Conservative Happenings

Friday, December 6, 2013

RYAN BUDGET DEAL MAY HIKE TSA FEES

Congressional Budget Committee chairs Rep. Paul Ryan and Sen. Patty Murray are working to finalize a deal on the federal budget. Reportedly, the two are just "a few billion" away from an agreement to fund government and replace the automatic sequester cuts. The deal may also increase government revenue through higher "fees" for airline security and other government services. This idea should never get off the ground.

“That sort of thing is a user fee, it’s not a tax,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a party to the negotiations. “It’s not something that I would have an objection to as a tax increase. But we’ll see where [Ryan and Murray] end up.”

Calling higher government revenue a "fee" rather than a "tax" is mostly a distinction without a difference. Money to pay a fee still comes from a consumer's wallet, not some magical "fee" account.

Reportedly, Ways and Means Chairman Rep. David Camp, has briefed several Republican colleagues about the possibility of including "revenue raisers" in any budget deal. As if the federal government had a revenue problem.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, government revenue currently equals about 15% of GDP. Next year, the amount the government takes out of the economy will spike to 17.5%. Over the next two decades, the government's take will gradually increase to equal 19.5% of the economy, higher than its historical average. Over the past 4 decades, government revenue has averaged 17.5% of the overall economy.

If anything, the government should be trimming its revenues.

Via: Breitbart

AFTER DENYING THEY MET, WHITE HOUSE ADMITS OBAMA LIVED WITH UNCLE

In yet another example of White House dissembling and our subservient media rolling over, the White House admitted Thursday that President Obama not only knows a Kenyan uncle who faced deportation, but that the president lived with this uncle in the eighties. When asked in 2011, the White House said there was no record of the two ever meeting. Apparently, our crackerjack media accepted that false information without ever following up or even asking if the president had been asked.

The Boston Globe reports that at a recent deportation hearing, the president's uncle, Onyango Obama, testified that "his famous nephew had stayed at his Cambridge apartment for about three weeks. At the time, Onyango Obama was here illegally and fighting deportation."

Obviously, this testimony directly contradicted the 2011 statement from the White House. Faced with the contradiction, the White house offered the following explanation:

[T]he press office had not fully researched the relationship between the president and his uncle before telling the Globe that they had no record of the two meeting. This time, the press office asked the president directly, which they had not done in 2011.

Only with a Democrat in office would "we have no record of the two meeting" not sound like a non-answer answer to the media. And once again it wasn't our media that dug up an Obama scandal or embarrassment; in this case it was the uncle.

During his briefing Thursday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said that he personally chose to ask the president about the relationship. The Boston Globe adds:

“The President first met Omar Obama when he moved to Cambridge for law school,” said White House spokesman Eric Schultz. “The President did stay with him for a brief period of time until his apartment was ready. After that, they saw each other once every few months, but after law school they fell out of touch. The President has not seen him in 20 years, has not spoken with him in 10.”

Via: Breitbart

'HIDDEN TAX': Red Tape Tab Nears $2T

For America's businesses, the Obama administration has an unpleasant holiday surprise.

A new report on the government's regulatory actions was released just before Thanksgiving, and it contains more than 3,300 rules -- which the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) estimates will cost more than $1.8 trillion to implement on an annual basis.

At a time when the economy is still struggling to zoom out of its post-recession rut, businesses worry that the crush of regulation is another sandbag weighing down the recovery.

"Back in the '90s, the federal budget itself was not even $1.8 trillion," said Wayne Crews, vice president of policy for CEI. "Now we have this entire $1.8 trillion hidden tax, you could say, of government compliance and intervention cost imposed in the economy."

The latest monthly jobs report from the Labor Department showed gains in hiring in November, which helped push the unemployment rate down to 7 percent, a five-year low. But many of the new jobs added in the last several months were low wage, and more growth is needed for the economy to truly rebound.

Via: Fox News

U.S. unemployment rate hits 5-year low, eyes on the Fed

* Non-farm payrolls rise 203,000 in November

* Jobless rate falls to 7.0 percent from 7.3 percent

* Average hourly earnings, workweek rise

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON, Dec 6 (Reuters) - U.S. employers hired more workers than expected in November and the jobless rate fell to a five-year low of 7.0 percent, which could fan speculation the Federal Reserve could start reducing its bond purchases this month.

Non-farm payrolls increased by 203,000 new jobs last month,the Labor Department said on Friday. The unemployment rate dropped three tenths of a percentage point to its lowest level since November 2008 as some federal workers who were counted as jobless in October returned to work after a 16-day partial shutdown of the government.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls rising 180,000 last month and the unemployment rate falling to 7.2 percent from 7.3 percent.

Job gains for September and October were revised to show 8,000 more jobs created than previously reported, lending strength to the report. Other details were also upbeat, with employment gains across the board, hourly earnings rising and the workweek lengthening.

Via: YAHOO

L.A. County social workers strike over salary increases, caseloads

In the first strike by Los Angeles County employees since 2000, more than 1,000 social workers took to the picket lines Thursday in a major escalation of a labor dispute over salary increases and caseloads.

The timing of a 6% raise is among the main sticking points in contract negotiations. But union leaders focused the public face of the dispute on social workers' caseloads, which protesters said were so high that they jeopardized the safety of the county's most vulnerable children.

"We don't have enough manpower to thoroughly investigate the cases," said Gerson Salazar, a dependency investigator who said he handles cases for 67 children. "They're extremely complicated cases and you can't resolve these issues in two weeks with [the size of our] workforce and be competent."

Political observers called the focus on child safety a smart move at a time when public sentiment about government-employee unions is dismal and many Angelenos in the private sector are still suffering from the recession.

"It's a public relations job unions have been forced into," said Jaime Regalado, professor emeritus of political science at Cal State L.A. "You have to start pleading a case that you feel is going to resonate with the public more than protecting pensions, more than getting raises. I think it's smart politics."

Negotiators for the county and SEIU Local 721, which represents 55,000 workers who have been without a contract for more than two months, did not meet Thursday and have no plans to return to the bargaining table this week. In addition to social workers, the union represents many of the county's lowest paid workers.

Via: LA Times

Continue Reading....

[VIDEO] Chris Matthews to Obama: 'Everyone Knows' Republicans Want to Stop Minorities From Voting

Chris Matthews received his long-desired wish on Thursday, an exclusive interview with Barack Obama. The Hardball anchor didn't exactly live up to the title of his show, wondering about Republican efforts to "make it difficult for minorities to vote" and questioning who was better, Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden?

Talking to the President at American University, Matthews read a question from a viewer via Twitter: "What can we do to stop the GOP, the Republicans, from rigging the states, rigging the votes, state by state, to disenfranchise voters and destroy our democracy?" The host added, "Thirty six states right now led by Republican legislatures have been trying to make it difficult for minority people to vote, especially in big cities and older people. Everybody knows the game." [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Tossing a softball to Obama, he queried, "What's your reaction?"

At one point, the MSNBC host playfully teased the President, joking, "I have to ask you a little question you may not like to answer." He continued, "It's an essay question. The qualities required of a president. Vice President Joe Biden, Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, compare and contrast."

Smiling at the cozy question, Obama laughed and then responded, "Not a chance I'm going there."

In areas where Matthews wasn't totally sycophantic, he still fell far short of any reasonable definition of playing "hardball." On the subject of ObamaCare, he gently wondered:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: You have a great audience here of-- college age-- people and some graduate students and faculty. There's some resistance out there among young people-- We've seen it in the polls-- to, to enrolling in the-- in the exchanges and to get involved in taking responsibility for their health care. What's your argument why they should do that?

On the issue of faith in government, the anchor sympathized with the President: "I know we had Watergate. We had the Vietnam War, of course, all that together. But what's gonna stop and arrest that decline in faith of you doing the right thing, you being honest, I mean, anybody who's president?"

Via: Newsbusters
Continue Reading....

Global-warming ‘proof’ is evaporating

The 2013 hurricane season just ended as one of the five quietest years since 1960. But don’t expect anyone who pointed to last year’s hurricanes as “proof” of the need to act against global warming to apologize; the warmists don’t work that way.

Warmist claims of a severe increase in hurricane activity go back to 2005 and Hurricane Katrina. The cover of Al Gore’s 2009 book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” even features a satellite image of the globe with four major hurricanes superimposed.

Yet the evidence to the contrary was there all along. Back in 2005 I and others reviewed the entire hurricane record, which goes back over a century, and found no increase of any kind. Yes, we sometimes get bad storms — but no more frequently now than in the past. The advocates simply ignored that evidence — then repeated their false claims after Hurricane Sandy last year.

And the media play along. For example, it somehow wasn’t front-page news that committed believers in man-made global warming recently admitted there’s been no surface global warming for well over a decade and maybe none for decades more. Nor did we see warmists conceding that their explanation is essentially a confession that the previous warming may not have been man-made at all.

Via: New York Post

Obamacare Reg Treats Congress That Spent $3.5 Trillion as a ‘Small Business’

President Barack Obama and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

(CNSNews.com) - An Obamacare regulation issued by the Office of Personnel Management in October treats the U.S. Congress—which employs more than 11,000 staffers and which spent $4,329,000,000 on its own operations and $3,454,253,000,000 to fund the full government in fiscal 2013--as a “small business.”

OPM did this so that the Treasury can pay federal subsidies of up to $11,378 per year to help members of the House and Senate and their staff buy health-insurance plans in the Obamacare “Small Business Health Options Program” (SHOP) Marketplace set up for “small employers” in Washington, D.C.

The regulation treats this federal tax subsidy paid by the U.S. Treasury as if it were an “employer contribution” made by the owner of a small business.

Subsection D of Section 1312 of the 906-page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is entitled: “MEMBERS OF CONGRESS IN THE EXCHANGE.”

It says: “Notwithstanding any other provision of law, after the effective date of this subtitle, the only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and congressional staff with respect to their service as a Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be health plans that are—(I) created under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act); or (II) offered through an Exchange established under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act).

Via: CNS News

Continue Reading....

Illinois governor signs pension overhaul into law

Gov. Pat Quinn has signed landmark legislation Thursday to reform Illinois' massively-underfunded pension system, though the new law is certain to face threatened lawsuits by labor unions.

The overhaul, approved by the General Assembly this week after years of delay and inaction, cuts benefits for most employees and retirees. It has a June 1 effective date, but could be delayed by the legal challenges.

Quinn, who often signs new laws in celebratory public events, signed the pension bill Thursday afternoon in a private ceremony. It was a mark of how politically sensitive the issue is in Democrat-controlled Illinois, with hundreds of thousands of public employees and retirees across Illinois being negatively affected.

Illinois' $100 billion shortfall in funding employee retirement benefits is considered the worst pension crisis in the nation. For decades, while other states dealt with similar problems, Illinois lawmakers and governors skipped or shorted payments to their state's five pension systems. It led to repeated downgrades of the state's credit rating and diverts millions of dollars from education and social programs.

Via: Fox News Political

Doctors boycotting California's Obamacare exchange

An estimated seven out of every 10 physicians in deep-blue California are rebelling against the state's Obamacare health insurance exchange and won't participate, the head of the state's largest medical association said.

“It doesn't surprise me that there's a high rate of non-participation,” said Dr. Richard Thorp, president of the California Medical Association.

“

Independent insurance brokers who work with both insurance companies and doctor networks estimate that about 70 percent of California's 104,000 licensed doctors are boycotting the exchange.

”

“We need some recognition that we’re doing a service to the community. But we can’t do it for free. And we can’t do it at a loss. No other business would do that,” he said. Thorp has been a primary care doctor for 38 years in a small town 90 miles north of Sacramento. The CMA represents 38,000 of the roughly 104,000 doctors in California.

California offers one of the lowest government reimbursement rates in the country -- 30 percent lower than federal Medicare payments. And reimbursement rates for some procedures are even lower.

In other states, Medicare pays doctors $76 for return-office visits. But in California, Medicare’s reimbursement is $24, according to Dr. Theodore M. Mazer, a San Diego ear, nose and throat doctor.

In other states, doctors receive between $500 to $700 to perform a tonsillectomy. In California, they get $160, Mazer added.

Only in September did insurance companies disclose that their rates would be pegged to California’s Medicaid plan, called Medi-Cal. That's driven many doctors to just say no.

They're also pointing out that Covered California's website lists many doctors as participants when they aren't.

Via: Washington Examiner

Iconic Civil Rights Leader Nelson Mandela Dies at Age 95

Nelson Mandela, who spent 27 years as a prisoner in South Africa for opposing apartheid, then emerged to become his country's first black president, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and an enduring symbol of integrity, principle and resilience, has died at 95.

The announcement was made by South African president Jacob Zuma.

Mandela spent almost three months in a Pretoria hospital after being admitted in June with a recurring lung infection.

Mandela, who once said, "the struggle is my life," was a beloved hero of both South Africa and the world itself. His face was instantly recognizable in virtually any country, his story famous enough that he was portrayed in movies at least four times - by Morgan Freeman ("Invictus"), Sidney Poitier ("Mandela and de Klerk"), Danny Glover ("Mandela") and Dennis Haysbert ("Goodbye Bafana").

Via: Fox News
Continue Reading....

[CARTOON] Not Santa

Via: California Political Review

Hilarious: New Jersey's middle finger to Obamacare

The poor, pathetic Democrats trying to defend Obamacare have adopted the talking point that there is "pent-up demand" for "affordable" (i.e., subsidized by other people) health care insurance. The citizens of the Garden State have just flipped the bird on this argument. From John Fund at NRO:

I live in New Jersey, where Internet gambling has just been legalized. Each of Atlantic City's twelve casinos can operate up to five gambling websites so long as they screen out customers from out of state. Peggy Holloway, senior credit officer for Moody's Investors Service, says the new sites will "appeal to a younger, more Internet-savvy demographic that might lack the discretionary budget to travel to one of Atlantic City's 12 casinos." And indeed, fifty thousand people signed up online for New Jersey's gambling sites in the first week. That compares with 741 who signed up for Obamacare during all of October. Yes, the Obamacare website has been plagued with problems, but the disparity between the two programs is still eye-popping.

Dr. Jeff Singer, a surgeon and scholar at the Cato Institute, told Fox News that the gambling boom shows "younger and healthier people are making the decision - rightly or wrongly - that they are getting a better value by using some of their money, for example, in a gambling site than they are for buying health insurance which is covering things that they don't need."

Via: American Thinker
Continue Reading...

Details of the Obama forgery exposed

Every American is the victim of one of the most insidious crimes ever perpetrated on the collective - the capturing of our nation from within. The set-up process occurred over decades, but culminated with the selection and installation of Barack Hussein Obama, a/k/a Barry Soetoro, as the front man in this silent coup.

One important piece of evidence to support this crime exists in the controversial Certificate of Live Birth, but not in the way you have heard, and not in the manner that you might suspect. The revelation of the manner and methods now exist in a document that the criminal elements of our government and the complicit media do not want you to see. And the evidence is as compelling as it is damning.

Based on the popularity of television shows like Criminal Minds, Law and Order: Criminal Intent, and Profiler from the late 1990s, a large number of people are fascinated by the investigative science of criminal profiling. One aspect of such behavioral profiling includes understanding the difference between a perpetrator’s modus operandi or “M.O.,” and their “signature.”

While all criminals have a modus operandi, analyzing a perpetrator’s “signature” is a bit more involved. Signature behaviors serve to satisfy some need of the criminal, and might be viewed as a “calling card” of sorts that link them to the crime. This is particularly true in cases of forgery, where the forger leaves a usually well hidden “signature” to identify them as the creator of the forgery. The preceding is provided as a formal introduction to the most important forgery of our time: Barack Hussein Obama’s Certificate of Live Birth.

So far, the managed mainstream media has ignored the October 18, 2013 filing of two affidavits, one public and the other sealed, that identify twenty-(20) points of forgery on the most controversial document concerning the most controversial figure of our time: Barack Hussein Obama. In my view, this is undoubtedly the most detailed and compellingly damning document ever created pertaining to the controversy surrounding the long form birth certificate. It provides critical insight into the people behind the forgery, their methods, and more importantly, their mistakes.

Via: Canada Free Press

Medicaid Is Latest Health-Site Victim

States Refuse to Sign Up Enrollees Due to Incomplete Information from HealthCare.gov

States are warning that they may not process Medicaid enrollments from people who have signed up for the health program through the troubled HealthCare.gov site, raising the prospect that several hundred thousand low-income people who thought they had obtained insurance actually may not have it.

The federal health-insurance site, which serves residents in 36 states, is designed to sell policies from private insurers. But some people who apply for coverage through the site discover they are eligible instead for Medicaid, the joint federal-state health-insurance program for the poor and disabled.

So far, the federal government has been unable to transfer full Medicaid applications to states, potentially leaving people who sought to sign up for Medicaid through HealthCare.gov without coverage.

In all, some 183,396 people who submitted coverage applications through HealthCare.gov were determined to be eligible for Medicaid through Nov. 2, according to data published by the Department of Health and Human Services. Many thousands more are believed to have received similar assessments in the month since then.

Via: Weasel Zippers

Obama: Young people will realize Obamacare benefits are 'priceless'

President Obama on Thursday urged young people to sign up for Obamacare, telling them they would realize the benefits are “priceless.”

Photo - "For young people to recognize that it is in their financial interest and their health interest to be able to get on-going preventive care, to be able to get free contraception and, you know, benefits like mammograms that allow them to maintain their health throughout their lives, without fear of going bankrupt ...,” Obama said.

In an interview on MSNBC’s "Hardball with Chris Matthews," the president said he understood why young people have been hesitant to enroll in the new law’s insurance exchanges after the botched rollout. But he insisted that once young people become aware of the benefits from the health law, they will sign up.

"For young people to recognize that it is in their financial interest and their health interest to be able to get on-going preventive care, to be able to get free contraception and, you know, benefits like mammograms that allow them to maintain their health throughout their lives, without fear of going bankrupt or making their family bankrupt if they get sick, that's something that's priceless,” Obama said.

The glitch-filled healthcare.gov website and the millions of Americans who are losing their insurance plans under new Obamacare regulations despite the president’s promises have undercut support for Obama’s signature legislative achievement.

Polls show him at record-low approval ratings, and the public’s opinion of his managerial skills has declined. Young people, who backed the president strongly in 2008 and 2012, are also losing faith in the health care law.

For the law to be a success, the administration must enroll enough young people to balance out older and sicker people in the insurance pools and keep premiums low.

Via: Washington Examiner

Majority want health law repealed or scaled back

A majority of people in the United States say they want ObamaCare to be scaled back or repealed altogether.

According to a Gallup poll released Friday, 20 percent support a scale-back of the law, while 32 percent back efforts to repeal it.

That's just a little more than in mid-October, when 50 percent told Gallup the law should be scaled-back or repealed.

The relatively small change could be viewed as good news at the White House given the difficult last six weeks for the law. A faulty website rolled out on Oct. 1 made enrolling in the exchanges problematic, but the administration argues the website is not functioning well for 90 percent of visitors.

More than half of Americans have believed the law should be repealed or scaled back since January 2011.

Only 17 percent in Gallup’s latest survey say ObamaCare should remain the same. That’s a seven-percentage-point drop since the 24 percent who felt that way in October.

Ninety percent of Republicans want the law repealed or changed, the poll says. Democrats, on the other hand, want the law expanded. Half of independent voters surveyed say they want the law repealed or scaled back while 37 percent want it expanded.

A Gallup poll from earlier this week indicated a quarter of people who lack health insurance say they’re willing to pay a fine rather than enrolling in ObamaCare. Sixty-three percent of uninsured people say they intend to enroll in the health exchange.

Via: The Hill

Friday, December 6, 2013

Related Stories

Popular Posts