to minority voters after the election.

Louisiana Republican Governor Bobby Jindal said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that Republicans should go ahead with immigration reform since it remains the right thing to do and not "because of what some pollster tells us." Read more about U.S. immigration bill 'in doubt' this year, Republican Ryan says

Although president Obama wants a "pathway to citizenship" as part of overall immigration reform, he says he won't "prejudge" what kind of bill might reach his desk -- as long as "folks aren't being deported."

"Well, I think the principle that we don't want two classes of people in America is a principle that a lot of people agree with, not just me and not just Democrats," Obama told Jake Tapper in a taped interview that aired Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

Obama said if House Republicans produce a bill saying that "folks aren't being deported, families aren't being separated, we're able to attract top young students to provide the skills or start businesses here and then there's a regular process of citizenship, I'm not sure how wide the divide ends up being. That's why I don't want to prejudge it."

He said he "genuinely" believes that House Republicans want to get serious about immigration reform, and he mentioned Rep. Paul Ryan by name.

"I do know that for a lot of families, the fear of deportation is one of the biggest concerns that they've got. And that's why we took executive actions, given my prosecutorial discretion, to make sure we're not deporting kids who grew up here and are Americans, for all practical purposes. But we need to get that codified.

"And the question is, is there more that we can do in this legislation that gets both Democratic and Republican support, but solves these broader problems, including strengthening borders and making sure that we have a legal immigration system that works better than it currently does."

Obama said he plans to consult with "the people who stand to be affected" by immigration reform legislation.

"The -- not just the immigrant -- immigration rights groups and organizations and advocates, but also ordinary folks. How do they feel? What is it that they're looking for? What do they aspire to? And, you know, this is something that -- where you've got to have a serious conversation around the country."

White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough told CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday that President Obama does want a "pathway to citizenship" for people who came to the U.S. illegally.

"We don't want to have a permanent separation of classes or two permanent different classes of Americans in this country," he said. "We're just not going to live with that."

He said the White House will now "stand back" and "see how the House Republicans handle this."

Some Republicans have talked about giving illegal aliens "legal status," but not citizenship. Read more about Obama: "We don't want two classes of people in America"

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi privately has urged the Obama administration to halt deportations for some illegal immigrants...

In an interview with Telemundo over the weekend, Mrs. Pelosi said that just being in the country illegally is not enough of a reason to be deported, and she said illegal immigrants must have something more serious on their records.

“Our view of the law is that it — if somebody is here without sufficient documentation, that is not reason for deportation,” she said in the interview... “If somebody has broken the law, committed a felony or something, that’s a different story.”

Federal law generally does say that those who are in the country without authorization — either because they jumped the border or have overstayed their visas — are deportable.

But Mr. Obama has claimed broad discretion to decide whom to deport out of the 11 million illegal immigrants estimated to be in the country, arguing that Congress only appropriated enough money to deport about 400,000 people a year and so he must pick and choose whom to deport.

Homeland Security officials argue that nearly all of those they deport do meet one of their priority categories of having a criminal record or having previously been deported and returned to the U.S. in violation of that removal.

In her interview with Telemundo, Mrs. Pelosi said she disputes that, saying she’s appeared alongside some of those she said shouldn’t have been deported.

...Still, Mrs. Pelosi said she is not sure whether Mr. Obama has the authority to grant a broad suspension of deportations for parents of so-called Dreamers, the illegal immigrants whom the president already carved out of danger of deportation in an executive action last year.

“I don’t know whether he has the authority,” Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, said. “But I think that there is discretion in the law as to the implementation, enforcement of the legislation that is calling for these deportations.” Read more about Pelosi calls for Obama to halt deportations

Chris Crane, president of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Council, which represents immigration enforcement officers, recently called on Congress to resist immigration reforms that harm his officers’ ability to do their jobs:

ICE officers are being ordered by [Administration] political appointees to ignore the law. Violent criminal aliens are released every day from jails back into American communities. ICE Officers face disciplinary action for engaging in routine law enforcement actions. We are barred from enforcing large sections of the Immigration and Nationality Act, even when public safety is at risk. Officer morale is devastated.

If this were the U.S. Capitol Police, the Secret Service, or the military, Congress would be outraged, the President would react firmly and swiftly, and pundits and groups from across the country would be demanding this problem be fixed. Sadly, though, nothing is being done to fix this broken and dangerous state of affairs.

In fact, the situation is even scarier. As the ICE letter points out, President Obama continues to order ICE officers to ignore ever-growing sections of immigration law and undertake actions that create a risk to public safety. The Senate has passed a gargantuan immigration bill that includes mass amnesty, tons of handouts to special interests, and enough waivers and exemptions to make Obamacare officials jealous.

Notably, the Senate bill does little to actually support the hard-working men and women of ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies. Even worse, amnesty would make the work of ICE even more difficult by encouraging more illegal immigration and adding new classes of provisional immigrants who have special rules that apply to them.

It is sad that it has come to this: “ICE officers are pleading with [Congress] to…stand with American citizens and the immigration officers who put their own personal safety at risk each day to provide for public safety.” U.S. law enforcement officers should not have to beg Congress just to enforce existing laws.

Congress should reject amnesty, which would only further harm our immigration officers’ effort, and instead use the budget process to give ICE and other immigration agencies the resources they need to do their jobs effectively. Then Congress should demand that President Obama uphold immigration law, not selectively enforce it. Read more about U.S. Immigration Officers Give Frightening Warning

Anti-amnesty activists have called on President Barack Obama to lower flags at the White House and other government institutions to half-mast on Sunday to honor Americans who have been killed by illegal immigrants.

The call is part of the Remembrance Project’s and the Tea Party Immigration Coalition’s “National Remembrance Day for Those Killed by Illegal Aliens.” In a statement provided to Breitbart News, Remembrance Project founder Maria Espinoza said that her group is planning vigils and events in states across the country.

“Our children are being ignored by politicians," Espinoza said. "It is time politicians ‘represent’ Americans or admit they cannot fulfill the job they promised to do and resign.”

In a letter to President Obama, the Tea Party Immigration Coalition wrote that this administration’s non-enforcement directives have drastic consequences leading to “unnecessary harm to Americans.”

“Mr. President, we are asking you to order all national flags to be flown at half-staff on November 3rd to honor our fallen citizens, victimized not only by illegal alien criminals, but by the federal government's refusal to secure the border and enforce our immigration laws,” the group wrote.

A press request sent to the White House from Breitbart News seeking a response to this call has thus far gone unanswered.

Events will occur across the country, Espinoza told Breitbart News, over the course of Sunday and Monday in an effort to honor the fallen. For instance, Jamiel Shaw, the father of Jamiel Shaw, Jr., will hold a vigil starting at 3:30 PM local time in Los Angeles at 2136 Fifth Street, the site of the Jamiel Shaw Memorial, where the young man was killed by an illegal immigrant a few short years ago. Shaw’s father has testified before the House Judiciary Committee about the incident and called for stronger border security and interior enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws.

At the Iowa State Capitol on Monday, Nov. 4, the Iowa Minutemen will be holding their First Annual Night of Remembrance from 5 PM to 9 PM on the grounds’ West Mall.

On Sunday at 5:30 PM local time in Phoenix, Arizona, activists will hold a vigil at Wesley Bowlin Park at the corner of 17th avenue and Adams street. There, activists will draw attention to the case of Robert Krentz—a border rancher who is believed to have been murdered by an illegal immigrant.

Those are just a few of the events. For others, Espinoza said to check her organization’s website or to contact local activists. Read more about Anti-Amnesty Activists Call for Flags at Half-Mast for Those Killed by Illegal Aliens

Mr. Obama and his appointees at the Homeland Security Department have issued several policies designed to put illegal immigrants in the interior of the U.S. off-limits from deportations.

Probably the most famous of those is called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which applies to so-called Dreamers, the young illegal immigrants who were usually brought to the U.S. as minors by their parents and are considered among the most sympathetic cases in the immigration debate.

Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/30/deportations-plummet-2013-lowest-2007/?page=2#ixzz2jJj4nPkx
Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter Read more about Report: Deportations plummet in 2013, lowest since 2007

According to USA Today’s immigration beat writer Alan Gomez, NIF is planning to organize the fly in with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Partnership for a New American Economy.

“The fly-in is being organized not by conservative groups, but organizations that have focused on legalizing millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally and changing the legal immigration system to bring in more foreign workers,” Gomez wrote on Monday. He noted that the 300 activists for an immigration grand bargain were looking to make what he described as a “conservative pitch” for amnesty.

Gomez noted NIF’s Executive Director, Ali Noorani, who “has advocated for changes in immigration law to help legal and undocumented immigrants for three decades," claimed "the broad collection coming to Washington represents 'the conservative base of the Republican Party.'"

The event will take place on Oct. 28, coinciding with President Barack Obama’s and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s renewed push against House Speaker John Boehner for amnesty. Now that Obama, Reid, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are publicly pushing for amnesty after many mainstream media outlets declared it dead earlier this year, Soros’ groups are trying to make it appear as though conservatives support immigration legislation like the Senate-passed “Gang of Eight” bill. Ultimately, the left’s goal is to get the House to pass a series of piecemeal immigration bills and then combine them with the Senate bill in a conference committee.

Soros is heavily involved in funding the lobbying for amnesty. After Breitbart News exposed NIF for being Soros-funded while running a campaign to make it appear as though evangelicals support granting amnesty to illegal immigrants, Noorani admitted his group accepts funding from Soros. Noorani denies that the funding was being used for the Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT), a project that his group runs the operations of, but admits that millions of NIF’s dollars come from Soros and that about 10 percent of its budget this year comes from the leftwing billionaire.

Soros is also intimately connected to Facebook’s Zuckerberg’s FWD.us push for amnesty. Zuckerberg hired Soros’ former chief financial strategist Stanley Druckenmiller. Druckenmiller served as Soros’ chief strategist for more than a decade.

Mitt Romney's top 2012 campaign donor, Wall Street hedge fund manager Paul Singer, also funds NIF, as Breitbart News has reported. Read more about The George Soros-funded National Immigration Forum (NIF) is organizing a “fly-in” of what it calls conservatives from across the country aimed at lobbying House Republicans for an amnesty bill.