Embattled Arizona Governor Stands Strong against Chicago Administration

August 25, 2012
By Elise Cooper

 Governor Jan Brewer is once again fighting for the rule of law.  She has shown that she can also use executive action to thwart the hostile Obama administration.

In June, President Obama, through an executive order, awarded a two-year deferral from deportation to certain illegal immigrants.  The deferrals would apply to those younger than thirty if they came to the U.S. before the age of sixteen and who do not pose any criminal or security threats.  This would allow them to meet the work permit application requirements if they can also prove that they have lived in America for the last five consecutive years.  An administration official thought it could potentially affect about 800,000 illegals.  American Thinker interviewed Governor Brewer about this and other immigration matters.

Governor Brewer believes that she was elected to uphold the Arizona constitution; thus, she issued an executive order instructing state agencies to deny taxpayer-funded public benefits and state IDs or driver's licenses to illegal immigrants deferred by the Obama executive order.  She commented to American Thinker, "I took an oath to do my duty and to uphold the rules, laws, and Constitution of the State of Arizona.  Twice Arizonians overwhelmingly have voted that they do not want illegals to receive state benefits.  It is pretty simple.  Either you are authorized to be here legally, or you are not.  They and their parents are breaking the law.  Bottom line is we are talking about 80,000 individuals in my state alone.  This is a two-year back door amnesty.  It will put a huge burden on the Arizona budget."

The governor feels for those children who had no control where they ended up and sees it as a bad situation all the way around.  She believes that Obama's executive order hurts those it intended to help as well as American citizens.  "It is very clear to me by executive fiat this administration is simply delaying deportation.  

They [illegal immigrants] were not given legal authorization.  What the president and Homeland Security did was give legal deferment, meaning they could be here legally for a maximum of two years.  It also hurts those people here legally that can't find a job."

Governor Brewer seems to have a very good point considering the August numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Although the national unemployment rate for those still looking for jobs is at 8.3%, for Hispanics it is at 10.3%, and for those aged 16 to 24 it was a whopping 23.8%.  Brewer regards this order as "a burden on those people who have followed the law and are citizens who are now being usurped by the illegal aliens in this country."  As a recent example to prove her point, in California, the LA Times reported on August 17, that there were approximately 4,500 applicants hoping to land one of 250 positions to work at a Target store opening in Los Angeles in October.  Imagine how many of these citizens would be displaced by the president's executive order.

Was this done to pander to the Latino voters?  Brewer argues that Obama's motivation was very political, pointing out that in the first two years of the Obama administration, the Democrats controlled the White House, the Senate, and the House and did absolutely nothing.  In addition, the "show me your papers" portion of SB 1070, upheld by the Supreme Court, would be basically ineffective if these illegal immigrants were given driver's licenses.  This provision allows local law enforcement to check the immigration status of people they stop in the normal course of their duties.  It will be implemented once the injunction is formally lifted, as ordered by the Supreme Court.

 Besides fighting the Obama administration's edicts, the governor and her administration once again have to fight for the rule of law in Federal Court.  On August 21, a federal district judge is hearing the case filed by the ACLU, claiming that 1070 is a violation of a Latino's civil rights and will lead to racial profiling.  The governor's spokesperson, Matthew Benson, explains that this is "a new case where they are challenging the same provisions under different grounds.  The issue is the same.  If it is enjoined, we will appeal, and it's off to the races again."

According to the governor, this lawsuit is another attempt to shut down the debate through accusations of racial discrimination.  She insists, "It was not until 1070 that law enforcement officers are being accused of possible racial discrimination.  This has gotten completely out of control.  People need to understand that law enforcement officers are on the streets to protect and serve.  They have been doing their jobs for years and years.  Now all of a sudden, these law enforcement officers are going to start discriminating.  I am not saying maybe there is not a bad apple in the bunch, but it was not because of Senate Bill 1070.  There are bad apples everywhere: lawyers, doctors, teachers, and politicians."

Furthermore, before she signed 1070 into law, Governor Brewer made every attempt to ensure that everyone understand that racial profiling is illegal and would not be tolerated.  Guidelines were set up and explained to all Arizona law enforcement officers -- namely, that they could stop someone only if there was reasonable suspicion of a violation.  It would be no surprise to her that someone could be put up to say that he or she had been racially profiled, especially since the Obama administration established a hotline for anyone to be given direct access into the DOJ to file a complaint against police officers. 

These are examples of how the governor continues to fight and refuses to back down for what she believes in, the rule of law.  Hopefully, the first Tuesday in November will allow her to catch her breath when a newly elected administration will show support for Arizona instead of bullying the governor and the state.  As Governor Brewer noted about these lawsuits and executive orders, "something is really, really wrong in America today."

American Thinker

Issa Asks IG Horowitz to Testify on Fast and Furious

by Mary Chastain 25 Aug 2012
 

 The long awaited Inspector General’s report on Operation Fast & Furious has been delivered to Attorney General Eric Holder, ATF, and the Department of Justice. Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa sent a letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz asking him to testify on Tuesday, September 11.

Fast & Furious was a gun walking scheme out of the ATF which allowed guns to land in the hands on Mexican drug cartels. Guns have been found at the deaths of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry and 300+ Mexicans and have been found at twelve crime scenes across America. Over 1,000 guns are still missing.

No one within the ATF has been held accountable. The people have either been allowed to resign quietly or reassigned to another position. On Thursday it was revealed that a main player is on paid leave by the ATF while holding a lucrative job with J.P. Morgan.

Last month the House of Representatives voted to hold Mr. Holder in contempt of Congress. Last October Mr. Holder was issued a subpoena and despite many opportunities to comply he stonewalled Congress. Chairman Issa bent over backwards to receive anything and still received nothing.

The Democrats have tried to convince themselves the American public doesn’t care much about this case, but a poll last month showed 53% supported the contempt vote and 69% of people wanted President Obama to release the documents. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has even claimed this is about voter ID laws.

The House did file a civil contempt lawsuit against Mr. Holder.

Chairman Issa used this evidence to encourage Mr. Horowitz not to delay releasing the report.
“It would be regrettable if senior department officials applied political pressure on you to delay publication of this report,” wrote Chairman Issa. “Given the considerable public interest in this case and the attorney general’s own purported interest in learning the recommendations set forth in your report in order to make important management changes, it is incumbent upon you to release this report as soon as practicable.”

Big Government

Guns N’ Rose colored deals

By Doug Hagmann 

 The more research and investigation one does into the Obama-Napolitano-Holder ATF sanctioned Fast and Furious operation, the greater is the stench that emanates from the ties between Obama, his minions and the global bankers. From claims of “executive privilege” by Obama to the outright persecution of whistleblowers trying to do the right thing, we are now seeing the actual unveiling of the incestuous ties between globalist bankers and the present power elite in Washington.

According to a letter sent Tuesday from Senator Chuck Grassley, Ranking member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and Representative Daryl Issa, Chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, to ATF Acting Director B. Todd Jones, a key suspect (my word) in the Fast and Furious criminal operation has not only been on paid administrative leave for the last several months, but is concurrently working in the private sector and receiving income from that job as well.

At the center of this latest controversy is William McMahon, former Deputy Assistant Director for Field Operations at the ATF. The findings from the first phase of a three-part congressional investigation that was published on 31 July 2012 stated the following about McMahon:

Though he served as the crucial link between ATF headquarters and the Phoenix Field Division, Bill McMahon admittedly rubber stamped critical documents that came across his desk without reading them. In McMahon’s view, it was not his job to ask any questions about what was going on in the field. McMahon gave false testimony to Congress about signing applications for wiretap intercepts in Fast and Furious (emphasis by this author).

According to Senator Grassley and Representative Issa, McMahon is a full time employee of ATF’s Office of Professional Responsibility, on paid administrative leave and awaiting his retirement (with a six-figure salary and full government benefits). In the interim, however, McMahon is serving as Executive Director of the Global Security and Investigations Group for none other than JP Morgan Chase in the Philippines.

As noted by the letter, this unusual arrangement is “apparently designed to allow Mr. McMahon to reach retirement eligibility while on extended leave…and simultaneously begin a second career before separating from government employment.” The hubris of ATF and government officials is clear, as it obviously awards those involved in the gun running operation while sending a chilling message to anyone who has already or might be thinking about coming forward to expose wrongdoing and criminal behavior at the highest levels of government.

JP Morgan and Obama: Follow the money

Briefly setting aside the convenient employment arrangement between a top government official found to have lied to a congressional investigative body and his reward of a double-dip income arrangement, let’s look at other aspects that few seem to want to discuss about the Obama “regime.”

First, JP Morgan is the largest processor of food stamp benefits in the United States. They process food stamp debit cards in over half of the states and the District of Columbia in the U.S., and are paid for each transaction they process. Ultimately, the more people who become recipients of food stamps (actually, food debit cards), the more revenue that is generated by JP Morgan. When one considers the increasing number of food stamp recipients, it is clear that the JP Morgan’s revenue is increasing. If one understands the workings of the system, their revenue is increasing on the backs of taxpayers.

Looking at the larger picture, this might help explain why JP Morgan was one of Barack Hussein Obama’s largest financial contributors to his 2008 presidential campaign, where they gave a whopping $800,000.00. Perhaps this is one reason that Obama maintains an investment portfolio in JP Morgan Chase, and during his May 12, 2012 appearance on The View, hailed JP Morgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon “as one of the smartest bankers we’ve got.” This, despite the $25 million transfer to JP Morgan under the 2008 Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) and a subsequent admission of $2 billion trading losses.

Relevant to the ATF, it is important to note that JP Morgan Chase also administers the credit cards issued to the ATF as well. It should outrage everyone to consider the possibility that murdered Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry had a JP Morgan Chase credit card in his wallet the day he was gunned down, and that one of the very people who bears a level of responsibility for his death lands a job with JP Morgan while continuing to suck on the very chafed teat of the American taxpayer.

What a deal for McMahon, and what a shame for justice. There is a trail of blood leading from the dusty Arizona desert to Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street, and yet no one wants to address the bloody footprints.

Canada Free Press

Obama, Holder Sledgehammer the First Amendment

August 24, 2012
By William Tate

In a move that could have chilling First Amendment consequences, the Obama regime this week showed that it's willing to use the full weight and power of the Justice Department to pummel any media outlet that doesn't toe the party line.

Within days of the Gallup Organization issuing, essentially, a veiled warning to the Obama gang about tinkering with unemployment numbers, Obama's DOJ jumped, jackboots first, into a multi-million dollar legal action against Gallup, in a case initiated by a former Obama operative.

Others have noted that the DOJ action occurred after Gallup had Mitt Romney ahead of Obama in its polling for a few days. But as we've pointed out, it's not Gallup's horse race numbers that have the Chicago gang concerned. This far out from the election, Likely Voter numbers are about as convincing as David Axelrod's combover. What Axelrod and his co-conspirators are really worried about are Gallup's jobless numbers.

Gallup's monthly unemployment survey of 30,000 adults is arguably the most comprehensive research done on the nation's jobless situation, other than the Bureau of Labor Statistics study of 60,000 households.  Gallup publishes its research without seasonal adjustments.  The BLS's version applies adjustments in an alchemic formula that's more mysterious than the Shroud of Turin.

Twice this summer, Gallup has published a report calling into question discrepancies between its unadjusted research and what is being tallied in the adjusted O-fficial statistics.  In reporting in its latest jobless numbers -- in a commentary titled August Unemployment Not Looking Good -- Gallup noted (emphases added):

Regardless, barring heroic adjustments or a sharp change in direction, Gallup data suggest the seasonally adjusted U.S. unemployment rate for August will increase -- possibly substantially -- when announced in early September.

In other words, Gallup said the only way unemployment numbers don't go up next month is if someone in Obamaland puts a finger on the scale.

A few days later, Eric Holder dropped the fifty-pound sledgehammer on Gallup, joining in a "whistleblower" action.  The original complaint alleges that the Gallup organization inflated the number of hours required to do polling projects for the U.S. Mint, the State Department, and other federal agencies.  (Why federal agencies even think they need to do polling is another subject for another time.)

The complaint was filed by a former Gallup employee who -- in a sheer coincidence, no doubt -- was a field organizer for Obama in 2008, according to the Daily Caller and other sources.  Holder's action essentially makes the Justice Department the lawyer for the former (?) Obama operative.

From the DOJ release (emphasis added):

The lawsuit was filed under the qui tam, or whistleblower, provisions of the False Claims Act, which permit private parties to sue on behalf of the United States for submission of false claims to the government. The private plaintiffs are entitled to receive a share of any funds recovered through the lawsuit. The False Claims Act authorizes the United States to intervene in such a lawsuit and take over primary responsibility for litigating it. The False Claims Act allows for recovery of three times the government's losses, plus civil penalties.

For the record, Gallup's General Counsel Steve O'Brien denied any wrongdoing.  "We believe that the allegations and the legal theory that the Justice Department is using are entirely meritless."

As we have detailed, Gallup's unemployment data stands to potentially refute any attempt the Obama gang makes to portray an improving economy approaching the election.  Continuing abysmal jobless numbers, if accurately reported to voters, should all but doom Obama's chances in November.  If the Obama administration jobless claims do not jibe with the numbers reported by Gallup, even the Obama propaganda machine, the legacy media, might start to take note.

It could be yet another coincidence that, a few days after Gallup's comments about Obama administration unemployment data, the Department of Justice announced that it had joined in a complaint that had been filed three years earlier.

The timing, however, would indicate anything but.

If Gallup did something wrong, the company should be held to account.  But the timing of the action and the apparent ties of the original complainant to the Obama administration call into question the motivation behind the DOJ action.

You can say what you like about pollsters -- I never did care for 'em -- but Gallup publishes its information, much of it at least, publicly, on its website and through media outlets with which it partners.  Gallup's site publishes lively articles on research ranging from why hospitals don't provide great service to how many Americans smoke.  (Does a certain occupant of the White House, I wonder?)
Gallup has every First Amendment right that other media outlets have.  It will be interesting to see if any other media organizations side against Obama's apparent heavy-handed attempt to stifle Gallup's voice.

William Tate is an award-winning journalist and author.

American Thinker

Free Market America; ‘we Fight’ [Video]

Free Market America has released a new video today titled ‘we Fight‘.  After the tremendous success of it’s last video — If I Wanted America to Fail – this new release will get lots of attention.

56 of our Founders put their name to a document

declaring that their cause was liberty.

236 years later, our cause is the same.

http://www.freemarketamerica.org/web/wefight/

Free Market America’s mission is to defend economic freedom against environmental extremism. Since the 1960s, environmental regulation has skyrocketed by over 7,000 percent! It’s a no-brainer that everyone wants clean water and clean air. But when it comes to environmental regulation, we’ve catapulted past commonsense.

The Small Business Administration estimates that environmental regulation costs America’s economy over $281 billion – every year. For a small business owner, the cost of regulation averages over $4,000 per worker. Those costs get passed onto our nation’s consumers in the form of higher product costs and, inevitably, fewer jobs for working Americans.

GOP Platform Addresses Sharia Encroachment

August 23, 2012
Andrew Bostom

Reports (at "Live" wire , repeated at Salon) are quoting Kansas Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach to the effect that the GOP platform has adopted an amendment which addresses Sharia encroachment. Kobach stated,

We see it from the top where the United States Supreme Court has repeatedly quoted foreign law in interpreting our U.S. constitution and it's actually coming in at the bottom as well, it's being raised as an argument in courts around the country. We actually put a provision affecting Kansas statute this year and I think it's important for us to say foreign sources of law should not be used as part of common law decisions or statutory interpretations by judges in the lower state courts as well.

...I'm not aware of any court that's accepted the argument, but in cases involving either spousal abuse or assault or other crimes against persons, sometimes defenses are raised that are based in Sharia law

Despite the predictable sneering and distressing ignorance which frames these reports by two agitprop "journalists," and Kobach's own noble, if incomplete assessment of the profundity of the problem, this is very welcome news.

Kobach referred to Kansas's recently passed law-a version of American Laws for American Courts (ALAC) legislation-which should remind us all that the earliest of these laws (now also passed in Tennessee, Arizona, and Louisiana) have been in effect for several years without being challenged, let alone overturned. David Yerushalmi recently provided a very clear, didactic example of the need for ALAC-style laws, which corrects Kobach's assessment about courts not having accepted Sharia-based arguments.

Yersuhlami described in brief an appellate court decision from Maryland, cited in a Center for Security Policy Study, where:

...the court enforced a Pakistani Sharia court's judgment of custody in favor of the father even though the mother had argued that she was not provided due process because had she gone to Pakistan to contest the case, she could have been subject to capital punishment for having a new relationship with a man not sanctioned by sharia.

The salient facts of the case,  and appellate court ruling, were summarized by Yerushalmi as follows:

The Maryland appellate court ruled that since the woman could not prove she'd be executed had she gone to Pakistan to litigate custody in the Pakistan Sharia Court, which is a national-state court in Pakistan, her failure to go to Pakistan and take the risk of execution precluded her from making the void as against public policy argument. ALAC would have provided the Maryland appellate court the legislative clarity to have reversed the lower court's outrageous decision.

Here are the Maryland appellate court's own words, cited by Yerushalmi:

Additionally, appellant [the mother] asserts that the Pakistani custody orders were founded on principles of law repugnant to Maryland public policy because the Pakistani courts allegedly "penalized the mother for not appearing without considering the affect of her admission to adultery on her ability to return to Pakistan." In this regard, appellant points out that if convicted under Pakistani criminal law, her penalty could be public whipping or death by stoning. Although Dr. Malik [the expert] opined that appellant would be arrested for adultery if she returned to Pakistan for the custody proceedings, he also conceded that punishment for adultery was extremely unlikely and that proving the crime was extremely difficult. Given this testimony, the circuit court was not clearly erroneous in not considering the effect of whether appellant's admission to adultery [under sharia] was "repugnant" to Maryland public policy in its failure to find that the Pakistani courts punished her for not appearing."}

Let me summarize for the (hope against hope) edification of  the "Live" wire , and Salon, agitprop journalists, the liberty-crushing, dehumanizing nature of Sharia: open-ended jihadism to subjugate the world to a totalitarian Islamic order; rejection of bedrock Western liberties-including freedom of conscience and speech-enforced by imprisonment, beating, or death; discriminatory relegation of non-Muslims to outcast, vulnerable pariahs, and even Muslim women to subservient chattel; and barbaric punishments which violate human dignity, such as amputation for theft, stoning for adultery, and lashing for alcohol consumption.

I would also point out how the two agitprop journalists steadfastly ignore: ominous polling data from US Muslims; jihad funding trial revelations and the content of more banal Muslim litigation proceedings; mosque surveillance reports; analyses of Islamic education institutions and their Muslim schoolchildren's textbooks; the issuance of obscurantist "fatwas" (Islamic legal rulings) by the respected, mainstream Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America; and an open declaration by one of America's largest mainstream Muslim organizations, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), in its 2010 ICNA Member's Hand Book, which calls for the (re-)creation of a global Muslim Caliphate, and the imposition of Sharia in America.

Notwithstanding the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America's (AMJA's) mainstream acceptance, including uncritical endorsement of its seventh annual American conference in Houston (October 15-18, 2010) to train American imams, AMJA has issued rulings which sanction the killing of apostates (here), "blasphemers" (including non-Muslims guilty of this "crime"; here), or adulterers (by stoning to death, here), and condone marital rape. Even more ominously, another Arabic-language fatwa from AMJA's Dr. Salah Al-Sawy leaves open the possibility for offensive jihad against America and the West, as soon as Muslims are strong enough to do so. When asked whether "the Islamic missionary effort in the West ... [was] to the point where it could take advantage of offensive jihad," Al-Sawy ruled:

The Islamic community does not possess the strength to engage in offensive jihad at this time. With our current capabilities, we are aspiring toward defensive jihad, and to improve our position with regards to jurisprudence at this stage. But there is a different discussion for each situation. Allah Almighty knows best.

Just six months ago (3/14/12), Translating Jihad put what one might wish to deem as these circumscribed, "purely Islamic" rulings, in a more disturbing-and entirely unacceptable, seditious context. AMJA's own words make plain the organization's long term commitment to superseding the US legal code with its antithesis, a Sharia-based system.

Judge Billings Learned Hand (1872-1961) was a US  judge and judicial philosopher. Hand served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and subsequently the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Judge Hand has the distinction of having been quoted more often than any other lower-court judge by legal scholars and the Supreme Court of the United States.

Apropos to the phenomenon of encroaching Sharia, and my training as a physician to be attuned to early, treatable  manifestations of potentially catastrophic illnesses, I re-read Judge Hand's 1950 opinion from United States v. Dennis, I83 F.2d 20I, 2I3 (2d Cir. 1950). The case involved Communist agitation designed to violently impose a new "utopian" order in America. Hand's discussion included a little known, if clear-eyed, direct analogy between ancient Islamic and modern Communist totalitarianism, which contained a specific reference to Islam's inherent militancy.

In his famous conclusion (from paragraph 51), Judge Hand states,

It is of course possible that the defendants are inspired with the fanatical conviction that they are in possession of the only gospel which will redeem this sad Planet and bring on a Golden Age.

If so, we need not consider how far that would justify the endless stratagems to which they resorted; and it is not for us to say whether such a prosecution makes against the movement or, on the contrary, only creates more disciples; ours is only to apply the law as we find it. Once the question is answered whether the Smith Act is valid, and whether there was evidence before the jury from which they might hold it violated, we can find no privilege and no right denied them which had substance. We know of no country where they would have been allowed any approach to the license here accorded them; and none, except Great Britain, where they would have had so fair a hearing. Their only plausible complaint is that that freedom of speech which they would be the first to destroy, has been denied them. We acknowledge that that freedom is not always easy to protect; and that there is no sharp line which marks its scope. We have tried to show that what these men taught and advocated is outside the zone..

Earlier, in paragraph 15, Judge Hand, describing the font of militant global Communism, Communist Soviet Russia, made this direct analogy:

By far the most powerful of all the European nations [Russia] had been a convert to Communism for over thirty years; its leaders were the most devoted and potent proponents of the faith; no such movement in Europe of East to West had arisen since Islam.

Contemperaneously, Bernard Lewis, still considered by many to be their doyen of living Western Islamic scholars, validated Judge Hand's analogy. Lewis, in his 1954 essay "Communism and Islam," expounded upon on the quintessence of totalitarian Islam, and how it was antithetical in nature to Western democracy, while sharing important features of Communist totalitarianism - most notably, global domination via jihad.

We must regain the thoughtful sobriety of Judge Learned Hand, and other intellectuals of that era if we are to preserve our hard won freedoms from the modern scourge of ancient Islamic totalitarianism, resurgent-including within the United States, as directed by "religious leaders" cum seditious "legists," such as the Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America.  The Republican platform rejecting Sharia encroachment is an appropriate, sorely needed step in the right direction.

American Thinker

Obama's Oil and Gas Folly

August 23, 2012
By Jeffrey Folks

 Obama's campaign speeches always seem to include a line about how he can take credit for increasing domestic oil and gas production.  As the official White House website has it, "domestic oil and gas production has increased every year President Obama has been in office."

On Wednesday, however, his administration put into effect yet another new regulation making it harder for America's oil and gas companies to increase production.  In fact, that regulation, as the head of the American Petroleum Institute recently wrote, would make American companies unable to compete with foreign competitors.  That may be exactly why the president supported it.

The new regulation, Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank bill, would require American companies to release information detailing expenditures on foreign operations.  That proprietary information would immediately be available to foreign and domestic competitors alike, and would be used to undercut whatever advantages American companies have achieved as a result of their own hard work.  Section 1504's "extractives transparency rules," as interpreted by Obama's activists at the SEC, force American companies to compete with one hand tied behind their back.  Competitors in Moscow and Beijing must be dancing for joy now that the rules have been finalized.  Obama has just handed them the keys to the world's oil riches.

The problems with Section 1504 go beyond the "competitive disadvantage" to which it puts American energy companies.  When implemented, Section 1504 will also place American companies in conflict with foreign countries which prohibit the very same disclosures that 1504 mandates.  As a result, American companies might well be forced to cease operations in nations where they have already invested tens of billions of dollars in order to avoid running afoul of the law.

As one study pointed out, there are also serious security implications involved in implementing Section 1504.  American companies working in dangerous environments overseas may be placing their employees at risk if they fully disclose the locations, funding, and status of their operations.  The safety of American workers and their local employees overseas should be a paramount concern, but the SEC ruling does not appear to address this concern.

In addition to the risk of violence, Section 1504 exposes American companies to the risk of greater shareholder litigation.  Like all complex securities regulation, Section 1504 is a boon for trial lawyers, but not for American workers or consumers, who will end up paying the costs of litigation.

In fact, it appears that the SEC has proceeded in the most intrusive manner possible, though it need not have done so.  Dodd-Frank allowed the agency broad leeway to interpret transparency rules in a manner that would not have materially harmed American companies.  It appears that, under Obama's direction, the agency has gone out of its way to punish American companies.  Yet nothing in Section 1504 applies to foreign state-run competitors that are not listed on U.S. markets.

All of this raises the question, of course, of why Dodd-Frank should have singled out oil and gas (and mining) companies for a transparency ruling that does not apply to other industries.  That decision, in and of itself, would seem to be blatantly unfair and discriminatory.  It is another manifestation of the left's obsession with creating a carbon-free future that fails to take into account economic impact or even basic feasibility.  In the absence of fossil fuels, America's economy would be reduced to the level of Mali and then some.

Far from increasing domestic oil and gas production, Obama has already cut future production from what it would have been.  As the American Petroleum Institute states, current policies "prevent us from adequately preparing for the long-term."  Energy production has a long lead time -- as long as two decades, if one includes locating promising acreage, leasing, permitting, drilling, and building the infrastructure for getting production to market.  This means that the consequences of current policies don't become apparent for at least a decade.  When they do, Obama's policies will be seen to have curtailed domestic production and placed America's energy security in jeopardy.

The increased production for which Obama is taking credit can be attributed to leasing and advances in drilling technologies that took place during previous administrations.  By contrast, Obama has been consistently hostile to fossil fuel development.

Since Obama likes to boast about his so-called achievements in domestic energy production, here is a brief list of what he has actually done:

-reversed commitments to allow development of offshore Atlantic reserves, and failed to expand drilling on Alaska's North Slope and offshore Alaska

-shut down Gulf of Mexico deep-water drilling entirely for six months and slowed new permitting there indefinitely

-reversed previous commitments to allow drilling for oil shale on federal lands in the Rockies

-vetoed the Keystone XL pipeline, shutting off major supplies of oil from Canada

-slowed hydraulic fracturing on public and private lands by imposing new EPA regulations, and allowed the EPA to issue hasty determinations of fracking pollution that have since been discredited

-proposed $44 billion of new taxes on oil and gas companies at the same time that he squandered $80 billion on unproductive solar and wind companies such as Solyndra

-continued to support a devastating corn ethanol program that is raising food prices worldwide and costing U.S. taxpayers billions in taxes to pay for subsidies and additional billions in higher fuel costs

-driven up the cost of electricity by mandating and subsidizing wind and solar generation instead of promoting use of natural gas (and coal)

-accused "speculators" of driving up oil prices (except when those prices are falling, which is then not attributable to speculation) while it is his own actions that are driving up those prices in anticipation of future declines in U.S. oil and gas production

To this long list of Obama's policy mistakes we can now add Section 1504, the SEC requirement that American oil and gas companies reveal much of their proprietary information with regard to foreign exploration to their foreign competitors.

In other words, Obama's oil and gas policy has been nothing less than an assault on fossil fuels.  The administration's plan all along has been "to wean America off dependence on fossil fuels" (a "national mission," as Obama has called it).  Yet no practical alternative exists to supply America's energy needs. 

 Meanwhile, foreign rivals -- China, in particular -- are locking up oil and gas reserves around the globe.  Recently, CNOOC (China National Offshore Oil Company) has offered to purchase Nexen for $15.1 billion.  That purchase that would greatly expand Chinese ownership of oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere in North America.  This deal follows Chinese purchases of reserves throughout North America, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East.  In future decades, China will reap the benefit of its pro-fossil fuels policy while America suffers from the folly of what Obama has done.

Meanwhile, American companies are hobbled with new regulations and taxation that make it harder for them to produce energy. The cumulative effect of Obama's green energy policy has been to gut future domestic energy production, putting America in the hands of foreign producers, many of whom are hostile to the U.S. Decades from now, with domestic production of oil and gas inadequate to meet our needs, we will have Obama to blame.

But as Obama stresses in his campaign appearances, his work is not yet finished.  He has not yet totally dismantled America's oil and gas companies.  That job he has left for his second term.

Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture including Heartland of the Imagination (2011).

American Thinker