There certainly is wide enough room for thoughtful and well-meaning people to disagree about the appropriate approach to the presence in the United States of millions of people who have come here illegally. But those same thoughtful Americans should be very concerned with President Obama’s unilateral amendment of federal law in this regard. It is yet another indication that the president believes no federal asset is unavailable to him in his reelection bid and that he has a presumptive monopoly on knowing what is right for America.

Despite federal laws providing for the deportation of illegal immigrants, the president last week issued an executive order that generally will allow illegal immigrants who came to the United States before they were 16 and are younger than 30 to remain here without fear of deportation. Yet Congress has repeatedly refused to amend the law to adopt such a policy. And last year Mr. Obama himself rejected the importuning of immigration activists in this regard, saying the matter was beyond his authority:

With respect to the notion that I could suspend deportations though executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed and…the executive branch’s job is to enforce and implement those laws and then the judiciary has to interpret the law. There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply, through executive order, ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as president.

Not a few commentators have pointed out that while the president has the authority under certain circumstances to refuse to enforce what he believes to be an unconstitutional law and to prioritize prosecutions because of limited resources, nobody is arguing that the immigration laws are unconstitutional, nor can he unilaterally carve out an exemption from the coverage of a law for an arbitrarily configured category of people.

Particularly disturbing are the blatantly political motivations of the president and his obvious attitude that everything goes. Even The New York Times, usually supportive of Mr. Obama to a fault, noted the politics of the executive order: “In many ways, President Obama’s unilateral shift in immigration policy was a bluntly political move, a play for a key voting bloc in the states that will decide whether he gets another term.”

Most chilling, though, is the president’s rationale that his actions “were the right thing for the American people,” as if that is a one-dimensional proposition to be determined by him alone. Indeed, here is what a White House official said:

We work to achieve our policy goals in the most effective and appropriate way possible. Often times, Congress has blocked efforts and we look to pursue other appropriate means of achieving our policy goals. Sometimes this makes for less-than-ideal policy situations – such as the action we took on immigration – but the president isn’t going to be stonewalled by politics, he will pursue whatever means available to do business on behalf of the American people.

This all bears careful consideration as we approach the November election.

EJP reports that eight extreme-right politicians on Wednesday were expelled from the Saxony, Germany, state parliament for wearing neo-Nazi T-shirts.

The lawmakers, from the controversial National Democratic Party (NDP), were forcibly removed by police after refusing to leave on their own.

The speaker of the assembly in Saxony, in formerly communist eastern Germany where NDP support is predominantly based, banned the seven men and one woman from the house after being alerted regarding their Thor Steinar brand shirts, which had been outlawed in 2007 for its “Viking” and “Nordic” style slogans which have become closely linked with the neo-Nazi movement in Germany.

Authentic Nazi clothing and memorabilia are illegal in Germany.

Last month, violence broke out at an NDP rally in Hamburg, when 4,000 counter protesters tried to block a 700-strong neo-Nazi contingent from demonstrating. Six neo-Nazis and 20 protestors were arrested, and 38 of the force of 4,000 police officers on hand at the rally were reportedly injured.

Dieter Graumann, head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, appealed to the country’s federal courts to outlaw the BDP, which claims 7,000 members, but is thought to have a far wider unofficial following.

The party, described as “the most significant neo-Nazi party to emerge after 1945” in Germany is currently represented in two of Germany’s 16 state parliaments. The federal government previously tried to have the extremist party banned in 2001, but following the revelation that many high profile members were in fact undercover agents and informants for the German secret services, and the government’s subsequent unwillingness to reveal their identities and activities, the case was dismissed.

British clothing brand Lonsdale has also been widely claimed by neo-Nazi supporters, as the middle four letters of the its branded products spell “NSDA,” part of the German acronym for the Nazi party. The company has strongly disclaimed any links with neo-Nazi movements.

On its face, it might seem that Attorney General Eric Holder’s appointment of two veteran federal prosecutors to mount a criminal investigation into the recent spate of national security leaks is a step in the right direction. Indeed, those appointments seem to have quieted congressional calls for the appointment of a special independent investigative counsel and holding congressional hearings into what will doubtless come to be known as Leakgate. Yet there are some issues that come to mind.

For one thing, while we have no reason to doubt the integrity or qualifications of the two attorneys, they will be working within the confines of and answerable to higher-ups in the Justice Department, which, after all, serves as the administration’s legal adjunct. And they will have to work with the ordinary powers prosecutors have at their disposal.

It will be recalled that it was the extraordinary powers granted to the special prosecutors in the Watergate episode – Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski – that engendered much litigation and conflict but also enabled them to develop and follow leads in order to make headway in the case.

But more significant is that while the leaks certainly require attention in terms of criminal law, they surely have an overriding political aspect, raising as they do the possibility of possible Obama administration involvement – something especially significant now, in the run up to the November presidential election.

Holding public officials politically responsible – or exonerating them – for leaking to journalists in advance of an election is primary. Yet the secretiveness attendant to a criminal investigation, which will feature the empanelling of grand juries, issuance of subpoenas and interviews of potential witnesses, will also tend to dry up the public flow of information.

Those with inside knowledge will doubtless be counseled by their attorneys to keep their silence outside of the criminal investigation. And this would be true of a criminal investigation by either regular or special prosecutors. So the chances are the public will hear nothing more about the leaks until after the election, when the Justice Department investigation is concluded.

A further lesson from Watergate also presents itself. A robust and very public set of Senate hearings chaired and co-chaired by Senators Sam Ervin and Howard Baker were conducted at the same time as the criminal investigation – which resulted in a number of convictions of senior Nixon administration figures – and which certainly did not hamper it in any way. More to the point, the process of gaining those convictions was not compromised by the public hearings.

Voters have a right to know how the leaks of such important secrets came about, particularly as they prepare to cast their ballots in November. Properly designed Watergate-type congressional hearings would seem eminently appropriate to the task at hand.

Republican U.S. Senate candidate and Ohio state Treasurer Josh Mandel is returning $105,000 in campaign contributions, because those contributions may have been given in a fraudulent manner. The FBI is investigating possible campaign finance violations.

The Cleveland Jewish News reports that the donations in question came from 21 employees of the Suarez Corporation Industries in North Canton and from their spouses.

On the company website, Benjamin and Nancy Suarez tout their own philanthropic efforts on behalf of women, particularly breast cancer research and women’s shelters, which “give hope to thousands in need and inspire their associates to do the same.”

But their employees’ contributions to Mandel’s campaign raised suspicions, because they were made by individuals who never before had made campaign donations, and whose income didn’t appear high enough to enable them to be this generous.

FBI Special Agent Vicki Anderson confirmed on Wednesday to the Cleveland Jewish News that the Bureau had interviewed the SCI employees in question and have already requested documents from the company and the campaign.

The FBI is also probing the campaign of U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci (R., Wadsworth), who received similar-sized contributions from SCI personnel.

Mandel Campaign spokesman Travis Considine on Thursday said the money was returned on Tuesday to the 21 individuals. Mandel, who was sworn into office as state treasurer in January, 2011, is running against Democratic incumbent Ohio U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer got hold of a letter from Mandel’s campaign treasurer Kathryn Kessler, saying the campaign is giving back “any contributions that appear to be under investigation by federal authorities.”

“We believe we have no reason to be concerned with the contribution, but out of an abundance of caution and until the investigation is complete, we believe this course of action is most appropriate,” Ms. Kessler’s letter said.

Democrats were delighted Mandel had to give back the funds.

“Josh Mandel is a politician who can’t be trusted, and the fact he has been shamed into returning $105,000 in illegal contributions only after an FBI investigation became public goes right along with hiring unqualified political cronies and missing every single board of deposit meeting his first year in office,” said Justin Barasky, a spokesman for Friends of Sherrod Brown.

Federal campaign finance law prohibits a donor from contributing in someone else’s name to get around the $5,000 limit. Election law also prohibits a corporation from reimbursing employees for their contributions.

Benjamin Suarez said his employees were not reimbursed by him or his company.

Josh Mandel is the 48th Treasurer of the State of Ohio, having been elected as the top vote-getter of all statewide executive candidates, winning 80 of Ohio’s 88 counties.

Mandel enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves in 2000, where he graduated first in his class from Marine Corps Boot Camp and first in his class from Marine Corps Intelligence School. His Marine Corps career spanned eight years, including two tours in Anbar Province, Iraq. During both tours he was awarded the Navy & Marine Corps Achievement Medal for “superior performance of his duties.”

Supporters say he’s an innocent man caught up in the tentacles of a corrupt Latin American regime.

Authorities in Bolivia allege he’s a shady businessman with ties to drug dealers and money launderers.

What’s certain is that Jacob Ostreicher, a 53-year-old chassidic Jew from New York, is in a state of limbo, sitting in a jail in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz waiting to be tried or released on bail.

Five weeks ago, in a bid to pressure authorities to expedite the handling of his case, Ostreicher began a hunger strike following 10 months of appeals to the U.S. State Department.

Ostreicher, a father of five from the Boro Park section of Brooklyn, belonged to a group of investors led by Andre Zolty of the Swiss firm Lexinter that sunk $25 million into growing rice in lush eastern Bolivia. He was arrested last June by Bolivian police. During his arraignment, the judge alleged that Ostreicher did business with “people wanted in their countries because of links with drug trafficking and money laundering.”

The judge also determined Ostreicher should not be allowed to post bail because “being free, the accused could destroy [or] change evidence that could lead the attorney general to discover the truth.”

Since then Ostreicher, who maintains his innocence, has been waiting. He has cycled through multiple court hearings, three judges, three prosecutors and four defense attorneys. One judge released him from jail in September, only to retract the order and send him back less than a week later. As of now the case is without a judge.

While the case has dragged on, some of the 40 million pounds of rice harvested from Ostreicher’s fields and later seized by the Bolivian government have begun to disappear.

The head of the Bolivian agency in charge of seized property, Moises Aguilera, told The Associated Press in December that the rice had to be sold because otherwise it would spoil. But Ostreicher’s partners accuse the Bolivian government of trying to profit from the confiscated rice.

Bolivian authorities have declined to discuss the details of the case publicly.

Ostreicher’s saga began when he joined Zolty’s partnership in June 2008 and traveled to Bolivia to see the rice business firsthand. Over the course of several trips from 2008 to 2010, Ostreicher says he was never able to inspect the books of the Bolivian rice fields because the manager, Claudia Liliana Rodriguez Espitia, was never around.

Eventually, Ostreicher said, he came to believe Rodriguez was stealing millions of dollars from the investors. He convinced Zolty to fire Rodriguez, and Ostreicher took over the business.

When Rodriguez disappeared soon after leaving the venture, Ostreicher took out a full-page ad in a major local newspaper offering a $25,000 reward to whoever could find her.

While police investigated Rodriguez for corruption, they discovered she had purchased a portion of the rice fields from the brother of her drug dealer boyfriend, Maximiliano Dorado.

Bolivian federal prosecutors began to question Ostreicher in March 2011. He continued to travel back and forth to the United States, and approached the U.S. Embassy in Bolivia; Ostreicher says U.S. officials told him not to worry.

“The embassy told me I should be honest with the investigation. That’s what I did,” Ostreicher said. “I wish the U.S. Embassy had told me to get the hell out of the country.”

An embassy official said he could not comment on private conversations.

On the eve of Shavuot last year, when Ostreicher was scheduled to fly home to New York, prosecutors called him in for another round of questioning. Anxious to get home for the holiday, Ostreicher asked if he could come to their office to finish the deposition as soon as possible. He arrived on June 3, responded to questions and thanked the prosecutor for adjusting his schedule.

Moments later, Ostreicher was arrested. The grandfather of 11 says he was shoved into a cell with no toilet or shower.

The next day at his arraignment, the judge charged Ostreicher with being “the representative of Andre Zolty” and having “commercial relations with Maximiliano Dorado, both people wanted in their countries because of links with drug trafficking and money laundering … proving the circle between Andre Zolty, Maxi Dorado … and Claudia Liliana Rodríguez Espitia.”

The current issue of Commentary magazine tells of sordid – and possibly criminal – Obama administration efforts to alter some files of the George W. Bush administration that refer to Jerusalem as being part of Israel. The article also adds a fascinating footnote to the much-publicized Zivotofsky case.

It will be recalled that, pursuant to a federal statute that required the State Department to list “Israel” as the country of birth of U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem if so requested, the parents of Menachem Zivotofsky applied for that recordation on his behalf.

The State Department denied the request on the grounds that the U.S. does not recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and that such a designation would be tantamount to U.S. recognition and therefore an unconstitutional Congressional intrusion on the powers of the president in setting American foreign policy.

However, the Commentary article, “Capital Offense: The Obama Administration and its Jerusalem Problem” by Omri Ceren, reports that in the course of the litigation in the matter, and shortly in advance of its Supreme Court phase, the Obama administration seems to have “scrubbed” Bush-era documents to eliminate existing references to Jerusalem as part of Israel, apparently fearing the references would belie its position on the significance of the passport designation. According to the article,

In August 2011, the administration was caught digitally altering archived historical documents of previous White Houses in order to suggest, falsely, that past administrations had had the same policy. The administration had erased parts of publicly available documents in a brazen attempt to trick people into thinking that other administrations had taken positions they had not.

When “the White House’s tactics sparked accusations of a cover-up,” writes Ceren, “the administration claimed [the references] were simply a mistake, and that neither the Obama administration nor any prior administration ever referenced ‘Jerusalem, Israel’ in official documents.”

However, Ceren continues,I uncovered several references to “Jerusalem, Israel” throughout the web pages of the George W. Bush presidency…. Politico later found dozens of documents stretching back to the Nixon administration, including the official daily diaries of presidents visiting the city, stamped “Jerusalem, Israel.”

Ceren said the documents he and Politico uncovered “were on archive servers beyond the administration’s control. But there were other servers, including those run by the State Department, that were within the administration’s reach” which related to pre-Obama presidencies:

There had been pre-Obama documents on the State Department servers that mentioned “Jerusalem, Israel.” Two documents listing the locations of American consulates, one from 2002 and one from 2003, placed the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem in “Israel.” Some time after the controversy began in 2011, somebody went back to those documents and scrubbed them to read only “Jerusalem.”…. Thus, while some administration officials were telling reporters and the public that there were no Bush-era documents referencing “Jerusalem, Israel,” other administration officials were busy scrubbing Bush-era documents referencing “Jerusalem, Israel.” Such digital alteration is no small task. Somebody at the State Department had to go back to the original 2002 and 2003 documents, convert them into PDF files, then upload the new ones to the State Department servers under the same file names as the old documents.

Federal law makes it a criminal offense to tamper with federal documents. In 2004, Sandy Berger, former national security adviser to President Clinton, narrowly avoided prison but paid a fine of $50,000 and lost his law license for pilfering archived documents.

Further, the position the Obama administration has presented to the Supreme Court and other federal courts is that the designation of Jerusalem as part of Israel would signify U.S. recognition as a matter of foreign policy. Yet the above-mentioned references to Jerusalem were made at the same time that previous administrations refused to officially recognize the city as part of Israel. This is a story with legs.

Democratic candidates vying for Connecticut’s US Senate, which is being vacated by retiring US Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, are not sure their colleague Lee Whitnum should be allowed to participate in future live televised debates, after she called US Rep. Chris Murphy a “whore” for his support of Israel, during a Thursday debate sponsored by NBC Connecticut.

“I’m dealing with a whore here who sells his soul to AIPAC, who will say anything for the job,” she said about Murphy’s strong support for Israel.

She also suggested another candidate, State Rep. William Tong, D-Stamford, was “ignorant,” after he voiced his support for Murphy’s point.

Earlier in the debate Whitnum said that if the US stop its support for Israel, this could mean an additional $600 million in federal funds for Connecticut, for fixing its schools and bridges.

In fact, Whitnum said she was suing the federal government to make it do just that – divert funds from foreign aid to Israel to Connecticut.

“The Jewish community has always taken care of its own. There isn’t any reason why Connecticut children and Connecticut people have to pay the price for a country that is not impoverished,” Whitnum said.

When she was not invited to the previous Democratic debate, Whitnum sued to be included, but the court rejected her suit.

With an eye to the Arab vote in Connecticut (between 1.5% and 2% of the state of some 3.5 million are of Arab descent), Whitnum also proposed that the US prosecute American settlers who “go to Israel and maim or kill in the Promised Land.” She said this “would solve anti-American sentiments worldwide. This is the number one reason why people hate this country.”

A visit to Whitnum’s campaign website reveals a staunch anti-Israeli forcus. Her front page declares:

Although I discuss more than 60 issues on this website, these are the most important items on my agenda:

My First Senate Bill: Prosecute American Settler Violence (also known as the anti-Zionism bill).

My Second Senate Bill: Stop the Clear-Cutting of our Oceans.

My Third Senate Bill: Abolish the U.S.-Israel Free Trade Agreement.

My Fourth Senate Bill: Stop the gas chambers for our pets.

Perhaps the last item was added to show that, although the candidate opposes Israel, she is decidedly against gas chambers…

Congressman Murphy replied that Israel needs support from the United States now more than ever.

“This is in our national security interest, ultimately in the interest of US taxpayers, to have a strong relationship with Israel, and I think it is worth saying on this stage that a lot of her comments have been out of bounds and over the line,” said Murphy, who along with former Secretary of the State of Connecticut Susan Bysiewicz are the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination.

In his final comments, Murphy said that he had “advocated for all the candidates to be a part of these debates,” but now he “might think twice about that, with that kind of awful language being used on the airwaves.”

Bysiewicz, Tong and candidate Matthew Oakes all expressed disgust over Whitnum’s comments.