News/Politics

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News/Politics 2-4-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. There’s a reason they call him “Dirty Harry.” But he isn’t the only dirty one here.

From ABCNews  “Officials overseeing a federal program that offers an immigration short-cut to wealthy foreign investors have ignored pointed warnings from federal agents and approved visas for some immigrants suspected of having committed fraud, money laundering, and even one applicant with alleged ties to a child porn website, an ABC News investigation has found. The shortcomings prompted concerns within the Department of Homeland Security that the boutique immigration program would be exploited by terrorists, according to internal documents obtained by ABC News.

“It is shocking,” said Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican. “Particularly when you have F.B.I. and other law enforcement agencies that are saying national security could be compromised or is being compromised — that’s enough for us to be concerned.”

Five different Homeland Security whistleblowers spoke with ABC News about a range of cases where visas were approved despite numerous red flags. They said objections were often ignored because the immigration program is so popular within the Obama Administration and with members of Congress from both parties. Known as the EB-5 visa program, foreigners who are willing to invest $500,000 in an American business can jump to the front of the line and obtain legal status to live in the U.S. for two years. If the investment is shown to create at least 10 jobs, the investors can receive a “Green Card” — permanent residency.”

“In 2013, then-Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe was accused by political opponents of trying to prod federal officials to approve visas for investors in an electric vehicle start-up venture he ran. He denied that he sought undue influence. In 2014, questions about an EB-5 investment scheme in South Dakota became grist for political ads targeting then-U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rounds, who was attacked for his role in oversight of investment projects while he was governor. Rounds called the attacks political and “inaccurate” and “defamatory.”

Questions about the SLS Hotel project in Las Vegas first gained attention when an article in The Washington Times revealed that Homeland Security expedited the processing of investor visas after Nevada Sen. Harry Reid (D) and his staff began prodding the department to move faster. Reid aides said their push to eliminate longstanding bureaucratic hurdles with the program and was aimed at creating local jobs.”

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2. Anybody shocked? These folks deserve better.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “President Obama’s 2016 budget blueprint proposes rolling back a program that gives veterans the right to receive faster care outside of the long waitlists at the troubled Veterans Affairs medical system.

Obama signed the Veterans Choice Program into law in August following months of partisan wrangling on Capitol Hill that finally led to a compromise measure to overhaul the agency. The Veterans Choice Program was a key GOP provision in the deal.

Authored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the measure provides “choice” cards to veterans that can be used to obtain medical care at designated facilities outside of the VA system.

But Obama announced Monday he’ll send a legislative proposal to Congress that would allow the VA to raid the program’s funding, now set at $10 billion.”

“Democrats have pushed for additional money for the VA to pay for new hospitals and more doctors, but Republicans contend that waste and mismanagement are the primary problems facing the VA, and the Choice Program gives vets a chance to escape the dysfunction by allowing them to receive outside medical care.

Veterans groups were angered by the move to divert funding from the program, noting that Obama had touted the legislation to reform the VA in the months leading up to the November election and did not express opposition to the choice cards.”

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3. The legacy of debt interest.

From TheWallStJournal  “The U.S. has come a long way since the days of trillion-dollar deficits, just a few years ago. The White House projects 2016 will have the smallest budget deficit in eight years. Yet the budgetary impact of the debt that’s been accumulated–$18 trillion in total, $13 trillion of that owed to the public–will reassert itself.

Currently, the government’s interest costs are around $200 billion a year, a sum that’s low due to the era of low interest rates. Forecasters at the White House and Congressional Budget Office believe interest rates will gradually rise, and when that happens, the interest costs of the U.S. government are set to soar, from just over $200 billion to nearly $800 billion a year by decade’s end.”

“By 2021, the government will be spending more on interest than on all national defense. according to White House forecasts. And one year later, interest costs will exceed nondefense discretionary spending–essentially every other domestic and international government program funded annually through congressional appropriations. (The largest part of the budget is, and will remain, the mandatory spending programs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Mandatory spending is over $2 trillion and is set to double to $4 trillion by 2025.)”

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4. Manufacturing is down for the fourth month in a row.

From HotAir  “For the fifth straight month, US manufacturing sector has slowed, according to the Department of Commerce. Overall orders for manufacturing dropped 3.4% in December, led by a steep drop in transportation. Even without that, orders fell by 2.3%, and the overall decline in November was adjusted downward to 1.7%:

New orders for manufactured goods in December, down five consecutive months, decreased $16.4 billion or 3.4 percent to $471.5 billion, the U.S. Census Bureau reported today. This followed a 1.7 percent November decrease. Excluding transportation, new orders decreased 2.3 percent. Shipments, down four of the last five months, decreased $5.3 billion or 1.1 percent to $488.2 billion. This followed a 1.0 percent November decrease. Unfilled orders, down following ten consecutive monthly increases, decreased $9.4 billion or 0.8 percent to $1,166.9 billion. This followed a 0.2 percent November increase. The unfilled orders-to-shipments ratio was 6.69, down from 6.81 in November. Inventories, down following eighteen consecutive monthly increases, decreased $2.0 billion or 0.3 percent to $653.9 billion. This followed a slight November increase. The inventories-to-shipments ratio was 1.34, up from 1.33 in November.

Durable goods dropped as well, by 3.3%:

New orders for manufactured durable goods in December, down four of the last five months, decreased $8.0 billion or 3.3 percent to $230.6 billion, revised from the previously published 3.4 percent decrease. This followed a 2.2 percent November decrease. Transportation equipment, also down four of the last five months, led the decrease, $6.7 billion or 9.1 percent to $66.8 billion. New orders for manufactured nondurable goods decreased $8.5 billion or 3.4 percent to $240.8 billion.”

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5. The Big Lie: 5.6% unemployment.

From Gallup  “Here’s something that many Americans — including some of the smartest and most educated among us — don’t know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.

Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is “down” to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market.

None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job — if you are so hopelessly out of work that you’ve stopped looking over the past four weeks — the Department of Labor doesn’t count you as unemployed. That’s right. While you are as unemployed as one can possibly be, and tragically may never find work again, you are not counted in the figure we see relentlessly in the news — currently 5.6%. Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed. Trust me, the vast majority of them aren’t throwing parties to toast “falling” unemployment.”

“There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.”

“Gallup defines a good job as 30+ hours per week for an organization that provides a regular paycheck. Right now, the U.S. is delivering at a staggeringly low rate of 44%, which is the number of full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18 years and older. We need that to be 50% and a bare minimum of 10 million new, good jobs to replenish America’s middle class.”

They’ve been fudging things for years. But it’s nice to see others finally catching on to it.

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6. And since we’re on the subject of big lies…..

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The chairman of a special House committee created to investigate the 2012 Benghazi tragedy on Monday instructed his staff to review secretly recorded tapes and intelligence reports that detail Hillary Rodham Clinton’s role in advocating and executing the war in Libya, opening the door for a possible expansion of his probe.

Rep. Trey Gowdy’s decision to seek a review of the materials, first highlighted in a series of Washington Times stories last week, carries consequences for the 2016 election in which Mrs. Clinton is expected to seek the presidency. It could also move the committee to examine the strained relationship between the State Department and Pentagon, which sharply disagreed over the 2011 war in Libya and the response to the terrorist attack on the U.S. compound in Benghazi a year later.

The Times reported last week that U.S. intelligence did not support Mrs. Clinton’s story of an impending genocide in Libya that she used to sell the war against Moammar Gadhafi’s regime. The newspaper also unveiled secretly recorded tapes from Libya that showed that the Pentagon and Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich so distrusted her stewardship of the war that they opened their own diplomatic channels with the Gadhafi regime.

The tapes included candid conversations and allegations that Mrs. Clinton took the U.S. to war on false pretenses and was not listening to the advice of military commanders or career intelligence officers.”

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by

News/Politics 2-3-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. In my best Gollum voice…..

Stupid hobbits……..

From TheNYDailyNews  “Tolkien lore led a Texas boy to suspension after he brought his “one ring” to school.

Kermit Elementary School officials called it a threat when the 9-year-old boy, Aiden Steward, in a playful act of make-believe, told a classmate he could make him disappear with a ring forged in fictional Middle Earth’s Mount Doom.

“It sounded unbelievable,” the boy’s father, Jason Steward, told the Daily News. He insists his son “didn’t mean anything by it.”

The Stewards had just watched “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies” days earlier, inspiring Aiden’s imagination and leading him to proclaim that he had in his possession the one ring to rule them all.”

Wait until you read about this little troublemakers other infractions. 🙄

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2. It’s a good thing our economy is booming….. 🙄

From NationalReview  “More than 5.46 million foreign nationals have received work permits from the federal government since 2009, according to a new report from the Center for Immigration Studies. Data uncovered from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency reveal that approximately 982,000 work permits were given to illegal immigrants and other foreign nationals unqualified for admission, most of whom crossed the border without inspection. USCIS is the agency within the Department of Homeland Security responsible for issuing work permits and processing applications related to President Obama’s executive action on immigration. On Tuesday, the Senate is scheduled to vote on a bill that funds DHS, while blocking funding that would allow USCIS to implement the president’s executive action. 

The remarkable number of work permits granted by the federal government to law-breaking aliens better explains how all net jobs growth since 2007 has gone to immigrants. The government issued approximately 1.7 million work permits since 2009 to aliens whose status was not known, not recorded, or not disclosed by USCIS, according to the report. The report says employment is not authorized by law for approximately 1.2 million immigrants who collected work permits while having a temporary visa status. And the data show that approximately 1,200 new work permits went to unlawful entrants who were denied asylum, were suspected of using fraudulent documentation, were stowaways, or were refused at a port of entry.”

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3. So how are things working out with all of the criminal illegals that ICE has released to re-offend? Exactly as you’d expect.

From CNSNews  “When President Obama announced his expanded executive amnesty last November, he said he would prioritize the deportation people who threaten national security and public safety. “Felons, not families — criminals, not children” would be deported, Obama said on Nov. 20.

But under Obama’s prosecutorial discretion policy, illegal aliens who commit lesser crimes are allowed to stay in the country — free to re-offend, as it turns out.

According to the Homeland Security Department (DHS), 36,007 criminal aliens were released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody in Fiscal Year 2013, and of that total, 1,000 have since been convicted of new crimes, ranging from assault with a deadly weapon and lewd acts with a child to aggravated assault, robbery, and hit-and-run.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced on Friday that he has received a 38-page document from DHS listing the crimes committed by the one-thousand re-offenders released from ICE custody in FY 2013.”

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4. And yet this fraud has the president’s ear and is considered legit by the media….

From NationalReview  “So far, every for-profit enterprise started by Al Sharpton and known to National Review Online has been shut down in at least one jurisdiction for failure to pay taxes, a review of public records in New York and Delaware reveals.

Records show that Sharpton’s beleaguered for-profit entities often overlap and intertwine, some sharing ties with the reverend’s nonprofit organization, National Action Network. Their financial records are copious, confusing, and sometimes outright bizarre, and together, they depict persistent financial woes for Sharpton, who also personally owes New York State nearly $596,000, according to active tax warrants.

“He clearly appears — based on the information that’s available to us — to have a history of noncompliance with tax obligations,” says Bernadette Schopfer, the director of taxation at New York’s Maier Markey & Justic, a certified public-accounting firm that has had no dealings with Sharpton or National Action Network. “It appears that [Sharpton] does not file [taxes for his businesses], and then opens up something else. At all the entities we see he has opened up, he has not been compliant with the obligations of the owner of a business. . . . He’s either willful in his behavior, or he’s just sloppy.”

Sharpton, who was traveling internationally, was unavailable for an interview, despite NRO’s numerous queries over several days.”

Sharpton has nothing to say? That’d be a first…

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by

News/Politics 2-2-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Lot’s to cover today.

1. Meet with your buddies in the Obama admin, two days later declare open jihad. Must be more of those “moderates” they keep raving about…..

From TheFreeBeacon  “The Muslim Brotherhood called for “a long, uncompromising jihad” in Egypt just days after a delegation of the Islamist group’s key leaders and allies met with the State Department, according to an official statement released this week.

Just days after a delegation that included two top Brotherhood leaders was hosted at the State Department, the organization released an official statement calling on its supporters to “prepare” for jihad, according to an independent translation of the statement first posted on Tuesday.”

““It is incumbent upon everyone to be aware that we are in the process of a new phase, where we summon what is latent in our strength, where we recall the meanings of jihad and prepare ourselves, our wives, our sons, our daughters, and whoever marched on our path to a long, uncompromising jihad, and during this stage we ask for martyrdom,” it states.”

“The Brotherhood’s renewed call for jihad comes at a time when current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is cracking down on the group and imprisoning many of its supporters, who notoriously engaged in violence following the ouster of Brotherhood-ally Mohamed Morsi.”

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2. About time. It’s amazing what you can do without Reid obstructing things, huh?

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Senate Republicans on Thursday asked President Obama to turn over all communications he and his aides have had with the IRS since 2010, hoping to find out whether the tax collection agency shared private taxpayer information with political operatives at the White House.

The request, made in a letter obtained by The Washington Times, is signed by Senate Finance Chairman Orrin G. Hatch and all 13 other Republicans on the committee, and is addressed specifically to Mr. Obama, saying they want to see if his employees broke the law by acquiring or sharing private information.

“We have an obligation to conduct oversight of the federal government’s administration of our tax laws,” the lawmakers wrote. “As part of this oversight, we are seeking to determine the degree to and manner in which the Internal Revenue Service shares taxpayer information with the Executive Office of the President.””

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3. Also new legislation to deal with the Obama policy of releasing criminal illegals on US streets.

From TownHall  “The Department of Homeland Security currently has a policy in place known as “catch and release,” meaning violent illegal aliens are arrested, processed and put back onto American streets if their home countries won’t take them back.

According to Judicary Comimittee Chairman Chuck Grassley’s office, the policy was “created by a 2001 Supreme Court decision (Zadvydas v. Davis), which prohibits immigrants who had been ordered removed from being detained for more than six months. The Court expanded this decision to apply to all illegal immigrants in Clark v. Martinez in 2005.”

This catch and release policy is not only demoralizing to Immigration and Border Patrol Agents, but it’s dangerous and deadly. There are countless examples of violent assault and murders committed by illegal aliens after being arrested and released by federal authorities. “

“According to Grassley’s office, more than 36,000 criminally convicted illegal aliens were released in 2013. Since their release, 1,000 of these criminal aliens have been convicted of crimes like assault with a deadly weapon, child-rape, rape, participating in street gangs, aggravated assault, robbery, DUI, terroristic threats and more.

“The Zadvydas decision ties the hands of the federal government, forcing law enforcement to release dangerous criminals onto our streets because their home country won’t allow them back. The Obama administration has relied upon this ruling to release thousands of criminally convicted aliens, yet they’ve done nothing to fix the problem. This legislation corrects a very real problem with serious public safety implications,” Grassley said in a statement.”

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4. Ted Cruz is seeking an investigation and documents about the White House’s interfering in Israel’s elections.

PDF of the letter, From Cruz.Senate.Gov 

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5. Control the message, and the messengers….

From Politico  “Reporters covering the House Democrats’ retreat in Philadelphia this week are having a much different experience than when they’re on their home turf on Capitol Hill. 

Reporters are being escorted to and from the restroom and lobby and are being barred from entering the hotel outside of scheduled events, even if they’ve been invited by a member of Congress. 

During Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks at the retreat Friday, reporters were required to have a staff member, usually a junior member of the press team, escort them when going to the bathroom or to the lobby. The filing center for reporters was at a separate hotel from where the retreat was taking place, so access was limited to members of Congress specifically made available to the press.”

“It was a police state. It was absurd how heavy handed the capitol police and Democratic staff were in trying to control everywhere the press went,” New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters said in an interview.

Peters said at one point he was also barred from entering the hotel where the retreat was taking place, despite the fact he had an invitation to eat breakfast with a member of Congress.”

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6. African nations are sending in peacekeepers to deal with Boko Haram.

From TheAP  “African leaders agreed to send 7,500 troops to fight the Boko Haram insurgency in northeast Nigeria, an African Union official said Saturday, as the international community, including long-time foes the U.S. and Iran, rallied in support of Nigeria against the militants.

The move came after the council urged heads of state to endorse the deployment of troops from five West African countries to fight the terror group, said the head of the African Union’s Peace and Security Council, Samil Chergui.

African leaders who are members of the 54-nation African Union are meeting in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa for a two-day summit that ends Saturday.”

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7. John Podesta violates ethics? I didn’t know he had any….

From TheDailyCaller  “In 2013, John Podesta was paid $87,000 by a shadowy foreign billionaire whose passion is preventing energy exploration on American land.

Just two years later, Podesta is a member of President Obama’s inner circle, and the driving force inside the White House to block 12 million acres of land in Alaska’s Artic National Wildlife Refuge from oil drilling.

 The circumstances suggest Podesta may have run afoul of Obama’s highly-touted ethics pledge, which requires political appointees to disqualify themselves in matters relating to the interests of a former employer or client.

Podesta — who is preparing to leave the White House to take a top position with Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign — has largely avoided public scrutiny during his time as a White House Counselor.”

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by

News/Politics 1-30-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Obama’s Israel problem.

From TheWeeklyStandard  “The Obama administration is angry with Israel. Here’s the administration’s house organ, the New York Times, this morning:

The Obama administration, after days of mounting tension, signaled on Wednesday how angry it is with Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted Republican leaders’ invitation to address Congress on Iran without consulting the White House.

The outrage the episode has incited within President Obama’s inner circle became clear in unusually sharp criticism by a senior administration official who said that the Israeli ambassador, Ron Dermer, who helped orchestrate the invitation, had repeatedly placed Mr. Netanyahu’s political fortunes above the relationship between Israel and the United States.

The official who made the comments to The New York Times would not be named…

Of course, the official who last summer called Prime Minister Netanyahu a “coward” and a “chickens–t” would not be named either. But there is no reason to think those unnamed angry officials do not speak for an angry president.

The Obama White House usually prides itself on not getting angry. Its self-image is that it’s cool, calm, and collected. And it doesn’t get angry at, for example, the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Obama White House understands and appreciates the complexities of the Islamic Republic’s politics and history. It is only with respect to the Jewish state that the Obama White House is impatient, peremptory, and angry.”

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2. Here’s more on what he and his friends are doing about it.

From WND  “Asked directly whether his group’s intention is to topple Netanyahu, Dweck replied, “Our goal is to do change.”

Dweck said V15 aims to mobilize voters who are “more likely to support our cause,” including by getting left-leaning young residents of central Israel to sign pledge cards to vote for “change” in the upcoming election.

“We’re calling homes, going door-to-door in central Israel in places we marked as potential voters of the center-left,” he said.

If Dweck’s call for “change” sounds familiar to a U.S. audience, that may be because the chief consultant for the anti-Netanyahu election effort is 270 Strategies founder and ex-Obama campaign staffer Jeremy Bird.

Bird served as a data analyst and a deputy director for Obama’s 2008 campaign and was the national field director for the president’s massive re-election machine.”

Initial reports said there were a few former Obama staffers working on the effort. There’s actually 15 or more. No small effort here.

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3. The EPA fudged the numbers. Anybody shocked?

From TheDailyCaller  “The Environmental Protection Agency inflated the monetized benefits of a major air quality rule to justify imposing a harsher smog standard on U.S. counties, according to a new report by Energy In Depth (EID).

“EPA’s ozone rule could very well be the costliest regulation in U.S. history,” said Steve Everley, spokesman for the petroleum industry-backed EID. “If a rule of this magnitude is to be imposed, then the EPA should consider providing a far more scientifically robust ‘public health’ basis — one that doesn’t rely on inflated health benefits or a lack of appreciation for the very real economic costs.”

 The EPA proposed its costly smog, or ozone, standard the day before Thanksgiving 2014. The agency mandated that ambient smog levels be lowered from 75 parts per billion (pbb) to levels between 70 ppb and 65 ppb. The EPA also solicited comments for an even lower standard at 60 pbb — one which could put almost the entire country out of compliance with the rule and cost $3.4 trillion by 2040.

The EPA said its new smog standard was based on “1,000 studies” published since 2008. The agency argued the rule would also bring $23 billion in monetized net benefits. But EID found that EPA’s monetized benefit calculation is 3,100 percent higher than what the agency calculated in 2011 for the same smog standard.

In 2011, the agency estimated the “net benefits” of a 65 ppb smog standard were only $700 million, which included the “co-benefits” of reducing fine particulate matter. This means that the benefits of reducing smog alone were less than advertised.”

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4. Senator Ted Cruz is going to introduce a bill banning the political targeting of citizens.

From HotAir  “A pair of measures which failed to reach daylight when the Democrats were in charge of the upper chamber should be seeing new life this year. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex) will reintroduce legislation intended to prevent another partisan debacle like the IRS scandal and to remove certain powers from the tax agency. Cruz’s office released the details this week.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, today announced his intent to file two bills to protect Americans from partisan abuses and political targeting by the IRS. Both bills will be cosponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IA, Sen. James Inhofe, R-OK, and Sen. David Vitter, R-LA.

“In May 2013 President Obama declared the IRS’s illegal targeting of conservative groups ‘intolerable and inexcusable,’ yet to this date no one has been held accountable for it,” Sen. Cruz said. “The IRS has no business meddling with the First Amendment rights of Americans. Rather than further stifling free speech, the IRS and the Department of Justice should provide the American people with all the facts surrounding the IRS’s targeting of certain organizations based on their political activity.”…

The first measure would prohibit IRS employees from intentionally targeting individuals or groups based on their political views. The legislation would make it a crime for an IRS employee to willfully discriminate against groups based solely on the political beliefs or policy statements held, expressed, or published by that organization. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-MO, will also cosponsor this measure.

The second measure would amend the tax code to use the bipartisan, independent Federal Election Commission’s (FEC) definitions to determine whether an organization is engaging in political activity, rather than allowing the IRS to continue making that distinction. The IRS should focus on taxation, not on determining what constitutes political activity.”

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5. Interesting… Thoughts?

From TheGuardian  “Hipster churches in Silicon Valley: evangelicalism’s unlikely new home- Netflix fasts, coffee vouchers, plaid-wearing worshippers is what it takes for ‘church transplants’ to make their home in the affluent Bay Area”

“Like many San Franciscans, overpriced coffee is a considerable portion of my weekly budget. One day in Soma, the industrial district home to many start-ups, I came across a flier advertising a free gift card to Philz, a nearby coffee shop. All that was required was to show up for service at a local church called Epic. I hadn’t been to church in months, and decided to give it a try.

The Bay Area has never been perceived as religious: a 2012 Gallup poll found that fewer than a quarter of residents identify as “very religious” (defined as going to church weekly), as opposed to 40% of the nation as a whole. High salaries have drawn droves of well-educated millennials to the booming tech sector, which correlates with lower religious sentiment. So far afield from the Bible belt, the region is in fact seen as hospitable to all forms of old testament abominations: fornication, paganism – even sodomy.

If you look around, however, you’ll notice a bumper crop of newer Christian ministries that, upon superficial glance, could pass for any other Bay Area start-up: glossy web design, well-curated social accounts and yes, free coffee promotions. County-level statistics substantiate this: numbers from the Association of Religion Data Archives show that several large Protestant denominations have grown in San Francisco County in recent years.

How does one even start a church in the land of $3,000 studio apartments, transient tech workers and rationalist tendencies? The answer lies in a mix of organized efforts by large religious bodies, coupled with messaging that speaks to the tastes, needs and neuroses of ambitious young Bay Area residents.”

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by

News/Politics 1-29-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Meet the new AG, same as the old AG.

From Breitbart  “President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Eric Holder as Attorney General of the United States, Loretta Lynch, said on Wednesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing that she thinks illegal aliens have the same right to work in America as American citizens do.

“Senator, I believe the right and the obligation to work is one that is shared by everyone in this country, regardless of how they came here,” Lynch said when asked by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) who has a greater right to work: Illegal aliens, or lawful immigrants and American citizens?

“Certainly, if someone is here—regardless of status—I would prefer that they be participating in the workplace than not participating in the workplace,” Lynch said.”

I think millions of unemployed American citizens who could fill those jobs would disagree.

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2. If you like your plan….

That’s too bad, because you might not be able to keep it.

From HotAir  “The new CBO projection on ObamaCare’s impact has a couple of counter-narrative epiphanies, and the impact on employer-based insurance is just one of them. When Democrats pushed the ACA through Congress on a party-line vote and with plenty of legislative chicanery — remember “reconciliation”? — they insisted that ObamaCare would do three things:

  1. It would not force any changes to individual-market plans already in place, nor to choices of providers.

  2. It would not reduce employer-based health insurance at all, and would slightly improve it.

  3. It would be deficit neutral for the first decade, starting in 2011.

The first became known as Politifact’s 2013 Lie of the Year. Not only did ObamaCare force millions of people out of their plans in the first year of enrollment, it’s doing the same thing in the second year with its recalculation of subsidies and the premium shocks that creates. Investors Business Daily points out that the CBO demolishes the second argument too:

“But the CBO report also shows that ObamaCare will be far more disruptive to the employer-based insurance market, while being far less effective at cutting the ranks of the uninsured, than promised.

Thanks to ObamaCare, the CBO now expects that 10 million workers will lose their employer-based coverage by 2021.”

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3. Well…. PA. voters did vote for the “progressive” candidate, so you asked for it.

From NewsMax  “A transgender physician will soon become Pennsylvania’s new physician general, the Washington Blade reported.

Dr. Rachel Levine, an expert in adolescent eating disorders and behavior health, was nominated for the Commonwealth’s highest medical post by progressive Gov. Tom Wolf.

She made her transition from man to woman five years ago, and with her appointment will become “the highest-ranking transgender person to ever hold a position within state government,” the Blade said.”

“”Dr. Rachel Levine is well-respected in the fields of pediatrics, psychiatry, and behavioral health, where she has practiced for close to three decades,” the governor said in statement about her selection.

He added: “She has been a leading voice in efforts to treat teens with medical and psychological problems, as well as adults and children with eating disorders. It is important to me that we place equal emphasis on behavioral and physical health issues.””

Looks like the doctor has issues of his own.

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4. Sex Ed instruction, Planned Parenthood style.

From TheDailyMail  “Parents with students at one California high school recently learned that two Planned Parenthood employees who taught their impressionable children sex education also held down some controversial side jobs.

One of the sex-ed instructors at Acalanes Union High School in Lafayette also taught a class on sex toys at a nearby shop while the other identified herself as a ‘pleasure activist’ on her now-deleted Twitter profile.

The job history of the two teachers was revealed after parents learned about the school’s partnership with Planned Parenthood and demanded the curriculum be changed.”

“‘Planned Parenthood is a business. It’s a business that sells sex. It’s a way to get clientele and to sexualize young people and turn them into lifelong clients,’ parent Camille Giglio told CBS San Francisco in November.”

At least someone finally figured it out.

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5. I think some of you were just talking about this, and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The Obama admin just loves the Muslim Brotherhood.

From TheFreeBeacon  “The State Department hosted a delegation of Muslim Brotherhood-aligned leaders this week for a meeting about their ongoing efforts to oppose the current government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt, who rose to power following the overthrow of Mohamed Morsi, an ally of the Brotherhood, in 2013.

One member of the delegation, a Brotherhood-aligned judge in Egypt, posed for a picture while at Foggy Bottom in which he held up the Islamic group’s notorious four-finger Rabia symbol, according to his Facebook page.

That delegation member, Waleed Sharaby, is a secretary-general of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council and a spokesman for Judges for Egypt, a group reported to have close ties to the Brotherhood.

The delegation also includes Gamal Heshmat, a leading member of the Brotherhood, and Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardery, a Brotherhood member who served as a parliamentarian from Luxor.”

““The State Department continues to speak with Muslim Brothers on the assumption that Egyptian politics are unpredictable, and the Brotherhood still has some support in Egypt,” he said. “But when pro-Brotherhood delegations then post photos of themselves making pro-Brotherhood gestures in front of the State Department logo, it creates an embarrassment for the State Department.””

Oh please…. The State Dept. IS the embarrassment….

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News/Politics 1-28-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. This should be fun to watch.

From HotAir  “The occasion of Eric Holder’s exit from the Department of Justice gives Republicans in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee a big opportunity to air questions about long-simmering scandals such as Fast & Furious and IRS targeting. The committee has added some star power to the witness list, guaranteeing that conservatives — and likely the media — will hang on every word in the confirmation hearing for Loretta Lynch:

A former CBS investigative reporter who has filed a $35 million lawsuit against the Obama administration for hacking will be among the witnesses at a hearing on President Obama’s attorney general nominee.

Sharyl Attkisson has accused the Obama administration of breaking into her computer and phone after she reported stories that were critical of the administration, such as the events surrounding the 2012 attack on an American compound in Benghazi, Libya, and the failed “Fast and Furious” operation. She told her story in the book “Stonewalled.”

She will testify during this week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for Loretta Lynch, Obama’s nominee to replace Eric Holder as attorney general, Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) announced on Monday evening.

Also testifying will be Catherine Engelbrecht, the founder of the Tea Party-aligned True the Vote, which she has said was unfairly targeted by the IRS when it attempted to seek tax-exempt status.”

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2. More than half the states have now joined the lawsuit against Obama’s amnesty plan.

From TownHall  “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that both Nevada and Tennessee have joined the Lone Star state’s challenge of President Obama’s executive amnesty, bringing the total number of states fighting Obama’s unilateral immigration policies to 26.

“Texas is proud to lead a coalition that now includes a majority of the United States standing up against the President’s rogue actions,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. “The momentum against the President’s lawlessness continues to build with Tennessee and Nevada joining the effort to protect our states from the economic and public safety implications of illegal amnesty. As President Obama himself has said numerous times, he lacks the authority to impose amnesty. His actions represent a blatant case of overreach and clear abuse of power.””

“With Tennessee and Nevada, the full list of 26 states suing Obama over his executive amnesty are: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin.”

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3. Outrage from the people making money off the scam?

Sure. 🙄

From CBSDenver  “A nationwide cellphone company distributing phones and cellphone plans in Denver as part of a massive government program says it is “outraged by the unacceptable actions” uncovered by a CBS4 undercover investigation.

The response from Total Call Mobile comes nearly three months after an undercover CBS4 investigation revealed multiple examples of fraud and cheating in the phone distribution program.”

“But multiple times a CBS4 producer and reporter found phone agents in Denver circumventing strict government rules to ensure that only the truly needy get the free phones. Vendors, like Total Call, receive massive government subsidies to hand out the phones and the accompanying monthly plans.”

“In one case a Total Call agent used someone else’s food stamp card to provide eligibility for a CBS4 producer. On another occasion another Total Call agent said it would be perfectly fine to use a friend’s food stamp card to establish eligibility and obtain a free phone.”

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4. Roy’s at it again. 🙂

This should be interesting to see how it turns out. Especially with the lesbian lawmaker planning on outing other members affairs if they don’t vote for gay marriage.

From HotAir  “It’s Roy Moore, who’s already nationally famous for his willingness to defy federal courts. He got elected chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2001, had a monument to the Ten Commandments installed on the courthouse grounds, then was tossed off the bench for refusing to comply when a federal judge ordered him to remove the monument to prevent a violation of the Establishment Clause. He got reelected chief justice a few years ago and now he’s going to defy the federal judiciary on another hot-button “values” issue, namely, last week’s ruling that the part of the Alabama constitution that bans gay marriage violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses. Will he be kicked off the bench again for this? If so, how many years will it be before he’s elected chief justice for the third time? The over/under is three.

Terrible, terrible news for a GOP presidential field that’s (mostly) desperate to duck this issue. Glorious, glorious news for content-hungry bloggers who know what sort of traffic a big intraparty food fight over SSM can produce.

Moore’s office released the three-page letter that was delivered to the governor this morning in response to a federal judge’s ruling Friday striking down the ban.

“As Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, I will continue to recognize the Alabama Constitution and the will of the people overwhelmingly expressed in the Sanctity of Marriage Amendment,” Moore wrote.

“I ask you to continue to uphold and support the Alabama Constitution with respect to marriage, both for the welfare of this state and for our posterity,” Moore continued at the end of the letter. “Be advised that I stand with you to stop judicial tyranny and any unlawful opinions issued without constitutional authority.”…”

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5. More Benghazi lies exposed.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “State Department officials called the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack at the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, Libya, a “violent demonstration” even though they had known for many hours that it was a coordinated military-style assault, newly obtained documents show.

“Violent demonstrations took place at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, Egypt, and at the U.S. Special Mission Compound in Benghazi, Libya, resulting in damages in both locations and casualties in Benghazi,” the State Department said in a Sept. 12, 2012, statement issued by its Diplomatic Security Command Center.

The statement was uncovered in a partial document release in a lawsuit after the State Department refused to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request by Judicial Watch, a Right-leaning non-profit that works for increased transparency in government. The FOIA request sought “any and all activity logs, reports, or other records produced by the Diplomatic Security Command Center between Sept. 10 2012, and Sept. 13, 2012, regarding, concerning, or related to the attack at the U.S. Special Mission Compound and Classified Annex in Benghazi, Libya.””

““They’re putting out false information and really putting people at risk,” Fitton said. “If you were at an embassy in Indonesia, wouldn’t you want to know there was a terrorist attack? I would.”

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News/Politics 1-27-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread, because I’ve got a lot of shoveling to do. 😦

But first……..

1. 5 terrorists for one deserter. Doesn’t seem like a fair trade. No wonder the Obama admin is stone-walling. They have egg on their faces.

And who has been holding things up? Why Ben Rhodes, who was one of the people responsible for the Benghazi talking points/it’s the video’s fault debacle.

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2. Who didn’t see this coming. Taxpayers are gonna take a beating paying for all that “free” healthcare.

From TheDailyMail  “Obamacare program costs $50,000 in taxpayer money for every American who gets health insurance, says bombshell budget report

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News/Politics 1-26-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread, with a few to start things off.

1. I’m sure Sharpton, Obama, and the #BlackLivesMatter folks are planning protests as we speak. After all, this kills more than anything they’re protesting. Shouldn’t they direct their anger at their real enemy?

From CNSNews  ” For every black murder victim in 2011 there were 19 blacks killed by abortion, according to data from the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). 2011 is the latest year for which the data is available.

The CDC’s Abortion Surveillance Report for 2011 shows that 117,293 black babies were aborted that year in the 32 states and the District of Columbia that report abortion numbers to the CDC.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2011, shows that 6,329 blacks were murder victims that year (5,416 males, 910 females, and 3 unknown gender).”

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2. I guess these folks must have missed the news from the president’s SOTU speech that the economy has rebounded.

From TheLATimes  “Over the last two years, street encampments have jumped their historic boundaries in downtown Los Angeles, lining freeways and filling underpasses from Echo Park to South Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a city-county agency, received 767 calls about street encampments in 2014, up 60% from the 479 in 2013.

Some residents believe the city is exporting its downtown homeless problem to their neighborhoods. But social service agencies and volunteers say it isn’t that simple. They say that although downtown development and skid row cleanups are squeezing out some homeless people, many camps are filled with locals.

Soaring rents, closed shelters and funding cutbacks are pushing residents from neighborhoods such as Highland Park and Boyle Heights into the streets, where they cling to familiar turf.”

“Whether homeless people are more numerous or simply more visible could be answered by the biennial tally taking place this week.

As many as 6,000 volunteers will go out Tuesday through Thursday searching for homeless people living in alleys, riverbeds, cars and RVs. For the first time, homeless people will be asked about their gender identity, domestic violence and prison histories, and years of military service — information that could better track where they came from and why.”

Gender identity? Really? 🙄

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3. Coach K is the man.

From MSNSports  “Coach 1K. How grand.

Mike Krzyzewski earned his 1,000th career win Sunday, making him the first NCAA Division I men’s coach to reach the milestone, when No. 5 Duke surged past St. John’s in the second half for a 77-68 victory at Madison Square Garden.

Krzyzewski improved to 1,000-308 in a 40-year coaching career that began in 1975 at his alma mater, Army. He is 927-249 in 35 seasons at Duke, guiding the Blue Devils to four NCAA titles and 11 trips to the Final Four.”

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