Obama

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News/Politics 5-28-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. Obama is attempting to expand federal control of America’s waterways. 

From TheWashingtonTimes  “President Obama’s administration on Wednesday claimed dominion over all of America’s streams, creeks, rills, ditches, brooks, rivulets, burns, tributaries, criks, wetlands — perhaps even puddles — in a sweeping move to assert unilateral federal authority.

The Environmental Protection Agency, along with the Army Corps of Engineers, says it has the authority to control all waterways within the United States — and will exercise that authority.

“We’re finalizing a clean water rule to protect the streams and the wetlands that one in three Americans rely on for drinking water. And we’re doing that without creating any new permitting requirements and maintaining all previous exemptions and exclusions,” EPA head Gina McCarthy told reporters Wednesday.”

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2. I must admit, I found this a little surprising. But don’t think for a minute this is the end of it. 

From Breitbart  “The Obama administration revealed today that it will not take the fight over executive immigration amnesty to the Supreme Court, essentially admitting defeat in its fight to lift a court-ordered stay placed by a Texas judge.

Obama’s executive actions still have to be settled in court, but yesterday’s decision prevented the administration from moving forward in its efforts to sign up illegal immigrants for the amnesty programs.

“The department believes the best way to achieve this goal is to focus on the ongoing appeal on the merits of the preliminary injunction itself,” said Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesman for the Justice Department to the New York Times. “Although the department continues to disagree with the Fifth Circuit’s refusal to stay the district court’s preliminary injunction, the department has determined that it will not seek a stay from the Supreme Court.””

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3. I’m sure muslim countries will welcome him with open arms, if they even have the guts to send him to any. 

Plus, a terminology update. I is for Intersex, whatever that is. 

From CNSNews  “Randy Berry, the State Department’s first envoy for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) persons, said on Tuesday he is leaving on a 15-country, five-week trip to encourage foreign governments to include protection for homosexuals in their constitutions.

Speaking at the United States Institution of Peace in Washington, D.C., ahead of a panel of gay rights activists from around the world, Berry said gay rights and human rights are “issues we hold very, very dear.”  Civil conflict around the globe that leads to constitutional change offers a “unique opportunity” to advance those rights, he added.

“Constitutional change has provided a unique opportunity for groups to mobilize for their members’ rights and for recognition,” Berry said.

He did not say which countries he will be visiting.”

Gee, I wonder why? 🙄

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4. Ever wonder why convenience store clerks discriminate against schizophrenic LGTBI’s? Me neither. Yet our govt is wasting tax dollars to find out.

Also from CNSNews  “The National Institutes of Health through its National Institute of Mental Health has awarded $52,293 in taxpayer funding to the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and Mental Health to study how to reduce discrimination of lesbian, gay and transgender people with schizophrenia by members of the community they are in frequent contact with, like the “convenience store clerk.”

“Inquiry will extend from individuals with schizophrenia to include family members and service providers of participants as well as community members with whom they are in frequent contact (e.g., convenience store clerk),” the grant, titled “Defining Community for LGBT People with Schizophrenia,” stated.

“Sexual and gender minority individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) are amongst the most marginalized individuals in North American society,” the grant stated. “They face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that compound the effects of having a major mental illness, hampering recovery and frustrating efforts to meaningfully participate in our communities.”

“Our work will lay the groundwork for our developing a better understanding about how we can reduce that discrimination in community contexts and develop interventions to facilitate community participation among sexual and gender minority individuals with severe mental illness,” it stated.”

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5. What does the Liberty Bell have to do with LGTBI’s? Nothing, but that’s not what they’re teaching the children.

This is disgusting on so many levels……..

From Conservativebyte  “My neighbor was telling me about how his daughter took her kids to see the Liberty Bell and how they had redone the history signs there. It is now all about civil rights with the founding of our country barely touched upon. I’ve been trying to find a news story about this and am not seeing anything.

I did find the Nation Park Service website basically endorsing the LBGT movement. While their curriculum is nothing but a list of modern civil rights lessons.

You mean to tell me that the founding of our nation isn’t an exciting enough story that you have to ignore it and try to somehow connect civil rights? This sad rewriting of our national history is wrong and should not be ignored. We have let liberals take over teaching our children and our society.”

Sounds crazy, right? But a check of the National Park Service curriculum materials shows the author is correct. 

From NationalParkService  “Overview

Students will learn the connection between the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall and the GLBT Civil Rights Movement.

Objective(s)

There is something very wrong with the leadership of this country. 

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by

News/Politics 5-27-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. Hillary’s Jedi mind trick. These are not the emails you’re looking for………

Which means they are. 

From TheDailyCaller  “Sidney Blumenthal emailed Hillary Clinton at least two intelligence reports about Libya which were not included in the trove of 296 emails released by the State Department on Friday.

Clinton has claimed that in December she turned over all official government emails she sent or received from her personal account while in office. In turn, the agency has claimed it turned all Clinton emails related to Libya or Benghazi over to the House Select Committee investigating the Benghazi attack.

But a screenshot of Blumenthal’s email inbox, which the Romanian hacker Guccifer published in March 2013, shows two reports about Libya emailed to Clinton which were not released in Friday’s batch.”

“The State Department release — which was published on the agency’s Freedom of Information Act portal — does not include those two reports. It does, however, include some 20 other intelligence reports Blumenthal sent Clinton about Libya and Benghazi between March 2, 2011. and Dec. 18, 2012.

The discrepancy suggests that the system that Clinton and the State Department have in place to account for her emails failed in some regard. It also raises questions over whether other emails are unaccounted for.”

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2. This is why activities like this should be illegal for current office holders/appointees. Even if it’s all legit, it now appears questionable. 

From InternationalBusinessTimes  “Even by the standards of arms deals between the United States and Saudi Arabia, this one was enormous. A consortium of American defense contractors led by Boeing would deliver $29 billion worth of advanced fighter jets to the United States’ oil-rich ally in the Middle East.”

“But now, in late 2011, Hillary Clinton’s State Department was formally clearing the sale, asserting that it was in the national interest. At a press conference in Washington to announce the department’s approval, an assistant secretary of state, Andrew Shapiro, declared that the deal had been “a top priority” for Clinton personally. Shapiro, a longtime aide to Clinton since her Senate days, added that the “U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army have excellent relationships in Saudi Arabia.”

These were not the only relationships bridging leaders of the two nations. In the years before Hillary Clinton became secretary of state, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia contributed at least $10 million to the Clinton Foundation, the philanthropic enterprise she has overseen with her husband, former president Bill Clinton. Just two months before the deal was finalized, Boeing — the defense contractor that manufactures one of the fighter jets the Saudis were especially keen to acquire, the F-15 — contributed$900,000 to the Clinton Foundation, according to a company press release.

The Saudi deal was one of dozens of arms sales approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department that placed weapons in the hands of governments that had also donated money to the Clinton family philanthropic empire, an International Business Times investigation has found.

Under Clinton’s leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data. That figure — derived from the three full fiscal years of Clinton’s term as Secretary of State (from October 2010 to September 2012) — represented nearly double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and approved by the State Department during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.

The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation, resulting in a 143 percent increase incompleted sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration. These extra sales were part of a broad increase in American military exports that accompanied Obama’s arrival in the White House.”

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3. Sure Barry, it’s the 3 judges in 2 courts who are “misinterpreting” the law. It couldn’t possibly be the “constitutional scholar” who always seems to be wrong. 🙄

From Breitbart  “The White House reacted to the news that the Fifth Circuit court of appeals denied an appeal from the Obama administration to lift a stay on his executive amnesty plan, accusing two judges in the decision of interpreting the law incorrectly.

“Today, two judges of the Fifth Circuit chose to misinterpret the facts and the law in denying the government’s request for a stay,” White House spokesperson Brandi Hoffine said in a statement to Breitbart News.

The court ruled against Obama administrations appeal with a 2-1 vote.

In response Hoffine cited the dissent from Judge Stephen Higginson, who was appointed by President Obama.”

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More here from Reuters/MSN  “The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday in favor of 26 states challenging President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, potentially paving the way for a Supreme Court decision on the issue.

Two judges on the three-judge panel ruled that the executive action, which would grant an estimated 4.7 million undocumented immigrants relief from deportation, should remain on hold while the government appeals its blocking.

The immigration order was first put on hold by Texas Judge Andrew Hanen in February after the states, all led by Republican governors, alleged that taking in migrants would be overly burdensome.

“The President’s attempt to bypass the will of the American people was successfully checked again today,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in a news release.”

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4. Cowards, every last one of them.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The United Nations said Tuesday that Boko Haram is responsible for an “alarming spike” of suicide bombings in Nigeria that have been carried about by women and children.

Girls between the ages of 7 and 17 years have been used for three-quarters of all such attacks in the region since 2014, the U.N. children’s agency reported. There have been 27 suicide bombings in the region over five months, compared to 26 in all of 2014.

“Children are not instigating these suicide attacks; they are used intentionally by adults in the most horrific way. They are first and foremost victims — not perpetrators,” said Jean Gough, UNICEF representative in Nigeria.

UNICEF estimates that 743,000 have been displaced over the past six years because of Boko Haram’s campaign of terror.”

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by

News/Politics 5-20-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. Are atheists their own worst enemies? Sure looks like it. It turns out when you get people thinking about death, their no hope for an afterlife approach isn’t really appealing. And their so-called values don’t have any foundation that people can relate to. 

From LiveScience  “Atheists consistently rank among the lowest of the low in the court of American public opinion. Now, research suggests one reason why: Thinking about atheists reminds people of death.

In fact, prompting people to think about atheism triggered death-related thoughts just as strongly as, well, directly prompting people to think about death, a new study finds. These death thoughts help trigger a subconscious dislike of atheists, said study leader Corey Cook, a social psychologist at the University of Washington, Tacoma. Not only do thoughts of death put people in a negative frame of mind, Cook told Live Science, but they also prompt people to hold more tightly onto their own values.

“There’s a little circular thing going on where encountering atheism will make people grasp their values closer and then become more negative because atheists are perceived as not having values,” Cook said.”

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2. Another secret email.

From TheNYPost  “A second secret email address used by Hillary Rodham Clinton while she was secretary of state was revealed Monday.

The email address, published by The New York Times, was used in exchanges between Clinton and longtime adviser Sydney Blumenthal, and is from the same private email server that was uncovered earlier this year.

“Fyi. The idea of using private security experts to arm the opposition should be considered,” Clinton wrote Blumenthal from the ­email address HRod17@clintonemail.com.

The two were discussing strategies to help the opposition rebels oust Moammar Khadafy in Libya as that country descended into chaos in 2011.

Clinton’s office insisted just two months ago that the only private email address used by the former secretary of state during her tenure was hdr22@clintonemail.com.”

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3. So now we have proof that the Ferguson protest and others weren’t really grass-roots at all. Just more paid agitation from Soros and company. 

From WeaselZippers  “More Proof Of Paid Protesters: Ad Asking For Protesters To Travel To Protest, List Of Payouts To #Ferguson Protest Organizers”

“MORE and OBS, two groups funded by George Soros, advertised money available for people willing to travel to protest.”

“After protesters protested not getting their checks from MORE on May 14th, MORE allegedly distributed the following list as to who was paid to protest in Ferguson and elsewhere, to show where the money had been going.”

“You can see money paid out to Lisa Fithian, $1,127.75 for ‘visit expenses’.

For those who do not know, Lisa Fithian is an infamous leftist organizer. She organized at Occupy, but has been used as a training organizer for many years before that. She spent time in Ferguson in 2014 training people to ‘simulate chaos’.”

A real President and AG would be coming down hard on these people for the damage their agitation and “chaos” caused. But we have a President and AG that agree with them, so they’ll ignore their jobs yet again.

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by

News/Politics 5-19-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. A group called the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which appears to be against actual religious freedom, is up in arms over remarks from a Christian Air Force general.

From FoxNews  “An Air Force general who recently spoke about how God has guided his career should be court-martialed, a civil liberties group is saying.

In a speech at a National Day of Prayer Task Force event on May 7, Maj. Gen. Craig Olson credits God for his accomplishments in the military, and refers to himself as a “redeemed believer in Christ.”

The Air Force Times reports that the Military Religious Freedom Foundation has taken issue with Olson’s remarks, is calling for the two-star general to be court-martialed and “aggressively and very visibly brought to justice for his unforgivable crimes and transgressions.”

The group authored a letter to Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Walsh, arguing that Olson’s speech violates rules within the Air Force, which prohibits airmen from endorsing a particular faith or belief.

The letter, posted on the group’swebsite, begins, “This demand letter is sent to you on behalf of countless members of the United States Air Force who are utterly disgusted and shocked by the brazenly illicit and wholly unconstitutional, fundamentalist Christian proselytizing recently perpetrated, on international television (“GOD TV”), and streaming all over the Internet and in full military uniform, by USAF Major General Craig S. Olson on Thursday, May 7, 2015 during a VERY public speech for a private Christian organization (The “National Day of Prayer Task Force”: NDPTF) headed up by Focus on the Family founder, Dr. James Dobson’s, wife Shirley Dobson. “”

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2. Obama seeks to end immigration enforcement by local and state police…….. and anyone else for that matter. 🙄

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The administration issued a report Monday saying that in order to rebuild trust between police and their communities, the federal government should stop enlisting state and local police in most immigration enforcement, setting up another challenge as President Obama tries to please immigrant rights advocates while carrying out deportations.

The recommendations were part of Mr. Obama’s policing task force, set up in the wake of riots last year in Ferguson, Missouri, to suggest ways federal officials can help local police do their jobs better. The heart of the report called for curtailing transfer of heavy weapons and tank-style vehicles to state and local authorities, but the report also delved into the thorny issue of immigration, saying government must “decouple” enforcement from local police.

“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security should terminate the use of the state and local criminal justice system, including through detention, notification, and transfer requests, to enforce civil immigration laws against civil and nonserious criminal offenders,” the task force said.”

Wanna rebuild trust Barry? Then stop race baiting at the expense of police. That’d be a good start.

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3. Worst idea about yet about how to “save” Detroit?

From TheNYTimes  “Detroit, a once great city, has become an urban vacuum. Its population has fallen to around 700,000 from nearly 1.9 million in 1950. The city is estimated to have more than 70,000 abandoned buildings and 90,000 vacant lots. Meanwhile, desperate Syrians, victims of an unfathomable civil war, are fleeing to neighboring countries, with some 1.8 million in Turkey and 600,000 in Jordan.

Suppose these two social and humanitarian disasters were conjoined to produce something positive.

Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan, a Republican, has already laid the groundwork. In January 2014 he called for an infusion of 50,000 immigrants as part of a program to revitalize Detroit, and signed an executive order creating the Michigan Office for New Americans.

Syrian refugees would be an ideal community to realize this goal, as Arab-Americans are already a vibrant and successful presence in the Detroit metropolitan area. A 2003 survey by the University of Michigan of 1,016 members of this community (58 percent of whom were Christian, and 42 percent Muslim) found that 19 percent were entrepreneurs and that the median household income was $50,000 to $75,000 per year.”

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4. Shockingly, it appears Obama lied about Benghazi. Again. They knew Al-Qaeda was planning an attack before it happened, and yet did nothing to ensure the embassy’s safety.

From HotAir  “The date of the DIA conclusion (produced by a FOIA lawsuit from Judicial Watch) is remarkable for at least one reason. First, September 16 is an infamous date in the Benghazi timeline, as the date on which Susan Rice did a full Ginsburg to insist that the attack resulted from a spontaneous demonstration tied to an obscure YouTube video. Even though the DIA directly contradicted those talking points supplied by the White House to Rice, they continued to insist on using them for another two weeks, including Hillary Clinton. During that period, the Obama administration kept saying that they had no indication that this was a terrorist plot, even though the president of Libya insisted that it was a planned attack on one of the same shows on which Rice appeared.

As Catherine Herridge and Martha McCallum point out, the memo tells a lot more of the story than we knew before. The consulate and its intelligence operation nearby was keeping an eye on weapons transfers to anti-Assad forces in Syria, one of the proposed reasons why the US would have kept a consulate open in that city for so long. This was taking place at the same time that a number of American politicians were demanding more open support for rebels in Syria, a move that had support from Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta at the time according to Panetta’s memoir, but which Obama himself was reluctant to embrace — publicly, at least. Mike Morell insisted last week that the US took no part in that weapons movement, but did we need a consulate just to conduct passive intel on arms trafficking?

Why keep up the pretense? Obama was in the middle of an election, and didn’t want to acknowledge that he’d been caught with his pants down. And he may well have wanted to avoid answering questions about secret arms programs to anti-Assad rebels, especially given how that turned out in Syria and Iraq.

Speaking of which, the part about the rise of ISIS is even more interesting. The DIA tried to warn Congress about the threat in January 2014, which is when Obama compared them to the “jayvees.””

JudicialWatch has the whole story here. 

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Meanwhile, Gowdy keeps digging. 

From TheNYTimes  “When the Clintons last occupied the White House, Sidney Blumenthal cast himself in varied roles: speechwriter, in-house intellectual and press corps whisperer. Republicans added another, accusing Mr. Blumenthal of spreading gossip to discredit Republican investigators, and forced him to testify during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial.

Now, as Hillary Rodham Clinton embarks on her second presidential bid, Mr. Blumenthal’s service to the Clintons is again under the spotlight. Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, a Republican who is leading the congressional committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, plans to subpoena Mr. Blumenthal, 66, for a private transcribed interview.

Mr. Gowdy’s chief interest, according to people briefed on the inquiry, is a series of memos that Mr. Blumenthal — who was not an employee of the State Department — wrote to Mrs. Clinton about events unfolding in Libya before and after the death of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. According to emails obtained by The New York Times, Mrs. Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time, took Mr. Blumenthal’s advice seriously, forwarding his memos to senior diplomatic officials in Libya and Washington and at times asking them to respond. Mrs. Clinton continued to pass around his memos even after other senior diplomats concluded that Mr. Blumenthal’s assessments were often unreliable.”

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by

News/Politics 5-18-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread 

Here’s a couple to start things off. 

1. First Iran, and now China. Is it just me, or does this guy want to arm all the bad actors with nukes?

From DirectorBlue  “Writing at the Washington Post, Steven Mufson observes that “Obama’s quiet nuclear deal with China raises proliferation concerns.”

It seemed like a typical day for President Obama. He taped a TV interview on trade, hosted the champion NASCAR team on the South Lawn and met with the defense secretary in the Oval Office.

Not so typical was something that didn’t appear that day on the president’s public schedule: notification to Congress that he intends to renew a nuclear cooperation agreement with China. The deal would allow Beijing to buy more U.S.-designed reactors and pursue a facility or the technology to reprocess plutonium from spent fuel. China would also be able to buy reactor coolant technology that experts say could be adapted to make its submarines quieter and harder to detect.

The formal notice initially didn’t draw any headlines. Its unheralded release on April 21 reflected the administration’s anxiety that it might alarm members of Congress and nonproliferation experts who fear China’s growing naval power — and the possibility of nuclear technology falling into the hands of third parties with nefarious intentions.”

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2. Another ObamaCare success story……. 🙄

From CNSNews  “President Barack Obama’s home state of Hawaii is shutting down its state-based health care exchange, the Hawaii Health Connector (HHC), due to incurring debts and the unwillingness of state legislators to put more taxpayer money into the struggling operation, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported Saturday.

Established in 2011, the non-profit organization is Hawaii’s state-based health exchange for the President’s Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. There are currently about 37,000 Hawaiians enrolled in health care plans through the exchange, far short of the roughly 70,000 needed to raise enough money to sustain it, the article reports.

Officials with the exchange released a report to its board of directors on Friday declaring that the state-based marketplace simply does not have the money to continue operations, the article stated.

“Now that it is clear that the state will not provide sufficient support for the Hawaii Health Connector’s operations through fiscal year 2016 (ending June 30, 2016), the Connector can no longer operate in a manner that would cause it to incur additional debts or other obligations for which it is unable to pay,” the report read, according to the article.”

Nice how they want the states to pick up the tab for this, huh?

More here, from American’s for Tax Reform  “While the exchange has struggled since its creation, it is not for lack of funding. Since 2011 Hawaii has received a total of $205,342,270 in federal grant money from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In total, HHS provided nearly $4.5 billion to Hawaii and other state exchanges, with little federal oversight and virtually no strings attached.

Despite this generous funding, the exchange has underperformed from day one. In its first year, Hawaii enrolled only 8,592 individuals – meaning it spent $23,899 on its website for each individual enrolled. Currently over 37,000 individuals are enrolled in Hawaii’s exchange – well below the estimated 70,000 enrollees that is required to make the website financially viable. Unfortunately, taxpayers will have to hand out an additional $30 million so that Hawaii can migrate to the federal system.

This is not the first time that a state exchange has failed, and taken millions of dollars in federal funds down with it. Earlier this year, Oregon’s state exchange was officially abolished at an estimated cost of $41 million. Cover Oregon, as it used to be known received $305 million in funds from HHS but failed to produce a workable website months after the 2013 November deadline. The debacle has prompted numerous federal agencies and organizations to investigate allegations of inappropriate political interference from then Governor Kitzhaber’s 2014 reelection campaign.”

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by

News/Politics 5-11-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. The Obama admin continues it’s amnesty program, despite a court order not to. Laws are for the commoners. 

From TheWashingtonTimes  “President Obama’s lawyers admitted to a federal judge late Thursday that they had broken the court’s injunction halting the administration’s new deportation amnesty, issuing thousands of work permits even after Judge Andrew S. Hanen had ordered the program stopped.

The stunning admission, filed just before midnight in Texas, where the case is being heard, is the latest misstep for the administration’s lawyers, who are facing possible sanctions by Judge Hanen for their continued problems in arguing the case.

The Justice Department lawyers said Homeland Security, which is the defendant in the case, told them Wednesday that an immigration agency had approved about 2,000 applications for three-year work permits, which was part of Mr. Obama’s new amnesty, even after Judge Hanen issued his Feb. 16 injunction halting the entire program.

Top Obama officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, had repeatedly assured Congress they had fully halted the program and were complying with the order.”

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2. Shockingly, the Obama admin continues to stonewall on the Benghazi probe. 

From RollCall  “The Republican chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi on Friday defended the pace of his panel’s year-old investigation into the 2012 terror attack and announced plans to interview three top aides to former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., in a 15-page “Interim Progress Update” released on the one-year-anniversary of the committee’s creation, blamed the Obama administration for delays in the panel’s probe.

“It is difficult to conduct a fact-centric congressional investigation when the Administration impedes the Committee’s progress by repeatedly failing to answer the Committee’s requests or to provide information in a timely manner,” wrote the South Carolina Republican.

“The largest impediment to being able to write the final, definitive accounting of what happened before, during and after the terrorist attacks in Benghazi is the Executive Branch itself.”

But Gowdy, who also has asked Clinton to appear before his panel, credits his committee with uncovering thousands of new emails and documents related to the administration’s handling of the attack that left four Americans dead.

Gowdy also said the panel wants to interview at least 60 more current and former officials, including Clinton, Susan Rice, Patrick Kennedy and three of Clinton’s top aides during her tenure as secretary of State: Cheryl Mills, Jake Sullivan and Huma Abedin.”

Good. Subpoena them and put ’em under oath. 

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3. The Clinton Foundation – the more we know, the worse it gets. 

From Breitbart  “Shocking revelations show that at least four Clinton Foundation board of directors have either been charged or convicted of financial crimes, including bribery and fraud.

This newest, startling revelation is just one more of many in Peter Schweizer’s bombshell book Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, the book that has sent the Hillary Clinton campaign and the media scrambling.

The book shows that there are many problems with the Clinton charity. In fact, the Clinton Foundation is so unlike a real charity that even charity watchdog group Charity Navigatorrefuses to rate the Clinton Foundation because of its “atypical business model.”

One of those problems is the fact that the Clintons put big donors and close pals on the board for reasons that are hard to fathom. In fact, at least four of these “board members” have either been charged or convicted of serious financial irregularities, crimes including bribery and fraud.”

Hey, if you’re gonna run a scam foundation of this magnitude, you need experienced people who can hide the fraud best, right?

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by

News/Politics 4-23-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. Why did the IRS cut it’s customer service budget? So it could pay bonuses?

From TheWeeklyStandard  “If you tried to contact the IRS with a question about your taxes this year, chances are you didn’t get a response. The IRS estimated that it would only answer 17 million of the 49 million calls received this filing season. Taxpayers lucky enough to have the IRS answer their calls waited an average of 34.4 minutes for assistance–nearly double the wait time last year (18.7 minutes).

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen has blamed the IRS’s “abysmal” customer service on congressional budget cuts–funding is down $1.2 billion from its 2010 peak–but a new congressional report points the finger back at the IRS. While congressional funding for the IRS remained flat from 2014 to 2015, the IRS diverted $134 million away from customer service to other activities.

In addition to the $11 billion appropriated by Congress, the IRS takes in more than $400 million in user fees and may allocate that money as it sees fit. In 2014, the IRS allocated $183 million in user fees to its customer service budget, but allocated just $49 million in 2015–a 76 percent cut.”

“The report notes that Koskinen reinstated bonuses weeks after his appointment, has allowed IRS employees to spend roughly 500,000 work hours on union activities, and failed to collect delinquent taxes owed by federal employees. The tax agency has also been strained by Obamacare. According to the report, the IRS has spent “over $1.2 billion on the President’s health care law to date, with a planned expenditure this year of an additional $500 million.”

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2. The Pentagon and White House aren’t being honest about ISIS. Again. 

From TheDailyBeast  “The Defense Department released a map last week showing territory where it is has pushed ISIS back, claiming that the terrorist group is “no longer able to operate freely in roughly 25 to 30 percent of populated areas of Iraqi territory where it once could.” This was touted as evidence of success by numerous news outlets.

Pushing ISIS back is clearly a good step. But the information from the Pentagon is, at best, misleading and incomplete, experts in the region and people on the ground tell The Daily Beast. They said the map misinforms the public about how effective the U.S.-led effort to beat back ISIS has actually been. The map released by the Pentagon excludes inconvenient facts in some parts, and obscures them in others.

The Pentagon’s map assessing the so-called Islamic State’s strength has only two categories: territory held by ISIS currently, and territory lost by ISIS since coalition airstrikes began in August 2014. The category that would illustrate American setbacks—where ISIS has actually gained territory since the coalition effort began—is not included.”

““Taken in isolation, the map definitely gives an impression that anti-ISIS efforts have succeeded in pushing the group back along a northern and north-eastern peripheries, but it fails in one huge respect—it fails to specifically identify territory gained by ISIS during the same period,” said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center.”

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3. Yesterday was Earth Day. Since I’m not a hippie, I forgot. Oh well….. 🙄

So in honor of Earth Day and the doom and gloom predictions I’m sure were made, here are 18 spectacularly wrong predictions from the first Earth Day. 

From TheAmericanEnterpriseInstitute  “In the May 2000 issue of Reason Magazine, award-winning science correspondent Ronald Bailey wrote an excellent article titled “Earth Day, Then and Now” to provide some historical perspective on the 30th anniversary of Earth Day. In that article, Bailey noted that around the time of the first Earth Day, and in the years following, there was a “torrent of apocalyptic predictions” and many of those predictions were featured in his Reason article. Well, it’s now the 45th anniversary of  Earth Day, and a good time to ask the question again that Bailey asked 15 years ago: How accurate were the predictions made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970? The answer: “The prophets of doom were not simply wrong, but spectacularly wrong,” according to Bailey. Here are 18 examples of the spectacularly wrong predictions made around 1970 when the “green holy day” (aka Earth Day) started:

1. Harvard biologist George Wald estimated that “civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”

2. “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” wrote Washington University biologist Barry Commoner in the Earth Day issue of the scholarly journal Environment.

3. The day after the first Earth Day, the New York Times editorial page warned, “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from intolerable deterioration and possible extinction.”

4. “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich confidently declared in the April 1970 Mademoiselle. “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.””

🙄

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News/Politics 4-22-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. A deal has been reached on the Senate human trafficking bill. And it clears the way for Obama’s new AG.

From HotAir  “Surprised? Don’t be, as the confirmation vote for Loretta Lynch was never going to be stalled forever. Under pressure themselves, Democrats finally cut a deal on the human-trafficking billto get the Lynch nomination completed:

“I’m glad we can say there is a bipartisan proposal that will allow us to complete action on this legislation so we can provide help to the victims who desperately need it,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced on the Senate floor.

“As soon as we finish the trafficking bill, as I’ve indicated for some time now, we’ll move to the president’s nominee for attorney general in the next day or so,” he added.

Democrats will spin this as a victory, but they caved on the use of revenue from the law’s fine structure for abortions:

After weeks of abortion-related stalling on the trafficking bill, which in turn has delayed Lynch, the solution turned out to be a fairly simple one. The handshake agreement on trafficking gives Republicans what they sought: assurances that none of the funds provided to trafficking victims will be used for abortions, under the Hyde amendment.

But Democrats also got what they wanted: A path forward without expanding the Hyde language. The fees collected from convicted traffickers will be used for legal services and other concerns but under the new language cannot be used for medical services. Separate money appropriated by Congress, and thus subject to Hyde, will then be used for medical services.”

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2. My cats will now be seeking personhood too. They’ve been illegally detained by me for years.

From MSN/TheGuardian  “For the first time in US history, a judge has granted two chimpanzees a petition – through human attorneys – to defend their rights against unlawful imprisonment, arguably bestowing the status of “legal persons” on the primates.

On Monday, Manhattan supreme court justice Barbara Jaffe granted a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of two non-human plaintiffs, Hercules and Leo – chimpanzees used for medical experiments at Stony Brook University on Long Island.

In her order, Jaffe ordered Samuel Stanley Jr, the president of Stony Brook, to argue before the court why the chimpanzees were being “unlawfully detained” at his university and should not be transferred to a primate sanctuary in Florida.

The attorneys who brought the petition forward, part of the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), argue that under New York law, “only a ‘legal person’ may have an order to show cause and writ of habeas corpus issued in his or her behalf. The court has therefore implicitly determined that Hercules and Leo are ‘persons’.”

“This is one step in a long, long struggle,” said Steven Wise, the lawyer leading the effort. “She never says explicitly that our non-human plaintiffs were persons but by issuing the order … she’s either saying implicitly that they are or that they certainly can be. So that’s the first time that has happened.”

And hopefully on appeal, it’s the last time. 

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3. Is Obama trying to sneak in “Unrestricted Immigration” in his new trade deal? Wouldn’t surprise me.

From Breitbart  “Morris said, “This is huge. I hope everybody listening takes action call your senator about it. If he is a Republican he is voting wrong. “I dont think that people understand that in this deal which is a trade agreement among Australia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Japan, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Peru, and Chile, there’s a provision for free flow of workers, just like in the European Union. What It means is unrestricted immigration. It means literally that  congress would not have the authority to restrict immigration because a treaty supersedes a statute under our constitution.””

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4. State AG’s have filed suit over Obama’s EPA rules. 

From HotAir  “The EPA is moving full steam ahead with their plans to clamp down on coal production in the name of reducing carbon emissions, regardless of how it impacts American energy independence or the costs which will be passed on to consumers. (And “full steam ahead” is probably an apt bit of gallows humor in this case, since we may be back to running on wood burning steam engines soon if the EPA has their way.) But that might change now that the D.C. circuit court has heard arguments from 26 state Attorneys General who are seeking to preemptively stop the regulations from going into effect. Their argument, which comes at a rather unusual stage of the normal process for rules implementation, is a compelling one and seeks to prevent entirely predictable harm to consumers and the grid.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey penned an op-ed earlier this monthexplaining why he was moving forward with this request.

On April 16, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear arguments on two separate but related lawsuits filed by numerous states and energy companies in the wake of last June’s proposed rule. The lawsuits contend that the rule and EPA’s compliance threats are illegal.

This case is vitally important to the nation. If the EPA’s proposed rule is permitted to go forward, it will cause great harm to the states and their citizens. The agency’s threats to finalize the plan this summer already have had a dampening effect on states, the energy industry, and its employees.”

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by

News/Politics 4-21-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

1. Yes please! 

From TheNYPost  “Despite repeated claims to the contrary, Mayor Bill de Blasio is positioning himself to be the leftist “progressive” alternative to Wall Street-friendly Hillary Rodham Clinton as the Democratic candidate for president, a national party operative told The Post.

De Blasio’s hope, the operative said, is a “Draft de Blasio’’ movement will develop among progressive activists over the next several months that will lead to the mayor being able to defeat Clinton in the primary elections next year in much the same way leftist Sen. George McGovern successfully challenged the initially front-running establishment Democratic candidate, Sen. Edmund Muskie, more than 40 years ago.

Standing ready to back de Blasio against Clinton, said the operative, is the state’s small but influential Working Families Party, which has strong ties to de Blasio and is funded by some of the nation’s most powerful labor unions.”

Let me fix that. They mean small but communist Working Families Party. 

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2. Dropping the ball yet again….

From HotAir  “The collapse of Yemen into a failed state has trapped between 3,000 and 4,000 American citizens in the country, caught between al-Qaeda and Houthi Islamists and the military action against both from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Almost until the moment that the Hadi government was put to flight, the White House has insisted that its counterterrorism efforts in Yemen had been a model of success. The final collapse appears to have caught the Obama administration so off-guard that it didn’t have time to organize an evacuation for Americans still left, andMcClatchy’s John Zarocostas reports that no rescue plans will come in the immediate future, either (via Twitchy):

The Obama administration so far has declined to organize a rescue mission for the estimated 3,000 to 4,000 U.S. citizens in Yemen. U.S. officials have said they believe it is too dangerous for U.S. military assets to enter Yemeni waters and air space. They’ve also suggested that organizing Americans to meet at a single departure point would put them at risk of attack from al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula or other terrorist groups seeking American hostages.

That, however, has left Americans largely on their own to find a way out of the country. The U.S. Embassy in Sanaa has been closed for months, and the last American troops in the country were evacuated last month, a few days before the Saudi bombing campaign began.”

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3. Math is hard I guess. And California isn’t the only state that fudged the numbers. The White House enrollment numbers are not to be trusted either. They did the same thing. 

From TheDailySignal  “California’s health insurance exchange, established under the Affordable Care Act, has been held out as a national model for Obamacare. In some ways—not all of them good—it is. Whether it’s falling far short of 2015 enrollment goals or sending out 100,000 inaccurate tax forms, Covered California is struggling with its share of challenges.

Now, several senior-level officials integral to the launch of Covered California—who enthusiastically support the Affordable Care Act—are speaking about what they view as gross incompetence and mismanagement involving some of the $1 billion federal tax dollars poured into the state effort.”

“Covered California’s disastrous debut triggered a house of cards. When the website crashed, consumers were directed to fill out paper applications; they were 33 pages long and took at least an hour to complete. What’s more, they couldn’t be coordinated with the electronic version because of a major design flaw. The forms didn’t match.

But Covered California counted duplicate applications as if they were enrollments, giving the impression that more people had successfully signed up. (The Obama administration did the same with national HealthCare.gov applications.)

For example, Covered California’s Lee publicly touted 30,000 successful enrollments for the first month. Hill says the actual number was closer to 4,000.”

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by

News/Politics 4-20-15

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open Thread

I’ll start things off.

1. Clinton’s cash. 

From TheNYTimes  “The book does not hit shelves until May 5, but already the Republican Rand Paul has called its findings “big news” that will “shock people” and make voters “question” the candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich,” by Peter Schweizer — a 186-page investigation of donations made to the Clinton Foundation by foreign entities — is proving the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle still in its infancy.

The book, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, asserts that foreign entities who made payments to the Clinton Foundation and to Mr. Clinton through high speaking fees received favors from Mrs. Clinton’s State Department in return.

“We will see a pattern of financial transactions involving the Clintons that occurred contemporaneous with favorable U.S. policy decisions benefiting those providing the funds,” Mr. Schweizer writes.

His examples include a free-trade agreement in Colombia that benefited a major foundation donor’s natural resource investments in the South American nation, development projects in the aftermath of the Haitian earthquake in 2010, and more than $1 million in payments to Mr. Clinton by a Canadian bank and major shareholder in the Keystone XL oil pipeline around the time the project was being debated in the State Department.”

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2. A new VA scandal. 

From FoxNews  “Nearly a year after a scandal rocked the Department of Veterans Affairs, revealing that the agency’s centers nationwide were manipulating records to hide dangerously long patient wait times, the bad news just keeps on coming — calling into question the agency’s promise to clean house.

Ignored claims, manipulated records, cost overruns and even one facility infested with insects and rodents are among the latest issues uncovered by a blisteringVA Inspector General’s report. The auditor’s probe found that more than 31,000 inquiries placed by veterans to the Philadelphia Regional VA office call center went ignored for more than 312 days, even though they were supposed to be answered in five. Perhaps even worse, claim dates were manipulated to hide delays, $2.2 million in improper payments were made because of duplicate records, 22,000 pieces of returned mail went ignored and some 16,600 documents involving patient records and dating back to 2011 were never scanned into the system.

“This report is as bleak as it gets, full of systemic malfeasance and deliberate data manipulation,” charged Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, in a statement after the story broke April 15. “The Philadelphia VA Regional Office is in crisis, brought on by years of mismanagement and encouraged by VA’s longstanding refusal to hold employees accountable.””

“In response to the Philadelphia IG report, the VA said the findings “reflect conditions a year ago.” Once issues were brought to their attention by whistleblowers, reforms were already in high gear during the IG’s inspection, first and foremost with a new director Diana Rubens, who was brought in to tackle the reforms in July 2014. 

“This is not a new thing, this is a last-year thing,” Allison Hickey, the VA’s official in charge of benefits, told The Associated Press. But the IG’s report rejects that notion, saying it was getting complaints as recently as last month.”

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3. Soros’ secret liberal donor retreat. Remember this the next time you hear some liberal whine about all of that money Republicans use.

From TheFreeBeacon  “The contrasts are stark at this week’s meeting of the nation’s foremost liberal donor club. Flashy sports cars ferry climate crusaders to a luxury hotel, a private security company shields prying eyes from speeches on political accountability, and billionaire Democratic donors denounce money in politics.

The Alliance is a hub of liberal and Democratic fundraising. It steers tens of millions of dollars each year to leading political and policy groups strategically vetted and endorsed by its staff of progressive operatives.

“If there was an attack on this building, the Democratic donor base would be gone,” joked investor Joe Sanberg. “There are probably a lot of conservatives who would love to drop a bomb on this building.”

Security was tight at San Francisco’s Four Seasons hotel, as the group hired its own security to prevent unauthorized individuals from accessing the hotel’s conference area.

It set up disposal bins for “confidential” conference materials, where attendees could dispose of sensitive paperwork for “secure shredding.” The group brought along its own paper shredders.”

“Attendees dined on goat cheese and garlic polenta, sourdough French toast, Kobe beef, and chorizo-stuffed dates. They sipped fine Napa Valley wine. The minimum food and beverage charge for the event was $130,000 according to hotel documents.”

Paper shredders? They must be hoping Hillary stops by. 😆

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