Harry Reid

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News/Politics 3-29-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open thread weekend, have fun. 🙂

1. Dirty Harry?

From PJMedia  “Jon Ralston continues to examine Sen. Harry Reid’s campaign finance records. What was first a series of questionable payments to his granddaughter totaling about $16,000 is now a larger series of payments adding up to about $31,000.

Reid, who has lately attacked private citizens from the well of the Senate for their campaign contributions, dismisses the controversy and pleads for his enriched granddaughter’s privacy.

“My granddaughter has been the target of harassing phone calls, strangers tracking her down and knocking on her door and negative, unwanted attention on the internet. This has gone too far and it needs to stop now. I deeply regret any role I had in creating this situation but now, as a grandparent, I say enough is enough.

No one should be harassing Ms. Reid, but frankly, Harry Reid is a confirmed liar, so there’s no reason to believe him when he plays the sympathy card. The FEC may not agree that “enough is enough.” Ryan Elisabeth Reid is a grown woman (and a rapper — no kidding), and she did accept the money that her grandfather paid her out of his campaign funds. Perhaps that rap career just needed a cash injection. She may not have known she was receiving campaign funds, but she probably did. Unless granddad paid her in cold, hard cash (which would be interesting!), she knew exactly where the money was coming from. It was on the check, pay stub or in the email she received when the payment processed. Maybe the FEC needs to take a look.”

I doubt Reid worries about the scorn, unwanted attention, and harassment the families of the Koch Bros. have to deal with because of the way he demonizes them. Seems awful hypocritical of Harry to whine here.

Here’s more, from TheFreeBeacon  “Another man might have assumed, correctly, that launching a campaign of insult and insinuation against two billionaires would result in renewed attention to his own finances. Not Harry Reid. The Senate Democratic leader since 2005, and the Senate majority leader since 2007, is not one to reflect before speaking. His mouth runs far ahead of his brain.”

“Now, with his majority in danger, his president unpopular, his floor agenda obstructed by members of his own caucus, Reid thrashes about uncontrollably. He calls Obamacare horror stories “untrue.” He says Obamacare numbers are not as high as projected because Americans “are not educated on how to use the Internet.” His Senate Majority PAC launches a $3 million ad campaign tying Republican candidates to two men most Americans have never heard of, two men who, funnily enough, are more popular than Reid.”

“From the floor of the Senate Reid says these two men, Charles and David Koch, are “un-American,” are trying “to buy America.” Without the terrible specter of the Koch brothers Harry Reid would be disarmed. He has no issue for his Democratic Senators to run on; the minimum wage and climate change are not enough. Nor has he another means of inspiring donors to open their checkbooks. He only has fear, fear of the Kochs, fear of extractive industry, fear of the portion of the elite that favors economic freedom. The Koch brothers, Reid says, “rig the system to benefit themselves.” He should know.

The fact that Harry Reid’s political and influence operation includes his five children has been established for some time. A few weeks ago, when I first heard Reid accuse private citizens of being un-American, I dredged up a Los Angeles Times article from 2003 with the headline, “In Nevada, the Name to Know Is Reid.” Chuck Neubauer and Richard T. Cooper’s meticulously researched and reported article begins with the story of the “Clark County Conservation of Land and Natural Resources Act of 2002,” a land bill of the sort that puts people to sleep. “What Reid did not explain” when he introduced the bill in the Senate, Neubauer and Cooper wrote, “was that the bill promised a cavalcade of benefits to real estate developers, corporations, and local institutions that were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in lobbying fees to his sons’ and son-in-law’s firms.” I wonder why he left that part out.”

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2. Standing on principle, or showboating?

From CBSWashingtonLocal  “A Carroll County commissioner said she was “willing to go to jail” opening up a board meeting with a prayer despite a federal judge in Maryland ruling the board has to stop with opening meetings with prayers that reference Jesus Christ or any specific deity.

“If we cease to believe that our rights come from God, we cease to be America,” Robin Bartlett Frazier said Thursday. “We’ve been told to be careful. But we’re going to be careful all the way to Communism if we don’t start standing up and saying ‘no.’”

Judge William Quarles Jr. ruled Wednesday that the board must stop opening up its meetings with sectarian prayers. He says that while a lawsuit over the prayers proceeds that the commission may only have non-sectarian prayers.

Frazier said the ruling was an “infringement” on her First Amendment rights.”

And of course it was atheists who objected and filed the suit in the first place.

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3. Here’s an Update on the UNC scandal.

From TheBlaze  “Critics of the higher education system in this country and especially those who have long alleged college athletes get special treatment to maintain their academic eligibility have just been given an explosive piece of evidence. It’s severely lacking, has a page with only 146 words and contains grammar errors and misspellings. And it is worthy of an A-.

“It” is a final paper that was submitted by a University of North Carolina athlete and featured in an ESPN report this week. That report detailed two whistleblowers surrounding the the academics scandal that rocked the university this winter, where student athletes were “encouraged” to take “fake” classes in order to pad their grades, raise their GPAs and stay eligible to play sports.

“This is not even close to college work,” whistleblower Mary Willingham told ESPN, “yet this athlete was awarded an A-.”

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4. If this guy is to be believed, and I think he would know, ObamaCare’s worst is yet to come.

From TheWallStJournal  “Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm’s elder brother, is a physician who helped design ObamaCare and has been one of its most intense champions. So you may be surprised to learn that in his new book, “Reinventing American Health Care,” he predicts that tens of millions more Americans will lose their medical plans in the coming decade.

In its “You’re the Boss” small-business blog, the New York Times quotes his prediction that by 2025, “fewer than 20 percent of workers in the private sector will receive traditional employer-sponsored health insurance.” As of March 2013 such benefits were available to 85% of full-time private-sector workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If Emanuel is right–and especially if, as he implies, ObamaCare was designed to produce such an outcome–the president’s repeated pledge that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” was a far more widespread fraud than has yet been realized.

In the next two to three years, Emanuel predicts, “a few big, blue-chip companies will announce their intention to stop providing health insurance. Instead, they will raise salaries substantially or offer large, defined contributions to their workers. Then the floodgates will open.” Small businesses will be even more eager to drop coverage.”

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News/Politics 3-26-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The Navy is having problems retaining officers because they’re too worried about cultural issues and being PC. The weakening of our military continues under this admin.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Cmdr. Guy Snodgrass, until recently a Pentagon speech writer for the chief of naval operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, said sailors are becoming fed-up with the constant emphasis on social issues — an apparent reference to gays in the military, women in combat and ending sexual harassment.”

“Sailors continue to cite the over-focus on social issues by senior leadership, above and beyond discussions on war fighting — a fact that demoralizes junior and mid-grade officers alike,” Cmdr. Snodgrass wrote this month on the U.S. Naval Institute website, an independent forum for active and retired sailors and Marines.”

“He says retention racked up its “worst year in history” for the special warfare community, including Navy SEALs, with a record number of lieutenants declining to stay.”

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2. Senator Barbara Boxer would like to explain to you why it’s OK to force Hobby Lobby to violate their religious convictions.

Clueless.

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3. This one is tooooo funny.

From TheDailyCaller  “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, desperately trying to create a conservative bogeyman for the 2014 election cycle, often takes to the Senate floor to lambast the billionaire Koch brothers for their political contributions to conservative groups.

But a George Washington University Battleground poll released Tuesday indicates that more people have an unfavorable impression of the Nevada lawmaker than the Kochs. Thirty-five percent of those polled say they have a negative impression of Reid, compared to 25 percent for the Kochs.”

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 4. Another bait and switch. This is how you know the numbers didn’t meet their expectations.

From TheWaPo  “The Obama administration has decided to give extra time to Americans who say that they are unable to enroll in health plans through the federal insurance marketplace by the March 31 deadline.

Federal officials confirmed Tuesday evening that all consumers who have begun to apply for coverage on HealthCare.gov, but who do not finish by Monday, will have until about mid-April to ask for an extension.

Under the new rules, people will be able to qualify for an extension by checking a blue box on HealthCare.gov to indicate that they tried to enroll before the deadline. This method will rely on an honor system; the government will not try to determine whether the person is telling the truth.

The rules, which will apply to the federal exchanges operating in three dozen states, will essentially create a large loophole even as White House officials have repeatedly said that the March 31 deadline was firm. The extra time will not technically alter the deadline but will create a broad new category of people eligible for what’s known as a special enrollment period.”

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5. And this is after Sebelius testified to Congress 2 weeks ago that the deadline wouldn’t be delayed or changed.

From TheNYTimes  “Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said Wednesday that the Obama administration would not extend the deadline for people to sign up for health insurance or delay the requirement for most Americans to have coverage.

And she declined to say whether the administration was still committed to its original goal of enrolling seven million people in private coverage through federal and state exchanges by March 31.

Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, Ms. Sebelius said categorically that the administration would not delay the “individual mandate,” under which most Americans must have insurance or pay a tax penalty. In addition, she said that officials would not extend the six-month open enrollment period, scheduled to end on March 31.”

They’ve lied repeatedly, under oath too, and will continue to do so.

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News/Politics 3-21-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open thread, with a few from me to start off.

1. The White House and other opponents of Voter ID will not be pleased with this.

From HotAir  “Under the oh so august leadership of Attorney General Eric Holder, the Obama administration has been doing their very best to thwart various states in their individual endeavors to implement voter ID laws. In this latest iteration of that ongoing battle, the Federal Election Assistance Commission has so far refused to help state officials in Kansas and Arizona change federal election registration forms to include proof of citizenship. Both states have new voter-ID measures that require new voters to provide a birth certificate, passport, or other documentation to prove their citizenship, while the federal registration form only requires that new voters sign a statement declaring that they are citizens. On Wednesday, a federal judge basically told the Obama administration to stop deliberately getting in the states’ way on this one, via the LA Times:

A federal judge has ruled that Kansas and Arizona should be allowed to require voters to provide evidence of U.S. citizenship, in a case closely watched by both sides dealing with the question of voter eligibility.

U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren in Wichita, Kan., ruled that the U.S. Election Assistance Commission had no legal authority to deny requests from the two states to add the citizenship requirement. In the ruling, released Wednesday, he ordered the commission to revise the national form immediately. …

“This is a huge victory for the states of Kansas and Arizona,” Kobach said in a prepared statement emailed to reporters. “They have successfully protected our sovereign right to set and enforce the qualifications for registering to vote. We have now paved the way for all 50 states to protect their voter rolls and ensure that only U.S. citizens can vote.”

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2. A lot of the damage this administration will inflict on the US will come long after it’s gone. But some of the judicial appointments are starting to join the party.

From JudicialWatch  “A Homeland Security initiative to put fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border could discriminate against minorities, according to an Obama-appointed federal judge who’s ruled that the congressionally-approved project may have a “disparate impact on lower-income minority communities.”

This of course means that protecting the porous—and increasingly violent—southern border is politically incorrect. At least that’s what the public college professor at the center of the case is working to prove and this month she got help from a sympathetic federal judge. Denise Gilman, a clinical professor at the taxpayer-funded University of Texas-Austin, is researching the “human rights impact” of erecting a barrier to protect the U.S. from terrorists, illegal immigrants, drug traffickers and other serious threats.

A 2006 federal law orders the construction of fencing or a wall along the most vulnerable portions of the nearly 2,000-mile southern border. This includes reinforced fencing along 700 miles of the southwest border with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) determining the exact spots. Professor Gilman wants the identities of the landowners in the planned construction site to shed light on the impact the fencing will have on indigenous, minority and low-income communities. The feds refused to provide the information, asserting that it’s private.”

“This is simply the latest controversy to strike the border fence project since Congress approved it to protect national security and curb an illegal immigration and drug-trafficking crisis. In the last few years the mayors of several Texas border towns have blocked federal access to areas where the fence is scheduled to be built, an Indian tribe tried to block the barrier in the Arizona desert by claiming the feds were intruding on tribal land and a group of government scientists claimed the fencing would threaten the black bear population.”

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3. The fight between the CIA and Senate continues. Reid’s on the right side for a change.

From TheWashingtonPost  “Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has escalated congressional concerns with alleged interference by the CIA in a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation by asking the Senate’s top law enforcement official to review computers used by committee staffers to investigate the agency’s controversial interrogation program.

Reid’s request comes as aides say he has grown convinced that the CIA overstepped its authority by attempting to interfere in the committee’s investigation into the interrogation program, the results of which may be released in the coming weeks. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who leads the intelligence panel, first publicly accused the CIA of interfering in her investigation during a dramatic Senate floor speech last week.

Reid sent a letter to CIA Director John O. Brennan late Wednesday stating that he has asked the Senate Sergeant at Arms to review the computers used by committee investigators and asked that he grant proper security clearances and access to the computers. As part of the committee probe, the CIA set up a secret facility in Northern Virginia with computers where investigators were promised unfettered access to millions of documents describing the interrogation program.”

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4. But Harry ain’t gonna like this one. 🙂

Also from HotAir  “How do you go from a warmly embraced team, which despite an undefeated record and a No. 1 seed is still viewed as a charming Cinderella most would like to see live up to the hype, to a hated, evil juggernaut program?

Probably like this, from an interview with the head coach of the Wichita State Shockers Gregg Marshall:

Carchia: Which living person do you most admire? Marshall: Charles Koch. He’s a Wichitan who owns the second-largest privately owned company, Koch Industries. He and his brother [David] are tied for the fourth-richest man in America, and he’s done it with great integrity and commitment to the community. He’s incredibly brilliant.“

😯 🙂

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News/Politics 3-17-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open thread.

1. Remember folks, as always, vote fraud is a myth.

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2. This will embolden Russia for sure.

From MSNNews  “Final results of the referendum in Crimea show that 97 percent of voters have supported leaving Ukraine to join Russia, the head of the referendum election commission said Monday.

Mikhail Malyshev told a televised news conference that the final tally from Sunday’s vote was 96.8 percent in favor of splitting from Ukraine. He also said that the commission has not registered a single complaint about the vote.

The referendum was widely condemned by Western leaders who were planning to discuss economic sanctions to punish Russia on Monday. Ukraine’s new government in Kiev called the referendum a “circus” directed at gunpoint by Moscow.

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3. Some interesting immigration stats.

From CNSNews  “was  less than the approximately 12.5 million people whom the Bureau of Labor  Statistics estimated were unemployed in the United States in the  average month of 2012.

However, it exceeds the approximately 11.46 million people  whom BLS says were unemployed in the average month of 2013. “

“If Pew’s estimate that there were 11.7 million illegal aliens in the  United States as of March 2012 is accurate–and if that population has  not begun to decline again as Pew estimated it did during 2007-2009  recession—then there would have been more illegal aliens in the United  States in 2013 than people who were unemployed.”

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4. President Obama is doing his best to increase the number of illegal aliens in the US.

From TheDailyCaller  “President Barack Obama may further reduce the small percentage of illegal immigrants who are sent home each year, say advocates for immigrants and would-be immigrants.

Obama “has charged his Secretary of Homeland Security… to reduce where they can the levels of deportation,” Janet Murguia, president of the major Latino ethnic lobby group, the National Council of la Raza.

“Our hope and expectation is with that [policy change] would come some reduction in the level of deportations,” she told reporters gathered outside the White House Friday evening.

The reduction could be as high as 50 percent, depending on how much Obama is willing to change agency rules, Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, told The Daily Caller.”

Once again, the president ignore or re-writes laws he doesn’t like.

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5. And once again the president cuts benefits for our fighting men and women, while protecting unionized civilian workers.

From InvestorBusinessDaily  “The administration plans to cut the military pensions of those who served  their country while giving public employees a break by exempting their ObamaCare  subsidies from sequestration.

On the heels of announcing that Army troop levels will be cut below pre-World  War II levels, the Military Times has reported that the Obama administration is  planning to reduce military pension costs by 10% by converting part of their  retirement to 401(k)-like defined-contribution plans from defined-benefit  plans.

What makes this interesting is that it affects military retirees and members  of the military who are non-union and therefore can’t strike or engage in  collective bargaining. Public-sector union employees will retain their  defined-benefit plans.

So, those who defend this country will be cut while those who feed at the  public trough and whose union dues provide a ready supply of campaign cash will  not.”

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6. Democrats lead by Harry Reid have been attacking the Koch Bros. non-stop lately. As you’d expect, they’re not above lying to try and score points with the low info voters.

From TheWashingtonPost  “The pro-GOP group Americans for Prosperity has relentlessly attacked Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), so the pro-Democratic group Senate Majority PAC has made AFP’s main backers, the Koch brothers, the subject of a new attack ad. This is all part of a larger Democratic strategy of tying GOP candidates to the conservative billionaires, as witnessed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s near-daily attacks on them.

A number of the claims in the ad we have covered before, such as the hyperbolic charge that Republicans want to “end Medicare.” The so-called Social Security cuts stem in part from changing the formula for indexing benefits to inflation — something also supported by President Obama. And AFP did not oppose hurricane relief; it opposed a version that it believed was fiscally irresponsible. (Moreover, this mostly had to do with money for Hurricane Sandy, which didn’t even come close to Louisiana.)

For the purpose of this fact check, we will examine the claim that the Koch brothers have an agenda of protecting “tax cuts for companies that ship our jobs overseas.” That’s a new one.”

“Upon examination, this claim crumbles into dust. The ad not only mischaracterizes an ordinary tax deduction as a special “tax cut” but then it falsely asserts that “protecting” this tax break is part of the Koch agenda. It turns out this claim is based on a tenuous link to an organization that never even took a position on the legislation in question.”

The fact checkers give them 4 Pinocchios.

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News/Politics 3-15-14

What’s interesting in the news this weekend?

Open thread, as always.

Here’s a few from me.

1. Sure, what could possibly go wrong?

From TheWaPo  “U.S. officials announced plans Friday to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet, a move that pleased international critics but alarmed some business leaders and others who rely on the smooth functioning of the Web.

Pressure to let go of the final vestiges of U.S. authority over the system of Web addresses and domain names that organize the Internet has been building for more than a decade and was supercharged by the backlash last year to revelations about National Security Agency surveillance.

The change would end the long-running contract between the Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based nonprofit group. That contract is set to expire next year but could be extended if the transition plan is not complete.

“We look forward to ICANN convening stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan,” Lawrence E. Strickling, assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, said in a statement.”

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2. More bi-partisan shenanigans from our elected officials. And of course, the DoJ refuses to pursue the matter.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “FBI agents working alongside Utah state prosecutors in a wide-ranging corruption investigation have uncovered accusations of wrongdoing by two of the U.S. Senate’s most prominent figures — Majority Leader Harry Reid and rising Republican Sen. Mike Lee — but the Justice Department has thwarted their bid to launch a full federal investigation.

The probe, conducted by one Republican and one Democratic state prosecutor in Utah, has received accusations from an indicted businessman and political donor, interviewed other witnesses and gathered preliminary evidence such as financial records, Congressional Record statements and photographs that corroborate some aspects of the accusations, officials have told The Washington Times and ABC News.

But the Justice Department’s public integrity section — which normally handles corruption cases involving elected figures — rejected FBI agents’ bid to use a federal grand jury and subpoenas to determine whether the accusations are true and whether any federal crimes were committed by state and federal officials.”

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3. Benghazi, and the investigation that was never investigated.

From FoxNews  “American personnel on the ground in Benghazi the night of the 2012 terror attack are outraged after learning that the CIA’s inspector general never conducted an investigation into what happened — despite two CIA workers being killed in the attack and despite at least two complaints being filed by CIA employees.”

“Asked why such a probe has not been launched, a CIA spokesman said: “CIA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) always reviews carefully every matter that is brought to its attention, and takes appropriate action based on a variety of factors.”

“But a CIA spokesman said the OIG has already “explained fully” to the agency’s congressional oversight committees “why it did not open an investigation into Benghazi-related issues.”

“That decision was based on a determination that the concerns raised fell under the purview of the State Department’s Accountability Review Board, and that a separate OIG action could unnecessarily disrupt the FBI’s criminal investigation into the Benghazi attacks,” the spokesman said.”

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4. The best way to fight racism is with….. more racism? 🙄

From King5.com  “An attempt to fight racism at a community college may have backfired.

A group of employees at South Puget Sound Community College sent out an invitation to all 300 staffers.

The “Staff, Faculty and Administrators of Color” encouraged employees to reply to the invitation to find out the confidential date and time of what was being called a “happy hour” to “build support and community” for people of color.

The invite made it clear white people were not invited.”

With a Hat Tip to Janice for pointing this one out.

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News/Politics 2-19-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Terror training centers in the US and Texas? And just imagine the people easily smuggled in across the unsecured southern border.

From PJMedia  “The Clarion Project has unearthed Federal Bureau of Investigations documents detailing a 22-site network of terrorist training villages sprawled across the United States. According to the documents, the FBI has been concerned about these facilities for about 12 years, but cannot act against them because the U.S. State Department has not yet declared that their umbrella group, MOA/Jamaat ul-Fuqra, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

MOA stands for Muslims of the Americas, which is linked to radical Pakistani Muslim cleric Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani. The FBI documents that Clarion has obtained show that the group is headquartered in the well known “Islamberg” compound in rural New York. The facility in Texas is known as “Mahmoudberg.” It’s located in Brazoria county on County Road 3 near Sweeny. Sweeny is in far south Texas, southwest of Houston. The town of about 4,000 is a little under three hours’ drive from the state capital in Austin.”

“The Mahmoudberg compound was the site of a shooting incident in 2002. One member of the group apparently shot another by accident. Members of the group did not cooperate with a law enforcement investigation of the incident, according to the FBI documents. Women in the group wore veils over their faces and were not allowed to communicate directly with law enforcement officers.”

“The FBI documents show that MOA members have been involved in at least 10 murders, a disappearance, three firebombings, an attempted firebombing, two explosive bombings and an attempted bombing.”

And yet DHS is busy with imaginary right-wing terrorists, rather than real ones.

You can read the report from the Clarion Project here.

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2. Denial, it’s not just a river you know. 🙂

From NationalJournal  “For nearly three years, the Democratic approach to the political unpopularity of President Obama’s health care law was denial. Deny it played a significant role in the party’s historic midterm losses in 2010. Insist, in the face of contradictory evidence, that as more voters experienced the benefits of the law, the more popular it would become. Deny it would be a major issue at all in the 2014 midterms.

The latest version of the argument points to polling showing that voters don’t want to repeal the law but prefer to see it fixed—perfectly in line with the newly adopted positions of vulnerable Democratic officeholders. In a memo leaked to the press, Democrats argue they can neutralize their health care vulnerabilities by promoting their desire to fix the law and blaming Republicans for intransigence in seeking a full repeal. But dig a bit deeper past the talking points, and it’s unclear what they want to fix—beyond their broken poll numbers.

Indeed, in a sign that Democrats are stuck in neutral on their Obamacare messaging, the “news” from the memo is months old. The strategy devised by the sharpest party operatives has already been in effect in numerous ads across the country and was promoted by the party’s top strategists two months ago. In those targeted races, public polling has shown Democratic standing worsening where the on-air Obamacare debate has already begun. (See: Landrieu, Mary; Hagan, Kay.)

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3. The sad reality is that as illegal as this all is, Republicans won’t do a thing about it.

From NationalReview  “The president issued an executive order last week purporting to raise the minimum wage for employees of federal contractors to $10.10 an hour. The order is unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court made clear in Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer that “the President’s power, if any, to issue the [executive] order must stem either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.” Furthermore, “when the president takes measures incompatible with the expressed or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter.”

Nothing in the Constitution grants the president authority to set or raise the minimum wage independently of an act of Congress. Furthermore, although the president generally has authority to improve the efficient discharge of federal contracts, the president’s minimum-wage order is incompatible with the expressed and implied will of Congress.

Congress has made its will regarding the minimum wage for federal contractors abundantly clear in four separate statutes: The Service Contract Act, the Davis Bacon Act, the Walsh-Healey Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act. Under those statutes, the minimum wage for many, if not most, employees of federal contractors is the prevailing minimum wage for employees in the specific job classification in the locality where the work is to be performed. For the remaining classifications of employees for whom no prevailing minimum wage exists, the minimum wage is slotted into the minimum for similar jobs, or is governed by the minimum set by Congress in the Fair Labor Standards Act, i.e., $7.25.”

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4. The CBO has chimed in on the minimum wage issue. Jobs lost, cost increases for every consumer.

From Reuters  “Raising the U.S. federal minimum wage to $10.10, as President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress are proposing, could result in about 500,000 jobs being lost by late 2016, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated on Tuesday.”

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5. In immigration news….

From TheHill  “Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he hopes President Obama will review possible administrative actions to halt the deportations of illegal immigrants now that reform legislation has stalled in Congress.

“I would hope that administratively, the president will do what he can to take a look at deportations, but he is being burdened by the law as it exists, and we need to change it,” Reid told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.”

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6.  Once again, the Koch Bros. get slammed for the same thing. But like with Soros, Democrats can’t see their own hypocrisy. If it’s a perversion of the system when one side does it, it should be on both, no?

From NBCNews  “Billionaire climate-change activist Tom Steyer could spend $100 million in the 2014 midterm election season — and maybe even more — to help Democratic candidates, NBC News confirms.”

“Is it going to take $100 million? I have no idea,” Steyer told the New York Times, which first reported this story. “I think that would be a really cheap price to answer the generational challenge of the world.”

Steyer is one of the biggest — and wealthiest — opponents of the politically charged Keystone XL pipeline.”

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7. Buyers remorse.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “Given a chance to do it all over again, only 79 percent of those who voted for President Obama would vote for him again and 71 percent of Obama voters now inclined to vote for somebody else “regret” their vote to reelect the president, according to a new poll.

The Economist/YouGov.com poll found that Obama would lose enough votes in a rematch with Mitt Romney that the Republican would win. “90 percent of people who voted for Romney would do it again, compared to only 79 percent of Obama voters who would,” said the poll.”

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News/Politics 12-13-13

What’s interesting in today’s news?

There’s a whole bunch, so I’ll try to be brief.

1. Politifact has chosen it’s “Lie of the Year.”

From Politifact  “It was a catchy political pitch and a chance to calm nerves about his dramatic and complicated plan to bring historic change to America’s health insurance system.

“If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” President Barack Obama said — many times — of his landmark new law.”

“For all of these reasons, PolitiFact has named “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,” the Lie of the Year for 2013. Readers in a separate online poll overwhelmingly agreed with the choice.”

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2. You’ve heard of so-called “white privilege.” Now there’s a new meme.

I give you…. “Christian privilege.”

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “It’s settled, then: Christian conservatives use religion as a justification for their discriminatory behavior, and Americans will only enjoy true religious freedom when their so-called “religious liberty” claims are defeated.

That was the consensus Thursday at a panel discussion sponsored by the Center for American Progress in Washington.

“People [are] using the term ‘liberty’ when they really mean ‘my liberty, your slavery,'” the Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of the Interfaith Alliance, said during the discussion. He made the statement while arguing that liberals’ view of religious liberty springs from a true, originalist reading of the Constitution that was once universally understood. Unfortunately, he said, the American people have become “confused” about this question because of misleading claims made by the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops.” 🙄

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3. I’ve always known that teachers unions went out of their way to fight for bad teachers. But this is disgusting, even for them.

From EAGNews  “The Michigan Education Association is going to arbitration to try to force the West Branch-Rose City school district to pay a former teacher who was convicted of molesting a student a $10,000 severance buyout.

The father of the victim is outraged, calling the union’s efforts on behalf of the sex criminal “ludicrous” and saying any school money due to the teacher should go to his son, who is “out there trying to make it in this world all messed up.”

Neal Erickson, a former math teacher at Rose City Middle School, was convicted this summer of raping a young student over three years, from 2006 to 2009, and sentenced to 15-30 years in prison.”

Disgusting.

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4. OK fine, now do something about it.

From TownHall  “In a letter sent late Wednesday, Chairman of the House Oversight Committee Darrell Issa reminded Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that obstructing a congressional investigation is a crime.

  Issa’s Committee has been looking into the details of how Obamacare was implemented, along with the major problems with Healthcare.gov and has requested a number of documents from HHS, none of which he’s received. The documents requested pertain to companies hired by HHS to build and operate Healthcare.gov.

  “The Department [HHS] subsequently instructed those companies not to comply with the Committee’s request. The Department’s hostility toward questions from Congress and the media about the implementation of Obamcare is well known. The Department’s most recent effort to stonewall, however, has morphed from mere obstinacy into criminal obstruction of a congressional investigation,” Issa wrote.”

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5. The natives are getting restless. 🙂

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6. Casual handshake, or something else?

From TheDailyMail  “Obama shook Raúl Castro’s hand after SIX MONTHS of secret U.S.-Cuba talks, report claims

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7. In govt circles, I’m sure this is called a bargain. What the rest of us call it is a debacle.

From AmericansForTaxReform  “Taxpayers Shell Out $14,000 per Obamacare “Enrollee”

$5.2 billion for just 364,682 “enrollees”

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8. Harry Reid is up to some pretty slimy dealings. Again.

From TheDailyCaller  “Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid took an intense interest in pushing through visas for dozens of shady Asian investors for a Las Vegas casino represented by his son, Rory Reid, documents and reports show.”

“In a Dec. 5, 2012 email to officials at the Department of Homeland Security obtained by The Washington Times, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Legislative Affairs official Miguel Rodriguez wrote, “This one is going to be a major headache for us all because Sen. Reid’s office/staff is pushing hard and I just had a long yelling match on the phone.””

“Initial attempts by Sen. Reid’s office to expedite the visa requests were denied on Dec. 17, 2012, prompting the majority leader to personally call USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas.”

““Within a few short weeks of Mr. Reid’s personal intervention, the decision not to expedite the visas was reversed, allowing the hotel to secure major funding from JP Morgan Chase,” the Times reports.”

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by

News/Politics 11-23-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. A new attempt to delay the coming pain of ObamaCare. At least until after the 2014 elections. Then the hammer drops. 🙄 Great plan.

From Bloomberg  “Obama also is pushing back the second-year start of enrollment to Nov. 15, 2014, from Oct. 15. That move is intended to give insurers until May 31 to analyze claims from the first year of plans sold under the law , an extension that may potentially stave off premium increases before the 2014 congressional elections.

Technology failings in the new government-run insurance exchanges are undermining efforts to attract the broad array of customers needed to keep plans affordable in the long run. Avoiding a large increase in prices next year is “absolutely critical” if Obama wants to preserve his signature legislative achievement, said Ana Gupte, a Leerink Swann & Co. analyst.

“The death of this law would be for health insurance companies to price policies for 2015 in a way that premiums skyrocket,” Gupte said in an interview. “At that point, it’s a death spiral and it’s over. So he needs to do something.”

““If premiums go through the roof in the first year of Obamacare, no one will know about it until after the election,” Senator Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said in an e-mail. “This is clearly a cynical political move.”

A blatant attempt to provide cover for vulnerable Democrats.

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2. We now learn that if this all goes down in flames, insurers will receive a taxpayer bailout.

From YahooNews  “The insurance industry may be next in line to receive a hefty government bailout. That’s what could happen if sign ups for Obamacare fall short of expectations triggering an obscure provision in the Affordable Care Act that makes up any serious losses. 

The potential price tag: millions of taxpayer dollars or more over a 3-year period.”

“So-called “risk corridors” were  included in the 2010 health law to compensate insurance companies for major coverage losses in the event that far more older and sick people signed up for health plans than younger, healthy people and drove up their costs after they had set the premiums.  If actual claims exceed projections by more than 3 percent under Obamacare, the government will compensate the industry for those losses.”

Yay. 🙄

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3. Senate Republicans have an option for fighting back against Reid’s power grab. The question is will they use it? With RINO’s like Graham, McCain, and McConnell already giving in to Dems on the matter, and being too busy attacking the Tea Party wing of the party, I doubt it.

From RedState  “Throughout the past few years, aside for a few judicial nominees, Republicans have been willing to grant Democrats a super-majority on major liberal initiatives.  They helped Reid pass amnesty.  They gave him the votes for the massive farm/food stamp bill.  They were all in the tank for the deceptively-named Violence Against Women Act.  They recently gave him the 60 votes for ENDA.  And most importantly, they stood shoulder to shoulder with Reid against House Republicans during the most important time when conservatives were united behind defunding Obamacare.

So why would Harry Reid fear reprisal from Republicans?  What would stop him from pulling the nuclear option?”

“There is one simple thing Republicans can do to retaliate.  They can start by ending the Democrat super-majority on legislative issues.  They can easily pledge to filibuster every piece of legislation and deny all requests for unanimous consent until the rules change is overturned.

How would Harry Reid respond to a complete shutdown of the Senate?  Would he abolish the filibuster even for legislation?  Let him try.  But for now, he has nothing to fear from just eliminating the filibuster on judges because he knows Republicans will not retaliate.  Reid knows that there is not a single issue where McCain, Corker, Graham, and Alexander will now withhold support simply because they were stiffed with the nuclear option.”

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4. We’ve all heard the stories of leftist indoctrination masquerading as education involved with Common Core. Here is yet another example.

From IllinoisReview  “Fourth graders in Dupo Illinois are reading a biography of Barack Obama that’s raising eyebrows among St. Clair County parents. The book, which supplements the school’s Common Core curriculum, blames television for the negative behaviors the first African-American president picked up as a teen:”

“The book – brought to the attention this week of those on the “Moms Against Duncan – MAD” Facebook page, goes on to say white Americans were hesitant to vote for a black president, and that Obama pushed the race issue to bring the nation together.

“But some people said Americans weren’t ready for that much change. Sure Barack was a nice fellow, they said. But white voters would never vote for a black president. Other angry voices were raised. Barack’s former pastor called the country a failure. God would @#%$ the United States for mistreating its black citizens, he said.”

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5. And it looks like mid-week could be messy, just in time for holiday travel.

From NBCNews  “Forecasters are warning Thanksgiving travelers to beware, as a sweeping winter storm system could bring icy roads, flight delays and more headaches to the holiday next week.

“We’ve been lucky the last few years, but unfortunately this is a rather poorly timed storm,” said Jonathan Erdman, senior meteorologist at the Weather Channel.

Erdman said the Northeast would likely see “massive flight delays” on Wednesday in all major airports, because of rain, snow and low-lying clouds that wreak havoc with flight plans.”

“The storm is “about as expansive a winter storm as it get,” according to Erdman, with its effects being felt from California to Maine.”

Great. 😦

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by

News/Politics 11-22-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Reid has exercised the “nuclear option” and changed the Senate rules on filibustering. They seek to pack the courts and govt bureaucracies with liberal activists. The President and VP have come out in strong support. Hypocrites, every single one.

Yesterday the President said “So I support the step a majority of senators today took to change the way that Washington is doing business, more specifically, the way the Senate does business.”

But here’s what he had to say when his party was the minority and the Republicans were considering it.

“In 2008, Mr. Reid himself swore that as long as he was leader, he would never turn to the nuclear option, saying it would be a “black chapter in the history of the Senate.”

Here’s what Biden had to say in 2005.

Yeah. Hypocrites.

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2. Democrats better come up with a plan quick. This could get real ugly for them.

From FoxNews  “A new and independent analysis of ObamaCare warns of a ticking time bomb, predicting a second wave of 50 million to 100 million insurance policy cancellations next fall — right before the mid-term elections. 

 The next round of cancellations and premium hikes is expected to hit employees, particularly of small businesses. While the administration has tried to downplay the cancellation notices hitting policyholders on the individual market by noting they represent a relatively small fraction of the population, the swath of people who will be affected by the shakeup in employer-sponsored coverage will be much broader. 

An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, shows the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predict up to 100 million small and large business policies could be canceled next year. “

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3. And it looks like the Catholic Church has scored another legal victory against the Obama admin’s contraceptive mandate. 🙂

From Pittsburgh/CBSLocal  “A federal judge in western Pennsylvania says Catholic groups don’t immediately have to comply with mandates in the federal health care overhaul law.

The Diocese is challenging its participation in the health care program because it would be required to provide its employees with contraceptives.

There were strong words earlier this month from Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese leader Bishop David Zubik as he testified in federal court on the issue.”

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4. NBC being the Obama cheerleaders that they are, have blacked out coverage of the ObamaCare disaster.

From NewsBusters  “NBC News has completely censored any mention of the unfolding ObamaCare disaster  for the last 72 hours. Not one word about the millions of Americans losing their  health insurance nor the severe political damage that has been done to President  Obama and the Democratic Party.

In that same time period, both CBS and  ABC reported on major developments regarding the new law, including revelations  that much of ObamaCare’s infrastructure was still unfinished and that the  administration knew of serious problems with the HealthCare.gov website as early as  March.

The last time ObamaCare was even mentioned on the air waves of NBC News was  during Monday morning’s Today show, when White House correspondent  Peter Alexander touted a “to-do list” of damage control for the President and former  Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs was given a platform to spin for his former  boss.”

Straight propaganda, no chaser.

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5. A new study is out which proves yet again that govt. funded pre-k programs are a waste of money and resources. President Obama supports it, but let’s face it, he likes it because it’s money that can be pushed to the teachers unions. Outcome doesn’t matter, financing his supporters, who return the money to Dem coffers is what matters to him. The italicized remarks are his.

From HotAir  “Naturally, on the heels of these scientifically rigorous findings, the president announced his desire for a massive expansion of Head Start and state pre-K programs. Universal pre-K— Who could object to that?

“You know, study after study shows that the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road. But today, fewer than three in ten 4-year-olds are enrolled in a high-quality preschool program. Most middle-class parents can’t afford a few hundred bucks a week for private preschool. And for poor kids who need help the most, this lack of access to preschool education can shadow them for the rest of their lives. So, tonight, I propose working with states to make high-quality preschool available to every single child in America.“

Making high-quality preschool available to every single child in America. So, what would we get for that money? And, more importantly, what do students get? A new study of Tennessee’s Voluntary Pre-K program suggests, once again, the answer is not much.”

“The relatively large effects of TN‐VPK on the Woodcock Johnson achievement measures found at the end of the pre‐k year were greatly diminished and no longer statistically significant at the end of the kindergarten year. The only exception was a marginally significant negative effect on Passage Comprehension such that non-participants had higher scores at the end of the kindergarten year than TN‐VPK participants.”

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6. I know it’s early, but it’s we have our first sighting…..

GRINCH ALERT!!!!

From AllianceDefendingFreedom  “On behalf of concerned parents, Alliance Defending Freedom sent a letter Tuesday to a South Carolina public charter school whose band director prohibited students from performing the music to “Joy to the World” and “O Come All Ye Faithful.” A student also provided the letter to the school at a board meeting Tuesday night.

School officials claim they received some type of communication from either the American Civil Liberties Union or another group that prompted the ban after students had already begun rehearsing the pieces for a concert.

“Schools shouldn’t have to think twice about whether they can allow their bands to play the music to time-honored Christmas carols like these,” said Litigation Staff Counsel Rory Gray. “School districts can and should allow religious Christmas carols to be part of their school productions.”

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