Thursday, March 3, 2016
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Legendary U.S. attorney 'confident' Hillary grand jury convened!
World Net Daily ^ | 1 Mar, 2016 | Jerome Corsi
Lynch was interviewed Monday on Fox News' "Special Report with Brett Baier."
DiGenova, who was U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., for four years, during which time he handled cases involving international drug smuggling, espionage, insider trading, public corruption, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and more, also told WND he was confident the FBI is in the process of developing a solid criminal case against Hillary Clinton.
If there's no prosecution, said diGenova, who served as chief counsel for the Senate Rules Committee as well as counsel to the Senate Judiciary, Government Affairs and Select Intelligence committees, there will be "an eruption you cannot believe" within the intelligence community.
"Yesterday, when Brett Baier asked Attorney General Lynch whether there was a grand jury in Hillary Clinton's email case, she did not deny a grand jury had been convened," diGenova pointed out. "If no grand jury had been convened, Attorney General Lynch could easily have denied a grand jury had been convened without violating grand jury secrecy."......
The second investigation involves what Justice Department prosecutors call an "official acts" investigation, regarding a possible correlation between "official acts" performed by Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, her office and the State Department, and large donations made to the Clinton Foundation by countries, corporations and individuals.
Lynch was interviewed Monday on Fox News' "Special Report with Brett Baier."
DiGenova, who was U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., for four years, during which time he handled cases involving international drug smuggling, espionage, insider trading, public corruption, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and more, also told WND he was confident the FBI is in the process of developing a solid criminal case against Hillary Clinton.
If there's no prosecution, said diGenova, who served as chief counsel for the Senate Rules Committee as well as counsel to the Senate Judiciary, Government Affairs and Select Intelligence committees, there will be "an eruption you cannot believe" within the intelligence community.
"Yesterday, when Brett Baier asked Attorney General Lynch whether there was a grand jury in Hillary Clinton's email case, she did not deny a grand jury had been convened," diGenova pointed out. "If no grand jury had been convened, Attorney General Lynch could easily have denied a grand jury had been convened without violating grand jury secrecy."......
The second investigation involves what Justice Department prosecutors call an "official acts" investigation, regarding a possible correlation between "official acts" performed by Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, her office and the State Department, and large donations made to the Clinton Foundation by countries, corporations and individuals.
(Excerpt) Read more at wnd.com ...
It's a Donald world!
Wednesday, March 02, 2016
The GOP ruling class is thunderstruck. Dumbstruck. And flailing. The one thing they should get down on their knees and be grateful for, they resent. Petulantly.
The Reagan Democrats are back and they love Trump. Trump’s popularity in blue states is giving him added horsepower, and is making him unstoppable.
The Republican intelligentsia hates this.
Conservative ideologues cringe at the thought of Trump — uncouth, unprincipled, unrefined. He won’t be wearing a bowtie to their CPAC post-parties.
In cahoots with their fellow Georgetown cigar bar dwellers in the media, they did their best to stop him.
They called him a rapist, a racist, a sexist. They made connections to Nazis, Mussolini and “Fat Tony” Salerno.
In recent days, they transformed their establishment candidate of choice — safe, wet-behind-the-ears Marco Rubio — into a third-rate Andrew Dice Clay who tossed his usual stump speech and took to dissing Trump about his “small hands” and spray tan, as he tried, pathetically, to trump Trump with his own lame version of Trumpisms. Rubio’s “Shecky” act included everything short of “Yo Mama” jokes.
In the wake of Super Tuesday, it’s going to be curtains for Rubio and the establishment, and encore time for Donald Trump.
Expect Hillary Clinton to pick up the GOP establishment’s banner and position herself as mankind’s only chance to stop the hated Donald.
The current phenomenon does not bode well for her, though. The more Trump is attacked and piled on by conventional pols — the ones on both sides of the aisle who have let down the voters again and again — the more popular he gets.
It may look like the world against Trump. But we’ll see that in fact the world — the real world — is with him.
The GOPe Has No Credibility...GO TRUMP
Vanity | March 3, 2016 | Behind the Blue Wall
I know that it's no surprise, but the logic behind the GOPe strategy to take the nomination fight to the convention floor in order to avoid a Trump nomination is just so hard to imagine. These are people whose anointed candidates have lost the popular vote in five of the last six Presidential elections, with the sixth (W's reelection) being not only a squeaker, but also resulting four years later (2008) in the most devastating losses for Republicans maybe ever, losses from which the Party is still trying to record.
Furthermore, it's just a fact that Trump is massively expanding the Party to an extent that hasn't happened, maybe ever. The Republican turnout this primary season has shattered previous records, and nobody questions that those are all Trump voters. He's also putting the Democratic strongholds like the industrial Midwest and Northeast into play, and growing the Party's strength among the working-class voters who have traditionally formed the foundation of electoral success nationally.
The GOPe is basically saying to us the rank and file of the Republican Party that "no, at all costs we must not succumb to a candidate that has shown an ability to connect directly to the American people, to fight and win against the media's bias against Republicans, to reach constituencies that are critical to our long-term success as a national Party, no, instead we must nominate another Bush, McCain, Romney-type, who will then go on to 'lose with dignity' to the Democrats in November."
It's also astounding that to the extent that there's a trade-off between appealing to Americans who are negatively impacted by illegal immigration, and appealing to whatever percent of Hispanics there are who support and profit from it, the GOPe prioritizes appealing to the less than 13% (Hispanics) versus the 87% (other Americans). Put another way, the GOPe would prefer to appeal to the illegal immigrant (in theory 0% of the electorate) versus American citizens (in theory 100% of the electorate). In what universe can that be considered a smart electoral strategy?
Luckily, it appears that we finally have a candidate who understands all of this, and enough voters who are willing to see through the smokescreens being thrown up in front of them by the GOPe/media complex. Go Trump!!!
I know that it's no surprise, but the logic behind the GOPe strategy to take the nomination fight to the convention floor in order to avoid a Trump nomination is just so hard to imagine. These are people whose anointed candidates have lost the popular vote in five of the last six Presidential elections, with the sixth (W's reelection) being not only a squeaker, but also resulting four years later (2008) in the most devastating losses for Republicans maybe ever, losses from which the Party is still trying to record.
Furthermore, it's just a fact that Trump is massively expanding the Party to an extent that hasn't happened, maybe ever. The Republican turnout this primary season has shattered previous records, and nobody questions that those are all Trump voters. He's also putting the Democratic strongholds like the industrial Midwest and Northeast into play, and growing the Party's strength among the working-class voters who have traditionally formed the foundation of electoral success nationally.
The GOPe is basically saying to us the rank and file of the Republican Party that "no, at all costs we must not succumb to a candidate that has shown an ability to connect directly to the American people, to fight and win against the media's bias against Republicans, to reach constituencies that are critical to our long-term success as a national Party, no, instead we must nominate another Bush, McCain, Romney-type, who will then go on to 'lose with dignity' to the Democrats in November."
It's also astounding that to the extent that there's a trade-off between appealing to Americans who are negatively impacted by illegal immigration, and appealing to whatever percent of Hispanics there are who support and profit from it, the GOPe prioritizes appealing to the less than 13% (Hispanics) versus the 87% (other Americans). Put another way, the GOPe would prefer to appeal to the illegal immigrant (in theory 0% of the electorate) versus American citizens (in theory 100% of the electorate). In what universe can that be considered a smart electoral strategy?
Luckily, it appears that we finally have a candidate who understands all of this, and enough voters who are willing to see through the smokescreens being thrown up in front of them by the GOPe/media complex. Go Trump!!!
Republican Establishment Plans to Support Hillary
Tea Party ^ | 2016-03-02 | Tea Party
Vote fraud may be the final solution (Infowars) – According to Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, the Republican establishment may give tacit support to Hillary Clinton if Donald Trump wins the nomination. King said Clinton is somebody “they can do business with” if Cruz or Trump come out on top.
[....]
As a wrecking ball Trump will likely swing the election in Clinton’s corner, although many observers are convinced he will beat her and become the next president.
This underestimates the control the establishment has over the “democratic” election process. On Tuesday in Texas voters complainedvotes for Trump were flipped to Rubio.
Election “irregularities” are now common. In 2015 a mathematician at Wichita State University said “some voting systems were being sabotaged” while Princeton researchers conducted a demonstration showing how it’s possible to steal an election with a Diebold voting machine in under a minute.
“In Republican primaries, the bias has been toward the establishment candidates over tea partiers. In general elections, it has favored Republican candidates over Democrats, even when the demographics of the precincts in question suggested that the opposite should have been true,” writes Jon Green.
Judy Frankel believes we cannot trust Diebold voting machines or the establishment.
Vote fraud may be the final solution (Infowars) – According to Rep. Steve King, an Iowa Republican, the Republican establishment may give tacit support to Hillary Clinton if Donald Trump wins the nomination. King said Clinton is somebody “they can do business with” if Cruz or Trump come out on top.
[....]
As a wrecking ball Trump will likely swing the election in Clinton’s corner, although many observers are convinced he will beat her and become the next president.
This underestimates the control the establishment has over the “democratic” election process. On Tuesday in Texas voters complainedvotes for Trump were flipped to Rubio.
Election “irregularities” are now common. In 2015 a mathematician at Wichita State University said “some voting systems were being sabotaged” while Princeton researchers conducted a demonstration showing how it’s possible to steal an election with a Diebold voting machine in under a minute.
“In Republican primaries, the bias has been toward the establishment candidates over tea partiers. In general elections, it has favored Republican candidates over Democrats, even when the demographics of the precincts in question suggested that the opposite should have been true,” writes Jon Green.
Judy Frankel believes we cannot trust Diebold voting machines or the establishment.
(Excerpt) Read more at teaparty.org ...
Murdoch: GOP 'would be mad' not to unify around Trump if he's nominee
The Hill ^ | March 2, 2016 | Jesse Byrnes
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch argued Wednesday that Republicans would be "mad" not to rally around Donald Trump should the businessman become the GOP presidential nominee.
Murdoch, who suggested earlier this week that Republicans should "close ranks to fight real enemy," shared a tweet Wednesday saying Trump is "reaching out to make peace" with members of the party.
"If he becomes inevitable party would be mad not to unify," Murdoch wrote.
Media mogul Rupert Murdoch argued Wednesday that Republicans would be "mad" not to rally around Donald Trump should the businessman become the GOP presidential nominee.
Murdoch, who suggested earlier this week that Republicans should "close ranks to fight real enemy," shared a tweet Wednesday saying Trump is "reaching out to make peace" with members of the party.
"If he becomes inevitable party would be mad not to unify," Murdoch wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Trump dominates with huge turnouts, wide base of support!
Washington Post ^ | March 2, 2016 | Bill Barrow and Emily Swanson, AP
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump continues to demonstrate a wide base of support, riding record turnouts to seven victories out of the 11 states where Republicans cast Super Tuesday ballots.
Exit polls conducted for the Associated Press and other media across nine of the states showed Trump drawing significant support across educational, ideological, age and income classifications. Perhaps most important for Trump: Even among voting groups where he was weakest, he maintained enough strength to deny Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio any chance of catching him.
Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump continues to demonstrate a wide base of support, riding record turnouts to seven victories out of the 11 states where Republicans cast Super Tuesday ballots.
Exit polls conducted for the Associated Press and other media across nine of the states showed Trump drawing significant support across educational, ideological, age and income classifications. Perhaps most important for Trump: Even among voting groups where he was weakest, he maintained enough strength to deny Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio any chance of catching him.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Obama Opens the Border to More STDs
http://cis.org/Obama-Opens-the-Border-to-More-STDs ^ | February 2016 | Jon Feere
In his first year in office, President Obama lifted an entry ban on foreigners with HIV. In his final year in office he will lift the entry ban on three more sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The president's own Health and Human Services department says this guarantees more infections in the United States, proving once again that immigration is the defining issue for politicians like Obama. Increased immigration trumps all other concerns.
First, some background. In 1993, a clause specifically designed to reduce the spread HIV/AIDS into the United States was added to the Immigration and Nationality Act. It passed the Senate with a vote of 76 to 23. It reads:
""Any alien who is determined (in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services) to have a communicable disease of public health significance, which shall include infection with the etiologic agent for acquired immune deficiency syndrome [AIDS] ... is inadmissible.1 ""
Though the law is clear that AIDS is to be considered "a communicable disease of public health significance", today it is the responsibility of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to determine whether a disease meets that threshold. This is due to a law signed by immigration advocate President George W. Bush in 2008.2 The Obama administration picked up the ball and ran with Bush's open-border vision and decided in 2009 that HIV is not a "communicable disease of public health significance".3
Despite the declaration that HIV was no longer a communicable disease of public health significance, the CDC estimates that approximately 50,000 people in the United States are newly infected with HIV each year and that over 1.2 million persons in the country are HIV positive. The United States has the highest prevalence of HIV infection of any developed country.4
HHS provided some estimates of the effect of this rule change and found that every year anywhere from 1,073 to 6,409 HIV-infected immigrants would be granted legal permanent residency.5 The analysis ignored the additional unknown number of people infected with HIV who would enter on a temporary basis; in other words, the number of people with HIV granted admission would be much larger. And this doesn't include people who sneak across the border, of course.
The National Institutes of Health (which falls under HHS) noted that if HIV screening is not part of the immigration examination, the new immigrants "will add to the numbers of those who are HIV-positive yet are unaware of their infection", potentially leading to "a larger population of persons with undiagnosed HIV ... who are more likely to transmit the infection to others, likely within their own immigrant communities." 6 HHS put it quite bluntly: "The main cost of this rule is the potential for onward transmission to U.S. residents who are not infected with HIV."
HHS also estimated that after five years approximately 170 to 1,014 people in the United States would become infected as a result of the policy change, costing anywhere from $4 million to $22 million in health care expenditures for this "onward transmission". This estimate assumed a low-end new infection rate of 1.51 percent — meaning that every 100 HIV-infected persons will infect 1.51 persons. But HHS noted that it could be higher, explaining that the "most recent estimate of average onward transmission, when limited to sexual transmission, in the United States is 3.02 per 100 HIV positive immigrants."
HHS estimated that after the first five years of this rule change, there may have been 3,956 to 23,622 HIV-infected new immigrants in the United States. Again, this focused only on lawful permanent resident immigrants. Any HIV-infected border-jumpers or tourists who overstay their visas were not included in this estimate.
Overall, the estimated healthcare cost of removing HIV from the travel ban may have ranged from $19 million to $173 million in the first year alone. HHS explained that this would obviously double the second year as a new wave of immigrants arrives, triple the third year, and so on. HHS estimated that after five years the healthcare cost would be $86 million to $513 million. But not to worry, HHS noted that the cost to taxpayers is "likely to be small given the restrictions on federal benefits to new immigrants." Of course, these estimates were made in 2009, before Obamacare.
Recently, President Obama made some more changes, opening our borders to more STDs. Yet only a single special-interest news outlet has even noticed.7
Prior to 2009, HHS listed eight diseases as "communicable diseases of public health significance": tuberculosis, leprosy, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), syphilis, chancroid, gonorrhea, granuloma inguinale, and lymphogranuloma venereum. After the first two on the list, the remainder are all sexually transmitted diseases. After the administration dropped HIV from the list, only five STDs remained: syphilis, chancroid, gonorrhea, granuloma inguinale, and lymphogranuloma venereum.
At the time I wondered whether some of the other STDs also would be removed from the list since they are not nearly as deadly as HIV. It took him seven years, but recently Obama decided to remove chancroid, granuloma inguinale, and lymphogranuloma venereum as inadmissible health-related conditions for aliens seeking admission to the United States.8
The only remaining communicable diseases considered to be of any "public health significance" are tuberculosis, leprosy, syphilis, and gonorrhea. At least until the leprosy lobby speaks up.
There was one additional change made by the administration pertaining to tuberculosis, however, that is worth noting. Prior to the rule change, federal regulations required that all applicants subject to a chest x-ray, "and for whom the radiograph shows an abnormality suggestive of tuberculosis disease, shall be required to undergo additional testing for tuberculosis." The rule change drops the "shall" requirement. It now reads: "All applicants may be required to undergo additional testing for tuberculosis based on the results of the medical evaluation." It's a subtle change that may have no significant effect; on the other hand, it may mean less stringent protections from tuberculosis.
So what about the costs associated with the new rule change on the three remaining STDs? Don't worry, Obama's HHS secretary ran the numbers and explained in the Federal Register that "The results are not economically significant, i.e. more than $100 million of costs and benefits in a single year."9 In other words, the cost of welcoming in aliens with these STDs will be below $100 million every year.
The secretary argues that there's a "potential" for "a negligible increase in the numbers of disease cases entering the United States", but that "the potential introduction of a very small number of cases will not change the current cost structure associated with the current disease burden." However, the secretary also reports that of these diseases, chancroid is the only one reported to the CDC, meaning that it is difficult to estimate the impact of this rule for the other diseases. In fact, HHS notes that "[d]ata on chancroid, granuloma inguinale, and lymphogranuloma venereum are not systematically collected by any country outside of the United States either by specific countries or regions listed by DHS for aliens, or from the World Health Organization." We don't really know what we're bringing in.
And not to worry, HHS also explains that these "primarily tropical infections can be prevented through improved personal hygiene and protected sex" and that if you do get them, the STDs can be cured "with a short, uncomplicated course of antibiotic therapy." Hopefully they're telling the immigrants that.
The administration argues that this change is beneficial because physicians who would otherwise be administering the exams "will be able to devote more time and training to other, more common and/or more serious health issues." Sound familiar? This is the same argument the Obama administration makes for directing ICE to only focus on deporting "the worst of the worst" criminal aliens. By ignoring the run-of-the-mill illegal aliens, law enforcement can better focus on the most egregious offenders, they claim.10 But it means that plenty of dangerous aliens get a pass and it means that violence has largely become a prerequisite for immigration enforcement. Similarly, the change in STD policies means that many infections are potentially being ignored.
The United States has the highest prevalence of HIV infection of any developed country. The Obama administration's policy change may ensure that the United States keeps that title. In the least, the 2009 and 2016 changes will reduce the ability of our immigration system to protect Americans from communicable diseases.
End Notes
1 (8 USC § 1182).
2 Jon Feere, "Congress Mulls Lifting HIV Ban", Center for Immigration Studies blog, July 25, 2008.
3 Jon Feere, "Obama Lifts HIV Immigration Ban", Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder, November 2009.
4 "HIV and AIDS in the Americas: An epidemic with many faces", Pan American Health Organization, 2001.
5 "Medical Examination of Aliens—Removal of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Infection From Definition of Communicable Disease of Public Health Significance", Centers for Disease Control, Federal Register notice, November 2, 2009.
6 Susanna E. Winston and Curt G. Beckwith, "The Impact of Removing the Immigration Ban on HIV-Infected Persons", AIDS Patient Care and STDs, 25(12), pp. 709–711, 2011.
7 Matthew Bultman, "HHS Removes 3 STIs From List Barring Immigrant Entry", Law360.com, January 26, 2016.
8 "Medical Examination of Aliens-Revisions to Medical Screening Process: A Rule by the Health and Human Services Department on 01/26/2016", Federal Register, January 26, 2016.
9 Ibid.
10 Brian Bennett, "High deportation figures are misleading", Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2014.
In his first year in office, President Obama lifted an entry ban on foreigners with HIV. In his final year in office he will lift the entry ban on three more sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The president's own Health and Human Services department says this guarantees more infections in the United States, proving once again that immigration is the defining issue for politicians like Obama. Increased immigration trumps all other concerns.
First, some background. In 1993, a clause specifically designed to reduce the spread HIV/AIDS into the United States was added to the Immigration and Nationality Act. It passed the Senate with a vote of 76 to 23. It reads:
""Any alien who is determined (in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services) to have a communicable disease of public health significance, which shall include infection with the etiologic agent for acquired immune deficiency syndrome [AIDS] ... is inadmissible.1 ""
Though the law is clear that AIDS is to be considered "a communicable disease of public health significance", today it is the responsibility of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to determine whether a disease meets that threshold. This is due to a law signed by immigration advocate President George W. Bush in 2008.2 The Obama administration picked up the ball and ran with Bush's open-border vision and decided in 2009 that HIV is not a "communicable disease of public health significance".3
Despite the declaration that HIV was no longer a communicable disease of public health significance, the CDC estimates that approximately 50,000 people in the United States are newly infected with HIV each year and that over 1.2 million persons in the country are HIV positive. The United States has the highest prevalence of HIV infection of any developed country.4
HHS provided some estimates of the effect of this rule change and found that every year anywhere from 1,073 to 6,409 HIV-infected immigrants would be granted legal permanent residency.5 The analysis ignored the additional unknown number of people infected with HIV who would enter on a temporary basis; in other words, the number of people with HIV granted admission would be much larger. And this doesn't include people who sneak across the border, of course.
The National Institutes of Health (which falls under HHS) noted that if HIV screening is not part of the immigration examination, the new immigrants "will add to the numbers of those who are HIV-positive yet are unaware of their infection", potentially leading to "a larger population of persons with undiagnosed HIV ... who are more likely to transmit the infection to others, likely within their own immigrant communities." 6 HHS put it quite bluntly: "The main cost of this rule is the potential for onward transmission to U.S. residents who are not infected with HIV."
HHS also estimated that after five years approximately 170 to 1,014 people in the United States would become infected as a result of the policy change, costing anywhere from $4 million to $22 million in health care expenditures for this "onward transmission". This estimate assumed a low-end new infection rate of 1.51 percent — meaning that every 100 HIV-infected persons will infect 1.51 persons. But HHS noted that it could be higher, explaining that the "most recent estimate of average onward transmission, when limited to sexual transmission, in the United States is 3.02 per 100 HIV positive immigrants."
HHS estimated that after the first five years of this rule change, there may have been 3,956 to 23,622 HIV-infected new immigrants in the United States. Again, this focused only on lawful permanent resident immigrants. Any HIV-infected border-jumpers or tourists who overstay their visas were not included in this estimate.
Overall, the estimated healthcare cost of removing HIV from the travel ban may have ranged from $19 million to $173 million in the first year alone. HHS explained that this would obviously double the second year as a new wave of immigrants arrives, triple the third year, and so on. HHS estimated that after five years the healthcare cost would be $86 million to $513 million. But not to worry, HHS noted that the cost to taxpayers is "likely to be small given the restrictions on federal benefits to new immigrants." Of course, these estimates were made in 2009, before Obamacare.
Recently, President Obama made some more changes, opening our borders to more STDs. Yet only a single special-interest news outlet has even noticed.7
Prior to 2009, HHS listed eight diseases as "communicable diseases of public health significance": tuberculosis, leprosy, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), syphilis, chancroid, gonorrhea, granuloma inguinale, and lymphogranuloma venereum. After the first two on the list, the remainder are all sexually transmitted diseases. After the administration dropped HIV from the list, only five STDs remained: syphilis, chancroid, gonorrhea, granuloma inguinale, and lymphogranuloma venereum.
At the time I wondered whether some of the other STDs also would be removed from the list since they are not nearly as deadly as HIV. It took him seven years, but recently Obama decided to remove chancroid, granuloma inguinale, and lymphogranuloma venereum as inadmissible health-related conditions for aliens seeking admission to the United States.8
The only remaining communicable diseases considered to be of any "public health significance" are tuberculosis, leprosy, syphilis, and gonorrhea. At least until the leprosy lobby speaks up.
There was one additional change made by the administration pertaining to tuberculosis, however, that is worth noting. Prior to the rule change, federal regulations required that all applicants subject to a chest x-ray, "and for whom the radiograph shows an abnormality suggestive of tuberculosis disease, shall be required to undergo additional testing for tuberculosis." The rule change drops the "shall" requirement. It now reads: "All applicants may be required to undergo additional testing for tuberculosis based on the results of the medical evaluation." It's a subtle change that may have no significant effect; on the other hand, it may mean less stringent protections from tuberculosis.
So what about the costs associated with the new rule change on the three remaining STDs? Don't worry, Obama's HHS secretary ran the numbers and explained in the Federal Register that "The results are not economically significant, i.e. more than $100 million of costs and benefits in a single year."9 In other words, the cost of welcoming in aliens with these STDs will be below $100 million every year.
The secretary argues that there's a "potential" for "a negligible increase in the numbers of disease cases entering the United States", but that "the potential introduction of a very small number of cases will not change the current cost structure associated with the current disease burden." However, the secretary also reports that of these diseases, chancroid is the only one reported to the CDC, meaning that it is difficult to estimate the impact of this rule for the other diseases. In fact, HHS notes that "[d]ata on chancroid, granuloma inguinale, and lymphogranuloma venereum are not systematically collected by any country outside of the United States either by specific countries or regions listed by DHS for aliens, or from the World Health Organization." We don't really know what we're bringing in.
And not to worry, HHS also explains that these "primarily tropical infections can be prevented through improved personal hygiene and protected sex" and that if you do get them, the STDs can be cured "with a short, uncomplicated course of antibiotic therapy." Hopefully they're telling the immigrants that.
The administration argues that this change is beneficial because physicians who would otherwise be administering the exams "will be able to devote more time and training to other, more common and/or more serious health issues." Sound familiar? This is the same argument the Obama administration makes for directing ICE to only focus on deporting "the worst of the worst" criminal aliens. By ignoring the run-of-the-mill illegal aliens, law enforcement can better focus on the most egregious offenders, they claim.10 But it means that plenty of dangerous aliens get a pass and it means that violence has largely become a prerequisite for immigration enforcement. Similarly, the change in STD policies means that many infections are potentially being ignored.
The United States has the highest prevalence of HIV infection of any developed country. The Obama administration's policy change may ensure that the United States keeps that title. In the least, the 2009 and 2016 changes will reduce the ability of our immigration system to protect Americans from communicable diseases.
End Notes
1 (8 USC § 1182).
2 Jon Feere, "Congress Mulls Lifting HIV Ban", Center for Immigration Studies blog, July 25, 2008.
3 Jon Feere, "Obama Lifts HIV Immigration Ban", Center for Immigration Studies Backgrounder, November 2009.
4 "HIV and AIDS in the Americas: An epidemic with many faces", Pan American Health Organization, 2001.
5 "Medical Examination of Aliens—Removal of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) Infection From Definition of Communicable Disease of Public Health Significance", Centers for Disease Control, Federal Register notice, November 2, 2009.
6 Susanna E. Winston and Curt G. Beckwith, "The Impact of Removing the Immigration Ban on HIV-Infected Persons", AIDS Patient Care and STDs, 25(12), pp. 709–711, 2011.
7 Matthew Bultman, "HHS Removes 3 STIs From List Barring Immigrant Entry", Law360.com, January 26, 2016.
8 "Medical Examination of Aliens-Revisions to Medical Screening Process: A Rule by the Health and Human Services Department on 01/26/2016", Federal Register, January 26, 2016.
9 Ibid.
10 Brian Bennett, "High deportation figures are misleading", Los Angeles Times, April 1, 2014.
Poll: Carson tops list of potential Trump running-mates
The Hill ^ | 3/1/2016 | Jesse Byrnes
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson tops the list of potential running-mates for Donald Trump if the businessman wins the GOP nomination, according to a new poll.
Carson is the choice of 11 percent of Republican and GOP-leaning independent voters, a Morning Consult poll released Monday found.
Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, the candidates right behind Trump in the GOP race, are tied for second with 9 percent each.
John Kasich, also a Republican presidential candidate, follows with 8 percent, tied with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who endorsed Trump last week after dropping out of the GOP race in February.
Carson's business manager Armstrong Williams told The Hill on Tuesday that Carson wouldn't be dropping out of the GOP race, despite not having any potential state wins in sight.
The soft-spoken retired neurosurgeon himself indicated Tuesday morning that he's been asked by Republican Party officials to suspend his campaign.
Cruz, Rubio and a slew of pundits have called on Carson to drop out of the race amid an effort to coalesce around a single alternative to Trump.
Thirty-eight percent of those surveyed over the weekend didn't list a hypothetical VP for Trump. The survey of 2,002 registered voters was conducted Feb. 26-27 with a margin of error of 2 points.
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson tops the list of potential running-mates for Donald Trump if the businessman wins the GOP nomination, according to a new poll.
Carson is the choice of 11 percent of Republican and GOP-leaning independent voters, a Morning Consult poll released Monday found.
Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, the candidates right behind Trump in the GOP race, are tied for second with 9 percent each.
John Kasich, also a Republican presidential candidate, follows with 8 percent, tied with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who endorsed Trump last week after dropping out of the GOP race in February.
Carson's business manager Armstrong Williams told The Hill on Tuesday that Carson wouldn't be dropping out of the GOP race, despite not having any potential state wins in sight.
The soft-spoken retired neurosurgeon himself indicated Tuesday morning that he's been asked by Republican Party officials to suspend his campaign.
Cruz, Rubio and a slew of pundits have called on Carson to drop out of the race amid an effort to coalesce around a single alternative to Trump.
Thirty-eight percent of those surveyed over the weekend didn't list a hypothetical VP for Trump. The survey of 2,002 registered voters was conducted Feb. 26-27 with a margin of error of 2 points.
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
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