NAACP

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News/Politics 5-22-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Let the bailouts begin! More illegal changes to ObamaCare. And more money out of the taxpayers pockets.

From TheChicagoTribune  “The Obama administration has quietly adjusted key provisions of its signature healthcare law to potentially make billions of additional taxpayer dollars available to the insurance industry if companies providing coverage through the Affordable Care Act lose money.

The move was buried in hundreds of pages of new regulations issued late last week. It comes as part of an intensive administration effort to hold down premium increases for next year, a top priority for the White House as the rates will be announced ahead of this fall’s congressional elections.”

“On Capitol Hill, Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee began circulating a memo on the issue and urging colleagues to fight what they are calling “another end-run around Congress.”

Obama administration officials said the new regulations would not put taxpayers at risk. “We are confident this three-year program will not create a shortfall,” Health and Human Services spokeswoman Erin Shields Britt said in a statement. “However, we want to be clear that in the highly unlikely event of a shortfall, HHS will use appropriations as available to fill it.”

Sure. I mean all their numbers have been dead on so far, right? 🙄

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2. Meanwhile, the investigations into state exchange failures begins.

From OregonLive  “The federal criminal investigation of Oregon’s health insurance exchange took a step into public view Tuesday when the U.S. Attorney’s office issued broad subpoenas seeking information from Cover Oregon and the Oregon Health Authority.

While the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s interest in the exchange debacle had been previously reported, the legal demands dated May 13 indicate things may have moved beyond a preliminary inquiry to a full-blown investigation.

The investigation, led by federal prosecutors and the FBI, is seeking documents, memos, and emails between the two state entities that oversaw the botched health exchange with U.S. authorities in charge of dispensing federal money for the project.

Oregon has spent $250 million and three years on an ambitious IT project that failed to produce a fully functional exchange. Instead, what was produced was bug-ridden and largely unfinished, documents show.”

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3. I’m shocked. It appears that proponents of expanding immigration laws haven’t been honest about the need.

From NationalReview  “The idea that we need to allow in more workers with science, technology, engineering, and math (“STEM”) background is an article of faith among American business and political elite.

But in a new report, my Center for Immigration Studies colleague Karen Zeigler and I analyze the latest government data and find what other researchers have found: The country has well more than twice as many workers with STEM degrees as there are STEM jobs. Also consistent with other research, we find only modest levels of wage growth for such workers for more than a decade. Both employment and wage data indicate that such workers are not in short supply.

Reports by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the RAND Corporation, the Urban Institute, and the National Research Council have all found no evidence that STEM workers are in short supply. PBS even published an opinion piece based on the EPI study entitled, “The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage: How Guest Workers Lower U.S. Wages.” This is PBS, mind you, which is as likely to publish something skeptical of immigration as it is to publish something skeptical of taxpayer subsidies for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

 RAND’s analysis looked backward in time and found, “Despite recurring concerns about potential shortages of STEM personnel . . . we did not find evidence that such shortages have existed at least since 1990, nor that they are on the horizon.”

It’s unnecessary and it will make things harder for unemployed Americans.

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4. The National Association for the Abortion of Colored People?

FromLifeNews  “A pro-life legal group is having to go to court to help the state of Arizona protect its law it passed to ban race-based abortions. Here’s the ironic rub: the NAACP filed a lawsuit against the bill, which stops abortions done specifically if the baby is African-American (or any other specific race or gender).

It makes one wonder if the NAACP, which, for years has held a pro-abortion position and which recently won a court order to silence a black pro-life who was writing at LifeNews to expose it’s abortion advocacy, should be called the National Association for the Abortion of Colored People.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief Monday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit urging it to reject the NAACP’s lawsuit against an Arizona bill that prohibits sex- and race-based abortions.”

“A district court dismissed the lawsuit in October of last year, but American Civil Liberties Union attorneys representing the Maricopa County branch of the NAACP and the National Asian-Pacific American Women’s Forum appealed that decision.”

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5. I’m sure it was just a slip of the tongue, right?

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “A State Department official struggled to discuss the religious import of Boko Haram’s ideology, despite the group’s repeated attacks on Christians, a rhetorical hesitancy that created tension during a rather bipartisan House hearing on the threat from the terrorist group.

Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., asked whether Boko Haram specifically targets Christians.

“I wish there was such discrimination in Boko Haram attacks,” State Department undersecretary Sarah Sewall replied during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing. “Boko Haram attacks everyone who is Nigerian. Boko Haram is an equal-opportunity threat for all Nigerian citizens.”

That answer irritated Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., who chairs the subcommittee panel on global human rights. “You said you wish they would differentiate or discriminate — they were so discriminating. Yes, they’ll hit other Nigerians, they’ll hit other westerners, but Christians are their main target,” he countered.”

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News/Politics 8-23-13

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open thread, so what have you got?

UPDATE!

Maj. Nadal Hasan has been found guilty on all counts in the Ft. Hood shooting trial.

Can’t find a link yet, but I’ll get it up when one’s available.

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First up, a scathing rebuke for the Obama admin and DoJ.

From JudicialWatch  “That kind of whipping from a federal judge has got to hurt though it’s unlikely to deter the administration from spending more taxpayer dollars to file frivolous lawsuits against employers who use the checks to screen job applicants. Judicial Watch wrote about this a few weeks ago when the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency that enforces the nation’s workplace discrimination laws, sued two large companies that screen criminal background records claiming that the checks disproportionately exclude blacks from hire.

That violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, according to the Obama administration, which has pushed hard to deter companies from using criminal background checks to screen job applicants. Of interesting note is that the EEOC conducts criminal background checks as a condition of employment and credit background checks for most of its positions. For some reason, it’s not discriminatory against minorities when the agency does it.”

“In a scathing 34-page opinion published this week, U.S. District Court Judge Roger Titus lambasted the administration’s expert data, writing that it was “laughable”; “based on unreliable data”; “rife with analytical error”; containing “a plethora of errors and analytical fallacies” and a “mind-boggling number of errors”; “completely unreliable”; “so full of material flaws that any evidence of disparate impact derived from an analysis of its contents must necessarily be disregarded”; “distorted”;  “both over and under inclusive”; “cherry-picked”; “worthless”; and “an egregious example of scientific dishonesty.”

There are simply no facts to support a theory of disparate impact, the judge writes, further stating: “By bringing actions of this nature, the EEOC has placed many employers in the “Hobson’s choice” of ignoring criminal history and credit background, thus exposing themselves to potential liability for criminal and fraudulent acts committed by employees, on the one hand, or incurring the wrath of the EEOC for having utilized information deemed fundamental by most employers.”

Ouch.

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Next up, the Manning case gets even worse.

From Today  “Bradley Manning, the Army private sentenced to military prison for leaking classified documents, revealed he intends to live out the remainder of his life as a woman.

“I am Chelsea Manning. I am female,” the Army private wrote in a statement read on TODAY Thursday. “Given the way that I feel, and have felt since childhood, I want to begin hormone therapy as soon as possible. I hope that you will support me in this transition.”

““I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility),” Manning continued in the statement. “I look forward to receiving letters from supporters and having the opportunity to write back.”

“Coombs said he is “hoping” that Fort Leavenworth “would do the right thing” and provide hormone therapy for Manning. “If Fort Leavenworth does not, then I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure they are forced to do so.”

So publications like HuffPo are happy to play along with his delusions by calling him Chelsea. And he has other supporters too.

From HuffPo  “The military policy against providing hormone therapy to prisoners like Chelsea Manning raises “serious constitutional concerns,” an American Civil Liberties Union official said Thursday.

Chelsea Manning, who used to be known as Bradley Manning, announced Thursday she wants to live her life as a woman. But under military policy, it may be impossible for her to begin making the transition from behind bars as she serves a sentence in relation to her disclosures to WikiLeaks.

“The Army does not provide hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery for gender identity disorder,” Kimberly Lewis, a spokeswoman for the Fort Leavenworth, Kan., military prison where Manning is expected to serve her sentence, told NBC News.”

“”In response to Chelsea Manning’s disclosure that she is female, has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and will be seeking hormone therapy as a part of her transition during her incarceration, public statements by military officials that the Army does not provide hormone therapy to treat gender dysphoria raise serious constitutional concerns,” Chase Strangio, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project, said in a statement.”

Constitutional issues? Give me a break. 🙄

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The Obama admin wants the govt. to rate colleges and define what’s a good school and what isn’t.

From CNSNews  “Speaking at the University of Buffalo, President Barack Obama today unveiled an ambitious new plan for the  federal government to create a national rating system that will define  what a good college is and financially reward or punish colleges  depending on how they rank in the government’s system.

He said he intends to have the rating system in placed by the fall of 2015 and  intends to work with Congress to enact legislation linking federal aid to  colleges to the rating  system.

As outlined by Obama, this rating system would look at essentially  materialistic and financial characteristics of a college as opposed to  intellectual and moral ones.”

How about you mind your own business Mr. President? I can’t help but think you have more pressing matters to attend to, like doing your actual job.

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And we’ll finish with this one. Social justice, left leaning Christian style.

From Breitbart  “The NAACP of North Carolina has created a handbook for clergy to enable them to use Bible verses to promote what has been called “Christian Socialism.”

The North Carolina chapter of the NAACP is a “lead organizer of the Moral Monday rallies,” and Rev. William Barber, who is reportedly an “organizer and frequent keynote speaker,” has often used the handbook to denounce Republicans in North Carolina’s legislature for “trying to move the state backwards” by supporting issues like Voter ID laws, which North Carolina’s governor recently signed into law.

Their rallying slogan is, “Forward together, not one step back” and the tax-exempt organization advocates a brand of “Christian Socialism.” The handbook suggests using a Bible verse that offers “an alternative paradigm for interpersonal and communal engagement that can serve as a critical rejoinder to the policies of our state government.”

As Pete Kaliner of WWNC pointed out, the handbook also advocates strong central government for socialist policies while criticizing the North Carolina GOP for one-party rule:”

Sounds like a great idea….. 🙄

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