Archives for June 2014

Retired U.S. Navy Captain Chuck Nash says Iraq is simply turning into “a big mess” and predicts a civil war between radical Sunni and Shia will be very bad news for the U.S. no matter who wins, so the best-case scenario is for the two sides to kill as many of the other as possible.

The situation in Iraq continues to deteriorate, as forces calling themselves the Islamic State of Syria and Iraq (ISIS) advance toward Baghdad while Iran takes more concrete steps to enter into the fray to bolster its allies in the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki and the government itself prepares to take a stand in the Shia-dominated areas.

Nash says the coming clash is obvious, but the end result is not.

“Essentially, Iraq is turning into a religious civil war,” said Nash, noting that Sunni and Shia hatred for each other is nothing new given centuries of dispute over who should have been the rightful heir to Mohammed.

“It’s a civil war in that you can’t clearly say all the Sunni are fighting on this side or all of the Shia are fighting on this side.  They’re not.  The Iranians had previously funded ISIS when they were fighting in Syria and even before that when they were Al Qaeda in Iraq and they were fighting U.S. forces in Iraq.  So the lines are very blurred.  It’s just a big mess,” said Nash.

Not only are the lines blurred, Nash says there’s a good chance this fight will go on a long time and the considerations are far more complicated than most people realize.

“I think what we’re going to see is a stalemate.  We’re going to have the Sunni north and west of Baghdad and toward the Syrian border.  You’re going to have the two-thirds Shia population, Baghdad and south toward Basra, and then you’re going to have the Kurdish north.  When that happens, that will start the next round of Middle East conflict,” said Nash.

“The Turks and the Iranians will not be happy with an independent Kurdistan.  The Syrians are not going to be happy with the Sunni to their east,” Nash said, adding that every possible outcome is bad news so the U.S. should feel no compunction to get involved or even see the conflict end anytime soon.

“Quite frankly, I’d be happy if they just all killed each other,” said Nash, noting how the current Shia regime in Baghdad squandered a golden opportunity for stability by exacting revenge on the Sunni in response for Saddam Hussein’s brutal treatment of the Shia during his reign.

ISIS brings certain advantages to the fight as well as major liabilities.  According to Nash, ISIS is much better funded and organized then most terrorist organizations.

“Instead of being your run of the mill, barbaric terrorist army, these guys have a very, very sophisticated fundraising and criminal enterprise that has brought them tens of millions of dollars.  They are not state supported per se, as the intelligence community originally thought, but in fact have been raising money through a vast criminal enterprise,” said Nash, citing one example as ISIS commandeering Syrian oil fields and then selling that oil back to the Syrian government at a significant profit.

Nash says the problem for ISIS is the same problem that doomed Al Qaeda in Iraq, namely that fellow Sunni quickly tired of their extremist tendencies and stopped cooperating with them once the immediate threat was past.

“They only have a limited amount of time to really entrench themselves in the Sunni population.  The Sunnis do not want to live under such a brutal, barbaric government as ISIS would bring forth,” he said.

Many conservatives assailed President Obama for having a leisurely weekend in California while Iraq is in chaos.  Nash says Obama’s actions over the past 48 hours are not the problem.  Instead, he says the U.S. habit of ignoring Iraq in recent years is catching up with us and no good options remain.

“Because of all the inactivity and the mismanagement for the last eight years, there’s not much you can do now.  It’s like personal choices in your life.  If you decide to drink two bottles of scotch and smoke three packs of cigarettes a day, and you do that for eight years and then start to notice the effect that it’s having on your body, going to a doctor and saying I’m ready to do something about this, it just may be too late,” said Nash.

Radio America’s Greg Corombos and Jim Geraghty from National Review start the week by discussing even more problems with the roll out of Obamacare as proponents refuse to see the problems with the program. They also talk about the convenient loss of Lois Lerner’s emails as part of the investigation into the IRS tea party controversy. They close Monday’s lunch by looking at Obama’s comparison of global warmer deniers with people who thought the moon was made of cheese instead of focusing on more important issues like the Iraqi crisis.

Truth is just as strange as fiction, as the recent U.S. release of five key Taliban figures closely mirrors the plot line of Scott McEwen’s new novel, “Target America,” which suggests the consequences of such a move could be calamitous within our own borders.

McEwen is a prolific author, known best for co-writing the best-selling “American Sniper” alongside famed military sniper and U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle.  “American Target” is the latest in McEwen’s Sniper Elite series.  He also co-authored the non-fiction work “Eyes on Target”, which chronicles the Benghazi terrorist attack and the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and how he believes the Obama administration poorly served Navy SEALs in both events.

In addition to discussing his new book, McEwen offered details about the forthcoming feature film based on “American Sniper” and the pending lawsuit Kyle’s widow still faces for Kyle allegedly defaming Jesse Ventura in that book.

“American Target” centers on Navy SEAL Gil Shannon and his elite team as they race to stop a nuclear weapon smuggled into the U.S. through our southern border.  McEwen says his idea for this novel originated from rel-life events and policies.

“We were concerned that there were terrorists being let out of Gitmo even back then, which has come to light pretty heavily in the last few days given the administration’s most recent releases.  They’ve been doing this for some time.  We were always concerned that this could end up blowing up in all of our faces,” said McEwen.

“When you let these guys go, if you think that they’re rehabilitated, then you live in a dream world in Washington.  They’re not rehabilitated and I expect that the ones we just let out are going to come back and show us that once again.  “Target America” is about preparing our country for that eventuality.

In addition to combining a real-world threat and a compelling novel, McEwen says making Americans aware of the courage of our military is also a priority.  He specifically cited the examples of ex-SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods in Benghazi, who saved upwards of 30 American lives by battling hundreds of terrorists for hours.  He says there many other American heroes of that caliber as well.

“That’s what these guys do.  I know a lot of guys who do that kind of work and that’s what I’ve incorporated into “American Target” is real-life stuff that goes on, real-life bad guys that get hunted and the methods and operations that are used to hunt these bad guys.  I think it’s important people know that there is another world out there.  It’s a shadowy world, but it’s one where heroes are made every day and there’s guys out there putting their lives on the line for us,” said McEwen.

One of those heroes was Chris Kyle, who stated in “American Sniper” that he recorded 255 kills, 160 of which he says are confirmed.  Those number make him the most prolific sniper in U.S. military history.

He was tragically killed in 2013 by a fellow veteran Kyle was trying to help work through post-traumatic stress.

His story is being made into a major motion picture being directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Bradley Cooper.  McEwen says Eastwood just finished shooting and the movie could be out as early as the end of the year.

McEwen says he thinks there are several reasons why Kyle’s story resonates with the American public.

“Chris was a patriot and he was a down-home type of guy.  He was a great guy, one of my favorite people to go out and have a beer with, just an interesting guy that just happened to be very, very good at what he did and ended up distinguishing himself in battle amongst some really heroic guys and SEAL teams,” said McEwen.

“At the end of the day was an American patriot.  He was a hero and someone people could identify with no matter what walk of society you were from,” he said.

One unpleasant result of “American Sniper” was the defamation lawsuit filed against Kyle by ex-SEAL and former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura.  In the book, Kyle describes punching out a famous person following an argument in a bar.  The book does not name Ventura, but Kyle revealed it was Ventura in a subsequent radio interview.

When Kyle was killed, Ventura chose not to drop the lawsuit but instead to sue Kyle’s widow, Taya, and his estate.

“Unfortunately, Jesse has seen fit to proceed with this, notwithstanding my discussions with him and imploring him to the contrary.  he is convinced the events didn’t take place s reported, whereas we had multiple SEAL team people have told similar events as to what was in the book,” said McEwen.

And what is McEwen’s reaction to Ventura continuing to pursue the case?

“It’s disappointment.  At the end of the day, suing Taya and the kids and the estate seems to make very little sense to me.  Jesse’s going to do whatever Jesse’s going to do.  I have my opinion of it and obviously my opinion is that it’s pretty low,” said McEwen.

“This is the decision he made.  I have attempted to get him talked out of that and say this is not the right one, either for himself, or Taya and the kids or or for the military community in general.  But I think Jesse kind of listens to his own drummer,” he said.

McEwen says the case is scheduled to go to trial in the first week of July.

Greg Corombos of Radio America and Jim Geraghty of National Review applaud Virginia GOP lawmakers for creating conditions to pass their budget through the senate and stop the Democratic governor from expanding Medicaid.  They also cringe as Iran suggests collaborating with the U.S. in stopping Sunni radicals from taking over Iraq.  And they react to the news Harrison Ford broke is ankle on the set of the new Star Wars movie.

A decorated Iraq War veteran says he and others who fought there are dismayed and angry that their hard-earned gains appear to be unraveling rapidly and he doubts whether President Obama even cares.

In the past several months, radical Islamist militants have been on the march in Iraq, securing the bulk of the western Anbar Province in January and just this week taking control of Mosul, the second largest city in Iraq.  They are now on the march to Baghdad to take control of the country and have declared an end to the border between Syria and Iraq.  Iraqis are fleeing Mosul and other cities by the hundreds of thousands.  The Islamists are reportedly beheading some of those left behind.

The primary actor behind the instability is the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS), originally an Al Qaeda affiliate responsible for such heinous atrocities in Syria that even Al Qaeda has publicly distanced itself from the group.

The rapid progress of ISIS is particularly difficult to watch for veterans of the the Iraq War.  Concerned Veterans for America CEO Pete Hegseth served in and around Samarra as a member of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division during the heat of the insurgency in 2005-2006.  He says veterans are deeply frustrated.

“Universal, utter dismay and anger from veterans and those who’ve served to see what’s unfolding before our eyes in Iraq.  It’s one of the greatest foreign policy failures in a long time.  To see the progress that we made and then watch it be given away is dismaying.  The implications strategically are vast.  I mean, we were so close.  We were creating the conditions for a stable and strong and freer Iraq, not a perfect one but one that would at least protect America’s interests and ensure radicals were not able to find safe harbor there,” said Hegseth.

According to Hegseth, the Obama administration was handed an increasingly stable situation in Iraq but the president had no interest in finishing the job.

“This administration was more obsessed with ending the war than winning it or being successful.  As a result, now that we’ve turned the page and looked away from Iraq, and insurgents have taken advantage of it,” said Hegseth,

Meanwhile, the New York Times is reporting that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki asked the United States to consider air strikes against ISIS as their progress became clear.  The reports say the Obama administration refused those requests, concluding that once our troops left Iraq at the end of 2011 the United States was done fighting in Iraq.

Hegseth minced few words in response to those reports.

“I don’t like to make blunt statements like this but I don’t think the Obama administration cares.  Their only interest in Iraq has been to end the war, turn the page and talk about how they don’t support it.  At this point, there’s no will, there’s no appetite, there’s no strategic thinking to re-engage in Iraq, even though what’s happening right now is a re-establishment of an even more dangerous element than we saw in the Taliban era in Afghanistan.  These are folks who want a space from which to form a state and then project jihad, not just regionally but around the world,” said Hegseth.

The turmoil in Iraq is the latest revelation to bring considerable frustration to our veterans, following on the heels of the Veterans Administration scandal and the controversial exchange of five key Taliban figures for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was in Taliban custody.

Hegseth says Concerned Veterans for America is able to have a positive impact reversing the problems at the VA.   He says there’s not much they can do but watch Taliban figures go free and Iraq fall further and further into the hands of radicals.

“When it comes to the Bergdahl swap or watching Iraq fade away, you feel helpless as you watch the things you’ve invested in that were so critical to America’s national security.  How you finish things matters regardless of the merits of how they were started.  It’s a rough time for veterans of those conflicts and I think has given me a better understanding of how Vietnam veterans felt when Saigon fell.  Even though Baghdad hasn’t fallen, and neither has Kabul, our commitment is waning and the enemy remains on the march.  And that’s a bad equation,” he said.

So what policy would Hegseth urge the administration to adopt now in Iraq?

“There are very few good options here.  I think the best response is to project strength rhetorically about what we will and will not tolerate, and where we can, putting our thumb on the scales to support the good guys.  That requires intelligence in Iraq that we don’t really have.  Immediate support for the regime is important to make sure Baghdad does not fall, and then from there looking at ways we can push back advances the enemy has made,” said Hegseth.

The U.S. withdrawal in 2011 largely followed the timetable established in the latter days of the George W. Bush administration.  The major difference is that the United States and Iraq failed to reach a Status of Forces Agreement to keep a residual American force in the country.  Hegseth says that would have made a monumental difference in where Iraq stands right now.

“It’s less about the force and more about the signal that this is a country that will have continued emphasis and focus from the United States of America and an understanding in the enemies of that state that they were not going to have the ability to challenge the Iraqi military,” said Hegseth, who also believes the total U.S. departure exacerbated dysfunction within the Iraqi government and led to the Maliki government seeking to dominate the Sunni population rather than find common ground with it.

While Hegseth faults Obama administration policy for the current chaos in Iraq, arguments from elsewhere on the political spectrum suggest none of this would be happening if the U.S. never went into Iraq.  They also assert that these same problems would have erupted whenever our residual forces left.

Hegseth says that line of reasoning is deeply flawed.

“I don’t grant that inevitably, down the line, it would descend into civil war.  I don’t accept that. I just don’t.  I think Iraq had the seeds for the foundation of representative government, not Jeffersonian, perfect, American-looking government but something where resolution was found through politics and not through the battlefield is possible,” said Hegseth.

“I think Iraq is somewhere where a stable outcome is more likely to happen than Afghanistan, which is the irony of Iraq being the bad war in everyone’s eyes and Afghanistan being the good war.  At least Iraq has the seeds of a civil society: an educated populace, infrastructure, a history of central governance.  All the things we’re seeing crumble before our eyes right now could have been shepherded through American commitment, but instead they’re slipping away,” said Hegseth.

Economics professor Dave Brat stunned House Majority Leader Eric Cantor on Tuesday and left pundits, politicians and operatives scrambling for an explanation for the lopsided upset, but veteran conservative activist Richard Viguerie says it’s a simple matter of voters being fed up with Washington and the status quo.

Viguerie is a lifelong conservative activist going back to the earliest days of the movement and pioneered direct mail in political campaigning.  He is now chairman of conservativehq.com and author of “Takeover: The 100-Year War for the Soul of the GOP and How Conservatives Can Finally Win It.”

On Tuesday, Brat defeated cantor by an 11-point margin, after coming no closer than 13 points in any poll conducted before the primary.  Cantor did not take the race lightly.  He spent roughly five million dollars trying to portray Brat as a liberal in GOP clothing.  Brat spent just $122,000.

The stunning results left the punditry scrambling for an explanation that ranged from Cantor’s positions on immigration reform to Democrats voting for Brat in the open primary in an effort to embarrass Cantor.  Viguerie says the motivation for ousting Cantor is no mystery to him.

“They wanted to send a message to Washington.  Whether their issue was amnesty for illegal aliens or the out of control spending by the Congress, over-regulation of people’s lives, the IRS scandal, the Veterans Administration scandal, etc., voters wanted to send Washington a message: ‘We’re unhappy with business as usual,'” said Viguerie.

“The establishment Republicans have too long been in bed with the Democrats in growing government.  This is a huge wake-up call for Republican leaders, not only in Washington but around the country.  The voters are tired of crony capitalism and they’re sending them a message,” he said.

But of all the opportunities for conservative voters to send a message to congressional leaders, why was Cantor vulnerable to defeat within his own party?

“He voted for TARP and to do away with the sequester.  He had many bad votes, but perhaps his number one failing was that he failed to lead.  Conservative voters want a lot of things from their politicians but the they want most are fighters.  They see strong leadership coming from the Democrats for their agenda, whether it’s the president, vice president or (Senate Majority Leader) Harry Reid.  They’re out there speaking aggressively in pushing the liberal Democrat agenda,” said Viguerie.

“Conservatives don’t see that we have effective leaders.  We have people who are silent.  They just don’t seem to have a backbone.  I think that was the number one failing above everything else from the standpoint of the conservative voters.  They didn’t see any fight in Eric Cantor,” he said.

Viguerie is not enthused at the prospect of House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-California) ascending to majority leader in the coming weeks.  He preferred Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), who Viguerie describes as a “solid, principled conservative.”  Hensarling says he will not run, meaning the field is essentially cleared for McCarthy to be leader for the rest of the year and the real scramble is to replace McCarthy as whip.

House Speaker John Boehner and several of his allies say Cantor’s loss does not change Boehner’s plans to remain as speaker next year.  Viguerie believes otherwise.

“I suspect that Boehner will hold on through this year and then step aside before the new Congress comes into office in 2015,” he said.

“If the Republicans are thinking straight, they will bring a really articulate, aggressive conservative  to fill that position.  Lincoln told us and the Bible tells us, ‘A house divided (against itself) cannot stand’.  Right now, the Republican Party is a house divided.  If they want to do well in the 2014 election as well as 2016, they’ve got to unite the Republican Party and reach out to the base of the party and make sure that grassroots, limited government, constitutional conservatives are represented in the Republican leadership.  Today, they’re not,” said Viguerie.

But while conservatives hailed the Brat victory in Virginia, they also watched South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham easily avoid a run-off in coasting to a win in his GOP primary Tuesday night.  In fact, several longtime incumbents have easily fended off tea party challengers this year.  So how does Viguerie explain the primary results across the board?

“Ninety-five percent of tea party successes have come in open races.  That’s how Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and others won.  It’s very, very difficult to beat an incumbent.  In order to beat an incumbent, you must have a really high-quality candidate,” said Viguerie.

“When running against these really entrenched incumbents, we haven’t had really quality candidates.  In Dave Brat, we had a first-class candidate.  We have a first-class candidate running against an incumbent in Mississippi, Chris McDaniel.  I think he’s going to win.  By these two elections, Virginia and Mississippi, when two quality candidates ran against entrenched incumbents, it will send a message to high-quality conservatives out there, ‘Let me take a chance against the king because it’s been done before with success,'” he said.

Radio America’s Greg Corombos and Jim Geraghty from National Review Online are pleased to see widespread criticism of Hillary Clinton’s book and interviews. Jim worries Baghdad will become another Saigon as radicals move toward Baghdad and the US refuses to provide airstrikes. President Obama says young people shouldn’t become cynical on Tumblr interview. But Jim points out the president is making Americans like that anyway.

A humanitarian crisis is growing quickly in parts of Texas and Arizona, as thousands upon thousands of unaccompanied illegal immigrant teenagers flood across the border and the federal government moves them to various locations for shelter.

Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar says this mess is entirely the work of the Obama administration and that Attorney General Eric Holder needs to be impeached for flouting federal law and effectively engaging in human smuggling.

Gosar has called for Holder’s resignation several times in the past, over issues such as the fatally botched gun-running operation known as Fast and Furious and the Justice Department harassment of Fox News Channel reporter James Rosen.  He says the attorney general’s latest actions make it imperative that he be removed.

“This is the continuing destruction of the rule of law and the constitutional framework which we operate under,” said Gosar, who cited as evidence that Holder needs to be removed from office.

“USC § 1324 (a)(1)(A) reads ‘knowingly, or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to enter or remains in the United State in violation of law, transports or moves or attempts to transport or move such alien within the United States by means of transportation or otherwise in futherance of such violation of the law,'” said Gosar.

“I’ve contended now, and it’s been supported by a U.S. federal judge, that the attorney general is in fact violating criminal smuggling laws.  Congress has the ability to impugn those people that actually disregard the rule of law.  It’s time to call him into question to stop the furtherance of the destruction of the rule of law,” he said.

Gosar says the crisis along the border is the latest impetus for removing Holder from office but he says support for impeachment is increasing and the public outrage is growing about several other issues as well.

“People are fed up.  We saw the election last night (that defeated House Majority Leader Eric Cantor).  People are scared and they’re angry at a government that will not uphold the rule of law.  That’s what made us special.  He is to tell the president, ‘Hey, you’re overreaching,’ whether it be immigration, whether it be prisoner release at Guantanamo, whether it be Fast and Furious, whether it be Benghazi behind the scenes.  In all this stuff, the attorney general is required to uphold the rule of law, and if he can’t, he needs to get out of the way,” said Gosar.

“If the House knows a breakdown of the law is occurring,it is their due diligence to file the articles of impeachment, to hold the attorney general accountable and make sure that we find an attorney general that can actually comply with the rule of law,” he said.

According to the government’s own data, the number of teenage illegals coming to America in the first half of 2014 easily dwarfs the total number from 2013 and previous years.  Gosar says the massive influx is no coincidence.

“The president said that he would not deport anybody, and then the attorney general was complicit in saying that they would not uphold the rule of law in border security.  They perpetuated this issue and what we’re seeing right now is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Gosar.

“What we’re generating is whole new generations of ‘dreamers’ that are then being taken by plane.  At least seven different flights have come from Texas to Arizona.  These people have been moved around without food, water, shelter and many have not had any vaccinations,” he said.

The congressman said his staff recently met with Homeland Security officials about the government’s transporting of illegal immigrants from one state to another.  He says DHS could not cite any part of federal allowing them to do what they are doing and further states that the federal government gave no advanced notice to him or Arizona state officials that thousands of destitute people would be transported to their state.

To further complicate matters, Gosar says most of the illegal immigrants have been coached to tell U.S. Border Patrol agents that they are seeking asylum from Mexican drug cartels or some other nefarious entity, which then compels the border agents not to return them across the border.

Gosar admits he does not have any Democrats on board with the idea of impeaching Eric Holder, but that won’t stop him from trying to bring it to the floor.

In the meantime, a flood of illegal immigrants is pouring across the border and being left in squalid conditions in Texas and Arizona.  Gosar says those problems should be addressed decisively.

“The first thing we need to do is enforce the immigration law, tell them they will not be accepted and that they will be returned home.  We have to highlight the complicit behavior that is being shown by this U.S. district  judge that shows that DHS is actually taking illegal immigrants that have crossed the border recently and then connected them with their illegal parents within the states,” said Gosar.

“These are not limited to Arizona.  They’ve gone to New York and Maryland as well.  So we need to highlight this aspect that we need to uphold the rule of law.  There’s a right way of coming in and there’s a wrong way.  This is the wrong way and we cannot tolerate it,” he said.

Radio America’s Greg Corombos and Jim Geraghty from National Review discuss Dave Brat’s improbable defeat of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in the Virginia GOP primary. They look at the future of Iraq in the wake of news that major cities are being taken over by Islamic militants. They close by talking through the Florida governor’s race and new polling showing Charlie Crist is deeply unpopular.

Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy says President Obama is guilty of numerous high crimes and misdemeanors that warrant his removal from office is proposing seven specific articles of impeachment on which he says the evidence is very clear.

McCarthy is best known as the lead prosecutor in the cases against the “blind sheikh”, Omar Abdel Rahman, and eleven conspirators behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and plots against other New York City landmarks.  McCarthy is now with the National Review Institute.  His new book is “Faithless Execution:  Building the Political Case for Obama’s Impeachment.”  In the book, he says the case for impeachment is solid, although he does not believe there is enough political will in the country to move forward at this time.

Nonetheless, McCarthy offers seven indictments, beginning with “The President’s Willful Refusal to Execute the Laws Faithfully and Usurpation of the Legislative Authority of Congress.”  Within that article, McCarthy cites Obama’s illegal and unilateral changing of federal statutes, from several components within Obamacare to scrapping codified welfare work requirements to amending immigration laws to enact policies Congress did not approve.

He also alleges Obama failed to execute laws ranging from layoff notifications to the Clean Air Act to nuclear waste and Medicare.  McCarthy says there’s a simple reason he put these allegations first.

“When I was a prosecutor, what you always want to have in the indictment is one count that’s pretty much indefensible.  I think even the president’s most ardent admirers would have to admit that he does not execute the laws faithfully, which is one of the most important duties that he has in the Constitution,” said McCarthy.

“The president is the only officer in our government who is required by the Constitution to take an oath to faithfully execute the laws and preserve the Constitution.  We have a president who is very arbitrary about laws.  He enforces some.  He doesn’t enforce others.  He’s selective.  He rewrites them.  He presumes to be able to decree federal benefits.  A lot of people may like that on the hard left because it’s basically implementing their ideological program.  But I think most people, if they’re of good faith, have to admit that he’s not following the law,” said McCarthy.

Obama’s alleged failure to faithfully enforce immigration laws also appears in the fifth article, specifically referring to the president’s unilateral conferring of amnesty upon certain groups of immigrants and fighting states that seek to enforce federal immigration laws on their own.  Immigration is also mentioned in another article on defrauding the American people, alleging the administration deliberately misleads the public on its border enforcement record.

McCarthy says there is a very good reason for the heavy focus on immigration.

“I think it’s because it’s so blatant.  The president has taken the position that he can write the immigration law himself.  He’s tried to go the constitutional route.  He’s tried to go to Congress.  He hasn’t gotten what he’s wanted.  What he says in those instances is that, ‘If Congress won’t act, I will.’  Constitutionally, it’s not that Congress won’t act.  They’ve said no.  His response to that is to become imperious and try to impose his own program and do it in a way that not only disregarding of the Constitution’s separation of powers but also is an insult to the sovereignty of the states,” said McCarthy.

Other articles of impeachment on McCarthy’s list, include “Usurping the Constitutional Authority and Prerogatives of Congress” for not getting congressional authorization for extended military action in Libya and making recess appointments at a time when the Senate was not in recess, and dereliction of duty as commander-in-chief.  The latter charge focuses on crippling rules of engagement that McCarthy says makes our troops much more vulnerable and more unlikely to complete their missions.

McCarthy also sees impeachable offenses on this front in the recent prisoner swap that allowed five key Taliban figures to go free from Guantanamo in exchange for captive U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl.

“I’m not impressed by the one that seems to have everybody whipped up in Washington, this 30-day notification requirement.  I think that’s of dubious constitutionality.  I actually think Obama has a pretty good argument on that statute because it really does try to restrict his core constitutional authority as commander-in-chief,” said McCarthy.

“It seems to be quite beside the point when we have a commander-in-chief who is replenishing the enemy in wartime when the enemy is still on the battlefield conducting offensive, jihadist operations against our guys.  That’s about as shocking a dereliction of duty as I can imagine,” said McCarthy.

McCarthy lodges another article of impeachment against Obama for fraud perpetrated against the American people.  The allegations under that charge focus on the core promises of Obamacare that Americans could keep their health plans and doctors.  They also cite Obama for going into Libya under the premise of averting genocide and always intending to depose Moammar Ghaddafi, blaming the 2012 Benghazi attacks on a video long after the truth was known, facilitating Iran’s nuclear program while publicly vowing to stop it and propping up the green energy firm Solyndra with taxpayer dollars in a way that deceived investors.

Another article calls for impeachment based on the Justice Department’s alleged failure to execute the laws faithfully.  That indictment centers on the illegal monitoring of reporters, the Fast and Furious gun-running operation, politicizing the hiring process at the Justice Department and unequally applying civil rights laws.

On matters such as Benghazi, the Justice Department’s actions and even the IRS scrutiny of conservatives, it is still unclear what Obama knew and if he had an active role in those issues.  McCarthy says it doesn’t matter.

“In the system the framers gave us, it was very important to them that the president be accountable.  If you look at the Constitution carefully, you’d find that all the executive power in the government is invested in one person.  It is not endowed in this vast array of executive agencies.  It is singularly the president who is responsible,” said McCarthy.

“It’s not what Hillary Clinton does or Susan Rice does or Eric Holder or Eric Shinseki or any of the people who have become infamous over the past five -and-a-half years.  All those facts are attributable to the president,” said McCarthy, who says the founders would have little patience with the Obama administration’s frequent explanation that the president did not know or approve of any wrongdoing.

The final article accuses Obama of undermining the constitutional rights of the American people, from the IRS harassment of conservatives applying for non-profit status to his refusal to classify the Ft. Hood massacre as an act of terrorism to infringing on religious freedom through the contraception and abortifacient mandate and eroding gun rights through the United Nations.

However, McCarthy save some special frustration for Obama’s efforts to stifle criticism of Islam in the public square.

“From the first days of Obama’s presidency in 2009 with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, that’s this cabal of 57 Islamic government including the Palestinian Authority, they’ve been working on a resolution to curtail American free speech rights in deference to sharia blasphemy standards.  They have essentially struck a human rights resolution that makes it unlawful to engage in expression that could incite hostility to religion.  Of course, there’s only one religion we’re talking about in this context,” he said.

“Proving that there is an Obama administration mandate that attacks religious liberty, it’s not difficult to prove these things have happened, and I don’t even think it’s hard to prove these are high crimes and misdemeanors.  Are they serious enough?  Does the public think this is egregious enough to remove the president from power?” asked McCarthy.