Obamacare

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News/Politics 5-20-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. System wide.

From HotAir  “Add yet another VA facility to the deadly wait-list fraud scandal. The Daily Beast heard from a whistleblower in the Albuquerque VA organization that the same kind of wait-list fraud alleged at seven other facilities occurs in New Mexico as well. Veterans have to wait months to get medical attention, and any investigation may already be too late for some of them:

Add Albuquerque, New Mexico’s to the growing list of VA hospitals accused of keeping secret waiting lists to hide delays for veterans seeking medical care. And it may already be too late to get to the truth and find out what harm, if any, was done to veterans there—VA officials are already destroying records to cover their tracks, a whistleblower inside the hospital tells The Daily Beast. …

“The ‘secret wait list’ for patient appointments is being either moved or was destroyed after what happened in Phoenix,” according to a doctor who works at the Albuquerque VA hospital and spoke exclusively with The Daily Beast. “Right now,” the doctor said, “there is an eight-month waiting list for patients to get ultrasounds of their hearts. Some patients have died before they got their studies. It is unknown why they died, some for cardiac reasons, some for other reasons.”

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2. And the number of victims continues to climb as well.

From StarsAndStripes  “As controversy swirls around the Veterans Administration over deaths caused by delayed care, an investigation by the Dayton Daily News found that the VA settled many cases that appear to be related to delays in treatment.

A database of paid claims by the VA since 2001 includes 167 in which the words “delay in treatment” is used in the description. The VA paid out a total of $36.4 million to settle those claims, either voluntarily or as part of a court action.

The VA has admitted that 23 people have died because of delayed care, and is facing accusations that hospital administrators are gaming the system to conceal wait times, including using a “secret list” at the VA in Phoenix.”

“The number of dead veterans could total more than 1,100 from 2001 through the first half of 2013 — including 16 at the Dayton VA Medical Center and 11 at the Cincinnati VA — according to records obtained via Freedom of Information Act. These are instances in which the family of a veteran claimed that a death occurred after something went awry and the VA paid money to resolve the issue.”

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3. What does this teach us?

From NationalReview  “If our government has any obligation to fulfill its many promises on health care, it should be first and foremost to the men and women who served in our armed forces. But the scandal over hidden waiting lists at a growing number of veterans’ hospitals (seven so far) — wherein dozens of veterans died while waiting months for vital treatment, and the VA covered up the lengthy wait times — should make everyone wonder whether we can place our trust in a government-managed health-care system. The Dayton Daily News reported on Sunday that its investigation of a database of claims paid by the Department of Veterans Affairs shows that the words “delay in treatment” were used 167 times. The VA paid out a total of $36.4 million to settle the claims. There could well be many more cases of “death by delay” at the VA that never came to light.

Are there lessons in the VA scandal for the rest of us if Obamacare survives and even expands? You betcha. The first lesson is that as government expands taxpayer subsidies for health care, the demand will always outstrip supply.”

“There’s a lot to be mad about at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute notes that more than 344,000 claims for veterans’ care are backed up and waiting to be processed. It takes an average of 160 days for a veteran to be approved for health benefits, and the VA itself estimates that is has an error rate of at least 9 percent in processing claims. According to VA figures for 2012, as reported by the Washington Post, “a veteran who takes an appeal through all available administrative steps faces an average wait of 1,598 days.” That’s more than four years of waiting.

Obamacare will dramatically expand access to the health-care system at the same time that many surveys show doctors are likely to retire or cut back their hours. It is almost inevitable that we’ll see more waiting-list scandals as the need to ration care grows.”

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4. Gee Harry, don’t you think this makes you a hypocrite after all your ranting on the Koch Bros.?

From TheNYTimes  “Tom Steyer, the billionaire climate activist, recently contributed $5 million to a “super PAC” dedicated to keeping Democrats in control of the United States Senate, cementing his alliance with the party as the 2014 campaign swings into high gear.

Mr. Steyer, a retired hedge fund manager, has used some of his fortune in an effort to make climate change a more potent political issue in pivotal states like Florida, Iowa and Virginia. He is planning to raise $100 million to run campaigns on climate issues, including efforts to persuade lawmakers and the Obama administration to block the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

The contribution, confirmed by a Steyer spokesman and the super PAC, the Senate Majority PAC, makes Mr. Steyer the single largest contributor to the group this year as Democratic donors rush to provide funds to left-leaning groups. Republicans have relied far more heavily on political nonprofit groups that do not disclose their donors.

“Our candidates have faced a torrent of outside money of unprecedented scale,” Karyn Brockman, the Senate Majority PAC’s finance director, said in a statement. “As the leading Democratic super PAC, and the only one dedicated to keeping the Senate, we have had record-setting support, but we realize that we must continue to fight back.”

And another 40 million from Soros’ group as well. Yep, the Kochs’ are the problem. 🙄

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5. Back door gun control.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Gun retailers say the Obama administration is trying to put them out of business with regulations and investigations that bypass Congress and choke off their lines of credit, freeze their assets and prohibit online sales.

Since 2011, regulators have increased scrutiny on banks’ customers. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in 2011 urged banks to better manage the risks of their merchant customers who employ payment processors, such as PayPal, for credit card transactions. The FDIC listed gun retailers as “high risk” along with porn stores and drug paraphernalia shops.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department has launched Operation Choke Point, a credit card fraud probe focusing on banks and payment processors. The threat of enforcement has prompted some banks to cut ties with online gun retailers, even if those companies have valid licenses and good credit histories.

“This administration has very clearly told the banking industry which customers they feel represent ‘reputational risk’ to do business with,” said Peter Weinstock, a lawyer at Hunton & Williams LLP. “So financial institutions are reacting to this extraordinary enforcement arsenal by being ultra-conservative in who they do business with: Any companies that engage in any margin of risk as defined by this administration are being dropped.””

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News/Politics 5-12-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Better late than never I suppose.

From TownHall“IRS officials have agreed to turn over all emails belonging to former head of tax exempt groups Lois Lerner as the Congressional probe into improper targeting of conservative groups by the agency gets deeper. Earlier this week Republicans and Democrats in the House voted to hold Lerner in contempt after her repeated refusal to testify in front of Congress. Lerner has given closed door testimony to the Department of Justice, but plead the Fifth twice in front of the House Oversight Committee.”

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2. Even if it’s bad news for the Obama admin, the usual suspects will do what they always do. Provide cover, in a unified voice.

From NationalJournal  “When Jay Carney was grilled at length by Jonathan Karl of ABC News over an email outlining administration talking points in the wake of the 2012 Benghazi attack, it was not, by the reckoning of many observers, the White House press secretary’s finest hour. Carney was alternately defensive and dismissive, arguably fueling a bonfire he was trying to tamp down.

But Carney needn’t have worried. He had plenty of backup.

He had The New Republic‘s Brian Beutler dismissing Benghazi as “nonsense.” He had Slate‘s David Weigel, along with The Washington Post’s Plum Line blog, debunking any claim that the new email was a “smoking gun.” Media Matters for America labeled Benghazi a “hoax.” Salon wrote that the GOP had a “demented Benghazi disease.” Daily Kos featured the headline: “Here’s Why the GOP Is Fired Up About Benghazi—and Here’s Why They’re Wrong.” The Huffington Post offered “Three Reasons Why Reviving Benghazi Is Stupid—for the GOP.”

It’s been a familiar pattern since President Obama took office in 2009: When critics attack, the White House can count on a posse of progressive writers to ride to its rescue. Pick an issue, from the Affordable Care Act to Ukraine to the economy to controversies involving the Internal Revenue Service and Benghazi, and you’ll find the same voices again and again, on the Web and on Twitter, giving the president cover while savaging the opposition. And typically doing it with sharper tongues and tighter arguments than the White House itself.“

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3. As I said before, I suspect this is a system wide problem, and the orders to do this came from high up.

From NBCNews  “A whistleblower who worked at two Texas VA facilities claims he was “coached” on how to “cook the books” to conceal long wait times for patients, adding to concerns that the alleged falsification of records first alleged at a Phoenix VA hospital might be widespread.

“We were changing numbers, we were changing dates,” Brian Turner, an Army medic turned VA scheduling clerk, told NBC News. “We were cooking the books.”

Staffers at VA facilities in two states have now made public allegations that they were aware of or participated in the manipulation of records, and an internal email from a facility in a third seems to show that staffers were told how to “game the system” to hide wait times.

Turner said he was inspired to come forward and contact the VA’s Inspector General by the allegations of the initial VA whistleblower, Dr. Samuel Foote, who claimed that the Phoenix facility where he worked until recently had a secret paper wait list in addition to its official electronic wait list so it could hide the length of time some patients had to go without care. He said that as many as 40 patients may have died because of delays.”

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4. More epic failures for ObamaCare.

From Politico  “Nearly half a billion dollars in federal money has been spent developing four state Obamacare exchanges that are now in shambles — and the final price tag for salvaging them may go sharply higher.

Each of the states — Massachusetts, Oregon, Nevada and Maryland — embraced Obamacare, and each underperformed. All have come under scathing criticism and now face months of uncertainty as they rush to rebuild their systems or transition to the federal exchange.

The federal government is caught between writing still more exorbitant checks to give them a second chance at creating viable exchanges of their own or, for a lesser although not inexpensive sum, adding still more states to HealthCare.gov. The federal system is already serving 36 states, far more than originally anticipated.”

“The $474 million spent by these four states includes the cost that officials have publicly detailed to date. It climbs further if states like Minnesota and Hawaii, which have suffered similarly dysfunctional exchanges, are added.”

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by

News/Politics 5-8-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Ted Cruz and the definitive list of Obama’s 76 lawless actions. Not surprising. As today’s news shows, everything this administration does has an element of fraud involved.

From TheDailyCaller  “Republican Sen. Ted Cruz released a definitive list Wednesday of 76 “lawless” Obama administration actions and abuses of power.

Cruz’s “The Legal Limit Report No. 4,” obtained by The Daily Caller, delves into little-known and little-reported details of President Obama’s executive actions. Cruz was set to discuss his report at the Federalist Society in the Promenade Ballroom of the Mayflower Hotel in Washington at 2:15 PM Wednesday.

“Of all the troubling aspects of the Obama presidency, none is more dangerous than the President’s persistent pattern of lawlessness, his willingness to disregard the written law and instead enforce his own policies via executive fiat,” Cruz stated in the report’s introductory remarks.

“President Obama has openly defied [rule of law] by repeatedly suspending, delaying, and waiving portions of the laws that he is charged to enforce. When President Obama disagreed with federal immigration laws, he instructed the Justice Department to cease enforcing the laws. He did the same thing with federal welfare law, drug laws, and the federal Defense of Marriage Act,” Cruz wrote. “In the more than two centuries of our nation’s history, there is simply no precedent for the White House wantonly ignoring federal law and asking others to do the same.”

You can read the entire list at the link. It speaks for itself, and he more than makes his case.

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2. Will they lock her up if that’s what it takes to get answers from her?

From RollCall  “Deep in the recesses of congressional power — and in precedent stretching back to the 18th century — is the ability to pursue “inherent contempt” against individuals, including the right to imprison a person in the Capitol to compel compliance with lawmakers’ authority.

Congress hasn’t exercised inherent contempt power since 1935 and there’s no suggestion that lawmakers are actively considering the option in Lerner’s case.

But House attorneys, and lawyers for the former Internal Revenue Service official, are looking at the potential legal paths as House leaders consider first whether to take a contempt citation to the floor and, if it passes, whether the Justice Department will pursue prosecution.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted on party lines to recommend the full House hold Lerner in contempt and refer her to the Justice Department for refusing to testify before the committee on allegations of political targeting at the IRS of conservative political groups seeking tax-exempt status. The GOP members said Lerner, who resigned from the IRS last year under fire for her role as the head of the office at the heart of the controversy, waived her Fifth Amendment privilege by delivering an opening statement declaring her innocence before the panel last year.”

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3. Of course they are. After all, nobody’s been held responsible for the IRS scandal, so why would they fear scrutiny of yet another potential scandal blatantly targeting their political enemies?

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “Government officials, reacting to the growing voice of conservative news outlets, especially on the internet, are angling to curtail the media’s exemption from federal election laws governing political organizations, a potentially chilling intervention that the chairman of the Federal Election Commission is vowing to fight.

“I think that there are impulses in the government every day to second guess and look into the editorial decisions of conservative publishers,” warned Federal Election Commission Chairman Lee E. Goodman in an interview.

“The right has begun to break the left’s media monopoly, particularly through new media outlets like the internet, and I sense that some on the left are starting to rethink the breadth of the media exemption and internet communications,” he added.

Noting the success of sites like the Drudge Report, Goodman said that protecting conservative media, especially those on the internet, “matters to me because I see the future going to the democratization of media largely through the internet. They can compete with the big boys now, and I have seen storm clouds that the second you start to regulate them, there is at least the possibility or indeed proclivity for selective enforcement, so we need to keep the media free and the internet free.”

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4. Told you the ObamaCare numbers were just more fuzzy math. And fraud. Lots of fraud.

From Rare.US  “In a House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations subcommittee hearing this morning, a major health insurance trade association representative testified that the administration is reporting inflated enrollment numbers.”

According to their testimony:

“Duplicate enrollments: Because of the challenges that surfaced with the launch of the Exchanges in October 2013, some consumers were advised to create a new account and enroll again. As a result, insurers have many duplicate enrollments in their system for which they never received any payment. In cases where an insurer has a new enrollment for a consumer who previously enrolled, they are not expecting that original policy to be effectuated – even though that data is still reported.”

In other words, due to website glitches, some individuals may have enrolled multiple times. In these cases, the government may count all of these enrollments toward the total enrollment number. The insurer, knowing that the individual enrolled multiple times, will count that individual as having paid.”

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5. I guess this is to replace the operation they had running in Benghazi. They’re goin’ legit this time.

From TheLongWarJournal  “While the opposition Syrian National Coalition, headed by Ahmad Jarba, has been meeting with US officials this week in Washington in an effort to secure further support, including more funding and additional antitank and antiaircraft weapons, news from Syria indicates that some advanced US-made weapons are already being used in various Syrian provinces by rebel fighters.

Over the past few weeks, media reports have stressed that US officials have begun a “pilot program” of providing small quantities of advanced weapons, including TOW missiles, to vetted “moderate” groups, and specifically the Harakat Hazm, which fights in a newly formed coalition called the Southern Front. [See Threat Matrix, The shadowy flow of US weapons into Syria.]

As we at LWJ have pointed out, however, alliances and accommodations between the so-called ‘moderate’ rebel groups and the Islamists have made it very difficult for outside backers of the Syrian opposition to ensure that weapons and other aid provided does not end up in the hands of the Islamists, who dominate the battlefields. [See Threat Matrix, Southern Front tries to disassociate itself from Al Nusrah, which illustrates that an increasing number of reports from ‘moderate’ commanders claiming independence from Islamist groups such as Al Nusrah appear to be concocted in order to secure the provision of more weapons and funding from the West.]

Yesterday the opposition activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that the Islamic Front, a large coalition of mainly Islamist fighting groups, was using US TOW missiles in clashes in Aleppo against the forces of President Bashar al Assad and allies. According to SOHR, the Islamic Front (which it refers to as “Islamic battalions”) employed the weapons in Aleppo’s Al Sheik Najjar area and near Al Brej, and possibly near the air force intelligence building in Al Zahraa district as well.”

What could possibly go wrong? I’m sure it’s OK, they vetted ’em and they’re all like totally moderate, or something. 🙄

As if such a simple Jedi mind trick will make us forget we’re arming the bad guys.

These aren’t the droids Al-Qaeda you’re looking for. 🙄

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6. Not shocking. And remember, they’re independent and they’re like totally unbiased professionals. It’s true, I think they were vetted by the same people as the “moderates” above, so you know you can trust ’em. 🙄

From TheWashPost  “A majority of American journalists identify themselves as political independents although among those who choose a side Democrats outnumber Republicans four to one, according to a new study of the media conducted by two Indiana University professors.

Write Lars Wilnat and David Weaver, professors of journalism at Indiana, of their findings:

Compared with 2002, the percentage of full-time U.S. journalists who claim to be Democrats has dropped 8 percentage points in 2013 to about 28 percent, moving this figure closer to the overall population percentage of 30 percent, according to a December 12-15, 2013, ABC News/Washington Post national poll of 1,005 adults. This is the lowest percentage of journalists saying they are Democrats since 1971. An even larger drop was observed among journalists who said they were Republicans in 2013 (7.1 percent) than in 2002 (18 percent), but the 2013 figure is still notably lower than the percentage of U.S. adults who identified with the Republican Party (24 percent according to the poll mentioned above).”

“Over the last several decades, three things have happened: 1) The number of Democratic-identifying reporters increased steadily prior to a significant drop in the latest survey 2) The number of Republicans has steadily shrunk with that number dipping into single digits for the first time ever in the new survey c) more and more reporters are identifying as independents.  What seems to be happening — at least in the last decade – is that journalists are leaving both parties, finding themselves more comfortable as unaffiliateds.”

Independent. Sure. 🙄

Regardless of self identified party label, liberal is more accurate. Just like the college professors teaching at most of today’s journalism schools.

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by

News/Politics 5-1-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open thread, with a few from me.

1. Summer of Recovery? Not this year.

From Forbes  “The U.S. economy grew in the first quarter — but very, very, very slowly. Most economy watchers blame frigid winter weather for dampening forward progress but not everyone is convinced weather tells the whole story.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis’ advance estimate of first quarter 2014 real gross domestic product shows output produced in the U.S. grew at a glacial 0.1% rate. This is growth relative to fourth quarter 2013, when real GDP increased 2.6%. Economists were anticipating growth around 1.1%.”

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2. And here’s some more economic numbers that show the continuing slump and lack of recovery.

From ZeroHedge  “No, the economy is most definitely not “recovering”.  Despite what you may hear from the politicians and from the mainstream media (shrugging off today’s terrible GDP print), the truth is that the U.S. economy is in far worse shape than it was prior to the last recession.  In fact, we are still pretty much where we were at when the last recession finally ended.  When the financial crisis of 2008 struck, it took us down to a much lower level economically.  Thankfully, things have at least stabilized at this much lower level.  For example, the percentage of working age Americans that are employed has stayed remarkably flat for the past four years.  We should be grateful that things have not continued to get even worse.  It is almost as if someone has hit the “pause button” on the U.S. economy.  But things are definitely not getting better, and there are a whole host of signs that this bubble of false stability will soon come to an end and that our economic decline will accelerate once again.  The following are 17 facts to show to anyone that believes that the U.S. economy is just fine…

#1 The homeownership rate in the United States has dropped to the lowest level in 19 years.

#2 Consumer spending for durable goods has dropped by 3.23 percent since November.  This is a clear sign that an economic slowdown is ahead.

#3 Major retailers are closing stores at the fastest pace that we have seen since the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

#4 According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 20 percent of all families in the United States do not have a single member that is employed.  That means that one out of every five families in the entire country is completely unemployed.

#5 There are 1.3 million fewer jobs in the U.S. economy than when the last recession began in December 2007.  Meanwhile, our population has continued to grow steadily since that time.”

And yet the Obama admin would like us to believe that the unemployment number has been dropping. Fuzzy math can’t hide the truth for much longer.

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3. A Doctor’s Declaration of Independence.

From TheWallStJournal  “So when do we say d%$@ the mandates and requirements from bureaucrats who are not in the healing profession? When do we stand up and say we are not going to take it any more?

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services dictates that we must use an electronic health record (EHR) or be penalized with lower reimbursements in the future. There are “meaningful use” criteria whereby the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services tells us as physicians what we need to include in the electronic health record or we will not be subsidized the cost of converting to the electronic system and we will be penalized by lower reimbursements. Across the country, doctors waste precious time filling in unnecessary electronic-record fields just to satisfy a regulatory measure. I personally spend two hours a day dictating and documenting electronic health records just so I can be paid and not face a government audit. Is that the best use of time for a highly trained surgical specialist?

This is not a unique complaint. A study commissioned by the American Medical Association last year and conducted by the RAND Corp. found that “Poor EHR usability, time-consuming data entry, interference with face-to-face patient care, inefficient and less fulfilling work content, inability to exchange health information between EHR products, and degradation of clinical documentation were prominent sources of professional dissatisfaction.”

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4. Why am I not surprised?

From TheDailyCaller  “Outgoing Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius is now refusing to testify before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, a Senate aide told The Daily Caller Tuesday.

Sebelius had originally been set to testify before the subcommittee about the department’s 2015 $70 billion budget request on April 2.

According to another aide, however, several weeks after confirming the hearing date, she requested a date switch with the National Institutes of Health budget hearing on May 7. The committee accommodated her request.

Now, after announcing her resignation on April 11, she is refusing to testify according to the two aides, even though she is still the sitting secretary — remaining at the post until her successor, OMB Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell is confirmed.“

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5. I feel like we were supposed to at least get cake or something…..

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “The travel costs for vacations taken by the first family and the Bidens have reached over $40 million with the Air Force’s revelation that two golf outings by President Obama this year cost $2.9 million, according to the taxpayer watchdog group Judicial Watch.

The group said that the Air Force provided documents and records that put the price of the first family’s trip to Key Largo, Fla., in March at $885,683 just for flying Air Force One. The travel costs to golf in Palm Springs, Calif., in February, where the president also met with King Abdullah II of Jordan, was $2,066,594, said the Air Force documents, according to Judicial Watch.”

“So far, Judicial Watch said that it has tabulated vacation travel costs, mostly just Air Force jet time, at over $40 million. Far more money is spent on accommodations, communications, rooms and cars for staff, security and U.S. Secret Service protection, Navy and Coast Guard ships offshore and the prepositioning of cars and helicopters, but those costs are not usually revealed.”

Given the amount of staff, and resources needed for them, the real numbers gotta be 10 times that. What a waste.

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by

News/Politics 4-28-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Pass the popcorn.

From HuffPost  “The Louisiana Republican Party filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee on Wednesday, accusing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) of improperly using his official Senate website and Twitter account for partisan attacks on billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.

“Americans are fed up with the type of hyper-partisan campaigning, and it is appalling that Harry Reid would use taxpayer resources to breach Senate ethics rules and pursue this kind of activity in his official capacity as Senate Majority Leader,” Jason Dore, Louisiana GOP executive director, said in press release Wednesday.

Reid has criticized the Koch brothers on the Senate floor several times over the last few months, calling them “un-American” for spending millions of dollars on ads attacking vulnerable Senate Democrats for their support of the Affordable Care Act.

Chairman of the Louisiana Republican Party Roger Villere, the author of the ethics complaint, cited an April 9 post on Reid’s Senate website titled “The Facts About the Koch Brothers” — which outlined the brothers’ opposition to Social Security, the minimum wage and equal pay — as evidence of the majority leader’s misconduct.”

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2. This seems unethical too. Chasing out an American rancher to make way for Chinese solar panels, and the financial benefit of his family members. Dirty Harry is a name that’s fitting.

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3. The Cold War is heating up again.

From TheDailyBeast  “Since the invasion of Crimea, President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama have had regular phone calls in an often half-hearted attempt to deescalate the ongoing crisis inside Ukraine. But as the U.S. and EU prepare to unveil new sanctions against Russia, Putin has decided the interactions should stop. The Kremlin has ended high-level contact with the Obama administration, according to diplomatic officials and sources close to the Russian leadership. The move signals an end to the diplomacy, for now.”

“Diplomatic sources close to the process confirmed that Putin is not interested in speaking with Obama again in the current environment. The two leaders might talk again in the future but neither side is reaching out for direct interaction, as they had been doing since the Ukraine crisis began. The failure of the agreement struck last week in Geneva between the contact group of the U.S., EU, Russia, and Ukraine has made further direct Washington-Moscow interactions moot.”

“Other top U.S. officials are also now out of direct contact with their Russian interlocutors. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is also getting the cold shoulder from his Russian counterpart Sergey Shoygu. Pentagon officials have reached out to Russia on Mr. Hagel’s behalf within the past 24 hours but have not gotten any response, according to Pentagon Spokesman Army Col. Steve Warren.”

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4. Nothing is free. It might seem to be for some, but others are paying their bills for them.

From TheDailyCaller  “Taxpayers will pay over $53,000 per each person newly insured under Obamacare, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation analysis of the Congressional Budget Office data.

Last week’s highly debated CBO report found that Obamacare will cost slightly less than expected over the next decade. The budget office shifted its assessment of the health care law due to unexpectedly low premiums, which it attributed not to lowered costs but on “less attractive” health insurance offerings than it assumed would be available. 

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal fiscal policy group, released its own analysis of the CBO findings Tuesday, concluding that the CBO had also cut the estimated cost of the Medicaid expansion on state budgets.

The CBO predicts that on average, federal taxpayers will now pay over 95 percent of the total cost of the Medicaid expansion. Fewer than expected Americans who were already eligible for traditional state Medicaid programs signed up for coverage while programs received free publicity due to the furor over the Medicaid expansion, leading to a lowered estimates of the Medicaid costs states will incur.”

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by

News/Politics 4-22-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. This will be interesting to watch.

From TheDailyCaller  “Congressman Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, could be facing an ethics investigation if Cleta Mitchell has her way.

Mitchell — a partner at Foley & Lardner and the legal counsel for True the Vote in its case against the IRS for its targeting of conservative groups — is pursuing Cummings over his conduct in the wider investigation.

“[Cummings] announced within 30 days after the IRS scandal that “Whoops, all this investigation is over, and we don’t need to be doing anything more on that,’ and he has done everything he can do to thwart and obstruct this investigation,” Mitchell said. “And has just been adamant that the investigation needs to end, that this is just a witch hunt, that there’s nothing there, that nobody did anything wrong.”

Mitchell believes that Cummings’s actions, including what he described as  ”his investigation of True the Vote” is outside of his jurisdiction and that it is a gross abuse of power to investigate private citizens.”

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2. The culture of corruption in the Obama admin continues. 

From HotAir  “When Congress refused to appropriate more funds for ObamaCare enrollment after already committing a deluge of cash to that effort, now-outgoing HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius began working the phones to perform an end run around Capitol Hill. Sebelius began calling corporate CEOs to push them into donating millions of dollars to Enroll America, an outside group started by Anne Filipic, a former White House staffer. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) investigated, and discovered that Filipic wasn’t the only White House staffer involved in the fundraising campaign:

The White House allegedly was involved in seeking financial support for a pro-ObamaCare group, according to a new report issued in response to Republican concerns about the administration’s fundraising efforts.

Until now, outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was the only official known to have solicited financial support for Enroll America, a nonprofit that promoted enrollment for the Affordable Care Act. But a Government Accountability Office report released Monday detailed not only the secretary’s involvement but that of a White House adviser.”

“It’s worth noting at this point that HHS regulates these markets in significant ways, especially after the passage of ObamaCare. This wasn’t just a case of working the phones for a charity. This was the Cabinet official with the most impact on these businesses extolling the efforts of a supposedly independent group launched by a close adviser to the President. It doesn’t take much ink to connect those dots, which is why insurers began complaining loudly enough about the pressure for Congress and the media to take notice.”

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3. Once again the result of feel-good policies are unintended consequences worse than what they supposedly fixed.

From TheAP  ” Biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term, a study shows, challenging the Obama administration’s conclusions that they are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help combat climate change.

A $500,000 study paid for by the federal government and released Sunday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change concludes that biofuels made with corn residue release 7 percent more greenhouse gases in the early years compared with conventional gasoline.

While biofuels are better in the long run, the study says they won’t meet a standard set in a 2007 energy law to qualify as renewable fuel.”

Of course the govt funds this stuff so it disagrees with the findings, as does the companies taking that money. Not shocking.

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4. Missing the obvious, and I suspect mostly for political reasons. After all, they’d have to admit to 50+ years of failure and the fact that their entire platform of policies has resulted in a disaster for America. They have to ignore it, because they made it that way.

From TheWallStJournal  “Suppose a scientific conference on cancer prevention never addressed smoking, on the grounds that in a free society you can’t change private behavior, and anyway, maybe the statistical relationships between smoking and cancer are really caused by some other third variable. Wouldn’t some suspect that the scientists who raised these claims were driven by something—ideology, tobacco money—other than science?

Yet in the current discussions about increased inequality, few researchers, fewer reporters, and no one in the executive branch of government directly addresses what seems to be the strongest statistical correlate of inequality in the United States: the rise of single-parent families during the past half century.

The two-parent family has declined rapidly in recent decades. In 1960, more than 76% of African-Americans and nearly 97% of whites were born to married couples. Today the percentage is 30% for blacks and 70% for whites. The out-of-wedlock birthrate for Hispanics surpassed 50% in 2006. This trend, coupled with high divorce rates, means that roughly 25% of American children now live in single-parent homes, twice the percentage in Europe (12%). Roughly a third of American children live apart from their fathers.”

“More than 20% of children in single-parent families live in poverty long-term, compared with 2% of those raised in two-parent families, according to education-policy analyst Mitch Pearlstein’s 2011 book “From Family Collapse to America’s Decline.” The poverty rate would be 25% lower if today’s family structure resembled that of 1970, according to the 2009 report “Creating an Opportunity Society” from Brookings Institution analysts Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill. A 2006 article in the journal Demography by Penn State sociologist Molly Martin estimates that 41% of the economic inequality created between 1976-2000 was the result of changed family structure.”

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5. I see they’ve responded to the criticism they received for getting caught off guard.

From HotAir  “Last week, CNN reported that an al-Qaeda conference took place in Yemen, headed by the number-two man in the global structure, and that the US appeared to have missed it. If so, we may be making up for lost time. A series of drone attacks in Yemen has killed dozens of terrorists from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the most dangerous of the constituent networks in the AQ umbrella:

An operation targeting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is under way in Abyan and Shabwa, Yemen, a high-level Yemeni government official who is being briefed on the strikes told CNN on Monday.

The official said that the scale of the strikes against AQAP is “massive and unprecedented” and that at least 30 militants have been killed. The operation involved Yemeni commandos who are now “going after high-level AQAP targets,” the official said.”

“CNN’s Mohammed Jamjoom reports that the Yemenis are a little skeptical of these operations, and that the embarrassment of missing the convention last week may be driving the claims now:”

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6. The worst is yet to come. This is what has been behind all the illegal delays by the White House. This is what they’re seeking to avoid before the mid-terms. And this is coming from a Democrat.

From NationalReview  ““There are parts of Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, that were postponed because they are unpalatable,” he told the Boston Herald. The “Cadillac tax” that goes into effect in a few years and taxes employer health plans over a certain value, he said, will be “the first time in this country’s history that we have actually taxed health care.”

““We will lose seats in the House,” he said. “I am fairly certain of that based on the poll numbers that are coming out from the more experienced pollsters down there, and I think we may lose the Senate.””

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News/Politics 4-15-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Sticker shock. And next year, the same thing is expected again.

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2. Of course not. He only meets with kool-aid drinking supporters. If he did this, he might have to answer the uncomfortable questions. Like why the President thinks this wasn’t a terrorist attack.

From HotAir  “Good work by lefty Mother Jones, which has must-read background on why this was likely a deliberate snub and not a logistical snafu. As it turns out, there may be reasons beyond simple political correctness that explain why the Pentagon insists on treating Nidal Hasan’s jihadist rampage as “workplace violence.”

Imagine having taken a bullet to the head from Hasan’s gun and being told that the president doesn’t have time to meet with you but does have time for a fundraiser at a rich liberal’s house nearby.

In the years since Major Nidal Hasan opened fire in a crowded Fort Hood medical center, killing 13 people and wounding another 32, victims have struggled to get medical care and financial benefits. This is largely because of how the incident has been labeled. Although Hasan is an avowed jihadist with ties to Al Qaeda, the Pentagon considers the attack to be workplace violence rather than terrorism or combat. Thus victims aren’t eligible for many benefits and honors available to soldiers wounded or killed in action…

In 2012, nearly 150 Fort Hood victims and their family members filed suit against the Department of Defense, seeking compensation for their suffering and lost benefits. But the case has bogged down, and the Senate has balked at passing legislation that would give victims of the 2009 shooting the same benefits as soldiers killed or wounded in combat or terrorism attacks.

The Pentagon insists it’s workplace violence because that’s what the White House and DoJ decided it was.

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3. Islamists in the UK have learned a lesson from the political left. Take over the education system, and you control what’s taught.

From TheDailyMail  Plot against Birmingham schools was uncovered in document last month – Muslim extremists allegedly plotted to overthrow moderate school leadersNicknamed Operation Trojan Horse, document told how to force staff out – Probe into alleged hardline Muslim plot now been expanded to 25 schools”

“Thousands of schoolchildren’s education could have been threatened by a hardline Muslim plot to force out moderate school governors and heads and replace them with extremists.

It emerged today that 25 Birmingham schools are now being investigated for links to the alleged radicalisation plot, and while Birmingham City Council has refused to name the schools, some of which have upwards of 600 students, it means that vast numbers of pupils could have been at risk.

The number of schools allegedly involved rose today from 15 to 25 as Education Secretary Michael Gove is said to have told Ofsted inspectors to fail any school ‘where religious conservatism is getting in the way of learning and a balanced curriculum’.

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4. Is the Obama/Holder DoJ blocking business mergers by people who support Republicans, but fast tracking them for those giving to Democrats?

From Forbes  “Let’s look at some history—which is detailed in a new Frontiers of Freedom report.  In 2009, the Obama Administration gave Solyndra, a failing California solar panel firm, a $536 million “loan.”  Shortly thereafter, Solyndra was fully bankrupt.  Prior to the loan, Solyndra executives and board members gave generously to Barack Obama, including Tulsa oil billionaire and Obama bundler George Kaiser, one of Solyndra’s main investors.

UnitedHealth Group is expecting higher earnings thanks to ObamaCare.  After United supported passing the plan, one of its subsidiaries, Quality Software Services, Inc. won a contract of $90 million for the rollout of Healthcare.gov.  UnitedHealth’s Executive Vice President Anthony Welters and his wife are significant Obama donors and bundlers.  The Administration did not perceive any conflict of interest in providing the nation’s largest health insurer with the keys to Healthcare.gov.

If money buys favors from the Obama Administration, a lack of it produces the opposite. In 2011, AT&T T +0.45% announced it would seek permission from the government for a $39 billion merger with T-Mobile.  Processing the application was expected to take at least twelve months.  But within five months, the Department of Justice announced it had filed a lawsuit blocking the friendly merger.“

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News/Politics 4-11-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open thread, as always.

This morning these first few are links with a brief description.

Sebelius Resigns- NYTimes

House Votes Lerner In Contempt- CNN

Deportations Cut In Half Under Obama- WashingtonExaminer

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Now these I’ll spend a little more time on.

1. Like Bob said yesterday, suckin’ the air right out.

From WashingtonExaminer  “How big is ObamaCare in this year’s midterms? More than 80 percent of respondents in a new poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for USA Today said that a candidate’s stance on the troubled health law is important to them, with 54 percent saying it is “very important.” The worst news for Democrats is that among the majority of registered voters who said the law was “very important,” there were twice as many opponents as there were supporters. Overall, support for the signature Obama initiative, which pairs expanded welfare and entitlement programs with far-reaching regulations on health insurance, fell to 37 percent. That’s the lowest level since the summer after the law was passed in 2010 when incumbents’ town halls across the country erupted with ObamaCare outrage. The takeaway: The electoral climate this year is defined by ObamaCare and the forecast is getting worse for Democrats.”

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2. The number of believers in China is rising, and the govt. has taken notice.

From TheTelegraph  “Communist officials in China have denied waging a “demolition campaign” against churches in the country’s most Christian regions, after reportedly ordering a dozen to be destroyed.

The churches – in the eastern province of Zhejiang – are currently facing demolition or having their crosses removed, activists claim. Other churches are said to have been ordered to make themselves “less conspicuous” by turning their lights off at night.

Local preachers accuse Party officials in Zhejiang, a wealthy coastal province, of “gross interference” in Church affairs and have urged them to abandon what they believe is an orchestrated campaign.”

“However, in a recent speech the provincial official in charge of religious affairs hinted at Communist Party discomfort at how fast congregations were growing in what is already considered China’s most Christian region. More than one million of Wenzhou’s nine million residents are thought to be practicing Protestants, according to some estimates.”

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3. This one makes me smile. 🙂

From ABC33/40  “A statement made on the floor of the state house last month in Montgomery got a loud reply this afternoon from angry parents.

State representative Alvin Holmes (D) Montgomery, said republican lawmakers would support abortion if their daughters became pregnant by black men. Holmes later said he would offer $100,000 cash to anyone who could show “a whole bunch of whites” have adopted black children in Alabama.

Today at the state house, white parents who adopted mixed race or minority children said it’s time for Holmes to ‘pay up.'”

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News/Politics 4-10-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. As we prepare for the Easter season we should obviously be thinking of the sacrifice Christ made on our behalf. Many will give up things for Lent as a symbolic sacrifice of their own. It’s a great time of year for opportunities to share what Christ has done, why He did it, and how it affects us. I’ve always thought the focus should be entirely on Christ, the cross, and what it means to the world.

Some people though, are using it as an opportunity to push for social justice and climate change issues.

Misguided? In my mind it is. They don’t seem to have Christ as the focus and seem to be wasting a chance to share the true meaning of the season. In their defense they do witness to the public during this, but it doesn’t seem to be their primary focus.

But what do you think?

From FaithAndLeadership  “Katharina Wilkins still passes on things like alcohol and Facebook during the season of Lent, but what’s really important to her is giving up needless car rides and investment in fossil fuels. That’s because, for the third year in a row, Wilkins is participating in the annual Ecumenical Lenten Carbon Fast.”

“The Carbon Fast was started in 2011 by New England Regional Environmental Ministries (NEREM), which describes itself as “a loosely affiliated group of Christian environmental activists from throughout New England.” It asks Christians to deepen their commitment to the fight against climate change between Ash Wednesday and Easter Sunday.”

“The goal is to reduce carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas driving human-made climate change. It is created when people burn fossil fuels and clear forests. In 2013, mean atmospheric carbon dioxide reached more than 395 parts per million (ppm), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Many climate scientists believe that the safe upper limit is 350 ppm.

This year, each week of Lent has a different focus. Themes so far have included public witness, simplicity and fossil fuel divestment. One link has an online calculator so participants can figure out the carbon cost of their current lifestyle and develop a goal to reduce it. Other suggestions range from flying less and living more simply to talking to a congregation about divestment and joining with others to protest the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline.”

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2. This just get’s more interesting. Cummings is complaining of McCarthyism in the IRS investigation.

From Politico  “Rep. Elijah Cummings is pinning the McCarthyism label on Rep. Darrell Issa in the ongoing fight between the two Oversight Committee leaders about the IRS targeting scandal from last year.

The Maryland Democrat who is the ranking member of Oversight has put together a report saying Issa is pulling from the playbook of the late Sen. Joe McCarthy, who waged an infamous witch hunt against alleged communists in the 1950s.

As Issa, a California Republican and the Oversight chairman, pushes for former IRS official Lois Lerner to be held in contempt for invoking her Fifth Amendment rights not to testify before the committee, Cummings’s office is releasing research Wednesday showing the majority of the previous times Congress took such a step were during McCarthy’s investigations.”

That’s what I’d expect a guilty party to say, and yeah, he’s lookin guilty.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., has accused the panel’s top Democrat of prompting the Internal Revenue Service in 2012 to target a conservative organization applying for non-profit status.

Issa said records obtained last week from the IRS show communications from the office of ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., about True the Vote, a Texas-based, non-profit conservative group that aims to prevent voter fraud.

The communications at one point involved Lois Lerner, the ex-IRS official whom Issa’s panel is poised to hold in contempt of Congress on Thursday for refusing to provide testimony about her involvement in targeting conservative groups.

“The IRS and the Oversight Minority made numerous requests for virtually identical information from True the Vote, raising concerns that the IRS improperly shared protected taxpayer information with Rep. Cummings’ staff,” a statement from the Oversight panel reads.”

Is this also why he has obstructed this investigation from the start? Talk about a conflict of interests. He’s quite possibly been investigating himself.

But he also had plenty of willing co-conspirators.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “In one case the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates federal employees who conduct politics on government time, said it was “commonplace” in a Dallas IRS office for employees to have pro-Obama screensavers on their computers, and to have campaign-style buttons and stickers at their office.”

“In another case, a worker at the tax agency’s customer help line urged taxpayers “to re-elect President Obama in 2012 by repeatedly reciting a chant based on the spelling of his last name,” the Office of Special Counsel said in a statement.

OSC said it is seeking “significant disciplinary action” against that employee.

Another IRS employee in Kentucky has agreed to serve a 14-day suspension for blasting Republicans in a conversation with a taxpayer.”

And we also now know that Lois Lerner was considering a move to OFA, the Obama campaign spinoff. It appears that was to be her reward for targeting conservative groups and helping re-elect Obama. But then the scandal hit, so she got taxpayer funded retirement instead. Nope, no scandal here. 🙄

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3. Another busted meme. 

From TheDailyCaller  “Americans have recently been hit with some of the largest premium increases in years, according to a Morgan Stanley survey of insurance brokers.

The investment bank’s April survey of 148 brokers found that this quarter, the average premium increase for customers renewing an insurance plan is 12 percent in the small group market and 11 percent in the individual market, according to Forbes’ Scott Gottlieb.

The hikes — the largest in the past three years, according to Morgan Stanley’s quarterly reports — are “largely due to changes under the [Affordable Care Act],” analysts concluded. Rates have been growing increasingly fast throughout all of 2013, after a period of drops in 2012.

While insurers were hiking premiums since 2012 by smaller amounts, the lead-up to the Obamacare’s launch has seen the average rate at which premiums are growing fourfold.”

And some are starting to realize that while they may have health insurance, that doesn’t mean they have health care. But don’t worry, they’re blaming doctors, not Obama and the Democrats that created this mess.

From EbonyMag  “As a proud new beneficiary of the Affordable Health Care Act, I’d like to report that I am doctorless. Ninety-six. Ninety-six is the number of soul crushing rejections that greeted me as I attempted to find one. It’s the number of physicians whose secretaries feigned empathy while rehearsing the “I’m so sorry” line before curtly hanging up. You see, when the rush of the formerly uninsured came knocking, doctors in my New Jersey town began closing their doors and promptly telling insurance companies that they had no room for new patients.

My shiny, never used Horizon health card is as effective as a dollar bill during the Great Depression. In fact, an expert tells CNN, “I think of (Obamacare) as giving everyone an ATM card in a town where there are no ATM machines.” According to a study 33% of doctors are NOT accepting Medicaid. Here in Jersey, one has a dismal 40 percent chance of finding a doctor who accepts Medicaid – the lowest in the country.”

The govt. is offering incentives for doctors, but they’re not biting. As one of the story’s comments said, embrace the suck, after all, you voted for it.

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News/Politics 4-7-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. ObamaCare is/will make it harder for some to get insurance.

From FoxNews  “Here’s more fallout from the health care law: Until now, customers could walk into an insurance office or go online to buy standard health care coverage any time of year. Not anymore. 

Many people who didn’t sign up during the government’s open enrollment period that ended Monday will soon find it difficult or impossible to get insured this year, even if they go directly to a private company and money is no object. For some it’s already too late. 

With limited exceptions, insurers are refusing to sell to individuals after the enrollment period for HealthCare.gov and the state marketplaces. They will lock out the young and healthy as well as the sick or injured. Those who want to switch plans also are affected. The next wide-open chance to enroll comes in November for coverage in 2015. 

It’s a little-noted consequence of President Obama’s health care overhaul, which requires nearly all Americans to be insured or pay a fine and requires insurers to accept people with health problems.”

facepalm-double

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2. More ObamaCare shenanigans. I wonder if these are counted in the 7 million number? I’m thinking probably yes.

From TheSharkTank  “In the closing days of the open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) , the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was mailing out letters notifying certain Americans that they had already started a healthcare coverage application on their behalf.

The HHS letter stated that the information they used to begin the application for individual Healthcare was obtain by the state agency in charge of implementing Obamacare. 

The next step for the individual would be visit Healthcare.gov and complete the already started application to see if they qualify for “Marketplace coverage.”

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3. Not shocking.

From IJReview  “Obama’s ‘Champion Of Change’ Amnesty Advocate Indicted For What Else? Immigration Fraud!”

“Bonnie M. Youn, who Obama’s White House touts on its website as “a recognized Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) community leader in Georgia,” was indicted on three criminal charge counts in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Atlanta Division on April 1, according to publicly filed court documents.

 The first indictment count alleges Youn committed perjury with regard to an alien illegally in the United States. The second indictment count alleges that Youn violated a federal immigration law that prohibits bringing illegal aliens into the United States and harboring them, alleging she did so “for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain.” The third indictment count alleges Youn illegally tampered with witness testimony, specifically alleging she influenced the illegal alien—whose identity is kept anonymous in the indictment—to provide false information about employment in the United States to federal agents.

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4. UNC has a scandal on it’s hands, besides the one in the athletic dept. They’re being accused of religious profiling.

From AccuracyInAcademia  “At the University of North Carolina Wilmington, Dr. Mike Adams teaches crime — but he never dreamed he’d be the victim of one. Unfortunately for the assistant professor, that all changed when his ideology did. When he was hired as a criminology expert 21 years ago, Adams was an avowed and outspoken atheist — a worldview that was shaken to the core when Mike went to visit a prisoner on death row in 2000. The convict, a mentally handicapped man, had read the entire Bible — something Adams had never done. He resolved then and there to change that — and when he did, Mike was completely transformed.

The once-vocal liberal became a passionate follower of Christ, a conversion that ultimately bled over into his political beliefs. Over time, he started writing columns and doing media appearances from a conservative perspective — infuriating UNCW’s forces of political correctness in the process. Like most universities, the faculty was a fraternity of liberals, who insist on diversity but practice anything but. After a slew of awards and accolades for his work, Mike applied for a full professorship in 2006.

Despite a glowing record, the University turned down his application. Apparently, the only promotion UNCW is interested in is the promotion of the liberal agenda. As his lead attorney, David French, writes in NRO, administrators engaged in the fiercest kind of viewpoint discrimination. It was “a process where they applied a made-up promotion standard that contradicted the faculty handbook, passed along false information about his academic record, deceptively edited documents to influence the faculty vote, explicitly discussed his constitutionally protected viewpoint, and allowed a faculty member with an obvious and outrageous conflict of interest to cast a vote against him.” At one point, the University even launched an underground investigation (at the request of a transgender group) to determine if the professor was “transphobic.”

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5. Good question.

From MercuryNews  “Why did state Sen. Leland Yee escape terrorism charges?”

“Shocking enough are the allegations that a long-perceived unassuming state senator tried brokering an international arms deal with military-style rifles and rocket launchers, but Leland Yee may have narrowly escaped an even more ominous label: supporter of terrorism.

Yee, whose arrest after an FBI undercover sting shook the California political world last week, would likely have been charged with aiding terrorists if not for a bureaucratic label missing from the militant Filipino group that he is accused of sourcing for an international arms deal, counterterrorism experts told this newspaper.

His ties to the group, whose leader has said he personally met with Osama Bin Laden, are spelled out in a 137-page affidavit. It accuses Yee and two associates of conspiring with an undercover FBI agent posing as a Mafia gangster to purchase up to $2.5 million in weapons from a source with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines.”

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6. Cummings has obstructed this investigation since the start. He should be looked at more closely, as should his witness tampering ways.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., asked the panel’s top Democrat to disclose communications between his office and the lawyer for former IRS official Lois Lerner, who faces contempt charges before the committee.

In a letter to ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., Issa said it was vital for him to share what he learned from interviewing her attorney, William W. Taylor III.

The panel is investigating Lerner — who headed the Exempt Organizations division of the agency when it controversially targeted conservative groups — and will vote on contempt charges on the grounds that she has refused to cooperate with the probe.

“As you know, Mr. Taylor’s position with regard to Ms. Lerner’s willingness to cooperate with the committee has changed several times,” Issa wrote. “So that all members of the committee can have a better understanding of Mr. Taylor’s current position, please disclose any communications that you or your staff have had with Mr. Taylor.”

He’s more interested in protecting a Democrat president than he is in getting the truth.His actions don’t pass the smell test.

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