News/Politics 1-22-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. So I guess Obama and Sharpton will now hold a joint press conference to apologize to the Ferguson PD, Officer Wilson, and the rest of the country for their unnecessary race-baiting, right?

From TheNYTimes  “Justice Department lawyers will recommend that no civil rights charges be brought against the police officer who fatally shot an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Mo., after an F.B.I. investigation found no evidence to support charges, law enforcement officials said Wednesday.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and his civil rights chief, Vanita Gupta, will have the final say on whether the Justice Department will close the case against the officer, Darren Wilson. But it would be unusual for them to overrule the prosecutors on the case, who are still working on a legal memo explaining their recommendation.

A decision by the Justice Department would bring an end to the politically charged investigation of Mr. Wilson in the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. The Missouri authorities concluded their investigation into Mr. Brown’s death in November and also recommended against charges.”

“But a broader Justice Department civil rights investigation into allegations of discriminatory traffic stops and excessive force by the Ferguson Police Department remains open. That investigation could lead to significant changes at the department, which is overwhelmingly white despite serving a city that is mostly black.”

So they have no evidence, but they’ll keep doing what they do. Which is to attack police and divide the country.

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2. So is this Boxer’s going away present to herself and family? And remember folks, she’s on the Ethics Committee.

From CapitolCityProject  “Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Cali.), who recently announced her plans to retire from the Senate after 2016, appeared to use her position as a high-ranking public official to financially benefit close family members — including her son and husband to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars since 2008 — through her campaign committee and leadership PAC.

Boxer, who is currently serving her fourth and final term as a California senator and serves as the chairwoman on the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, paid out over $300,000 combined to her son’s company and husband’s law firm over the span of the 2008, 2010, and 2012 election cycles.

On top of setting up contracts and paying her son’s and husband’s firms, Sen. Boxer also reimbursed herself through her leadership PAC for expenses totaling tens of thousands of dollars, according to reports.

Boxer’s campaign committee, Friends of Barbara Boxer, reimbursed the senator a total of $35,657 during the 2010 election cycle for travel expenses. That same year Boxer’s leadership PAC, PAC for a Change, reimbursed her $500 for a venue rental used to host a fundraiser. In 2012, her campaign committee reimbursed the senator $3,389 for travel expenses and meals.”

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3. The House Immigration plan is a joke. Spends 10 billion, deports no illegals, and reduces the border fences.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “Critics including Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions are slamming a House GOP border security plan set for debate Wednesday, claiming it will spend $10 billion on new equipment and border security tricks, but not send one single illegal home.

Sessions, the influential Center for Immigration Studies, and the head of the association of former Border Control agents all slammed the H.R. 399 being marked up in the House Homeland Security Committee today as unfocused on the No. 1 issue: U.S. sanctuary to illegals.

The bill, however, is geared to handling the tight security of the actual border, not how illegal immigrants are handled once they cross in. Several related pieces of immigration reform legislation are expected to be addressed by the House.

“As long as sanctuary cities, welfare, education, and jobs and principally lack of enforcement and enabling by the federal government, are made available to the undocumented alien, we will not be able to secure the physical border,” said Zack Taylor, chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers.”

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More from TheDailyCaller  “The new border bills drafted by Republican leaders require the actual removal of at least 66 miles of weak border fencing between laborers in Mexico and employers in the United States.

The border bills also only require for the construction of 27 miles of effective double-layer fencing along the 2,000-mile border.

 “It is a remarkable that the direction of our progress is going backwards, from a goal of building 700 miles of double-layer border fencing [in 2006] to only 27 miles [in 2015],” said a Hill staffer who opposes the leaders’ bills.”

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4. How long until this happens here?

From LifeSiteNews  “Richard Page, a 68-year-old British Justice of the Peace and evangelical Christian, has been condemned by the country’s highest legal authorities, suspended, and subjected to a day-long re-education session to rid him of the dangerous belief that a child would be better off being adopted by a family with a mother and a father than by a same-sex couple.

Page sat on a family court tribunal last summer to consider a social worker’s recommendation that a foster child be adopted by a gay couple. “I raised some questions in private with the other judges, including that I thought that because a baby comes from a man and a woman it made me think the child would be better off with a father and a mother than with single-sex parents. The other judges didn’t agree at all,” he told LifeSiteNews.

Worse, the other judges complained. A review committee concurred, suspended him from the bench and recommended he be kicked off the lowest rung of the judiciary (but which handles 90 percent of all criminal crime, plus youth and family cases).

“They said I had a closed mind because of my Christian beliefs,” he said. “They said I could not put my Christian beliefs above the rights of single-sex couples. They said I had to open my mind. But I think when you order someone to open their mind, then you are the one with a closed mind.”

In the end, the Lord Chancellor, cabinet minister Chris Grayling, and the Chief Justice John Thomas, decided to issue a reprimand and a day-long re-education order. “Mr. Page, while sitting in Family Court,” it stated in part, “was found to have been influenced by his religious beliefs and not by evidence.” The pair rated his behavior “a serious misconduct” and added, “Mr. Page should have recused himself from the matter.””

Re-education? How commie like. 🙄

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5. When it does come, I bet I know which states will lead the way…..

From Time  “Two California lawmakers backed by the family of a woman who drew national attention by choosing to end her life after an aggressive and debilitating cancer diagnosis are set to introduce a new right-to-die bill on Wednesday.

The End of Life Option Act would allow doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medications to terminally ill patients with six months or less to live, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Two state senators are pushing the bill with the support of Brittany Maynard’s family.

Maynard was living in the San Francisco Bay Area when she and her husband moved to Portland, Ore., to take advantage of the state’s Death With Dignity law, in a widely publicized story that the bill’s authors say could be a tipping point in support for medically assisted suicide. Oregon, Washington and Vermont have such laws, but attempts to pass similar legislation in California have failed before.”

All the “progressive” ones of course.

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News/Politics 1-13-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The Ohio State Buckeyes are the national champions. And now that the first ever college playoffs are over, what did you think of it?

From MSNSports  “They took advantage of an opportunity they never would have had in the BCS, shrugging off questions about if they belonged among the college football’s final four. Cardale Jones, Ezekiel Elliott and the Buckeyes won the first College Football Playoff national championship, upsetting Marcus Mariota and Oregon 42-20 on Monday night.

Behind their bullish backup quarterback Jones and the relentless running of Elliott, the Buckeyes (14-1) completed a remarkable in-season turnaround with a dominating performance against the Ducks (13-2).”

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2. The House is trying to rollback Obama’s executive overreach. I know, which one, right?

From TheHill  “The GOP-led House Rules Committee late Monday advanced a bill to the floor that would fund the Department of Homeland Security through September and several amendments that would roll back President Obama’s immigration policies.

The House will likely vote on each of the amendments and the spending bill on Wednesday. The GOP-sponsored amendments are expected to be adopted and wrapped into the spending bill.

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), chairman of the Rules panel, said Republicans want to withhold funding for the executive orders because Obama’s actions are “unlawful, illegal and unconstitutional.” 

The amendments would defund Obama’s executive orders on immigration from November, the Morton Memos of 2011 and 2012 that relaxed some immigration laws and the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that defers deportations of children who came to the United States illegally.

Other amendments focus on immigration enforcement for sex offenders and prioritizing people who came to the U.S. legally ahead of those who arrived illegally.”

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3. The Keystone pipeline passes its initial Senate hurdle. Still no idea if they have the Democrat votes needed to override Obama’s threatened veto.

From LegalInsurrection/TheAP  “Legislation approving construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline cleared an initial Senate hurdle Monday, a victory for newly empowered Republicans angling for a quick veto showdown with President Barack Obama.

The bipartisan 63-32 vote was 3 more than the 60 required, and well above the level the highly controversial measure ever gained in recent years when Democrats controlled the Senate….

But with more than enough votes at their command, Republican and Democratic supporters said they hoped the legislation could win final approval and be sent to the White House by the end of next week.

“President Obama has every reason to sign the jobs and infrastructure bill that we will pass,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. He noted that the Nebraska Supreme Court had recently rejected a legal challenge brought by opponents, an obstacle the White House had cited.”

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4. More “green science” myths bite the dust.

From HotAir  “Not that anyone in the anti-energy community will pay attention to this, but the debate over hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and energy extraction in general has delivered another blow to the Green Energy crew. In fact, several of the most commonly repeated stories about the health hazards associated with the oil and gas energy have turned out to be “claims masquerading as science.”

[Dr. Dan Hill, head and professor and Noble Chair of the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A & M University] cited a study in Colorado, which alleged that people who live within a half mile of a natural gas well are at higher risk of cancer. That study was later criticized by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment for it flawed methodology and was eventually decommissioned by the Garfield County Commissioners in Colorado.

Similarly, some residents of Flower Mound, Texas (north of Fort Worth) suspected that breast cancers were linked to increased drilling. After extensive investigation by the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, the Texas Cancer Registry, and Susan G. Komen for the cure in Dallas all said there is no evidence of an increase in cancers. The Texas Department of State Health Services also found no connection between natural gas production and cancer in 2014.

In order to appreciate the impact of these results, do a Google search on Flower Mound, Texas and Fracking. This case has taken on legendary status among fracking opponents. It brought the phrase cancer cluster to national prominence and fueled the opposition to hydraulic fracturing in the liberal media for years. It was accepted as gospel that the incidence rate of cancers must be higher and, even in the absence of any evidence of a causal relationship, that it must have been caused by fracking. However we now see groups including Komen for the Cure saying that there was no increase and no relationship.”

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News/Politics 12-17-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread, so you tell me….. 🙂

Here’s a few from me.

1. Who needs Congress when you have a king?

From USAToday  “President Obama has issued a form of executive action known as the presidential memorandum more often than any other president in history — using it to take unilateral action even as he has signed fewer executive orders.

When these two forms of directives are taken together, Obama is on track to take more high-level executive actions than any president since Harry Truman battled the “Do Nothing Congress” almost seven decades ago, according to a USA TODAY review of presidential documents.

Obama has issued executive orders to give federal employees the day after Christmas off, to impose economic sanctions and to determine how national secrets are classified. He’s used presidential memoranda to make policy on gun control, immigration and labor regulations. Tuesday, he used a memorandum to declare Bristol Bay, Alaska, off-limits to oil and gas exploration.

Like executive orders, presidential memoranda don’t require action by Congress. They have the same force of law as executive orders and often have consequences just as far-reaching. And some of the most significant actions of the Obama presidency have come not by executive order but by presidential memoranda.

 Obama has made prolific use of memoranda despite his own claims that he’s used his executive power less than other presidents. “

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2. Probably meaningless here, but let’s hope this is a sign of things to come.

From CNSNews  “A judge for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania issued a “memorandum opinion” on Tuesday stating that President Barack Obama’s unilateral action on immigration–which would allow some illegal aliens to stay in the United States and work–is unconstitutional.

“The November 20, 2014 executive action on immigration is unconstitutional,” says Judge Arthur J. Schwab in one heading of the “memorandum opinion” he issued in the case of United States of America v. Elionardo Juarez-Escobar.

“President Obama’s unilateral legislative action violates the separation of powers provided for in the Constitution as well as the Take Care Clause, and therefore, is unconstitutional,” said the judge.”

“”President Obama contended that although legislation is the most appropriate course of action to solve the immigration debate, his Executive Action was necessary because of Congress’s failure to pass legislation, acceptable to him, in this regard,” said the court. “This proposition is arbitrary and does not negate the requirement that the November 20, 2014 Executive Action be lawfully within the President’s executive authority. It is not.””

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3. Blow the whistle, face illegal retaliation.

From StarsAndStripes  ” For 24 years, Navy Cmdr. Jeff Hawker served his country, leaving active duty to continue treating his military brethren as a Department of Veterans Affairs doctor. After he started working at the Salem VA Medical Center, though, he said it took just a few months for officials at the medical center to oust him and to destroy his career after he reported dangerous medical practices.

“You serve and you come back and you run into the corruption and malpractice” of the VA , he said.

At a time when the VA is scrambling to hire doctors to make up for a critical shortfall, Hawker said he was the victim of a so-called “sham peer review,” a problem many say is widespread in the VA and little reported because the victims fear bringing attention to their negative reviews.

Hawker said vindictive local VA officials have effectively ended his career after he voiced serious concerns about patient safety at a busy Virginia hospital, including a doctor performing procedures Hawker said he wasn’t trained to do and life-threatening medical errors. Worse, Hawker said, veterans there are still at serious risk months after he reported the problems.”

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4. What a joke. This will help contain costs, right? 🙄

From TheHill  “The White House wants healthcare providers to get serious about bulking up their defenses against climate change.

In a best-practice guide for healthcare providers and policymakers released on Monday, the administration advises them on how to best improve their “climate readiness.”

The guide is one piece of a larger initiative at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)  launched by President Obama last year, and provides information to healthcare facilities on how to prepare of extreme weather events the administration says is tied to climate change.

The guidelines released by the White House on Monday include commitments from leading healthcare providers across the country to bulk up climate resilience at facilities and of operations.

“HHS recognizes climate change as one of the top public health challenges of our time,” the White House said.”

And most folks without an agenda recognize this as one of the biggest scams of our time.

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News/Politics 12-12-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Well maybe we don’t have a deal……

From RollCall  “Unsure whether they have the votes to pass a trillion-dollar federal spending package, House GOP leaders on Thursday afternoon delayed a final vote on the “cromnibus.”

They did so with mere hours to go until the government is set to run out of funding, and just before the House was scheduled to vote.

GOP leaders called a recess to floor proceedings, with a GOP leadership aide confirming “no conference meeting [is] planned at this time.” The aide said “leadership teams are still talking to their respective members,” and noted, “We still plan to vote this afternoon.”

It’s not clear, however, what they will be voting on.

If Republicans can’t surmount the impasse, they could decide to proceed with swiftly moving a short-term continuing resolution through the chamber, which the Senate could also pass before 11:59 p.m., when current funding expires.”

So will Elizabeth Warren now call herself a “hostage taker” or an “economic terrorist” like she did to Republicans during the last shutdown, or is that only when Republicans do it?

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2. Now about Boehner’s prior spending deals….

From CNSNews  “The federal debt has increased by $3.8 trillion in the 3.8 years that have passed since House Speaker John Boehner cut his first spending deal with Senate Democrats and President Obama.

That works out to $32,938.38 for every household in the United States—including those taking federal welfare benefits—and $42,783.20 for every full-time year-round private-sector worker in the United States.

In fact, the $42,783.20 that the federal government has borrowed per full-time year-round private-sector worker since Boehner cut his first federal spending deal exceeds the $41,916 that according to the Census Bureau was median annual earnings of full-time year-round private-sector wage and salary workers in 2013.”

That should answer Bob’s question from yesterday about per taxpayer costs.

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3. Here’s a “phony scandal” update. All evidence continues to point to White House involvement.

From Forbes  “Sadly, the 18 month investigation into the IRS targeting of conservative groups isn’t over, and it may be worse than anyone thought. A federal judge has broken loose more emails that the DOJ had surely hoped would never surface. The picture it reveals isn’t pretty. The documents prove that Lois Lerner met with DOJ’s Election Crimes Division a month before the 2010 elections.

It has to be embarrassing to the DOJ, which may not be the most impartial one to be investigating the IRS. In fact, the DOJ withheld over 800 pages of Lerner documents citing “taxpayer privacy” and “deliberative privilege.” Yet these internal DOJ documents show Ms. Lerner was talking to DOJ officials about prosecuting tax-exempt entities (yes, criminally!) two years before the IRS conceded there was inappropriate targeting.

Ms. Lerner met with top officials from the DOJ’s Election Crimes Branch in October of 2010. Although Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the DOJ (Judicial Watch v. Department of Justice, No. 14-cv-01239), the DOJ coughed up dirt only on court order. Even then, the DOJ handed over only two pages of heavily redacted emails.”

“What’s more, the DOJ withheld 832 pages in their entirety. They revealed that Mr. Obama’s DOJ called an October 8, 2010 meeting with the IRS “concerning 501(c)(4) issues.” 

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4. 70% of respondents want Congress to keep digging.

From FoxNews Call it a “kumbaya” question, as majorities of Democrats (60 percent), independents (75 percent) and Republicans (78 percent) support lawmakers continuing to dig. 

The new poll also asked why the White House is refusing to release thousands of pages of documents related to the IRS targeting.  By nearly three-to-one people think it’s because the administration wants to keep its role in the scandal secret (63 percent) rather than to keep taxpayer information confidential (22 percent). 

Even Democrats are more likely to say the Obama White House is withholding documents to hide its involvement (45 percent) rather than to protect taxpayers (35 percent).  Another 20 percent is unsure.”

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5. Yet another backdoor to citizenship for illegal immigrants?

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “President Obama’s recently unveiled immigration scheme creates a new path for illegal immigrants and those who overstay their visas to become legal citizens nearly instantly, according to Utah Sen. Mike Lee.

Taking to the Senate floor Thursday to reveal the backdoor he said Obama is opening to millions more illegals beyond the parents of children here legally, the Republican said, “This is the danger of unilateral executive action.””

“It would also provide a way for those here illegally to be waived into America without any punishment.

Lee said that the Obama plan would provide “advance parole” to illegals, putting them on the fast track to a green card and citizenship. That status has been difficult to get in the past.

Now, however, he said that the president plans to ease the 3-10 year waiting period for those who leave then try to reenter legally by granting provisional waivers for entry. What’s more, in some cases illegals will be allowed to stay in the United States while waiting for those provisional waivers.”

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News/Politics 12-10-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. About that CIA torture report……..

From HotAir  “Is the report from the Democratic majority on the Senate Intelligence Committee on post-9/11 interrogations a “badge of honor,” as Joe Biden put it — or an attempt to scapegoat the CIA for doing what it was asked to do? NBC’s Richard Engel told Ronan Farrow that it’s much more the latter, allowing the political leadership in the Bush administration and Congress off the hook. It also curiously doesn’t address the interrogation programs in the military, which leaves the CIA “held out to dry,” as Engel’s sources tell him:

“So many people knew what was going on. This wasn’t a program that was over one or two weeks in a couple of dark sites,” Engel told MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow. “Everybody knew about it.”

Engel said that some of those implicated told him that they were being used as scapegoats by the Senate Intelligence Committee, led by outgoing Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.).

“The CIA was asked to do this; was given authorizations to do this. And now many people involved are saying to me privately, ‘Now we’re being held out to dry. You asked us to do this, and now the world is coming down on top of it,” Engel said.

If you’re wondering why CIA officers are telling Engel that Senate Democrats left them twisting in the wind, you can read their explanation on the website they’ve set up to rebut the SSCI majority report. Bearing in mind that they have their own motivations, the CIA argues that the report flatly disregards both testimony and evidence that would at the very least mitigate against the conclusions reached in the report:

Astonishingly, the SSCI Majority staff interviewed no CIA officers responsible for establishing, implementing, or evaluating the program’s effectiveness. Let us repeat, no one at the CIA was interviewed.”

So yet another “investigation” where no one talked to the witnesses/victims/perps. Just like the with the IRS and Benghazi “investigations”.

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2. At least one group is benefitting financially from Obama’s amnesty plan.

From CapitolCityProject  “The Department of Health and Human Services dished out over $182 million to one organization in order to house unaccompanied illegal alien children over the span of four months, according to documents released on December 3. The taxpayer funds ended up covering the likes of free laptops, big screen TVs, and pregnancy tests. In 2014 alone, the group was awarded well over $280 million in federal grant money and surpasses $460 million when factoring in 2013. This is just one group in a sprawling network of those sheltering illegal alien children.

The December 3 documents, obtained by Judicial Watch, show BCFS, formerly known as Baptist Children and Family Services, was paid $182,129,786 in order to provide “basic shelter care” for 2,400 “unaccompanied alien children” (UAC) during a four month span.The budget included charges of $104,215,608 for the 1,200 UAC’s at a Fort Sill, Oklahoma center and another $77,914,178 for the 1,200 UACs at the Lackland Air Force Base shelter located in San Antonio, Texas. From June 12 to October 18, these figures equate to $86,846.34 for every illegal alien child housed at Ft. Sill and $64,928 per illegal alien child from May 18 to September 18 at the Lackland Air Force Base location. On top of this, $2,648,800 was given as compensation to members of the BCFS “Incident Management Team” — or $88,293 per person.

Other expenses at the Ft. Sill facility included hotel accommodations running a tab of $6,765,000, food costs of $75 per day for 3 meals and 2 snacks for each illegal alien child provided by a local catering service totaling $18,198,000, and $1,120,400 worth of medical supplies. Additionally, board games, soccer balls, basketballs, jump ropes, bracelet making kits, yarn, puzzles, arts and crafts, decks of cards, and eye-hand coordination game sets were provided at the cost of $180,000. Educational items — including tempera paint, paint markers, paint brushes, easel brushes, art paper and multicultural crayons — were $180,000. The children were also provided laptops for $200,000 and cell phones costing $160,000.”

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3. Don’t worry, your private health and other personal info is safe with them. 🙄

From TheWeeklyStandard  “Along with the primary goal of expanding the availability of health insurance, the Affordable Care Act aims to make the use of Electronic Health Records (EHR) universal. This plan actually began with the 2009 stimulus (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), which included the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. Doctors and other health providers have been offered incentives to convert patient information and health histories to a compatible and transferable electronic format, and as of June 2014, 75 percent of eligible doctors and 92 percent of eligible hospitals had received payments under the program.

This week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the release of the Federal Health IT Strategic Plan 2015-2020, which details the efforts of some 35 departments and agencies of the federal government and their roles in the plan to “advance the collection, sharing, and use of electronic health information to improve health care, individual and community health, and research.”

“Each step of the plan includes three-year and six-year goals, and the various goals, depending on their focus, require the involvement of department and agencies as disparate as the Department of Defense, the Federal Trade Commission, and NASA, in addition to the expected participation of entities such as HHS, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Indian Health Service. The report includes a comprehensive list of all departments and agencies involved:”

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4. They have a deal. Well, it’s a deal for everyone but the taxpayers who have to foot the trillion dollar bill that comes with it.

From MSNNews  “Congressional leaders unveiled a massive $1.01 trillion spending bill Tuesday night that will keep most of the federal government funded through September.

The legislation is expected to pass in the coming days and will allow the new Republican-controlled Congress to clear the decks of lingering spending issues, while setting the stage for a prolonged fight with President Obama over immigration policy. 

At 1,603 pages, the legislation provides money to fight the rise of the Islamic State and $5.4 billion to fight the threat of Ebola. But there is no additional money for the Affordable Care Act and there are modest spending cuts at the Environmental Protection Agency and Internal Revenue Service, two perennial GOP targets. Still, Democrats won bigger budgets for enforcement at agencies created after the 2008 economic collapse.

House leaders said they will introduce a stopgap bill to give the House and Senate more time to pass the final bill and avoid a government shutdown Thursday night. Extending current funding for just a few days has happened before, but doing so again this year would provide an embarrassing climax to one of the most fruitless congressional sessions in history.”

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News/Politics 12-9-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Eric Holder thinks all cops are racists, they just don’t know it. I think he’s projecting again.

From TheNYPost  “Following the Eric Garner verdict, New York cops can look forward to having their heads examined for “unconscious bias” by federal thought police unleashed by Attorney General Eric Holder.

The NYPD can expect to undergo the same kind of “de-biasing” training that Holder put departments in Seattle, New Orleans, St. Louis and several other cities through while investigating them for alleged civil rights violations.

Federal trainers teach cops not only to think twice about stopping or questioning suspects of color, but also to ignore signs of criminal behavior and threat indicators they’ve gleaned from years of street experience. That puts their own lives in danger — and risks the safety of residents.

The Justice Department’s unprecedented shift from prosecuting intentional discrimination to investigating unconscious or “implicit” bias began long before Ferguson, Mo. It’s part of a “racial justice” movement launched by the Obama administration to “reform” the criminal justice system.”

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2. This is what happens when the Dept. Of Justice becomes the Dept. of “Social Justice”.

From NationalReview When Department of Justice officials arrived in Ferguson, Mo., one day after the death of Michael Brown, it wasn’t just to conduct an investigation on potential civil-rights violations. In fact, officials from one Justice Department office were conducting meetings with Ferguson residents to educate them on subjects such as “white privilege.”

The DOJ’s Community Relations Service arrived in Ferguson purportedly to lessen the tension between protesters and city officials. But sources who attended the DOJ’s private gatherings with Ferguson residents tell NRO that the Justice Department also sought to educate and question the community about the issues of white privilege and racism. The political nature of the Justice Department’s intervention in Ferguson may not be exclusive to its interactions with residents; it also might have affected its ongoing investigations into the Ferguson Police Department and officer Darren Wilson. 

As investigators combed through Ferguson, DOJ’s Community Relations Service began holding the town-hall meetings, which excluded press and everyone from out of town. Ferguson resident Audrey Watson, 47, attended one of the meetings. She says federal officials organized the attendees into small groups and asked questions such as “What stereotypes exist in our community?” “How does white privilege impact race relations in our community?” and “Is there a need for personal commitment to race relations?”

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3. Don’t see the need for such interventions by the DoJ yet? Well it’s probably because you’re racist too.

From TheWashingtonPost  “Most white Americans demonstrate bias against blacks, even if they’re not aware of or able to control it. It’s a surprisingly little-discussed factor in the anguishing debates over race and law enforcement that followed the shootings of unarmed black men by white police officers. Such implicit biases — which, if they were to influence split-second law enforcement decisions, could have life or death consequences — are measured by psychological tests, most prominently the computerized Implicit Association Test, which has been taken by over two million people online at the website Project Implicit.

Based on this data, it appears that whites in some states may exhibit higher levels of implicit bias than those in other states. The following map, courtesy of Project Implicit, shows the states with the highest level of implicit bias (high number, red) and lowest level of implicit bias (low number, blue). Gray represents states with a middle amount of implicit bias; Michigan is the median state. Overall, the map reflects the scores of 1.51 million individuals, ranging from a high of 99,660 test takers from California to a low of 1,722 test takers from Hawaii.

A cautionary note: The people who have taken the IAT at the Project Implicit website are not a random sample of Americans, either nationally or on a state-by-state basis. Rather, they’re people who, for some reason, chose to take an online test measuring their implicit biases — which may actually mean they are less biased than average. (After all, at least they wanted to know how biased they are.) 

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4. Pass the popcorn. Then again, he probably takes the 5th.

From TownHall  “MIT professor and Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber will testify on Capitol Hill Tuesday about his role in selling the 2010 healthcare law to “stupid American voters” through deception and non-transparency. The hearing will be held by the House Oversight Committee and Gruber will have to field questions from Chairman Darrell Issa and angry lawmakers about the legislation.

Gruber became infamous just a few weeks ago after a Philadelphia financial consultant and citizen blogger started pulling and publishing multiple video clips of him at various events discussing Obamacare. During those events, Gruber admitted the redistribution of wealth in the legislation was purposely covered up along with the fact that Obamacare is indeed a tax. 

Meanwhile, the White House has distanced itself from Gruber in the wake of his controversial comments and Health and Human Services sent a letter to Issa last week asking that officials from the Department, who will also testify tomorrow, be seated separately from Gruber. More from The Hill: 

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is asking lawmakers not to seat ObamaCare consultant Jonathan Gruber next to Medicare’s top official when the two testify on Capitol Hill next week. “

They found a nicer seat for him under this bus over here……

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5. Good. Now let’s hope the judge does his job.

From TheWashingtonTimes The states challenging President Obama’s deportation amnesty have already won the first round in court after the case landed in the lap of Judge Andrew S. Hanen, a Bush appointee who issued a scorching rebuke to the Department of Homeland Security last year, accusing it of refusing to follow border security laws.

It could hardly have been a worse outcome for Mr. Obama, who, in order to preserve his policy, will now have to convince a judge who is on record calling his previous, less-extensive non-deportation policies “dangerous and unconscionable.”

Led by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the 20 states challenging the new policy filed their case in Brownsville. It could have gone to one of two judges — the other a Clinton appointee — but it landed in the lap of Judge Hanen last week, putting Mr. Obama on the defensive early.”

“Analysts on both sides of the issue said Mr. Obama’s opponents were fortunate to draw Judge Hanen, who has already shown a deep distrust of Homeland Security officials, questioning both their policies and their legal arguments.”

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News/Politics 12-8-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. What’s really going on with Holder’s “civil rights” crusade against police depts. It’s a long piece, but worth the time.

From NationalReview  “Holder and his constitutional-scholar boss are not banging the civil-rights drum because they believe these are prosecutable cases. It is just a pretext for unleashing Justice Department community organizers on state and municipal police departments.

The government cannot win a standalone loser of a civil-rights prosecution by crying, “Disparate impact!” Individual cases that have been demagogued by the racial-grievance industry become high profile. Once public attention is riveted, the legal and logical flaws become obvious. When people start looking long and hard, the “institutionalized racism” canard is exposed. For guys like Sharpton, that’s bad for business.

But the Justice Department civil-rights investigations Holder is fond of announcing are not like public trials. They occur out of the public eye, where feverish Justice Department claims are not aired and scrutinized. More significant, they happen with the air of extortion created by the nearly $28 billion in funding Congress keeps giving Justice every year, no matter how many congressional investigations it obstructs, how many false statements its officials make, and how much it politicizes law enforcement. The investigations are taxpayer-funded jihads that states, cities, and towns know they lack the resources to fight off.

Here is how the game works. Holder streams in behind a tragedy that Sharpton and Obama have demagogued. He announces a civil-rights investigation. Eventually, he backs down from the threat of an indictment in the individual case, never conceding that the supporting evidence was not there, usually citing some strawman injustice that has nothing to do with the matter at hand — in Florida, for example, it was “stand your ground” gun laws that purportedly needed reforming. But, the attorney general is pleased to add, the original civil-rights probe of the non-crime has metastasized into a thoroughgoing civil-rights probe of the state or local police department’s training, practices, and . . . drumroll . . . institutional racism.

You never get to see what that investigation turns up. States and their subdivisions know they cannot afford to go toe-to-toe with the Beltway behemoth. Big cities, moreover, are governed by Democrats sympathetic to the Obama/Holder race obsessions — they’re happy to have the feds come in and hamstring police with “social justice” guidelines that would be a hard sell politically. So the Justice Department makes the locals an offer they can’t refuse: A consent decree that makes the Treaty of Versailles look like a slap on the wrist. This device is the license by which the Obama administration is remaking state law enforcement in its own image.”

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2. ObamaCare is impacting the primary care doctor shortage.

From YahooNews  “The Papas were among the 6.7 million people who gained insurance through the Affordable Care Act last year, flooding a primary care system that is struggling to keep up with demand.

A survey this year by The Physicians Foundation found that 81 percent of doctors describe themselves as either over-extended or at full capacity, and 44 percent said they planned to cut back on the number of patients they see, retire, work part-time or close their practice to new patients.

At the same time, insurance companies have routinely limited the number of doctors and providers on their plans as a way to cut costs. The result has further restricted some patients’ ability to get appointments quickly.

One purpose of the new health law was connecting patients, many of whom never had insurance before, with primary care doctors to prevent them from landing in the emergency room when they are sicker and their care is more expensive. Yet nearly 1 in 5 Americans lives in a region designated as having a shortage of primary care physicians, and the number of doctors entering the field isn’t expected to keep pace with demand.

The Association of American Medical Colleges projects the shortage will grow to about 66,000 in little more than a decade as fewer residency slots are available and as more medical students choose higher-paying specialty areas.”

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3. How the nation is failing today’s troops and veterans, and how morale is worsening because of it.

From MilitaryTimes  “A Military Times survey of 2,300 active-duty troops found morale indicators on the decline in nearly every aspect of military life. Troops report significantly lower overall job satisfaction, diminished respect for their superiors, and a declining interest in re-enlistment now compared to just five years ago.

Today’s service members say they feel underpaid, under-equipped and under-appreciated, the survey data show. After 13 years of war, the all-volunteer military is entering an era fraught with uncertainty and a growing sense that the force has been left adrift.

One trend to emerge from the annual Military Times survey is “that the mission mattered more to the military than to the civilian,” said Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University who studies the military. “For the civilian world, it might have been easier to psychologically move on and say, ‘Well, we are cutting our losses.’ But the military feels very differently. Those losses have names and faces attached to [them].”

“According to the Military Times survey, active-duty troops reported a stunning drop in how they rated their overall quality of life: Just 56 percent call it good or excellent, down from 91 percent in 2009. The survey, conducted in July and August, found that 73 percent of troops would recommend a military career to others, down from 85 percent in 2009. And troops reported a significant decline in their desire to re-enlist, with 63 percent citing an intention to do so, compared with 72 percent a few years ago.”

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4. Something to keep in mind as Obama continues his amnesty push.

From CNSNews  “Aliens illegally holding jobs in the United States outnumber all unemployed people who are not in management, professional or related occupations as well as all unemployed who are 25 and older and who do not have a college degree, according to an estimate of “unauthorized workers” published by the Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration and employment data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The BLS only counts as “unemployed” people who have actively looked for a job in the past four weeks.

“We estimate that the number of unauthorized workers grew from 4.8 million in 2000 to 8.0 million in 2007, the peak of the last business cycle,” the Office of the Chief Actuary of Social Security said in an analysis published in April 2013.

“The economy then fell into a recession and the estimated number of unauthorized workers declined to 7.0 million in 2010,” said the Chief Actuary. “We project that the economy will recover and that the number of unauthorized workers will rise to 9.6 million in 2020.” “Unauthorized workers” are aliens living in the United States who do not have a legal right to work here.”

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News/Politics 12-5-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Has the Red Cross been misleading donors about where their dollars are going?

From MSN/NPR  “The American Red Cross regularly touts how responsible it is with donors’ money. “We’re very proud of the fact that 91 cents of every dollar that’s donated goes to our services,” Red Cross CEO Gail McGovern said in a speech in Baltimore last year. “That’s world class, obviously.””

“The problem with that number: It isn’t true.”

“The Red Cross declined repeated requests to say the actual percentage of donor dollars going to humanitarian services. But the charity’s own financial statements show that overhead expenses are significantly more than what McGovern and other Red Cross officials have claimed.”

“In recent years, the Red Cross’ fundraising expenses alone have been as high as 26 cents of every donated dollar, nearly three times the nine cents in overhead claimed by McGovern. In the past five years, fundraising expenses have averaged 17 cents per donated dollar.

But even that understates matters. Once donated dollars are in Red Cross hands, the charity spends additional money on “management and general” expenses, which includes things like back office accounting. That means the portion of donated dollars going to overhead is even higher.”

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2. Utah is set to seize millions of acres of it’s land back from the federal govt.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “In three weeks, Utah intends to seize control of 31.2 million acres of its own land now under the control of the federal government. At least, that’s the plan.

In an unprecedented challenge to federal dominance of Western state lands, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert in 2012 signed the “Transfer of Public Lands Act,” which demands that Washington relinquish its hold on the land, which represents more than half of the state’s 54.3 million acres, by Dec. 31.

So far, however, the federal government hasn’t given any indication that it plans to cooperate. Still, state Rep. Ken Ivory, who sponsored the legislation, isn’t deterred.”

““That’s what you do any time you’re negotiating with a partner. You set a date,” said Mr. Ivory. “Unfortunately, our federal partner has decided they don’t want to negotiate in good faith. So we’ll move forward with the four-step plan that the governor laid out.”

“With the 2012 law, Utah placed itself on the cutting edge of the heated debate over public lands in the West. The federal government controls more than 50 percent of the land west of Kansas — in Utah’s case, it’s 64.5 percent, a situation that has increasingly resulted in tensions across the Rocky Mountain West.”

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3. I hope Boehner and his friends at the Chamber of Commerce realize that this isn’t sufficient. It’s meaningless and does nothing to stop Obama’s plan. You were put their to do a job, now do it.

From HotAir  “This was the bill proposed by conservative Ted Yoho that would, if also passed by the Senate and signed by Obama, block Obama’s authority to remake immigration policy on his own. I … thought we had a Constitution that does that, but I guess we don’t anymore. Obviously, a bill like this isn’t going to get past a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president, which means this was an empty gesture designed to show grassroots righties that the leadership shares their concerns about O’s power grab even if they’re not prepared to play hardball to stop it.

The burning question: With House tea partiers complaining that the bill was meaningless and ineffectual, could Boehner still find a majority to pass it? Yup, as it turns out. Although he needed a little Democratic help to cross the 218 threshold.

Three Democrats voted yes while seven Republicans voted no and another three Republicans voted “present.” The roll isn’t out yet so we’re not sure who those 10 GOPers are but I’ll update as soon as it’s available. The White House, incidentally, has already all but promised to veto this bill. If Boehner had wanted to make Obama choke on it, he could have followed the Lee/Cruz plan by inserting this as a rider to a spending bill that would fund the entire government for a few months. That way, Reid and Obama would have a stark choice of either approving the money with this condition attached or else blocking it and bracing for the resulting shutdown. Instead, by splitting Yoho’s bill off from the “cromnibus” funding bill that’ll be voted on later today (I think), Boehner made it easy for Democrats to oppose Yoho’s language without risking any standoff over government funding. The name of the game here for Republican leaders is no shutdown, no shutdown, no shutdown. The solution was an empty gesture.”

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4. Meanwhile Senate conservatives are huddling with some House members to come up with a real solution because the House leadership refuses to.

From NationalReview  “A trio of senators crossed the Capitol last night to discuss the congressional response to President Obama’s recent executive orders on immigration. The consensus: Republican leadership doesn’t want to fight Obama, so the lawmakers have to hope that grassroots activists can goad their colleagues into a more aggressive posture.

“I hope that the American people will speak up and share their views with Congress and good strong language will come out of the House,” Senator Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) told National Review Online Thursday afternoon. 

Sessions demurred when asked about coordination with House colleagues — “all of us are curious about what they’re doing,” he said — but multiple sources tell NRO that Sessions, Senator David Vitter (R., La.), and Senator Mike Lee (R., Utah) met with a group of House members last night in the office of Arizona representative Matt Salmon. Vitter also organized a conference call with some House Republicans Wednesday afternoon. The purpose of the two encounters, which happened on the same day that Texas senator Ted Cruz met with Iowa representative Steve King, was to emphasize that “the first bill that you guys do was really our best and only chance,” according to one Senate aide; the Senate hawks won’t be able to instigate a fight if the House passes a bill that provides long-term funding for the entire government.

“There is a general belief that, despite the rhetoric from leadership after the executive order was announced, they really have no desire to do anything substantive to fight this,” one lawmaker who attended the meeting explained to NRO in a series of text messages. “Part of it is that leadership (as proxies for the Chamber [of Commerce]) wants the amnesty; Obama’s order provides a way to deliver cheap labor to the Chamber without having to vote for it. Part of it is an absolute fear of any conflict, including even a partial ‘shutdown.’”

They believe it because it’s true. If Boehner isn’t up for the job, and he doesn’t appear to be, then find someone who is.

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News/Politics 12-4-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The president king has spoken. Who needs a legislature when you can just rule by executive order.

From TheNYPost  “On Thanksgiving eve, the Obama administration dumped reams of mind-numbing ObamaCare regulations into the Federal Register — including yet more unilateral rewrites of the Affordable Care Act.

Dropping the rules as most Americans were busy preparing for the holiday made a mockery (again) of President Obama’s promise to have “the most transparent administration in history.” The stunt has even worked to keep most of the media from reporting on the rules.

Yet the changes these regulations make in the health care law are substantial.

For one, the president is redefining what health plans are “adequate” for larger employers (100-plus workers) to offer under the Affordable Care Act. He’s also “asking” insurers to pay for new benefits — while warning that, if they don’t, they may be forced to.

Under the Constitution, Obama lacks any authority to make such changes to the health law, or any law. Only Congress has that power. But he’s doing it, and not for the first time.”

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2. He’s ignoring the courts as well, because those laws and rules are for the little people.

From TheDailyCaller  “The Obama administration said that it is withholding all of the thousands of pages of documents related to the White House’s coordination with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) during the IRS conservative targeting scandal.

Secretary of the Treasury Jacob Lew, Obama’s former White House Chief of Staff, took the documents that were set to be released and now refuses to ever turn them over. His rationale? Lew cannot release information about improper disclosures of confidential taxpayer information because that would be an improper disclosure of confidential taxpayer information.

The Daily Caller reported that the Treasury Department’s inspector general found nearly 2,500 pages of documents that chronicle investigations into the confidential taxpayer information that the White House exchanged with the IRS.”

So he won’t disclose the information he has and was given illegally because it contains private data. Which is exactly why he had no business seeing it in the first place. Talk about a jedi mind trick. These are not the documents you’re looking for……

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3. Someone is finally standing up to the king. But it’s sadly not Republicans in Congress.

From MyWayNews  “Texas is leading a 17-state coalition in suing over the Obama administration’s recently announced executive actions on immigration.

Many top Republicans have denounced President Barack Obama’s unilateral move designed to spare as many as 5 million people living illegally in the United States from deportation.

But Texas Gov.-elect Greg Abbott took it a step further Wednesday, filing a lawsuit in federal court in the Southern District of Texas. Texas is joined by 16 other, mostly southern and Midwestern states, including Alabama, Georgia, Idaho and Indiana.

Under Obama’s order, announced Nov. 20, protection from deportation and the right to work will be extended to an estimated 4.1 million parents of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents who have lived in the U.S. for at least five years and to hundreds of thousands more young people.”

“The lawsuit raises three objections: that Obama violated the “Take Care Clause” of the U.S. Constitution that limits the scope of presidential power; that the federal government violated rulemaking procedures; and that the order will “exacerbate the humanitarian crisis along the southern border, which will affect increased state investment in law enforcement, health care and education.”

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4. Here’s how he plans to handle the influx of illegals already here, and the many more on the way.

From Breitbart  “Incoming Senate Budget Committee chairman Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has discovered plans by President Barack Obama to open a new immigration facility to process his executive amnesty action in Northern Virginia, where the federal government has plans to hire a whopping 1,000 new immigration employees.

“It has just been discovered today that the Obama Administration is now opening a new USCIS facility in Crystal City, Virginia for the purpose of immediately implementing the President’s imperial immigration decree,” Sessions said in a statement. “They are in the process of hiring 1,000 full-time staff to quickly approve applications for the President’s illegal amnesty, which will provide work permits, photo IDs, Social Security, and Medicare to illegal immigrants—all benefits rejected by Congress. This action will mean that American workers, their sons, their daughters, their parents, will now have to compete directly for jobs, wages, and benefits with millions of illegal immigrants.”

Sessions said the creation of this facility is proof Obama doesn’t care about Americans or U.S. laws.

“This facility is a clear symbol of the President’s defiance of the American people, their laws, and their Constitution,” Sessions said. “He is hiring federal employees to carry out a directive that violates the laws Congress has passed in order to foist on the nation laws Congress has repeatedly refused to pass.”

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5. What it is it with this guy and protecting black panthers who commit criminal acts?

From TheFreeBeacon  “The communist and racist New Black Panther Party plotted to bomb St. Louis’ Gateway Arch and assassinate local law enforcement officials, but the Justice Department so far has limited its prosecution of the group to an indictment of two members on minor gun charges.

The soft treatment for activities that normally would have brought federal terrorism charges appears to be part of efforts by Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department to “go soft” on the racist group, according to former Justice official J. Christian Adams.

“I have always been perplexed why these guys get special treatment,” said Adams, who worked in the Justice Department Civil Rights Division and noted a similar conciliatory legal treatment of New Black Panther Party members in a 2008 case of voter intimidation by the group in Philadelphia.

Justice Department spokesman Marc Raimondi declined to comment on the Black Panther bomb plot and would not say whether additional charges in the case are pending.

In the earlier case against the Panthers, voter intimidation charges were dropped by the Justice Department against the Panthers, and charges were downgraded against one group member, King Shabazz, in what critics say was an effort to show official favoritism toward the group.”

There has to be charges coming, right?

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News/Politics 12-3-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Told ya it was a bad idea. Now all those US supplied weapons are in the hands of the people they’re supposed to be fighting them with.

From McClatchyDC   “Seventy-two Syrian rebel groups on Saturday announced a new coalition to battle the government of President Bashar Assad. But hopes that moderate rebels would dominate the meeting were dashed when extremists gained more of the 17 executive positions than had been expected.”

“On Friday, as the groups were meeting here, the Nusra Front stormed the bases of two moderate rebel groups in Syria’s north: the Ansar Brigades in Idlib and the Haqq Front in Hama. The two groups, both of which were receiving U.S. support through a covert CIA program, surrendered to Nusra, delivered their weapons to Ahrar al Sham and returned to their homes. Some of the leaders escaped to Turkey, fearing arrest or revenge from Nusra.

With these attacks, Nusra completed the elimination of FSA groups from Idlib and leaves just one group in Hama province receiving U.S. support. Nusra now controls all the resupply routes to Turkey.”

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2. Dark days ahead for ObamaCare. Good.

From TownHall The Hill’s Elise Viebeck chronicles Obamacare’s continued losing streak, major elements of which were predicted months ago.  Viebeck’s story begins with a mention of the destruction Jonathan Gruber hath wrought, then outlines four categories of forthcoming Obamacare headaches.  They include pending legal challenges, the still-simmering threat of Ebola, as well as open Enrollment 2.0 challenges (“the back-end of HealthCare.gov remains partly unfinished”), dramatically scaled-back sign-up projections, and the fallout from the administration’s bogus enrollment figures:

A Republican investigation revealed Nov. 20 that ObamaCare enrollment figures at HHS were inflated by roughly 400,000 people after the department miscounted dental plans as medical coverage. The finding was a public relations setback for Burwell and the Obama administration, bringing back partisan strife over enrollment figures that had quieted since the spring. Seeking to contain the fallout, Burwell asked managers at HHS to report suggestions for strengthening the department’s “culture of increased transparency, ownership and accountability.” Still, Tavenner is expected to receive tough questions about the mistakes when she testifies before House Oversight on Dec. 9. The blunders are also likely to cloud any future enrollment figures the administration seeks to tout for 2015.

Indeed, those “blunders” are likely to cloud the White House’s credibility even further.  Speaking of which, the editors of Nevada’s largest newspaper shredded Obamacare’s architects and champions in a Monday editorial, underscoring how rising costs for millions was an entirely intentional and cynically-hidden byproduct of the law:”

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3. Obama’s tampering with military programs to push his amnesty plan.

From CIS.org  “The latest public relations attempt by the White House to link illegal aliens with the military has just hit a major obstacle – the Pentagon has suspended an otherwise useful recruiting program while it tries to sort out how to use DACA beneficiaries in it.

As Mark Krikorian pointed out in a blog a couple of months ago the White House had decided that beneficiaries of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program should be eligible to participate in a highly specialized recruiting program that sought rare skills among the nation’s legal nonimmigrant alien population (such as foreign students or H-1Bs). The military wanted (even before Ebola) more people with health care training, as well as people speaking a list of 43 languages rarely encountered in the U.S., such as Cebuano (the Philippines) and Igbo (Nigeria).

Most childhood arrivals speak Spanish, not Urdu or Moro, for example, and Spanish was not on the list. Further, most DACAs do not have high school diplomas, much less specialized training in the health sciences. So no more than a handful of DACAs could possibly qualify for the specialized recruiting program.

The recruiting program, carrying the initials MAVNI (Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest), had signed up some 2,900 recruits before the DACA involvement. Now, according to Politico, the program has been put into deep freeze: “Army officials confirmed … that the [MAVNI] program … has been suspended while the service tries to finalize screening procedures for the immigrants who want to enlist.”

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4. Obama is promising to shut down the govt if his amnesty plan isn’t funded.

From TheDailyCaller  “White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Monday that President Barack Obama will block a government budget bill if the GOP denies him the funds needed to provide amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants.

“Yes,” Earnest said when asked by ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl if Obama would veto a government-wide budget that defunded the amnesty program.

If Obama blocks the budget to help the illegals, large sections of the federal government would shut down on Dec. 12.”

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5. I’m getting the impression that even they know she’s not qualified. But hey, she’s a bundler, soooo….

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