FOXNews.com: How to make immigration reform work this time

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How to make immigration reform work this time Feb 1st 2013, 01:00 Immigration reform is coming. Let's get it right.  What counts as getting it wrong? The 1986 Simpson-Mazzoli Act, signed by President Reagan. It granted amnesty to the then 3 million illegal immigrants and promised border enforcement. Amnesty came. Enforcement never did. Reagan was swindled. Americans are a generous people. They don't want 11 million souls living in fear among them. They would willingly, indeed overwhelmingly, support amnesty -- as long as it is the last. They don't want another Simpson-Mazzoli, another bait-and-switch that lets in another 11 million illegal immigrants -- and brings us back where we began. Americans are a generous people. They don't want 11 million souls living in fear among them. They would willingly, indeed overwhelmingly, support amnesty -- as long as it is the last. There is an obvious solution: enforcement first. Hence the attraction of the bipartisan Senate deal reached by the Gang of Eight, led by Democrat Chuck Schumer and Republicans John McCain and Marco Rubio. It is said to feature border enforcement first, then legalization. Not quite. It is true that only after some commission deems the border under control do illegal immigrants become eligible for green cards and, ultimately, citizenship. But this is misleading because on the day the president signs the reform -- long before enforcement even begins -- the 11 million are immediately subject to instant legalization. It is cleverly called "probationary" legal status. But the adjective is meaningless. It grants the right to live and work here openly. Once granted, it will never be revoked. Consider: Imagine that the border-control commission reports at some point that the border is not yet secure. Do you think for a moment that the 11 million will have their "probationary" legalization revoked? These are people who, in good faith, would have come out of the shadows, registered with the feds and disclosed their domicile and place of work. Do you think the authorities will have them fired, arrested and deported? Inconceivable. "Probationary" in this context means, in reality, "forever." (Unless, of course, you commit some crime.) It means they can stay and work here freely for the rest of their lives. True, they must await the "enforcement trigger" before they can apply for Green Cards. But they already have the functional equivalent of a Green Card. They got that on Day One. That matters more than anything to those living here illegally: the right to continue living here without fear. Forever. That's the very essence of amnesty. And all this happens before the first scintilla of extra enforcement takes place. Which brings us to the second problem. What does this extra enforcement consist of? When I heard McCain talk about (among other measures) new high-tech border control with advanced radar and drones, my heart sank. We've been here. In 2006, Congress threw a ton of money at a high-tech fence. Five years, $1 billion and a pathetic 53 (out of 2,000) miles later, Janet Napolitano canceled the program as a complete failure. That was predictable. And some of us predicting it were pleading for something infinitely cheaper and simpler: a prosaic, low-tech fence. Of the kind built near San Diego (triple-layered) that resulted in an astounding 92 percent drop in apprehensions. Like the Israeli fence built along the West Bank that has reduced terrorist infiltration to practically zero. There's a reason people have been building fences for, oh, 5,000 years. They work. The current Senate proposal must be improved, either in the Senate or by the House. It's not complicated. Build the damn fence. And give "probationary legal status" to the 11 million -- not on the day the bill is signed but on the day the fence is completed. Have the president drive in the golden fence post at Promontory Point II and sign the amnesty right there. Great photo op. With the sequencing -- and thus the incentives -- so properly aligned, I assure you the fence will go up with amazing alacrity. As it should. The point is not to punish anyone or to make things harder, but to ensure we don't have to do this again -- agonizing over the next 11 million cruelly living here in the shadows. I know many Republicans are coming over to immigration reform because of the 2012 election results. Fine. I've been advocating this for seven years ("First a wall -- then amnesty," April 7, 2006). Welcome aboard. But remember: Enforcement followed by legalization is not just the political thing to do. It is the right thing to do -- an act both of national generosity and national interest. It has long been the best answer to the immigration conundrum. It remains so. Charles Krauthammer is a syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor.

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FOXNews.com: Despite criticism from left and right, MSNBC's silence is deafening about doctored heckling' video

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Despite criticism from left and right, MSNBC's silence is deafening about doctored heckling' video Jan 31st 2013, 20:48 A video doctored by MSNBC featuring the grieving father of one of the children who died in the Sandy Hook tragedy from has set the Internet aflame this week. The video, which first aired on the Monday, January 28 broadcast of the liberal network's "Martin Bashir"show is only the latest video controversy to include NBC and its crazy liberal stepchild MSNBC. We're now three days -- and counting -- into the scandal and MSNBC still hasn't come clean and admitted what it did. The video showed Newtown, Conn. father Neil Heslin's testimony about guns speaking at a legislative hearing. Bashir then claimed Heslin was heckled by a gun supporter at the hearing. "A father's grief, interrupted by the cries of a heckler," Bashir declared. We're now three days -- and counting -- into another video scandal and MSNBC still hasn't come clean and admitted what it did. Bashir's declaration was at best wrong and at worst outright misrepresentation by the network. The video cut out the part of Heslin's testimony where he posed a question to the crowd. Hearing no response, Heslin then appeared to act like no one was able to challenge his argument, which is why some present did so. This latest controversy has made MSNBC the target of criticism from AP, The Washington Post and even some commentators like David Frum. After Tweeting about the alleged heckling incident, CNN's Anderson Cooper then deleted his Tweet and clarified the situation, much to his credit. The Washington Post's media blogger Erik Wemple provided a nice transcript of the original exchange as it occurred at the hearing: "Heslin: I don't know how many people have young children or children. But just try putting yourself in the place that I'm in or these other parents that are here. Having a child that you lost. It's not a good feeling; not a good feeling to look at your child laying in a casket or looking at your child with a bullet wound to the forehead. I ask if there's anybody in this room that can give me one reason or challenge this question: Why anybody in this room needs to have an, one of these assault-style weapons or military weapons or high-capacity clips.....Not one person can answer that question." Crowd/Alleged Hecklers: "Second Amendment shall not be infringed" Public official: "Please no comments while Mr. Heslin is speaking. Or we'll clear the room. Mr. Heslin, please continue." It's only human to feel for Heslin. No one should ever experience the murder of their child. But at the same time, he posed a question and the response clearly was not heckling. To chop up video of Heslin's testimony -- to make it look bad -- was a horrible act by MSNBC. This excellent video (Yes, a co-worker of mine at the Media Research Center put it together. So sue me.) shows exactly how the doctoring took place. Wemple quoted an "MSNBC source" saying: "We're reviewing the video in question." He added his own critique. "Smart move, considering that Heslin wasn't, in fact, heckled. Audience members merely answered a challenge that Heslin posed from the microphone." According to the AP's David Bauder, "Bashir was out sick on Wednesday," but fill-in Ari Melber gave a lame defense while playing the full video. "Martin and others have called that interruption heckling," Melber reportedly said. "Some disagree. He wanted you to hear that in full so you can draw your own conclusions." It's unclear if MSNBC is still reviewing the video or is just trying to sweep the controversy under the rug. MSNBC and parent NBC have had two other high-profile editing scandals in recent memory. In one the networked modified what the crowd was chanting at a Romney/Ryan event and then that was used to mock Romney. The network is also being sued for its editing of the 911 call by George Zimmerman, as part of the Trayvon Martin case. The edits there depicted Zimmerman as racist simply because he responded to a question from the dispatcher. Dan Gainor is the Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center's Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.

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FOXNews.com: Immigration and freedom

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Immigration and freedom Jan 31st 2013, 10:00 As President Obama and Congress grapple for prominence in the debate over immigration, both have lost sight of the true nature of the issue at hand. The issue the politicians and bureaucrats would rather avoid is the natural law. The natural law is a term used to refer to human rights that all persons possess by virtue of our humanity. These rights encompass areas of human behavior where individuals are sovereign and thus need no permission from the government before making choices in those areas. Truly, in the Judeo-Christian tradition, only God is sovereign -- meaning He is the source of His own power. Having received freedom from our Creator and, in America, thanks to the values embraced by most of the Founding Fathers, individuals are sovereign with respect to our natural rights. St. Thomas Aquinas taught that our sovereignty is a part of our human nature, and our humanity is a gift from God. In 1776, Thomas Jefferson himself recognized personal sovereignty in the Declaration of Independence when he wrote about Nature's God as the Creator and thus the originator of our inalienable human rights. If the government can restrain the freedom to travel on the basis of an immutable characteristic of birth, there is no limit to the restraints it can impose. The rights that Jefferson identified consist of the well-known litany of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. By the time his ideological soul mate James Madison was serving as the scrivener at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the list of natural rights had been expanded to include those now encompassed by the Bill of Rights. Yet again, the authors of the Constitution and its first 10 amendments recognized that the rights being insulated from government interference had their origin in a source other than the government. This view of the natural law is sweet to the heart and pleasing to the ear when politicians praise it at patriotic events, but it is also a bane to them when it restrains their exercise of the coercive powers of the government. Thus, since the freedom of speech, the development of personality, the right to worship or not to worship, the right to use technologically contemporary means for self-defense, the right to be left alone, and the right to own and use property all stem from our humanity, the government simply is without authority to regulate human behavior in these areas, no matter what powers it purports to give to itself and no matter what crises may occur. Among the rights in this category is the freedom of movement, which today is called the right to travel. The right to travel is an individual personal human right, long recognized under the natural law as immune from governmental interference. Of course, governments have been interfering with this right for millennia. The Romans restricted the travel of Jews; Parliament restricted the travel of serfs; Congress restricted the travel of slaves; and starting in the late 19th century, the federal government has restricted the travel of non-Americans who want to come here and even the travel of those already here. All of these abominable restrictions of the right to travel are based not on any culpability of individuals, but rather on membership in the groups to which persons have belonged from birth. The initial reasons for these immigration restrictions involved the different appearance and culture of those seeking to come here and the nativism of those running the government here. Somehow, the people who ran the government believed that they who were born here were superior persons and more worthy of American-style freedoms than those who sought to come here. This extols nativism. Nativism is the arch-enemy of the freedom to travel, as its adherents believe they can use the coercive power of the government to impair the freedom of travel of persons who are unwanted not because of personal behavior, but solely on the basis of where they were born. Nativism teaches that we lack natural rights and enjoy only those rights the government permits us to exercise. Yet, the freedom to travel is a fundamental natural right. This is not a novel view. In addition to Aquinas and Jefferson, it has been embraced by St. Augustine, John Locke, Thomas Paine, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Pope John Paul II and Justice Clarence Thomas. Our fundamental human rights are not conditioned or even conditionable on the laws or traditions of the place where our mothers were physically located when we were born. They are not attenuated because our mothers were not in the United States at the moment of our births. Stated differently, we all possess natural rights, no more and no less than any others. All humans have the full panoply of freedom of choice in areas of personal behavior protected from governmental interference by the natural law, no matter where they were born. Americans are not possessed of more natural rights than non-Americans; rather, we enjoy more opportunities to exercise those rights because the government is theoretically restrained by the Constitution, which explicitly recognizes the natural law. That recognition is articulated in the Ninth Amendment, which declares that the enumeration of certain rights in the Constitution shall not be used by the government as an excuse to deny or disparage other unnamed and unnamable rights retained by the people. So, if I want to invite my cousins from Florence, Italy, to come here and live in my house and work on my farm in New Jersey, or if a multinational corporation wants the best engineers from India to work in its labs in Texas, or if my neighbor wants a friend of a friend from Mexico City to come here to work in his shop, we have the natural right to ask, they have the natural right to come here, and the government has no moral right to interfere with any of these freely made decisions. If the government can restrain the freedom to travel on the basis of an immutable characteristic of birth, there is no limit to the restraints it can impose. Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the U.S. Constitution. His latest is "Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom."

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FOXNews.com: Obama is not king

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Obama is not king Jan 31st 2013, 12:00 Watching President Obama's inaugural, I was confused. It looked like a new king was being crowned. Thousands cheered, like subjects worshipping nobility. At a time when America faces unsustainable debt and terrible economic troubles, why such pomp? Maybe it's because so many people tell themselves presidents can solve any problem, like fairy-tale kings -- or gods. Before America's first inauguration, John Adams suggested George Washington be called "His Most Benign Highness." Fortunately, Congress insisted on the more modest title, "president." At his inaugural, President Obama himself said, "The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few." But then Obama went on to say that his privileged few should force the rest of us to do a zillion things. He said, "We must do these things, together." But what "together" means to big-government folks is that they have a vision -- and all of us, together, must go deeper into debt to pay for their vision, even if we disagree. We can afford this, as the president apparently told John Boehner, because America does not have a spending problem. But, of course, we do have a spending problem, and a debt problem, and the president knows this. Just a few years ago, when George W. Bush was president, the Congressional Record shows that Senator Obama said this: "I rise, today, to talk about America's debt problem. The fact that we are here to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure and our government's reckless fiscal policies." Right! Sen. Obama went on: "Over the past five years, our federal debt has increased from $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion -- and yes, I said trillion with a 'T'!" Again, he was right to worry about the debt and right to call it "a hidden domestic enemy ... robbing our families and our children and seniors of the retirement and health security they've counted on. ... It took 42 presidents 224 years to run up only $1 trillion of foreign-held debt. This administration did more than that in just five years." It's hard to believe that Obama chose those words just seven years ago, because now his administration has racked up another $6 trillion in debt. It's also a shock that Barack Obama believed this: "America has a debt problem. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit." Yet this year, he demanded Congress raise the debt limit without conditions.  I want the old Barack Obama back. He made sense. The new guy, he scares the heck out of me. Like a king, he assumes that the realm will be better if he can spend as he pleases. He also issues executive orders when Congress doesn't immediately do what he wants. To be fair, he isn't the first president to do that. Or the worst. That was Teddy Roosevelt. He issued 1,000 executive orders, including one that demanded phonetic spelling. On all government documents, "kissed" should be K-I-S-T and "enough" E-N-U-F. At least Congress mustered the two-thirds vote needed to override that one. I might not mind presidents behaving like kings -- if they at least made the tough decisions that the government needs to make, like balancing the budget. But no president has tried to use an executive order to eliminate whole programs or cut spending. They almost always act only to increase their own power. Yet they pretend they make bold choices -- even when refusing to make choices. Obama said, "We reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the elderly and investing in the next generation." That's Washington-speak for, "We will spend government money on young and old alike and refuse to think about when this will bankrupt America." But it sounds exciting when he says it. He's not just a king -- he's Santa Claus, too. Except that Santa spends his own money. The president spends yours. Kings don't like to be constrained. But all government should be. John Stossel is host of "Stossel" on the Fox Business Network. He's the author of  "No, They Can't: Why Government Fails-But Individuals Succeed," "Give Me a Break" and of "Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity." To find out more about John Stossel, visit his website at johnstossel.com.

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FOXNews.com: Why Israel will rule the new Middle East

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Why Israel will rule the new Middle East Jan 31st 2013, 10:00 If you still think the future of Israel looks bleak, think again. A few months ago it looked like the Jewish state might not survive until 2013. Rockets were raining down from Gaza; revolution was about to install one Islamicist government in Egypt, and another was poised to take over in Syria. Iran was threatening to finish what Hitler's Holocaust started, with an atomic bomb. The Obama administration seemed unwilling to stop that happening-- while Israel's only alternative to nuclear annihilation was a preemptive strike that was bound to start a major shooting war in the Middle East. Now, however, Israel's future may be brighter than ever. Iran remains the neighborhood's unpredictable mad dog, although its nuclear bark is still far worse than its bite. But Israel itself is set to dominate the region like never before. Thanks to the industrial technological miracle known as fracking, Israel is about to become the new energy Mecca of the Middle East, and there's very little its Arab neighbors can do to stop it. Indeed, instead of plotting Israel's destruction, its Arab neighbors could find themselves courting Tel Aviv's favor the way the United States and Europe courted OPEC in the 1970's and 1980's. What's tilting the region's dynamics toward Israel? For one thing, the Arab Spring has spawned a chaos and instability in every country it's touched, that's going to grind on for years to come. A new report warns that Egypt is on the verge of collapse; Israel's old adversary Syria, already is. Both are also very likely headed toward economic ruin–as has already happened to Israel's other foe, Hamas in Gaza, and could hit Iran next. Israel is going to be the famous "still point in a turning world"–a world turning in on itself, with little or no energy to spend confronting the Jewish state. And here's where fracking comes in. Hydraulic fracking is, of course, is the technology that uses a high-pressure mixture of water, sand, and chemicals to crack open deep deposits of shale oil and natural gas. It's single-handedly revived our domestic energy industry–to the point where by 2020 we'll be the world's biggest oil producer. What many people don't know is that the land of Israel holds almost 250 billion barrels of oil shale reserves (that's according to the World Petroleum Council). That's almost equal to Saudi Arabia's 260 billion barrels--and as conventional oil sources there and in the Persian Gulf gets harder to extract (it already's happening) and the cost goes up, Israel will be the new energy frontier of the region. It's already happening. The fracking-savvy Canadians have joined an Israeli energy technology fund, to help companies like Israeli Energy Initiatives begin production of oil shale in reserve-rich areas like the Valley of Elah near Jerusalem; the Russians have signed a deal to help open up the vast natural gas reserves discovered in 2008 and 2009 off Israel's coast–some 16 trillion cubic feet worth. Right now production is still tiny, but as fracking technology continues to advance Israel could soon move beyond its declared goal of energy independence, and become a major oil exporting country–including to oil-poor neighbors like Egypt and Syria and Lebanon. The implications are nothing less than staggering. Instead of an embattled and isolated outpost of Western democracy, Israel would look like the Middle East's new economic colossus. Instead of shunning Israel for fear of offending oil-rich Arab states, Western Europeans could find themselves beating a path to Israel's oil shale fields–and rethinking who they want as their ally in the region, and who they don't. That includes the United States. Fracking is changing the world's economic map; it's about to change the Middle East. It's time policy-makers caught up with reality, and realized that our relationship with Israel may be our most important bond to that region's future. Historian Arthur Herman is the author of the just released "Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II" (Random House May 2012) and the Pulitzer Prize finalist book "Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age" (Bantam, 2008).

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FOXNews.com: The bankruptcy of the Obama-Pelosi 'progressive' agenda

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The bankruptcy of the Obama-Pelosi 'progressive' agenda Jan 30th 2013, 23:47 No one can accuse the Democrats of being the party of personal responsibility. Confronted with an economy that contracted in the fourth quarter, Speaker Nancy Pelosi blamed Congressional Republicans for obstructing the president's agenda and creating uncertainty. In the wake of the financial collapse, the Democrats took full control of both the Congress and the Presidency in 2009 and were presented with an historic opportunity to put their ideas into practice. Unfortunately, the newly elected President Obama and Speaker Pelosi treated the situation as a political opportunity to build a Democratic majority rather than an obligation to fix what's broken in the economy. Shrewdly, President Obama cobbled together a broader Democratic coalition by delivering to women free health care services, to Hispanics amnesty for young adults, to younger folks overly generous student loans, to teachers and civil servants subsidies to protect their jobs, to labor unions a rebuke of Simpson-Bowles recommendation that the retirement age be raised, and to his political friends generous subsidies for solar panels, windmills and other whimsical projects. Meanwhile, he cut defense, raised taxes on small businesses, and imposed unproductive regulations on manufacturing. No surprise, the revolution of the takers has instigated a strike among the makers. Rather than be slaves -- yoked under burdensome taxes, regulations and endless hectoring from the Left -- small banks aren't lending but instead are looking to sell out to the Wall Street barons who financed the President's rise to power. Small businesses are not expanding, and multinational corporations are taking factories and jobs to China and other Asian venues where genuine enterprise and capitalism, paradoxically, is supported. Now, Mr. Obama's tepid recovery is failing. When the President campaigned in 2008, he promised to address the huge trade deficits with China and oil, which together sap demand and slow growth and jobs creation, and address skyrocketing health care costs. Early in his presidency, Mr. Obama blamed China's undervalued currency for slow U.S. growth and warned Chinese leaders if they did not cooperate to redress the situation, he could act unilaterally. Liberal economists like Paul Krugman, conservative economists like this author and moderates like the Peterson Institute's Fred Bergsten all recommended viable courses of action. Sadly, the President talks tough in front of friendly audiences and to Republicans when he enjoys the high ground, but brings his kneeling pad when negotiating with Chinese leaders. He has simply done little to reverse the flow of money and jobs to the Middle Kingdom and other venues in Asia. In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the President punished the entire oil industry to gain political points and appease environmentalists. So much for substantially reducing the oil deficit! His most significant accomplishment -- ObamaCare has turned into a massive subsidy for the health care industry and welfare program for working class voters he hopes to secure for the next generation. Health care costs 50 percent more than in Germany -- where outcomes are better -- and health insurance premiums and co-pays borne by business and the middle class keep rocketing. Government spending is up over a trillion dollars, the federal deficit is spinning out of control and the country faces a credit downgrade by Moody's. Former speaker Pelosi vilifies Republicans for not embracing the President's "balanced" approach, but he shows no interest in cutting spending and only passion for raising taxes on success. America hardly lacks the technology, capital and enterprise necessary to succeed, but unfortunately, it is led by a man hell bent on building a political majority, and with little interest in fixing what's broke in the economy. Peter Morici is an economist and professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and widely published columnist.

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FOXNews.com: Let's create a process for citizenship that honors America's immigrants

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Let's create a process for citizenship that honors America's immigrants Jan 30th 2013, 16:53 When my great, great grandparents came to America from Europe a century ago, they didn't get in line. They just got on a boat.  They didn't get visas in their home countries or secure jobs in their new homeland. They just got on a boat carrying few possessions but their hearts and minds overflowing with abundant faith in the vision of opportunity for all enshrined in America's founding documents and evolving history ever since.   Then as now, new American immigrants were ostracized and attacked culturally but enthusiastically welcomed by America's economy.  Generations ago, Irish and Italian immigrants were demonized and scapegoated just as Latino immigrants are today. And yet throughout our nation's history, immigrants have been integral to our economic progress. And striving to treat immigrants with dignity and fairness has been integral to our national values.   "I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and lived here, even though sometime back they may have entered illegally," said President Ronald Reagan during the campaign for his reelection in 1984.   Two years later, in his second term, President Reagan granted citizenship to millions of aspiring Americans.  He understood then, as now, that the immigration system was broken and not working for immigrants, citizens or America's economy, that a workable process for immigration was essential.   Whether they're rich or poor or Mexican or Filipino or young or old or gay or straight, immigrants are an essential part of all of our daily lives, our families, our communities, our economy. Today, immigrants are an even more integral part of the American economy.  Over the past forty years, as family farms have shuttered, more immigrant farm workers have been relied upon to tend massive fields.   As more women have joined the workforce, immigrants have become family caregivers, taking children to school and tending to elderly relatives.  And yes, many of the most successful businesses in America --- from Google to eBay and more --- were started by immigrants.  But whether they're rich or poor or Mexican or Filipino or young or old or gay or straight, immigrants are an essential part of all of our daily lives, our families, our communities, our economy.  It's time we create a process for citizenship reflects this reality and honors the contributions of immigrants in our nation.   Much is made of the sense that undocumented immigrants are law breakers. Technically, of course.  But anyone who's ever driven with an expired license or registration technically broke the law, too, in much the same way as an immigrant who overstayed a visa, which is the case for the vast majority of undocumented immigrants.  Yes, we are a nation of laws --- including fines for expired paperwork.  But do we patrol our highways with drones and militarize street corners in the way we've done along the Mexico border -- and which some Republicans want to do more of?   We have implemented extreme and severe border security.  And President Obama has deported more immigrants than his predecessor and spent more on immigration enforcement than all other federal law enforcement priorities combined.   Prioritizing more border enforcement would be both inhumane and wasteful.   Even Ronald Reagan wrote, after a 1979 meeting with the President of Mexico, that his goal was to make America's southern border "something other than the location for a fence."  If good fences make good neighbors, we have already invested in big, harsh, militarized fences.  It's time to be more neighborly to new immigrants.   Our nation deported over 400,000 aspiring Americans last year alone. These are our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends.  These are parents at our kids' schools and construction workers at the new house down the block.  Taken away from their families, taken away from their lives, deported without due process, often back to countries they left decades ago and barely know.   Meanwhile, there are at least 5,000 citizen children in foster care in America because their parents have been deported and our government makes their parents fight for custody.  Just this month, immigration officials raided the home of a young immigrant rights activist in Arizona and detained her mother and brother.  The pain and horror of the incident is evident in a video the activist recorded later that night. This is how we treat people who just want to make a better life for their children, who are drawn to our shores by our nation's values and the many, many employers who actively recruit immigrant workers.  People who say that's not the system our great, great grandparents went through are right: My great, great grandparents were treated much better. And I know that if my great, great grandparents were here today, they would want other new immigrants to have the same opportunity and access to citizenship that they had, no matter the path to get here.   Sally Kohn is a Fox News contributor and writer.  You can find her online at http://sallykohn.com or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sallykohn.

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FOXNews.com: Look out, Mr. Obama, a tax revolt has begun in America led by Mickelson & Woods

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Look out, Mr. Obama, a tax revolt has begun in America led by Mickelson & Woods Jan 30th 2013, 21:06 President Obama, you have a big problem. You may own the media, so you can control the Benghazi disaster. But you have no control over this one. A tax rebellion has started. Phil Mickelson is one of the most famous athletes in the world. He is worth in the vicinity of $100 million. Last year he made almost $50 million. Yet he doesn't want to pay California's high taxes.  Tiger Woods is far more famous and worth far more -- over $1 billion, yet he agrees with Mickelson and admits that he left California in 1996 for the exact same reason: high taxes. In the same week, famed boxing promoter Bob Arum announced that superstar boxing legend Manny Pacquiao's next fight will not be in held in America.  The man who makes tens of millions per fight refuses to pay Obama's higher U.S. income taxes. He is considering Mexico City, Asia, or Dubai for his next fight.  Can you imagine? Smart businessmen would rather choose Mexico City over America because of Obama's taxes.  Then Tina Turner went public. She is renouncing her U.S. citizenship to become a Swiss citizen- which just happens to have lower taxes than Obama's America. But these are just the rich celebrities courageous enough to go public. This is merely the tip of the iceberg. The rich are fleeing in droves. The Obama tax and spend Ponzi scheme is imploding. What changed?  The technology revolution has made it possible to do business from places where the taxes are lower (or non existent) and where the government treats us better. Obama had better learn this lesson fast, because this tax rebellion is spreading to millions of Americans with far smaller incomes or assets than Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, or Manny Pacquaio. The signs are everywhere that a tax rebellion has begun.  The latest U.S. Census showed us that the states with low taxes enjoyed the fastest population growth- states like Nevada, Texas, Florida, and Arizona.  Not surprisingly, the states losing the most population are all high tax states like California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and of course Obama's Illinois. These states that Americans are running from are all governed just like Obama wants to govern the entire country. Soon these same Americans running away from California, New York and Illinois will instead be running away from America. Ask the co-founder of Facebook, who recently renounced his citizenship and left for Singapore (where the capital gains taxes are zero). Ask big-time Democratic contributor Denise Rich, who recently renounced her citizenship to leave for Austria. The trickle is turning into a torrent. Record numbers of wealthy Americans are giving up their citizenship- eight times more than before Obama became president. Of course we already know that only one year after the UK imposed a "Millionaires Tax" two thirds of the millionaires in England disappeared off the tax rolls. High taxes have worked well in England…they are about to endure an unheard of in history triple dip recession…the third recession in 5 years. Folks that's called a Great Depression. We already know that millionaires are escaping France at a record pace because of high tax rates imposed by the new Obama-clone Socialist President of France. Even leftist actors like Gerard Depardieu have been forced to abandon the country they love. The famous actor isn't alone. Requests by citizens to leave France are up by 500%.   But then came the coup de grace. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has just announced he is leaving France because of taxes. High taxes are even chasing away the presidents of their own countries! High taxes work great in France. Their Labor Minister announced just this week that France is "totally bankrupt." His words. I understand all of this only too well. I've got my own "escape from taxes" story. I arrived in sunny Southern California in 1989. I fell in love. I thought I would never leave. I woke up every morning to walk on the beach, and to watch dolphins swim from my deck. I married a former Miss Oklahoma. I was in heaven. Unfortunately, during the next decade California grew more and more desperate. Taxes were raised again and again. There were so many rules, regulations, and lawsuits, it became impossible to run a business in California. So I escaped to Las Vegas, Nevada. Las Vegas is "America's Monte Carlo." It's a place with no state income tax, business income tax, capital gains tax, or inheritance tax…and the 16th lowest property taxes in America. A place where the state constitution bans income taxes, limits the time politicians can meet, and welcomes guns in the hands of law abiding citizens. I call it heaven. As long as the taxes stay at zero, I'll never leave. But I'm not alone. During the past decade over 1.3 million residents escaped California. When I add up the income taxes, property taxes, business taxes, and the payroll and income taxes for the 100 employees I took with me…chasing me away probably cost California about $2,000,000 in lost revenues. Multiply that times thousands of other high income, high net worth, business owners among the 1.3 million who have escaped...and that accounts for why California is always broke, insolvent, and desperate. You know what they say about pigs- they get slaughtered. California is certainly a pig. Just like the "PIIGS" in Europe- Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, and Spain all chased away their richest citizens and business owners. Now they have nothing left. Their tax base is destroyed. Add France and the UK to the list. There all going down. If we let big government progressives have their way, California's sad story and Europe's tragic story will also be America's sad story. Obama is killing the American Dream. Phil Mickelson was only vocalizing what millions of business owners in America are thinking right now. Governments lie when they say taxes are good, or "fair" or the price you must pay for a "civilized society." Big government doesn't lead to a better life. Big government leads to a miserable life. I'm enjoying a much better quality of life in Nevada with lower taxes- it isn't even close. Here's the reality -- the high tech revolution has killed the progressive and socialist dream. We aren't trapped anymore. You can't tax us to death, simply because you don't own us. We have I-Phones, I-Pads, I-Pods, text, laptops, and Satellite TV. We can do business from anywhere in the world- from a beach in Sydney, to a mountaintop in Nepal, to a forest in New Zealand, to a luxury high rise in Hong Kong. It's called freedom. Sorry, President Obama your dream is about to collapse. Ask Phil Mickelson, or the President of France, or all those millionaires missing in England, or soon half the business owners in America. Tax and spend is DOA (dead on arrival). Wayne Allyn Root is capitalist evangelist, entrepreneur, and Libertarian-conservative Republican. He is a former Libertarian vice presidential nominee. Wayne's latest book will be published on April 15: "The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide: Secrets to Protecting Your Family, Your Finances, and Your Freedom." He is also the best-selling author of "The Conscience of a Libertarian: Empowering the Citizen Revolution with God, Guns, Gold & Tax Cuts." For more, visit his website: www.ROOTforAmerica.com.

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FOXNews.com: Mubarak was the good old days

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Mubarak was the good old days Jan 30th 2013, 20:30 By Michael Goodwin Published January 30, 2013 New York Post FILE - In this Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010 file photo, Egypt's then President Hosni Mubarak listens to President Barack Obama, unseen, during joint statements in the East Room of the White House in Washington.AP Jan. 13, 2013: Egyptian supporters of ousted former President Hosni Mubarak celebrate an appeal granted by a court.AP FILE - In this Nov. 18, 2008 file photo, then Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak speaks after receiving the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in New Delhi, India.AP FILE - In this Tuesday Jan. 25, 2011 file photo, Demonstrators deface a poster of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Alexandria, Egypt.AP Next Slide Previous Slide The chaos and deadly clashes in Egypt prompt a question: What did we gain by helping to push out Hosni Mubarak? Wait, I know the answer. The old dictator was an American ally who made peace with Israel for 30 years. In exchange, we got the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi, who imposes martial law, is pushing Sharia law and says that Jews are the descendants of "apes and pigs." And we're giving him tanks and jets. Are we crazy or stupid? Read the rest of Michael Goodwin's column at the New York Post Michael Goodwin is a Fox News contributor and New York Post columnist. Related Stories Washington casts wary eye at Muslim Brotherhood Masked 'Black Bloc' a mystery in Egypt unrest Egypt's opposition leader calls for talks with Morsi's government and military as violence spreads Who's who in Egypt's latest political crisis

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FOXNews.com: The transformation of '60 Minutes' -- now the place for swooning, softball interviews

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The transformation of '60 Minutes' -- now the place for swooning, softball interviews Jan 30th 2013, 15:06 CBS News' Steve Kroft made a statement Monday that totally epitomizes liberal media bias in the modern era. Speaking to CNN's Piers Morgan about his interview with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the previous evening's "60 Minutes," Kroft said the president likes doing his show because "he knows that we're not going to play gotcha with him": PIERS MORGAN, CNN HOST: And joining me now is 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft. Steve, welcome to you. STEVE KROFT, CBS NEWS: Thank you, Piers. Nice to be here. MORGAN: I want to thank you for getting every single Obama interview that I've been trying to get in the last two years on CNN first of all. KROFT: I've done a lot. MORGAN: [Laughs]. Let me ask you at the top, why do you think he keeps coming to you? Because there's two schools of thought. One is that you're the most brilliant, penetrating interviewer on American television, and the other one is that you give him a soft time, neither of which I suspect is entirely the true picture. Actually, I imagine most right-thinking Americans believe Obama continues to do interviews with Kroft because he gives him "a soft time." Somewhat surprisingly, Kroft agrees: STEVE KROFT: No, I think that first of all, I think he likes 60 Minutes. It's, you know, we have a huge audience. We have a format that suits him. It's long. We can do twelve minutes or 24 minutes. We do a, you know, we do a good job of editing. And I've been doing these interviews with him since a few weeks before he declared his candidacy. So I covered him during the campaign and have kept doing it in the White House. But I think it's a question of fairness. I, we have not, I think he knows that we're not going to play gotcha with him, that we're not going to go out of our way to make him look bad or stupid, and we'll let him answer the questions. So Kroft thinks his job is to not make the president look bad or stupid, and to ask questions that won't be perceived as "gotcha"? Remember when 60 Minutes was a tough, hard-hitting program that backed guests against the wall in search of the truth? How about in 2004 when shortly before Election Day, "60 Minutes II" aired a segment that included a forged document involving President George W. Bush? That might have been one of the biggest media gotchas in television history. Or how about in January 2007 when Scott Pelley interviewed the same President Bush asking him questions such as: • "The war on terror, in a sense, began in this room, began in this cabin where your Cabinet meeting was held. Back then the whole country was with you. And now you seem to have lost them. Why do you think so?" • "But wasn't it your administration that created the instability in Iraq?" • "Do you believe as commander-in-chief you have the authority to put the troops in there no matter what the Congress wants to do?" • "You know better than I do that many Americans feel that your administration has not been straight with the country, has not been honest. To those people you say what? Like the weapons of mass destruction? No credible connection between 9/11 and Iraq." • "I wonder if you feel like you've been ill-served by your Cabinet members, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, perhaps even Vice-President Dick Cheney. Wrong on WMD. Wrong on the connection between 9/11 and Iraq. And now you're in a fix. And I wonder if you look back and wonder who let you down." I guess those kinds of questions are no longer appropriate on "60 Minutes," at least when the current occupant of the White House and his staff are present. No wonder Obama likes doing this current iteration of gotcha-less "60 Minutes." Noel Sheppard is associate editor of the Media Research Center's NewsBusters.org. He welcomes feedback at NewsBustersNoel@gmail.com.

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FOXNews.com: Thomas Edison was a ninja

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Thomas Edison was a ninja Jan 30th 2013, 12:00 At the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this month, innovation was on display in its full glory. This year, we celebrated "ninja innovation," a term I coined to describe the kind of unwavering commitment to victory that businesses must possess in order to be successful in today's marketplace. But while businesses across the country and the world embrace the core concepts of ninja innovation, America as a nation must do the same. Current policy decision-making has made it much harder for America to keep its economic footing. The rate of government spending is out of control and rapidly bringing us toward insolvency.  Our global competitiveness has also dropped dramatically from number one, where we stood during the Bush years, to number seven, where we stand now. Even business leaders claim that the increase in uncertainty will make it harder for them to innovate and hire. In order to combat this, America should adopt the driving philosophy that brings about success in the business world – ninja innovation. What set Thomas Edison apart from other inventors who were also creating potentially revolutionary technologies was his ability to envision an alternative future. He crafted something of value for everyday people that changed their lives. At its core, ninja innovation is about setting a goal and being unconventional to achieve it. Today's ninjas are agile, cunning, adaptive innovators who have created some of the world's best technology and enterprises.  The U.S. government and American society are not creating products, but they are responsible for creating and maintaining an environment and culture founded on the same principles. By adopting the spirit and strategies of today's most successful innovators, America can reclaim victory and continue as the world's leader. One of those successful innovators who exemplified the spirit of ninja innovation and revolutionized the world was Thomas Edison. He created the phonograph and the incandescent light, and his development of the central power station had a lasting impact not only on the consumer electronics industry, but indeed the entire world.  What set Edison apart from other inventors who were also creating potentially revolutionary technologies at the same time was his ability to envision an alternative future. He crafted something of value for everyday people that changed their lives. This required creativity, resolve and discipline. Having brilliance isn't enough. In order to win, one must have a clear goal of what it fully takes and where that success requires you to go. For America, that should be simple, we already know what it takes to get there.  Innovation has been America's strength for many reasons: our "can-do" attitude; a free-market system that rewards savvy risk takers; an educational system that encourages questions rather than rote learning; our First Amendment, which promotes different views without government censorship; our heterogeneous society; and our willingness to treat failure as a learning experience rather than a badge of dishonor. America's foremost goal must be the continued superiority of the U.S. economy. This means we must confront our spending and embrace an innovation strategy.  In the end, as history has shown, an authoritarian economy cannot compete with one premised on the unique power of free markets, free minds and free enterprise. But the role of government in a free market country is to be an efficient provider of services, not a nanny state borrowing from the next generation. It's time for America to make the tough choices, unleash its power and become a ninja, just like Thomas Edison. Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)®, the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,000 consumer electronics companies. His latest book is "Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World's Most Successful Businesses," (William Morrow, January 2013). He is also author of the New York Times bestselling book, "The Comeback: How Innovation Will Restore the American Dream" Contact him on Twitter at @GaryShapiro.

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FOXNews.com: Republicans aren't dead yet but they are definitely on life support

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Republicans aren't dead yet but they are definitely on life support Jan 29th 2013, 19:15 Some political commentators are dancing on what they believe to be the grave of the Republican Party, claiming that the only way the GOP can have a viable future is for them to behave like Democrats. Last weekend, National Review magazine sponsored a "conservative summit" in Washington. They should have held it elsewhere. Prior to speaking at that event, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal addressed the Republican National Committee's annual winter meeting in Charlotte, N.C., where he proposed a new strategy for Republicans and conservatives that begins, not in Washington, but at the state level. Jindal said the Republican Party loses when it plays on the liberal Democrats' turf, allowing them to set the agenda. Republicans should adopt the optimism and vision of Ronald Reagan, whose main gift to this country was to persuade Americans to believe in themselves. His optimism became our optimism. "America is not the federal government," he said. He maintained Republicans have wasted too much time trying to manage bloated government and too little time growing the private sector. The media and Democrats, he added, treat any serious proposal to restrain government growth as "not serious" when the truth is, "…nothing serious is deemed serious in Washington." Then in a face-slapping moment, Jindal added, "If this election taught us anything — it is that we will not win elections by simply pointing out the failures of the other side. We must boldly paint the picture of what America can be, of just how incredibly bright America's future can be." The real action is occurring away from Washington. Republican governors, a majority of state chief executives, are lowering or eliminating state incomes taxes, cutting wasteful spending, balancing budgets, or creating surpluses, and in the case of Indiana, sending rebate checks to taxpayers. Here are three Jindalisms the public can understand: "Government spending still does not grow our economy. … American weakness on the world stage still does not lead to peace. … Higher taxes still do not create prosperity for all." Poverty should not be the final verdict on any life. Republicans need to have "testimony time" during which people once addicted to government tell how they broke free and are now earning a paycheck because they embraced conservative principles. Republicans should be seen as friends of the poor instead of friends of the wealthy, who President Obama has said, are doing fine. Republicans should also partner with churches. Stop arguing about the evils of welfare dependency and start helping people live a life of self-sufficiency. That begins with a change in attitude and a transformation of outlook. What better institution to address these internal qualities than the church? If Republicans want to do something about the future, they should back a growing movement to pull children out of underperforming public schools where often their views, values, understanding of history and even faith are undermined.  Home-schooling is an option. The public school system, seemingly a "hot house" for growing new generations of secular liberals, is a failure on many levels. It makes no sense to me to put one's children in a school system that will likely transform their minds and souls into something quite different from those of their parents.  Private school is also an option. Many of them offer scholarships to children whose parents can't afford tuition. A solid education is the first step out of poverty. Negativity doesn't inspire. Criticizing Democrats might make the base feel good, but it solves nothing. Republicans should adopt the optimism and vision of Ronald Reagan, whose main gift to this country was to persuade Americans to believe in themselves. His optimism became our optimism. In the end, "we, the people" must realize they have the power, not Washington. Governor Jindal stated his vision in Charlotte: "…free individuals, taking risks, building businesses, inventing things from thin air, and passing immutable values from one generation to the next … that is the root of America's greatness." Are party members listening and willing to change, not their principles, but their approach to promoting those principles? We will know soon enough, but predictions of the party's demise are as premature as they were for Democrats during the Reagan-Bush electoral successes of 1980, '84 and '88. Republicans aren't dead yet, but changes are essential for the GOP to get off life support. They can start by reading Governor Jindal's speech. Cal Thomas is America's most widely syndicated newspaper columnist and a Fox News contributor. Follow him on Twitter@CalThomas. Readers may e-mail Cal Thomas at tmseditors@tribune.com.

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