Obamacare

by

News/Politics 2-11-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Here we go again. 🙄

And to my friends in the south and their children I have two words of advice.

Stay Home.

From AccuWeather  “Rounds of snow and ice will severely impact travel and daily routines across the interior South through this week before a major winter storm attempts to take a run at the Northeast.

The same storm that brought record snow to Seattle on Saturday will cause some snow and an icy mix to drop southward to northern Texas and the Tennessee Valley Monday and Monday night.

Initially through Monday night, the ice and snow will not be substantial. However, that does not mean residents and travelers should let their guard down.”

“According to Senior Meteorologist Mark Mancuso, “There is the potential for a major ice storm from northern Georgia to central and upstate South Carolina to central North Carolina Tuesday night and Wednesday.”

We’re expecting up to a foot Wed. night thru Thurs.. Yay. Not.

________________________________________

2. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…..

From FoxNews  “The glitches and other problems with the ObamaCare website that sparked a national firestorm are similar to those military veterans using the federal government’s online benefits system have routinely faced for about the past 18 months.

Eric Jenkins, a veteran and American Federation of Government Employees representative, recently told Congress that during January the Veterans Benefits Management System crashed about once a week with downtimes ranging from one hour to multiple days.

The $537 million system went online in fall 2012 at a Department of Veterans Affairs office in New England and is now in all 56 regional offices.”

_________________________________________

3. A Republican alternative to ObamaCare?

From TheWeeklyStandard  “Obamacare is failing. Faced with this unpleasant reality, President Obama offered up during his State of the Union address his only remaining defense of his eponymous program: There is no alternative. “[M]y Republican friends…if you have specific plans…tell America what you’d do differently….We all owe it to the American people to say what we’re for, not just what we’re against.”

“We accept the challenge. The 2017 Project, with which we’re associated, has developed an alternative to Obama’s 2,700 pages of federal largess. The proposal builds upon prior efforts by conservative policymakers and thinkers, including recent proposals from the House Republican Study Committee (RSC) and a trio of senior GOP senators (Tom Coburn, Richard Burr, and Orrin Hatch). It would solve the three core problems that called out for real reform even before the Democrats passed Obamacare: getting more people insured; dealing with the problem of preexisting conditions; and lowering costs. In providing politically attractive and substantively sound solutions to these three core concerns, it would justify bringing an end to Obamacare, and thus would pave the way for full repeal.

Just as important as what our proposal would do is what it wouldn’t do.  It wouldn’t force anyone to buy insurance. It wouldn’t auto-enroll anyone in any plan. It wouldn’t reduce the tax break for employer-based insurance (aside from closing the tax loophole at the high end). It wouldn’t cost anywhere near the $2 trillion over a decade that Obamacare would cost. It wouldn’t undermine religious liberty. It would allow Americans to keep their current plan if they like it.”

________________________________________

4. Just like the last change, this one is illegal according to their own law.

From CNSNews  “President Barack Obama’s Treasury Department issued a new  regulation  today that for the second time directly violates the plain and unambiguous text of the  Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act by allowing some businesses  to avoid the law’s Dec. 31, 2013 deadline to provide health insurance  coverage to their employees.

Initially, on July 2, 2013, the administration unilaterally delayed the deadline for the employer mandate until 2015. Now, the administration is unilaterally delaying it for some businesses until 2016.”

“The final words in the section of PPACA mandating that employers with  more than 50 full-time employees provide their employees with “minimum  essential coverage” imposes a specific statutory deadline for doing so.  It says: “EFFECTIVE DATE.—The amendments made by this section shall  apply to months beginning after December 31, 2013.”

” Last summer, the administration unilaterally moved this hard statutory deadline back  one year to 2015 for all employers with more than 50 full-time employees. Now, without any action by Congress, the administration is moving it back again for some employers—despite the plain language of the law.”

It’s good to be the king I guess. Laws don’t apply to you, you just sign them.

________________________________________

5. This is taking N.I.M.B.Y. to whole new levels. 🙂

From USNews  “The National Security Agency’s headquarters in Ft. Meade, Md., will go dark if a cohort of Maryland lawmakers has its way.

Eight Republicans in the 141-member Maryland House of Delegates introduced legislation Thursday that would deny the electronic spy agency “material support, participation or assistance in any form” from the state, its political subdivisions or companies with state contracts.

The bill would deprive NSA facilities water and electricity carried over public utilities, ban the use of NSA-derived evidence in state courts and prevent state universities from partnering with the NSA on research.”

“State or local officials ignoring the NSA sanctions would be fired, local governments refusing to comply would lose state grant funds and companies would be forever barred from state contracts.”

________________________________________

6. An effort to “professionalize”, or to ensure the flow of only approved propaganda, while limiting free speech?

From MarineCorpsTimes  “Marine Corps leaders have ordered the independent Marine Corps Times newspaper removed from its prominent newsstand location at base exchange stores worldwide and placed instead in areas away from checkout lines, where it is harder to find and fewer copies are available.

The move raises troubling questions about motive and closely follows a directive prohibiting commanders from using budget funds to buy Marine Corps Times and a number of other publications.

Marine Corps Times is widely recognized for its comprehensive coverage of the Corps, focusing on everything from career tracks, to pay and benefits, family and spouse issues, and employment after leaving the military.”

“Throughout much of the past year, the paper has published dozens of articles as part of an ongoing investigation into allegations the service’s commandant, Gen. Jim Amos, abused his authority to ensure Marines were punished for an embarrassing war-zone scandal. Numerous reports have captured the attention of mainstream media outlets, including NPR, CNN and Time magazine, among several others.”

Ummmm….. B. Final answer.

________________________________________

7. One of the men responsible for the murder of border agent Brian Terry has been sentenced. The criminals (DoJ, ATF) who supplied the guns to the murderer however still walk free and hold positions of power in D.C..

From MSNNews  “A man convicted in the shooting death of a federal Border Patrol agent during a firefight that revealed the government’s botched gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious was sentenced Monday to 30 years in prison.

Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, who is from El Fuerte in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, is the only person to be convicted in the Dec. 14, 2010, shooting death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near the Arizona-Mexico border.

U.S. District Court judge David C. Bury handed down the sentence, 360 months with credit for time served.”

“Two rifles bought by a gun-smuggling ring that was being monitored in the Fast and Furious investigation were found at the scene of the firefight, though authorities have declined to say whether the murder weapon in Terry’s death was linked to a purchase from the investigation.”

Declined to say…. isn’t a denial that it was one of those weapons. If one wasn’t involved, they’d have been clear that it wasn’t.

________________________________________

by

News/Politics 2-8-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Open thread, with a few to start things off.

1. This should be fun to watch. 🙂

From FoxNews  “A conservative activist targeted by the IRS and other agencies claimed Thursday that Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings also tried to intimidate her, filing a formal complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics alleging an “abuse of power.” 

Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of True the Vote and the King Street Patriots, aired the allegations during a hearing hosted by the committee on which Cummings sits. An attorney working with her also questioned whether Cummings might have encouraged the IRS and other agencies to target her groups.”

“Congressman Cummings on three separate occasions sent letters on letterhead from this committee, stating that he had concerns and felt it necessary to open an investigation on True the Vote,” Engelbrecht said during the hearing, where she and other witnesses were otherwise testifying on IRS targeting. 

She also said that after she applied for tax-exempt status, “an assortment of federal entities including law enforcement agencies, and Congressman Cummings came knocking at my door.” 

________________________________________

2. Here’s why the delayed the employer mandate until after November. Once this hits, they’re toast.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “Adding to a devastating CBO report of how Obamacare could damage the economy, a Duke University survey of top companies found that 44 percent are considering reducing health benefits to current employees due to Obamacare, confirming the fears of millions of American workers.

In its December survey of chief financial officers around the country, Duke also found that nearly half are “reluctant to hire full-time employers because of the Affordable Care Act.”

And 40 percent are considering shifting to part-time workers and others will hire fewer workers of fire some to avoid the costs of the program.

What’s more, they said in the study, “One in five firms indicates they are likely to hire fewer employees, and another one in 10 may lay off current employees in response to the law.”

________________________________________

3. Trey Gowdy is pointing out the obvious flaws in the White House’s latest talking points regarding the IRS scandal.

________________________________________

by

News/Politics 2-7-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Yesterday was the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC. I’m sorry, but I just can’t help but shake my head and say “WHAT!!?” to some of the President’s remarks. We’ll start with this one. How does a man who supports abortion so vehemently have the gall to make such a statement? Is he so used to yes men that he thinks no one will point out his record on the matter? Can he be so tone-deaf as to not see his own hypocrisy?

From CNSNews “At the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C. on Thursday,  President Barack Obama said that “killing the innocent” is the “ultimate  betrayal of God’s will.”

But the president was talking about terrorism, not abortion:

“Extremists  succumb to an ignorant nihilism that shows they don’t understand the  faiths they claim to profess, for killing the innocent is never  fulfilling God’s will. In fact, it is the ultimate betrayal of God’s  will,” Obama said.”

You sure don’t understand it Mr. President, because your own extremism and nihilism get in the way.

_________________________________________

2. Here’s the second “WHAT!!?” moment. Freedom of religion, except on the matter of contraceptives right Mr. President? And again, the dignity of every human being, except the unborn. We know they’re not covered by his statement.

From RealClearPolitics  “PRESIDENT OBAMA: Today we profess the principles we know to be true. We believe that each of us is wonderfully made in the image of God. We, therefore, believe in the inherent dignity of every human being. Dignity that no earthly power can take away. And central to that dignity is freedom of religion. A right of every person to practice their faith how they choose, to change their faith if they choose, or to practice no faith at all. And to do this free from persecution and fear.”

“History shows that nations that uphold the rights of their people, including the freedom of religion are ultimately more just and more peaceful and more successful. Nations that do not uphold these rights sow the bitter seeds of instability and violence and extremists. So freedom of religion matters to our national security.”

Empty platitudes Mr. President. Your actions prove your words false.

_________________________________________

3. The taxpayers are about to get hammered again. Billions in taxpayer dollars will be paid to insurance companies to make up for the rollout debacle.

From Forbes  “There’s been a lot of discussion about whether the risk adjustment tools embedded in ObamaCare amount to a bailout for the insurance companies, or are a reasonable feature of the law. There’s been far less information about how much money the insurers stand to gain from these measures, to offset their expected losses.

Now we have some hard numbers. Humana announced that it expects to tap the three risk adjustment mechanisms in ObamaCare for between $250 and $450 million in 2014. This amounts to about 25 percent of the insurer’s expected exchange revenue. This money is needed to offset losses that the insurer will take as a result of slower enrollment in its ObamaCare plans, and a skewed risk pool that weighs more heavily toward older and less healthy members than it originally budgeted.

More than half of the money will come from the $25 billion reinsurance pool that ObamaCare provides (collected through a tax on employer-sponsored health plans). The other half will come mostly from the risk corridors. Humana is expected to book the money as revenue to offset shortfalls between what it collects in exchange premiums and pays out in medical claims.

The company blamed the Obama Administration’s decision late last year to extend grandfathering of individual market plans for the overall deterioration in the risk pool. That means that Humana (like other insurers) was counting on people from the individual market being forced to transition into ObamaCare plans. It’s widely perceived that the Obama Administration counted on that migration as well. But Humana’s statement was a very clear expression of this expectation.”

________________________________________

4. Do you smell that? Smells like desperation, doesn’t it? Pad the numbers, and still bill the taxpayers. State govts are off the hook, and we add it to the federal debt and Medicaid bill.

From Bloomberg  “Being arrested in Chicago for, say, drug possession or assault gets you sent to the Cook County Jail to be fingerprinted, photographed and X-rayed. You’ll also get help applying for health insurance.

At least six states and counties from Maryland to Oregon’s Multnomah are getting inmates coverage under Obamacare and its expansion of Medicaid, the federal and state health-care program for the poor. The fledgling movement would shift to the federal government some of the more than $6.5 billion in annual state costs for treating prisoners. Proponents say it also will make recidivism rarer, because inmates released with coverage are more likely to get treatment for mental illness, substance abuse and other conditions that can lead them to crime.”

________________________________________

5. The widow of a fallen police officer is being blocked from testifying on an Obama DoJ nominee.

From FoxNews  “The Philadelphia district attorney is speaking out against President Obama’s nominee for a top Justice Department post, saying his link to the case of a convicted cop killer “sends a message of contempt” to police — as the widow of the fallen officer is apparently denied the chance to testify. 

Maureen Faulkner, whose husband Daniel Faulkner was killed in 1981, was hoping to speak publicly on the case before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which plans to vote Thursday on the nomination of Debo Adegbile to lead the Civil Rights Division. 

But she told FoxNews.com she’s “extremely frustrated” after being told by representatives of Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that she won’t be able to do so.”

“Faulkner, in seeking to testify, claimed Adegbile “personally took on” the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal while working with the NAACP to overturn Abu-Jamal’s death penalty. Abu-Jamal was convicted in the 1981 killing of Daniel Faulkner.”

________________________________________

6. This one? Good. I can name a few more that should get similar treatment.

From TalkRadioNewsService  “Dave Brat is challenging Rep. Eric Cantor in a Republican primary — and giving the House majority leader a verbal thrashing on immigration.

“Cantor is following the agenda of the Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce — pursuing policies that are good for big business, but come at the exclusion of the American people,” said Brat, an economics professor at Randolph-Macon College.”

“Brat asserts that Cantor has lost his way on Capitol Hill after seven terms in office. Once considered a reliable conservative, Cantor, along with other Republican leaders, appears more interested in seeking cooperation with Democrats while courting Hispanic votes this election year.”

________________________________________

by

News/Politics 2-6-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The hits from the CBO just keep on comin’.

From TheWeeklyStandard  “Remember back when the Democrats tried to sell Obamacare to a skeptical citizenry as health care “reform” that would cost “only” $848 billion—far less than a trillion—over a decade?  Indeed, that was the alleged 10-year gross cost of Obamacare’s coverage provisions, according to the Congressional Budget Office (see Table 3), when Harry Reid, Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu, Al Franken, Mark Udall, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Begich, Mark Warner, and the rest of the Democrats rammed President Obama’s signature legislation through the Senate on Christmas Eve without a single Republican vote.  That 12-digit price-tag was widely cited by the New York Times and other sympathetic outlets, who treated it as gospel, even as conservatives observed that it was clearly a sham number.

 Well, now the CBO is out with a new report on Obamacare’s costs, and—sure enough—its 10-year price-tag now eclipses $2 trillion.  To be more exact, the CBO now projects (see Table B-1) that the 10-year gross cost of Obamacare’s coverage provisions will be a cool $2,004,000,000,000.00.

________________________________________

2. What?!

Shockingly it appears that giving people free stuff creates a disincentive for people to work.

Huh. That’s not what the President says.

From CNSNews  “The subsidies that help low-income people buy expensive health  insurance are a ‘disincentive for people to work,” Douglas Elmendorf,  director of the Congressional Budget Office, told Congress on Wednesday.

“What  the Affordable Care Act does, is to provide subsidies focused on lower-  and lower-middle-income people to buy health insurance. And in order to  encourage a sufficient number of people to buy an expensive product  like health  insurance, the subsidies are fairly large in dollar terms.  Those subsidies are then withdrawn over time — withdrawn from people as  their income rises.

“And by providing heavily subsidized health  insurance to people with very low income, and then withdrawing those  subsidies as income rises, the (Affordable Care) Act creates a  disincentive for people to work, relative to what would have been the  case in the absence of that Act,” Elmendorf told the House Budget  Committee.

He added that the subsidies “make those lower-income people better off…but they do have less of an incentive to work.”

________________________________________

3. Meanwhile enrollees are continuing to hit snags at the doctor’s office.

From TheLATimes  “A month into the most sweeping changes to healthcare in half a century, people are having trouble finding doctors at all, getting faulty information on which ones are covered and receiving little help from insurers swamped by new business.

Experts have warned for months that the logjam was inevitable. But the extent of the problems is taking by surprise many patients — and even doctors — as frustrations mount.”

“To hold down premiums under the healthcare law, major insurers have sharply cut the number of doctors and hospitals available to patients in the state’s new health insurance market.

Now those limited options are becoming clearer, and California officials say they are receiving more consumer complaints about access to medical providers. State lawmakers are also moving swiftly to ease some of the problems that have arisen.”

________________________________________

4. Another unhappy customer.

From TheNYPost  “ObamaCare was supposed to help me. That’s all I could think as I sat in the House of Representatives last Tuesday night as the guest of my congresswoman, only a few hundred feet away from President Obama as he gave his State of the Union address. Four years ago, I’d have been there cheering for ObamaCare’s passage. But the real ObamaCare has made my life a nightmare.”

“My plan was canceled last fall. According to the regulators behind ObamaCare, it was a subpar plan that should no longer be sold to consumers. Another 16,000 Tennesseans on the same plan were similarly dumped. Many, like me, liked their plans and wanted to keep them.

This wasn’t my insurer’s fault at all. CoverTN actually fought for me to keep my health care. After I received my cancellation notice, the folks at CoverTN requested that the federal government give them a waiver, which would let them grandfather my plan into ObamaCare. Their request was rejected.”

“For me, the impact of ObamaCare is a health plan that is both unaffordable and uncaring. For a law named “The Affordable Care Act,” this is both backward and perverse.”

$6,000 more a year, less benefits, less choices, and she lost her doctor. Also note that the “evil” insurance company went to bat for her to keep her lower priced plan, yet it was the govt that denied her.

________________________________________

5. Just a reminder to voters in states with Democrat Senators up for re-election. It’s time to make them pay at the polls. Vote them out.

From RollCall  “Every vulnerable Senate Democrat up for re-election in 2014 voted with President Barack Obama at least 90 percent of the time in 2013, according to CQ Roll Call’s latest vote studies, released Monday.

Arkansas Democrat Mark Pryor broke with the president most often, opposing him in 10 percent of all 2013 votes where the administration stated a preferred outcome. Sens. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, Mary Landrieu, D-La. and Kay Hagan, D-N.C., voted for Obama’s position 97, 97, and 96 percent of the time, respectively. Of those four, only Begich serves with a Republican who has bucked the GOP to back Obama with any frequency. (See our Jan. 21 story.)

Support for Obama’s initiatives from incumbent Democrats who are favored but not safe was just as high if not higher than from vulnerable members: Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Mark Warner of Virginia supported the president in 99 and 97 percent of votes.

On the flip side, Republican senators who are wary of primary challengers from the right opposed Obama so often that the president’s support from GOP senators in 2013 — 40 percent — was the lowest of his five years in office. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., opposed Obama 67 percent of the time. Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., Thad Cochran, R-Miss., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, opposed the Obama position on 66, 50, 48 and 66 percent of votes respectively.”

_________________________________________

6. The President and his minions tried to keep their harassment of Tea Party groups hidden from the public.

From CNSNews  “Mich.). In a hearing on the IRS-Tea Party scandal on Wednesday, Chairman Camp questioned IRS Commissioner John Koskinen about the Treasury Department apparently crafting rules to limit the ability of conservative and Tea Party groups to get 501(c)4 exemptions to engage in public debate.”

“In his questioning of Koskinen, Camp also noted that e-mails showed that IRS officials in Cinncinati, Ohio first started flagging Tea Party applications in February 2010 because of “media attention” and apparently not because there was any confusion over the application rules for a 501(c)3 or (c)4 group.

In an e-mail from Feb. 25, 2010 from Cincinnati IRS official Jack Koester to his boss, Screening Group Manager John Shafer, Koester says, “John, Here is the case number for the ‘Tea Party’ application for 501c(4) exemption that we discussed this morning. Recent media attaention to this type of organization indicates to me that this is a ‘high profile case’.”  Then part of the e-mail is blacked out, redacted.”

________________________________________

7. The CBO is also warning that the plummeting workforce participation rate will have an adverse effect on the economy for a long time. This is Obama’s economic legacy. Like the rest, a failure of leadership.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “When Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf appeared before the House Budget Committee on Wednesday, there were plenty of lawmakers, Republican and Democrat, who wanted to make points about Obamacare. Republicans stressed the CBO’s finding that Obamacare will create such a sharp disincentive to work that Americans will stop working to the tune of 2.5 million full-time jobs. Democrats tried to cast doubt on the number or, alternately, to suggest that Americans leaving the work force because they no longer need a job to secure health coverage would be a good thing.

The points had been pretty much exhausted by the time Republican Rep. Diane Black got her turn to address Elmendorf. Her question was straightforward: “What effect [will] the reduced labor force participation have on the economy?”

“Elmendorf’s answer was simple, short, and devastating. “It is the central factor in slowing economic growth,” he said. “After we get out of this current downturn, but later in this decade and beyond, the principal reason why we think the economic growth will be less than it was for most of my lifetime will be a slower rate of growth by the labor force.”

He used it for political gain to fraudulently lower his unemployment numbers, but the economy will suffer long term because of it.

_____________________________________

by

News/Politics 2-5-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. The scariest part of this is that the CBO tends to under-estimate.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Obamacare will push the equivalent of about 2 million workers out of the labor market by 2017 as employees decide either to work fewer hours or drop out altogether, according to the latest estimates Tuesday from the Congressional Budget Office.

That’s a major jump in the nonpartisan budget agency’s projections and it suggests the health care law’s incentives are driving businesses and people to choose government-sponsored benefits rather than work.

“CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 to 2 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor — given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive,” CBO analysts wrote in their new economic outlook.”

And just as a reminder, this isn’t what they said would happen. In fact, quite the opposite. I’ll let Nancy remind you what was promised. She said it would create 4 million jobs, 400,000 of them immediately. Yet another ObamaCare lie.

Yeah, accountability for insurance companies, but not you, right Nancy?

_________________________________________

2. The White House and Harry Reid are calling this news a success, because even though they’ll lose their jobs, as a consolation prize they’ll still be able to take their policy with them.

If they can afford it, which will be tough with no job. 🙄

From Mediaite “A Congressional Budget Office report indicating that more than two million Americans will voluntarily leave America’s already reduced workforce because of the options provided in the Affordable Care Act exploded like the bombshell it was on Tuesday.

The White House already has its hands full as the attempt to mollify the concerns of nervous Democrats heading into the 2014 midterm election cycle. Now, Democrats can add the White House’s reaction to this CBO report to their list of gripes as they head into political strategy sessions with President Barack Obama.”

“On Tuesday, the White House called the report misleading and inaccurate, but they also took the odd step of praising the disincentives contained within the ACA to leave the labor market.

Lisa Desjardins reported that the CBO report indicates that more workers will choose to leave the labor market because they no longer have to depend on their employer to provide them with health insurance. She noted that the White House pushed back on that report by claiming that Americans taking advantage of the opportunity to abandon the workforce was a welcome development.”

That’s some serious spin there. Wow.

_________________________________________

3. Oh look, ObamaCare fraud. That didn’t take long. One govt. agency defrauding another.

From KATUNews  “You already know the process that led to the failed rollout of the Cover Oregon website was bad. But was it criminally bad?

Former Republican state Rep. Patrick Sheehan told the KATU Investigators he has gone to the FBI with allegations that Cover Oregon project managers initiated the design of dummy web pages to convince the federal government the project was further along than it actually was.

If Sheehan’s allegations are true, those managers could face time in jail for fraud.

“One of the allegations that was made was so alarming that it went way beyond a legislative oversight committee and so I did reach out and contact the FBI,” Sheehan said.”

Well if they’re going to jail for overstating the readiness of the state exchange, shouldn’t Sebelius, Obama, and Dems for the same type of thing on the federal level? 🙂

_________________________________________

4. Is this one an insult to women? They must think very little of you if they believe puppies and kitties is what it will take to get you to sign up for ObamaCare.

From FoxNews  “Enroll America, the advocacy group leading efforts to enroll Americans in ObamaCare, is launching a multi-million dollar advertising campaign featuring cats, dogs, birds and other pets in a bid to convince young women to sign up for health coverage, USA Today reported.

With less than two months to go before the March 31 deadline to apply for coverage under ObamaCare, Enroll America officials tell the newspaper 81 percent of the public is unaware of the deadline and 69 percent don’t know that financial aid is available to those earning less than 400 percent of the poverty level.

Enroll America President Anne Filipic told USA Today the pet-themed ads are designed to “help break through the clutter.” She cited statistics showing that more than 60 percent of American homes have a pet and that most female pet owners would risk their lives for their pets. “

Here’s the video from  ACORN Enroll America.

Everybody now!!!!

Enroll Today! 🙄

_________________________________________

5. How do you reward the IRS for targeting your political enemies? Like this.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “Citing the need to boost employee morale, the Internal Revenue Service’s new commissioner said Monday that he will pay out millions of dollars in bonuses to agency employees, reversing a decision his predecessor made to save money amid the sequester budget cuts and other belt-tightening last year.

The agency remains under fire for targeting tea party groups, but Commissioner John Koskinen said the bonuses are needed to retain and attract good employees in a time of cutbacks.

“This is money best spent on our existing employees,” he said in an email to agency employees. “The performance award payouts are in recognition of that great work done in very trying circumstances. I firmly believe that this investment in our employees will directly benefit taxpayers and the tax system.”

Yep. Great work. Especially the Cincinnati office.

_________________________________________

6. Everyone already knows the Benghazi talking points were altered to benefit Obama’s re-election campaign. Now it looks like we know who altered them.

_________________________________________

by

News/Politics 1-31-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Holder played dumb on the questions from Congress on executive privilege. He’s pulling the same line with questions about the IRS investigation. You know, the “totally non-partisan, we’ll get to the bottom of this” one being run by an Obama donor.

From CNSNews  “At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder denied knowing that a top Democratic donor is leading the internal investigation into the IRS targeting of conservative groups.”

““I must tell you I find it astonishing that the Department of Justice appointed a major Obama donor to head this investigation, so the first question I want to ask is did you know that the lawyer in charge of this investigation was a major Obama donor?” Cruz asked Holder.”

“General Holder, with all due respect, you did not answer the question I asked, which is did you know that this lawyer was a major Obama donor,” Cruz said. After Holder denied knowing the “political activities” of anyone involved in the investigation, Cruz noted that the DOJ ethics guidelines instruct lawyers who believe their “impartiality might be questioned” must either “disqualify” themselves or “see an ethics officer.”“

Does anyone in the administration ever give a straight answer?

________________________________________

2. Oh look, another Obama admin foreign policy success story. 🙄

From TheTimesofIsrael  “Iran now has all the technical infrastructure to produce nuclear weapons should it make the political decision to do, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper wrote in a report to a Senate intelligence committee published Wednesday. However, he added, it could not break out to the bomb without being detected.

In the “US Intelligence Worldwide Threat Assessment,” delivered to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Clapper reported that Tehran has made significant advances recently in its nuclear program to the point where it could produce and deliver nuclear bombs should it be so inclined. “

_____________________________________

3. Democrats are busy with the important issues that matter to Americans.

Or not. OK, mostly not.

From TheHill  “Three House Democrats have proposed a resolution that criticizes the teaching of creationism and the denial of man-made global warming as anti-science.

The resolution from Reps. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), Jim Himes (D-Conn.) and Mike Honda (D-Calif.), H.Res. 467, proposes the designation of Feb. 12 as “Darwin Day” to recognize Charles Darwin’s contributions to science. The resolution says Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection “provides humanity with a logical and intellectually compelling explanation for the diversity of life on Earth.” It also says teachings to the contrary go against established science.

“[T]he teaching of creationism in some public schools compromises the scientific and academic integrity of the United States education systems,” it reads. It adds that the validity of Darwin’s theory of natural selection is “strongly supported by the modern understanding of the science of genetics.”

The resolution also takes a shot at global warming skeptics, by saying the advancement of science “must be protected from those unconcerned with the adverse impacts of global warming and climate change.”

Dissent will not be tolerated.

________________________________________

4. ICE union officials continue to oppose the administration’s, and now Republican, plans for amnesty, saying it would overload the system. This will make the Cloward/Piven fans very happy. First the borders, then the whole system.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The officers who would be charged with approving millions of applications from illegal immigrants for legal status warned Congress this week that they can’t handle the workload, and said the change would guarantee criminals and others would be approved to remain in the country.

In a letter to House Republicans, who are planning to announce principles Thursday that would include legal status for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S., the labor union that represents U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officers and adjudicators predicted it would be a disaster.

“There is no quality here, only quantity,” said Kenneth Palinkas, president of the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council. “USCIS is not equipped to handle this workload, and due to political interference in its mission, is not empowered to deny admission to all those who should be denied due to ineligibility. We have become a visa clearinghouse for the world, rather than the first line of defense for a secure immigration system.”

Mr. Palinkas went on to say that any proposal that pushes millions of applications through would “overload the system.””

_________________________________________

5. Ted Cruz is warning the GOP that their Amnesty push will cost them.

From Breitbart  “Cruz questioned how establishment Republicans unilaterally caving to Democrats on everything from the farm bill to the budget to the debt ceiling and more could think amnesty is a good idea at this time.

“Right now, Republican leadership in both chambers is aggressively urging members to stand down on virtually every front: on the continuing resolution, on the budget, on the farm bill, on the debt ceiling,” Cruz said in a statement provided exclusively to Breitbart News on Thursday.

He continued:

They may or may not be right, but their argument is that we should focus exclusively on Obamacare and on jobs. In that context, why on earth would the House dive into immigration right now? It makes no sense, unless you’re Harry Reid. Republicans are poised for an historic election this fall–a conservative tidal wave much like 2010. The biggest thing we could do to mess that up would be if the House passed an amnesty bill–or any bill perceived as an amnesty bill–that demoralized voters going into November. Rather than responding to the big-money lobbying on K Street, we need to make sure working-class Americans show up by the millions to reject Obamacare and vote out the Democrats. Amnesty will ensure they stay home.“

________________________________________

6. Democrats have their own problems as well. A toxic president….

_________________________________________

7. It’s bad enough that they’ve given up on the idea of reclaiming the House.

From Politico  “With Democrats’ grasp on the Senate increasingly tenuous — and the House all but beyond reach — some top party donors and strategists are moving to do something in the midterm election as painful as it is coldblooded: Admit the House can’t be won and go all in to save the Senate.

Their calculation is uncomplicated. With only so much money to go around in an election year that is tilting the GOP’s way, Democrats need to concentrate resources on preserving the chamber they have now. Losing the Senate, they know, could doom whatever hopes Barack Obama has of salvaging the final years of his presidency.

The triage idea is taking hold in phone conversations among donors and in strategy sessions between party operatives. Even some of the people who have invested the most to get House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi back into the speaker’s chair are moving in that direction.”

_________________________________________

8. Look for more stories like this one when the employer mandate hits after the elections. This is why the president illegally delayed it. This getting out before the elections would ensure a crushing defeat. Best to keep the reality of ObamaCare hidden for as long as possible.

_________________________________________

by

News/Politics 1-30-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

Lot’s to cover today, and in no particular order…

1. First, some good news. Kim posted it yesterday, but I’m reposting it.

From FoxNews  “A number of motorists who had to abandon their vehicles in the snow on Highway 280 outside of Birmingham, Ala. were able to find shelter in the storm thanks to the kindness and generosity of Chick-fil-A restaurant employees and the restaurant’s owner, Mark Meadows.

Once the snow started accumulating, Meadows closed the restaurant and sent his staff home. But a few hours later, many of them returned – unable to get to their homes.”

“Some of the drivers had been stuck in their cars for nearly seven hours without any food or water. So the staff of the Chick-fil-A decided to lend a helping hand.

“We cooked several hundred sandwiches and stood out on both sides of 280 and handed out the sandwiches to anyone we could get to – as long as we had food to give out.”

________________________________________

2. In other storm news, the blame game has begun. People want to know why this happened and how authorities could be taken by surprise.

From NBCNews  “Under fire from Georgia government officials caught flat-footed by the winter storm that socked the South this week, weather forecasters are mad as heck and want them know: They’re not going to take it anymore.

With the capital city, Atlanta, paralyzed by less than 3 inches of snow, Georgia officials complained that they weren’t warned what was on the way Tuesday:”

“In a post on a blog he set up Wednesday specifically to defend the performance of forecasting services this week, Shepherd pointed out that the weather service issued watches and warnings well before the storm arrived, providing plenty of time for Georgia officials to make the right decisions.

“Yet, as soon as I saw what was unfolding with kids being stranded in schools, 6+ hour commutes, and other horror stories, I knew it was coming, I knew it. Some in the public, social medial or decision-making positions would ‘blame’ the  meteorologists,” Shepherd wrote in a post titled “An Open Thank You to Meteorologists in Atlanta.”

Officials in Atlanta and the state of Georgia all seem to have come from the Ray Nagin school of government. Don’t do your job, and then blame someone else for your failure to act even though you had plenty of warning the storm was coming. So it’s probably Bush’s fault.

________________________________________

3. Now that everyone has had time to digest the SofU speech, more reactions are out as well, as the next few will show.

First they blame Bush for everything, now they’re plagiarizing him?

facepalm-double

I’ve been waiting for the chance to use that. 🙂

________________________________________

4. Some folks seemed to really like the speech though. 🙂

________________________________________

5. Somebody’s gettin’ audited.

From TheHill “Rep. Steve Stockman (R-Texas) said Tuesday night he left President Obama’s State of the Union speech early after “hearing how the president is further abusing his Constitutional powers.”

“Stockman said Obama was promising to “break his oath of office and begin enacting his own brand of law through executive decree.”

“This is a wholesale violation of his oath of office and a disqualifying offense,” the Texas congressman said.

Stockman also criticized Obama for refusing to admit “his policies have failed,” and for advancing a plan for more taxes and spending that is a “blueprint for perpetual poverty.”

________________________________________

6. With the President’s talk of ruling by executive order, some have questioned where he thinks he gets this authority. Even his own Attorney General can’t answer that question, and he’s the one who would defend those actions in court.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “Attorney General Eric Holder couldn’t explain the constitutional basis for executive orders such as President Obama’s delay of the employer mandate because he hasn’t read the legal analysis — or at least, hasn’t seen it in a long time.

“I’ll be honest with you, I have not seen — I don’t remember looking at or having seen the analysis in some time, so I’m not sure where along the spectrum that would come,” Holder replied when Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, asked him to explain the nature of Obama’s constitutional power to delay the mandate.”

“”When you look at the quality, not just the quantity but the quality, the nature of the executive orders that he has issued, he has usurped an extraordinary amount of authority within the executive branch,” Lee countered. “This is not precedented, and I point to the delay — the unilateral delay, lawless delay, in my opinion — of the employer mandate as an example of this. And so, at a minimum, I think he owes us an explanation as to what his legal analysis was.”

________________________________________

7. ICE union officials have taken the opportunity to point out the President’s violation of, and failure to enforce other laws, as well as his hypocrisy.

From NationalReview  “Chris Crane, president of the National ICE Council, the union representing officers of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, issued a statement Tuesday ahead of President Obama’s State of the Union address. Crane blasted the president for his repeated refusal to meet with ICE officers at the White House, and asked House Republican leaders to consult with ICE personnel as they work to outline their immigration reform “principles”:

According to news accounts, the President has once again invited illegal immigrants to the State of the Union – and yet the President still refuses to meet with ICE officers. We have a President who will provide those illegally in the US with the seat of honor at one of the most important events of the year, but ICE officers who serve under him are unwelcome in the White House. This is symptomatic of the President’s continued demonstration of contempt for immigration officers and his blatant disregard for Congressionally-enacted law. ICE officers are forced every day to release violent offenders back into the streets; we are prohibited from enforcing immigration violations and document fraud and from cracking down on illegal employment; we are prohibited from enforcing public charge law to protect taxpayers; and we are forced to catch-and-release illegal aliens who are not ‘priorities’ even when officers’ believe there is a threat to public safety.”

_____________________________________

8. I could use a triple face palm for this one. Another Obama admin foreign policy success.

From Reuters  “- Syria has given up less than 5 percent of its chemical weapons arsenal and will miss next week’s deadline to send all toxic agents abroad for destruction, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

The deliveries, in two shipments this month to the northern Syrian port of Latakia, totaled 4.1 percent of the roughly 1,300 tonnes of toxic agents reported by Damascus to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“It’s not enough and there is no sign of more,” one source briefed on the situation said. 

by

News/Politics 1-29-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. In case you hadn’t heard, last night was the State of the Union address.

If you missed it, you didn’t miss much you hadn’t already heard.  

From TheHill  “The White House had foreshadowed that Obama’s address would emphasize a new willingness by the president to use executive action, and Obama promised a dozen actions in the next year, including the creation of new “starter” savings accounts and a hike in the minimum wage for federal contractors.

Throughout the speech, the president stressed that the government should work to provide “opportunity for all,” by addressing head-on the problems of income inequality and waning mobility.

Those proposals, along with other calls to Obama’s liberal base, were intended to embolden Democrats ahead of this year’s midterm elections but were delivered in a measured tone.

“What I offer tonight is a set of concrete, practical proposals to speed up growth, strengthen the middle class, and build new ladders of opportunity into the middle class. Some require congressional action, and I’m eager to work with all of you,” Obama said.”

That would be a first.

________________________________________

2. Here’s some excerpts from the Republican rebuttal. Again, if you missed it, you didn’t miss much.

From Speaker Boehner 

________________________________________

3. Ted Cruz and “The Imperial Presidency of Barack Obama.”

From TheWallStJournal  “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. On Monday, Mr. Obama acted unilaterally to raise the minimum wage paid by federal contracts, the first of many executive actions the White House promised would be a theme of his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

The president’s taste for unilateral action to circumvent Congress should concern every citizen, regardless of party or ideology. The great 18th-century political philosopher Montesquieu observed: “There can be no liberty where the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or body of magistrates.” America’s Founding Fathers took this warning to heart, and we should too.

Rule of law doesn’t simply mean that society has laws; dictatorships are often characterized by an abundance of laws. Rather, rule of law means that we are a nation ruled by laws, not men. That no one—and especially not the president—is above the law. For that reason, the U.S. Constitution imposes on every president the express duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.”

Yet rather than honor this duty, President Obama has openly defied it by repeatedly suspending, delaying and waiving portions of the laws he is charged to enforce. When Mr. 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.”

________________________________________

4. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before….  “We have to pass it to find out what’s in it.”

Only this time, it’s Republicans. And even after they pledged to not do stuff like this.

From NationalJournal  “Congressional negotiators released a massive 959-page farm bill Monday night, giving House members less than 48 hours to dig through the bill before they’re expected to pass it Wednesday.

Sound familiar? Congress did the same thing two weeks ago with the omnibus spending bill, taking less than a week to pass a nearly 1,600-page tome (and that’s not even included the appendices!). The farm bill is expected to follow a similar route through Congress, potentially hitting the president’s desk by the end of this week.

That quickened pace breaks—at least in spirit—a House Republican transparency pledge from 2011, promising constituents that they would not vote on any legislation for at least three days after it has been released for public consumption. House Speaker John Boehner’s office argues that neither bill violates the three-day rule, though both were posted online on Monday evenings and scheduled for Wednesday votes.”

Yeah! Who you gonna believe? The Speaker’s office, or your lyin’ eyes?

________________________________________

5. Of course he will. Can’t be losin’ all those campaign dollars for Dems, now can we? It’s the reason they set ObamaCare up this way. It’s the bloodiest kind of cronyism.

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “The Obama administration is threatening a veto of legislation that would permanently ban federal funds for abortion.

In a statement on Monday, the administration said the measure would intrude on women’s reproductive rights and prohibit the ability of individuals to spend their own money on insurance coverage for abortion under President Barack Obama’s health care law.”

As we learned yesterday, everyone is already paying a surcharge for it.  This would fix that. But it’s obvious that the President doesn’t want it fixed.

________________________________________

6. Snow hits the South, millions lose their minds….. 🙄

Come on people, act like you’ve done this before. 🙂

From NBCNews  “On Tuesday, the city was ready to give them a workout for the first time in at least three years. A rare winter storm stretched from Texas to Virginia, grounding thousands of flights and making a snowy, icy mess of roads.

Traffic came to a complete stop in the Atlanta area, where a traffic officer delivered a baby late Tuesday afternoon in the back seat of the car for a couple who were stranded in icy conditions on Interstate 285 in the suburb of Sandy Springs. A spokesman for the Sandy Springs police said mom and baby, who weren’t identified, were doing fine.

Classes were canceled from Texas to the Carolinas, while some school districts that did open told parents it would be safer to simply let their kids stay at school overnight.”

😯 Poor kids.

________________________________________

by

News/Politics 1-28-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Here we go again. 🙄

From TheHill  “The White House said Monday that President Obama would not pay “an ideological ransom” in exchange for raising the debt ceiling.

“The American people cannot — and the president will not on their behalf — pay an ideological ransom just so that Congress will do its job and pay the bills that Congress has racked up,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said. “It’s just irresponsible.”

The comments came after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell suggested over the weekend that the GOP wanted to “attach something significant for the country” — like the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline — to a debt limit increase.

“Any president’s request to raise the debt ceiling, whether this one or previous presidents, is a good opportunity to try to do something about the debt. I think the president is taking an unreasonable position to suggest that we ought to treat his request to raise the debt ceiling like some kind of motherhood resolution that everybody says ‘aye,’ and we don’t do anything, when we have the stagnant economy and this massive debt created under his administration,” McConnell told Fox News.”

________________________________________

2. The first lady is bringing a gay NBA player to the S. of the U. speech tonight as one of her guests. I guess to make a statement. Some have decided to use the invite to make a statement of their own as well.

From TheWashingtonTimes  “The father of one of the men who died in the terrorist attack in Benghazi will attend Tuesday’s State of the Union address, escalating the battle of the guests that takes place every year.

Rep. Jim Bridenstine’s invitation to Charles Woods, father of former Navy SEAL and Benghazi terrorist attack victim Tyrone Woods, is the latest evidence that the real politics of the major speech happens well above the president’s head, in the public viewing galleries.”

________________________________________

3. One of the themes you’ll hear tonight will be the new buzz words “income inequality.” And as is usually the case, it’s someone with a lot of money doing the complaining about it. (Funny though, it’s always our money they want to use to “fix” it, not theirs.)

Tonight the president will cheerlead his new meme, and filthy rich Democrats will follow suit, and the press will run with it, just like always. And as always, they miss their own hypocrisy. They completely miss that they’re the “evil” rich they rail about.

This lady is a perfect example, just like the president. She rails against CEO’s and their outrageous pay, yet fails to mention her husband George Lucas is worth 7.3 billion. She’s a real spokesperson for the little people. Funny though, she didn’t mention how much of their money she’ll be giving to help offset this inequality. Weird right? 🙄

From NewsBusters  “CBS analyst Mellody Hobson, whose husband George Lucas is worth $7.3 billion, appeared on This Morning to slam excessive salaries for corporate bosses. Discussing income inequality and Barack Obama’s planned discussion at the State of the Union, Hobson lashed out, “If you look today, the typical CEO makes 354 times more than the typical worker in his or her company, mostly his because there are so few women running companies.” (How much more does the male Lucas make than the average worker?)

She continued, “If you look back to 1980, that difference was just 42 times. So it’s been that kind of income inequality that has started a lot of backlash and chatter…” Co-host Norah O’Donnell introduced the segment by highlighting a hyperbolic letter to the Wall Street Journal by CEO Tom Perkins comparing the treatment of the wealthy to Jews during the Holocaust. O’Donnell promoted, “[President Obama] calls [income inequality] one of the defining challenges of our time. How do you think that will be received by people in the business community?”

“Hobson cheered Obama’s efforts: “Well, one, I’ve heard the President directly speak on these issues. I heard him right before Thanksgiving firsthand talk about this issue of the middle class…. Additionally what I would call it is positive populism.”

I‘d call it class warfare.

________________________________________

4. The NY Times public editor is calling out the Times for it’s lack of coverage of the March for Life.

From LifeNews  “Kudos to New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan for asking why the Times couldn’t provide much coverage of Wednesday’s March for Life. Hundreds, if not thousands of New Yorkers were there, so “Was this local participation, or the event itself, worthy of a news story in the paper of record? Apparently not.”

“The Times, in print, published only a stand-alone photograph of the event on Page A17 with a two-line caption on Thursday.” Sullivan reproduced complaints from pro-life readers:”

“Another reader made the point that The Times’s political agenda was on display, not only in the lack of coverage of the event but also in what it did choose to give a major amount of space to in the same day’s paper: a front-page article about a Catholic school in suburban Seattle where students are protesting the firing of a school official who was let go after he married his male partner.

Francis H. Hoffman wrote: “A handful of young people from Seattle who support their fired vice principal merits big coverage, but a massive pro-life march in a winter storm is all but ignored. And the motto of the New York Times is, “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” I guess pro-life news is not fit to print.”

________________________________________

5. This one is sad, and he deserves it. Yet at the same time I don’t understand why it’s OK for a woman to do it either without the father’s permission. Both are parents of the child after all. It seems a little contradictory. And the plea was for other charges. They didn’t address the major issues, like whether the defense’s claim that Roe v. Wade protected him as well was valid, since he was the father.

From LifeSiteNews  “The man who tricked his ex-girlfriend into taking an abortion-inducing drug has been sentenced to nearly 14 years in prison.

John Andrew Welden received the full negotiated sentence of 13 years and eight months in a hearing at 1:30 this afternoon.

“I don’t think Mr. Welden is an evil person, but he committed an evil act and for that he’s going to have to pay the consequences,” said U.S. District Judge Richard A. Lazzara as he imposed the full sentence.

Welden signed a plea bargain in September to avoid life in prison for violating the 2004 Unborn Victims of Violence Act. But Lazzara, a 1997 Clinton appointee, nearly let Welden escape with only 41 months in prison.”

________________________________________

6. The more we know, the worse it gets. I’m sure the administration is in no hurry to rectify this. And they don’t dare cave and let Republicans re-write any of it.

From WatchDog.org  “Insurance companies working under the Obamacare umbrella have secretly added a surcharge to cover the cost of abortions, an apparent violation of federal law that forbids the practice, congressional leaders charge.

Consumers signing up for insurance in an Obamacare exchange won’t find a single sentence telling them that they will pay at least $1 a month to fund abortions.

“The president promised when the health care bill passed that it would not cover abortion. We knew that was an empty promise as the bill stipulated a $1 a month surcharge for plans that covered abortions,” said Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., who chairs the House’s Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Health. “On top of that … it’s near impossible to decipher which plans include abortion and at what cost!”

To fix this, a House bill will be introduced this week to demand full disclosure and a separate itemized premium. It also will prohibit federal subsidies for Obamacare insurance plans that cover abortion. That bill, HR-7, or the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” will be introduced by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.”

________________________________________

by

News/Politics 1-27-14

What’s interesting in the news today?

1. Pres. Obama says income inequality is holding kids back. A new Harvard study says it’s something else. 

From TheWashingtonExaminer  “A new study from Harvard University on the ability of low-income children to achieve social mobility found that the largest hindrance to moving up the income ladder is being raised by a single parent. “The strongest and most robust predictor [of social mobility] is the fraction of children with single parents,” the study said.

Further, the study found that “[children] of married parents also have higher rates of upward mobility if they live in communities with fewer single parents.”

Now, obviously there are cases of successful children who were raised by single parents, but the study suggests that it is more likely for a child to climb the income ladder if they are living with both parents in a community of married parents.

The study found the prevalence of single parents to be a much larger factor in determining social mobility than income inequality — something President Obama and Democrats speak of ad nauseum.”

_________________________________________

2. The Obama admin loves to reward failure.

From TheBlaze  “Charlene Lamb, cited for failures in leadership from the Department of State’s own Accountability Review Board report, has been promoted to Regional Security Officer. We’ve heard rumor that she’s slated for international duty in Canada. She started the security officer training last week, much to the dismay of many within the State Department.

For those not keeping track, Charlene Lamb was in charge of the office that denied extra security personnel to the U.S. Ambassador in Libya before the Sept. 11, 2011 attacks.”

“This is a gift, State (State Department) is going out of its way to take care of her. They initially wanted to send her to the Hauge but the rumor was out and they thought better because she would have lived in a castle. In addition RSO (Regional Security Officer) Hague is a sensitive position with NATO etc, and our allies would not have approved.”

Just like with the IRS, and Fast and Furious, she gets rewarded for keeping her mouth shut.

_________________________________________

3. Speaking of Fast and Furious……

They just never learn.

From OregonLive  “The 25-year-old meth addict stepped into Squid’s Smoke Shop toting a wadded sweatshirt concealing a pistol.

She was intent on trading with “Squid,” the long-haired man behind the Gresham smoke shop’s counter, or his crew. They paid her $520 in cash and two cartons of Marlboros for the Makarov semi-automatic pistol.

Roughly a month later, in March 2011, she learned Squid was no underworld buyer of guns and drugs. He was a special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

He and his team ended their elaborate eight-month undercover sting in March 2011 by arresting 48 people who sold drugs and guns to Squid’s.  But now the $150,000 operation — which recovered only 10 stolen guns, none traced to a crime — is itself being investigated for its methods, including targeting mentally impaired individuals.”

_________________________________________

4. Ouch. That’s gotta sting, especially since it’s so obviously true.

From TheNYPost  “Mitt Romney thinks Vladimir Putin is better at being president than Barack Obama.

Romney, who lost the presidential race to Obama, told NBC that the Russian leader “outperformed” the president “time and time again on the world stage.”

The former GOP nominee called the US and Russia “geopolitical adversaries,” blamed Putin for giving cover to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and said fugitive leaker Edward Snowden’s asylum in Russia was a “bit of a stick in the eye of America.”

“I think most observers of the international political scene suggest that Russia has elevated itself in stature and America has been diminished,” Romney said.”

I seem to recall Democrats ridiculing Romney for saying Russia should be our biggest concern. Maybe they should have listened because Putin’ been eating Obama’s lunch.

_________________________________________

5. This one bothers me. They seem more concerned with aiding a child molester than they are with his poor victim.

From TheDailyMail  “Law enforcement officials in Rochester New York say colleagues of convicted pedophile Matthew LoMaglio were uncooperative during the investigation. LoMaglio, 37, an elementary school gym teacher, was convicted last month of sexually molesting an eight-year-old boy between 2006 and 2007.

Many teachers and administrators who had worked with LoMaglio, who was sentenced last week to four years prison for second degree sexual conduct against a child and endangering the welfare of a child, refused to speak to investigators.”

“According to EAG News, 22 of LoMaglio’s co-workers wrote to the judge in support of the teacher during the case, some of whom said they would trust him with their own children and others who said they considered him a good role model for kids. “

“‘Some of the people [on the school staff] who were cooperative told us there was talk at school, sort of like ‘Are you for the teacher or for the student,’” Kyle Rossi, the assistant district attorney who tried the case against LoMaglio, told EAGnews. ‘It was very disappointing to make contact with teachers who wouldn’t give us the time of day until they were instructed to.”

_________________________________________

6. An ObamaCare alternative from the GOP? So repeal has now become replace?

_________________________________________