Obama Shines Light on Immigration during Citizenship Ceremony

President Barack Obama plans to highlight a positive side of the immigration debate by presiding over an Independence Day citizenship ceremony for service members who signed up to defend the U.S. even though they weren't American citizens.

A total of 25 members of the Armed Forces will spend the Fourth of July as American citizens after the deputy secretary for homeland security delivers the oath of allegiance at a White House ceremony on Friday.

The group includes 15 active-duty service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, along with two veterans, one reservist and seven spouses, the White House said. They represent 15 countries.

The politically divisive immigration issue is earning renewed attention after the influx of tens of thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America who, under U.S. law, must be sent back across the border to their home countries. That has upset advocates of overhauling U.S. immigration policy who want Obama to allow the children to stay.

At the same time, Obama blames House Republicans for delaying action on an immigration overhaul. A comprehensive measure the Senate passed last year has been blocked by House leaders who also have done little to advance legislative proposals of their own.

Obama announced earlier this week that, as a result of lawmakers' inaction, he will pursue non-legislative ways that he can adjust U.S. immigration policy without waiting for Congress to act.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, spend the Fourth of July with service members they invite to the White House for an all-American barbecue on the South Lawn and choice seating for the fireworks on the National Mall. Obama said some of the service members who will be at the White House on Friday are unique.

"They signed up to serve, to sacrifice, potentially to give their lives for the security of this country even though they weren't yet Americans. That's how much they love this country," Obama said in announcing the ceremony earlier this week. "They were prepared to fight and die for an America they did not yet fully belong to. I think they've earned their stripes in more ways than one."

He said it is worth celebrating that the U.S. is "a nation of immigrants."

"We won this country's freedom together. We built this country together. We defended this country together," he said. "It makes us special. It makes us strong. It makes us Americans. That's worth celebrating. And that's what I want not just House Republicans, but all of us, as Americans to remember."

Obama participated in naturalization ceremonies at the White House in 2009, 2010, 2012 and last year.

Friday's ceremony will also recognize internationally known celebrity chef Jose Andres for outstanding achievements by a naturalized U.S. citizen. Andres, who is 44 and was born in Spain, became a citizen last November and also will mark his first July Fourth as a citizen.

Andres serves on the boards of the DC Central Kitchen and the L.A. Kitchen, in addition to international philanthropic work carried out through his World Central Kitchen. Andres runs restaurants in California, Nevada, Florida, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C. He has prepared meals for White House and other Obama administration events, and Obama and the first lady have gone out to dinner at some of his Andres' restaurants in Washington. Andres also contributed financially to both of Obama's presidential campaigns.

Darren Cords

Rebublicans Vs. The New Yorker

New Yorker Shows Obama Getting His Health Care Revenge On Republicans

Republicans are not going to like the New Yorker's latest cover. The illustration nods to Obamacare's recent victory, and shows President Obama feeding medicine to a little boy.

That's just not any little boy though — it's Mitch McConnell. Artist Barry Blitt told the magazine, “I enjoyed drawing Ted Cruz, John Boehner, and Michele Bachmann as petulant children—and I especially wanted to draw an open-mouthed Mitch McConnell being spoon-fed his meds.”

Author James Neal

Obama cuts Congress

Obama Sidesteps Congress, Uses Federal Contractors To Test Work Policies.

Sidestepping Congress, President Barack Obama is using the federal government's vast array of contractors to impose rules on wages, pay disparities and hiring on a segment of the private sector that gets taxpayer money and falls under his control.

Obama this week plans to issue an order prohibiting federal contractors from retaliating against workers who discuss their pay. He will also direct the Labor Department to issue new rules requiring federal contractors to provide compensation data that includes a breakdown by race and gender.In a separate action Monday, Obama intends to announce 24 schools that will share more than $100 million in grants to redesign themselves to better prepare high school students for college or for careers. The awards are part of an order Obama signed last year. Money for the program comes from fees that companies pay for visas to hire foreign workers for specialized jobs.

The steps, which Obama will take Tuesday at a White House event, take aim at pay disparities between men and women. The Senate this week is scheduled to take up gender pay equity legislation that would affect all employers, but the White House-backed bill doesn't have enough Republican support to overcome procedural obstacles and will likely fail.

The work policy changes demonstrate that even without legislation, the president can drive economic policy. At the same time, they show the limits of his power when he doesn't have congressional support.

Republicans say Obama is pushing his executive powers too far and should do more to work with Congress. His new executive orders are sure to lead to criticism that he is placing an undue burden on companies and increasing their costs.

Federal contracting covers about one-quarter of the U.S. workforce and includes companies ranging from Boeing to small parts suppliers and service providers. As a result, presidential directives can have a wide and direct impact. But such actions also can be undone by future presidents or by congressional action.

Tuesday's executive order and presidential memorandum on pay equity measures come two months after Obama ordered federal contractors to increase their minimum wage from $7.25 to $10.10 an hour — the same increase Obama and Democrats are struggling to get Congress to approve nationwide.

Obama in 2012 issued an order that prohibited government contractors or subcontractors from, among other things, charging employees recruitment fees, a practice that some companies have been accused of employing in their overseas operations.

In his first month in office, he required that certain large federal contractors hire service workers who had been employed by the previous contractor on the job. He also has prohibited federal contractors from using federal funds to influence workers' decisions on whether to join a union.

Jeffrey Hirsch, a former lawyer with the National Labor Relations Board, said presidential executive orders that affect federal contracting workforces can demonstrate that those practices are less onerous than initially imagined.

"It's an important step in implementing things in a broader scale," said Hirsch, now a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Obama's go-it-alone strategy is hardly new. And his rate of signing executive orders is similar to that of President George W. Bush and lower than that of President Bill Clinton. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the most active signer of executive orders, issuing them at the rate of nearly one a day. But Obama has the lowest rate of executive orders since President Grover Cleveland, according to an analysis by the Brookings Institution.

Tuesday's executive actions are designed to let workers discuss and compare their wages openly if they wish to do so and to provide the government with better data about how federal contractors compensate their workers.

"This really is about giving people access to more information both to help them make decisions at the policy level but also for individuals," said Heather Boushey, executive director and chief economist at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. She has been working with the administration to get compensation information about the nation's workforce.

"This is definitely an encouraging first step," she said.

Federal contractors, however, worry that additional compensation data could be used to fuel wage-related lawsuits, said James Plunkett, director of labor policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

What's more, he said, such orders create a two-tiered system where rules apply to federal contractors but not to other employers. Those contractors, knowing that their business relies on the government, are less likely to put up a fight, he said.

"Federal contractors ultimately know that they have to play nicely to a certain extent with the federal government," he said.

Author James Neal

Obama vs the U. S. Coast Guard

A proposal by the Obama administration to slash military spending for the U.S. Army has raised concerns about plans for the U.S. Coast Guard.

The Department of Defense budget would reduce Army spending to pre-World War II levels. The Coast Guard is not under defense, it is under the Department of Homeland Security. There have been no announcements yet about its proposed budget, due to be disclosed this week.

U.S. Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-2nd, who sits on a House subcommittee overseeing the Coast Guard, remains concerned in light of the announcement about the Army and battles fought last year when Coast Guard funding was cut by the administration. "We're not hearing very much, but I am very concerned about how the president has dealt with the Coast Guard the last several years. It's either a lack of understanding or a callous disregard for what they do," LoBiondo said. "The U.S. Coast Guard has many missions it has been asked to do. It continues to try and do them all with less, and something's got to give."

Last year, LoBiondo said, it took a strong bipartisan effort to restore cuts to the Coast Guard. 

There still were impacts due to the government shutdown and sequestration battles. One of the biggest impacts was on the high-seas war against drug trafficking, which is carried out by the Coast Guard's larger cutters, including two, Dependable and Vigorous, based in Cape May. The cutters deploy into the Caribbean, sometimes with help from the U.S. Navy (since stopped by the administration) and have been a key component in battling drug trafficking at sea.

Coast Guard Adm. Robert Papp, in a recent speech, said federal cuts reduced operating costs 25 percent and drug interdictions 30 percent last year.

Papp said this reduced the seizures of marijuana from 124,000 pounds in 2012 to 81,000 pounds in 2013. Cocaine seizures dropped by 40,000 pounds to 194,000 pounds seized last year.

Exact figures were not available from the Cape May base, but the spokesman there, Chief Warrant Officer Donnie Brzuska, said any cut in funding reduces operating hours on the water.

Still, he noted, the Vigorous returned from a deployment in November with a haul of cocaine worth $40 million. Like LoBiondo, the base is awaiting this week's release of the president's budget.

With a bipartisan agreement by Congress to put off any new sequestration for two years, the main worry is proposed cuts from the administration.

"The president's budget is the first order of concern right now," LoBiondo said. "The president makes a recommendation in the form of a budget. If he reduces it substantially or zeroes it out, it's a much heavier lift to restore dollars. Last year, he offered major cuts to the Coast Guard, but they were restored with a bipartisan effort. 

His track record and his understanding of what the Coast Guard is trying to do is not good."

I guess the Obama Administration has already forgotten the Hurricane tragedy of Katrina.  

Author Trevor Taylor