Administration Has Not Verified Obamacare Security Claims

Congressmen raised strong doubts about the security of the infrastructure undergirding the Obamacare exchanges in interviews with theWashington Free Beacon on Monday, undermining the administration’s claims that Obamacare is secure and will be ready to go on schedule.

The administration’s claim that the “data hub” is secure, for example, has not been independently verified, leaving Congress and the public reliant only on the administration’s word for updates on the law’s status and security. The data hub will route personal identifying information from several federal agencies to the state-based exchanges.

The congressmen’s complaints come as the exchanges are set to open in one week, on Oct.1.

“All we have are the statements that they’re ready,” said Rep. Patrick Meehan (R., Pa.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee’s Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies.

“At the end of the day, HHS really feels like everything is going to be fine,” said Rep. James Lankford (R., Okla.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee’s health care subcommittee, referencing the Department of Health and Human Services, which is implementing much of the law.

Via: WFB

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[CARTOON] Working with Obama

Via: California Political Review

Minimum Wage Hike a Blow to Young Job Seekers

Governor Brown has indicated he will sign a two-dollar increase in the minimum wage, which he brokered in the Legislature. This is unfortunate news for young and unskilled workers, who will be hardest hit by the mandated 25% hike over the next two years. (In 2012, the California minimum wage was $8.00/hour, compared with the federal minimum wage of $7.25/hour.)

According to the US Department of Labor, minimum wage workers tend to be young. Although workers under age 25 represented only about one-fifth of hourly paid workers, they made up about half of those paid the federal minimum wage or less. Among employed teenagers paid by the hour, about 21 percent earned the minimum wage or less, compared with about 3 percent of workers age 25 and over.

Our youngest residents are also those who are finding it most difficult to find work, even as the economy is in recovery. Young adults face an unemployment rate north of 15 percent, while teenage unemployment is nearly 35 percent.

According to UC Irvine economist David Neumark, we can expect an increase in the minimum wage to be followed by a decrease in youth employment, as much as a 3.75% drop in employment as a result of this legislation. This mandated wage hike will make a terrible situation even worse.

Noted economist Robert Samuelson has written:

Companies that think themselves condemned to losses or meager profits won’t expand. Not surprisingly, a study by two economists at Texas A&M finds that the minimum wage’s biggest adverse effects are on future job growth, not current employment. To this defect must be added another: An excessively high minimum will attract more skilled workers, denying the less skilled an entry point to work and on-the-job training.

Last year, California public high schools graduated fewer than 79% of the 12^th grade cohort that began in the 9^th grade. The graduation rate for Hispanic and African American students was even worse: 73.5% and 65.9%, respectively.

Via: California Political Review

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What’s Next for Obamacare: Harry Reid’s Procedural Attacks

“If you let me write the procedure and I let you write the substance, I’ll [beat] you every time.”

Representative John Dingell (D-MI), the longest serving member in the history of Congress, understands that congressional procedure dictates policy. It is important for opponents of Obamacare to understand Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) shares that approach, and he will be setting the procedure for the Senate’s upcoming debate on the House-passed year-end funding bill that permanently defunds Obamacare.

According to multiple media reports, Senators will engage in procedural gymnastics this week with the explicit goal of removing the defunding language from the House-passed bill. Over the weekend, Heritage Action explained the importance procedure would play this week:

Before Reid can move to eliminate the defunding language, he must first secure 60 votes to invoke cloture. That vote, which is likely to come late next week, is a procedural motion that would facilitate efforts by Reid and others to strip the defunding language from H.J.Res.59. If Reid uses this procedural trick, a vote on the motion to invoke cloture is a vote to undermine the House-passed bill.

At some point this week, the Senate will vote to end debate on the House-passed bill. (In Washington speak, they will vote to “invoke cloture.”) What does this mean? Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) told Politico he would “vote to end debate on it, because [he likes] the policy.” But there is just one small problem: The vote is not on the underlying policy, but rather the procedure Reid has dictated. On Twitter, NBC’s Tom Curry pointed out pro-Obamacare Senators would vote alongside Sen. Corker “So that Majority Leader Reid can offer a motion to strike the defund Obamacare provision from the [continuing resolution] CR & then vote on the clean CR.”

Via: The Foundry

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Obama the Storyteller

President Obama unwittingly disclosed his modus operandi in a single statement back in 2012. The sentence explains why he has been able to both win elections and been such a failure once in office.

In the summer of 2012, President Obama refused to take responsibility for failures during his first term. As is his wont, he blamed others.  In this case it was not the "usual suspect," Republicans,  but all Americans. He told CBS News; Charlie Rose that his biggest mistake of his first term was not being a good enough storyteller:

"The mistake of my first term. . .was thinking that this job was just about getting the policy right. And that's important. But the nature of this office is also to tell a story to the American people that gives them a sense of unity and purpose and optimism, especially during tough times."

Mitt Romney mocked his answer, "Being president is not about telling stories. Being president is about leading, and President Obama has failed to lead."

But why wouldn't Obama think that success was based on telling stories? After all, his ability to tell stories was key to his string of election victories. He never had much of a record to run on (many Americans overlooked or did not care that his career was marked by "voting present" when not claiming credit for work he did not do) so to fill up a sparse resume he created stories.

As many politicians have done, he published a book "Dreams from My Father; A Story of Race and Inheritance" that served as the foundation of his political biography. Many of his early supporters -- and later ones as well -- were inspired to support him after reading the book. But a book by the Washington Post reporter and highly-regarded biographer David Maraniss confirmed reports from others (including New York Times reporter Janny Scott in her own book,  "A Singular Woman," about Obama's mother)  that the book was filled with "errors" -- characters that never existed or were "composites," incidents that never happened, girlfriends that never existed, mentors that were misidentified, and more. There was a pattern in the book that became a pattern when Obama became a politician and then the President.

Via: American Thinker

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ACORN sowed seeds for de Blasio

The leftist group ACORN has been plotting for more than a decade to install Bill de Blasio at City Hall, a Democratic Party source has told The Post.

“Without exaggeration, ACORN’s long-range plan since 2001 was to elect de Blasio mayor,” said the Democratic insider. “De Blasio was a big ACORN project.”

The Democratic mayoral candidate has marched in lock step with ACORN, now renamed New York Communities for Change, even before he took public office in 2001.

The group backed de Blasio that year over Legal Aid Services director Steven Banks in a six-way Brooklyn City Council race, despite Banks’ reputation at the time as a one of the city’s leading champions of the poor and liberal causes.

Eight years later, ACORN was back at de Blasio’s side and, with the union-financed Working Families Party, helped him become public advocate, a perch he used to become the Democratic nominee for mayor.

A key cog in the de Blasio political machine is Bertha Lewis, the former ACORN head who also co-founded the Working Families Party.

On primary election night earlier this month, when she stood on stage t next to de Blasio, Lewis made it clear ACORN’s work had paid off.

“We’re baaaack. The right wing will have to deal with it,” she chuckled.

But Lewis scoffed that she or the organization had a “master plan” to elect de Blasio as the city’s chief executive.

Via: New York Post

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One Man’s ObamaCare Nightmare

Andy and Amy Mangione of Louisville, Ky. and their two boys are just the kind of people who should be helped by ObamaCare. But they recently got a nasty surprise in the mail.

"When I saw the letter when I came home from work," Andy said, describing the large red wording on the envelope from his insurance carrier, "(it said) 'your action required, benefit changes, act now.' Of course I opened it immediately."

It had stunning news. Insurance for the Mangiones and their two boys,which they bought on the individual market, was going to almost triple in 2014 --- from $333 a month to $965.

The insurance carrier made it clear the increase was in order to be compliant with the new health care law.

"This isn't a Cadillac plan, this isn't even a silver plan," Mangione said, referring to higher levels of coverage under ObamaCare.

"This is a high deductible plan where I'm assuming a lot of risk for my health insurance for my family. And nothing has changed, our boys are healthy-- they're young --my wife is healthy. I'm healthy, nothing in our medical history has changed to warrant a tripling of our premiums.

"Well I'm the one that does the budget,” said his wife. "Eventually I've got that coming down the pike that I gotta figure out what we're gonna cut what we're gonna do, to afford a $1,000 a month premium."

Via: Fox News

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Cruz Kicks Off Filibuster

UPDATE: 3:32 p.m. Cruz asserted that if senators would only listen to their constituents, including Democrats, the vote to defund Obamacare would be 100-0. He openly called on all 46 Republicans, along with a few Democrats, would join in voting against cloture and continuing debate.

UPDATE: 3:30 p.m. A technicality: as cloture has already been filed, Cruz will be speaking for a maximum of fifteen hours. Senate rules dictate that the body must adjourn by noon on Wednesday. This will likely be a long speech, but it cannot block legislation.

UPDATE: 2:48 p.m. “I intend to speak until I can no longer stand,” Cruz said in his opening remarks of his filibuster, in an effort delay a cloture vote on the continuing resolution to defund Obamacare. Cruz was joined by his partner in his effort to defund Obamacare, Utah senator Mike Lee. Cruz has already played on the theme to “make DC listen” early on in his remarks and his Twitter account has started using the #MakeDCListen hashtag.

Via: National Review Online

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If Humpty wore glasses, Karl Rove he would be

“Karl Rove uses a whiteboard and marker
As he peddles his wares like a carnival barker.
The tea party knows he’s a political hack,
But the establishment lost millions as Rove they did back.
Though Fox trots him out at eight, nine and ten,
Bill, Sean and Greta can’t make Karl Rove relevant again.
Over the Republican Party he’s cast a pall,
But like Humpty Dumpty, old Karl must fall.”

The more I’m forced to watch this rotund little man scribble on his whiteboard like a toddler with crayons, the more he reminds me of the Humpty Dumpty character in Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass.  Look closely at Karl and what do you see? If Humpty wore glasses, Karl Rove he would be.

Mr. Rove’s scorn toward the Tea Party and the conservative base of the Republican Party is indicative of the fear he and other RINOS have of their destructive lurch to the left coming to an end. Their newest target, Sen. Ted Cruz, terrifies the elitist big government element of the party.  He has the audacity to stand with grassroots and follow through on the election promises he made to his constituents. This is not allowed in Karl Rove’s world where squishy, faux Republicans are the order of the day.

For those that may have forgotten, Rove and the GOP establishment backed David Dewhurst over Ted Cruz, Trey Grayson over Rand Paul, Bob Bennett over Mike Lee, Charlie Crist over Marco Rubio,  Arlen Specter over Pat Toomey and Gerald Ford over Ronald Reagan. While bashing candidates like Christine O’Donnell, Sharon Angle and Todd Aiken, they backed those big winners, Linda McMahon, Tommy Thompson and Carly Fiorina.

Via Canada Free Press

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Kenya's president says his military has 'ashamed and defeated' Islamist militants inside mall

Kenya’s president says his military has “ashamed and defeated” Al Qaeda-linked terrorists in an apparent end to a standoff and hostage situation inside a popular mall that lasted for four days.

Uhuru Kenyatta said in a national address Tuesday that Kenya’s armed forces were able to kill five of the militants and took eleven into custody. 

"These cowards will need justice as well their accomplices and patrons, wherever they are," he said.

He said 61 civilians and six security officers were killed in the violence at Nairobi’s Westgate Mall, and called for three days of national mourning beginning Wednesday.

Kenyatta added that three floors of the mall collapsed and that there are "several bodies still trapped in the rubble, including the terrorists."

FBI investigators are now waiting for forensic evidence, including fingerprints taken from inside the mall as well as dental records, to verify claims that some of the attackers were Americans, a federal law enforcement source told Fox News. 

Kenya's foreign minister, Amina Mohamed, claimed in a television interview Monday that two or three Americans and one Briton were among those behind the attack.

Amina Mohamed said in an interview with PBS' "NewsHour" program that the Americans were 18 to 19 years old, of Somali or Arab origin and lived "in Minnesota and one other place" in the U.S. The attacker from Britain was a woman who has "done this many times before," Mohamed said.

Via: Fox News

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SMUG AS ALWAYS

President Obama told the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday morning that the “world is more stable now than it was five years ago.”

“Just as we reviewed how we deploy our extraordinary military capabilities in a way that lives up to our ideals, we’ve begun to review the way that we gather intelligence so that we properly balance the legitimate security concerns of our citizens and allies with the privacy concerns that all people share,” he said.

“As a result of this work and cooperation with allies and partners, the world is more stable than it was five years ago,” he added.

Obama did note, however, that “dangers remain.”

“Even a glance at today’s headlines indicates that dangers remain,” Obama said. “In Kenya we’ve seen terrorists target innocent civilians in a crowded shopping mall, and our hearts go out to the families of those who have been affected. In Pakistan nearly 100 people were recently killed by suicide bombers outside a church. In Iraq killings and car bombs continue to be a terrible part of life.”

“Meanwhile, al-Qaida has splintered into regional networks and militias which doesn’t give them the capacity at this point to carry out attacks like 9/11, but it does pose serious threats to governments and diplomats, businesses and civilians all across the globe.”

Shortly before Obama took the stage, according to the Guardian, Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff offered a strong condemnation of America’s National Security Agency surveillance.

Via: Daily Calller

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MCCONNELL REJECTS CRUZ, LEE OBAMACARE TACTIC

Monday evening, GOP Minority Leader announced that he would oppose a proposed filibuster from Sens. Cruz and Lee to block the House Continuing Resolution from reaching the Senate floor. McConnell's opposition was echoed by John Cornyn, number 2 in GOP Leadership, and Sen. Cruz's colleague from Texas. The move by McConnell and Cornyn virtually assures that the Senate will begin consideration of the House bill later this week. 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs the support of 6 Republican Senators to defeat any filibuster undertaken by Sens. Cruz and Lee, assuming he has the votes of his entire caucus. The decision by McConnell and Cornyn to vote against a filibuster ensures that Reid will have the Republican votes he needs to move forward with the bill. 

The expectation is then that, after a period of debate on the CR, Sen. Reid will file another cloture motion to cut off debate and proceed to amendments. By holding a cloture vote before amendments are considered, Reid will be able to add amendments to the bill by a simply majority vote. He will likely block any Republican amendments and off language to restore ObamaCare funding. The final resolution could then pass the Senate by a simply majority. 

It is unclear if McConnell or Cornyn would support a filibuster against Reid's controversial procedure to handle amendments. Under the Senate's regular order, amendments require a 60-vote threshold for adoption. It is possible the Republicans could still fight that rule change. 

The nuance of Senate procedure is lost on the general public, however. What the public sees is that just hours after Sen. Cruz began his fight to defund ObamaCare through the House CR, the top 2 Republicans in the Senate announced their opposition to his plan. 

The fight to defund ObamaCare may have ended Monday night. 

Via: Brietbart

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[CARTOON] Starbucks and Guns

Via: California Political Review

Over 500,000 children could go without healthcare under ObamaCare!!!

WASHINGTON — A “family glitch” in the 2010 health care law threatens to cost some families thousands of dollars in health insurance costs and leave up to 500,000 children without coverage, insurance and health care analysts say.

That’s unless Congress fixes the problem, which seems unlikely given the House’s latest move Friday to strip funding from the Affordable Care Act.

Congress defined “affordable” as 9.5% or less of an employee’s household income, mostly to make sure people did not leave their workplace plans for subsidized coverage through the exchanges. But the “error” was that it only applies to the employee — and not his or her family. So, if an employer offers a woman affordable insurance, but doesn’t provide it for her family, they cannot get subsidized help through the state health exchanges.

That can make a huge difference; the Kaiser Family Foundation said an average plan for an individual is about $5,600, but it goes up to $15,700 for families. Most employers help out with those costs, but not all.

“We saw this two-and-a-half years ago and thought, ‘Has anyone else noticed this?’” said Kosali Simon, a professor of public affairs at Indiana University who specializes in health economics. “Everyone said, ‘No, no. You must be wrong.’ But we weren’t, and that’s going to leave a lot of people out.”

Via: USA Today

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Morning Bell: 6 Reasons Why the National Debt Keeps Rising

Out-of-control spending by Congress and the Obama Administration has once again maxed out the latest debt limit—a nearly $17 trillion burden that harms job growth, gives special interests a pass, and lowers American families’ personal income.

Inspired by Dave Ramsey’s recent post “6 Reasons People Stay in Debt,” we compiled six reasons why Members of Congress, the Obama Administration, and others in Washington avoid the path to financial stability in favor of big spending…

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1. They want to keep up appearances.

The truth is, ever-growing entitlement programs drive ever-greater government spending. Everyone knows it. Some leaders in both parties have even worked together on first-step solutions agreeable to both sides. Yet rather than risk Warren Buffett’s taxpayer-funded benefits decreasing, politicians pretend America’s national budget can handle all the extensive promises they’ve made over the past several decades.

Via: The Foundry

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Worst Obama approval ratings in two years, just 30% of independents support

President Obama’s approval ratings have dropped to their lowest in two years, driven by the public’s view that the nation is fast heading in the wrong direction and the desertion of his core support groups --- blacks, youth, women and independents.

Pollster John Zogby tells Secrets that the president has tumbled to a 43 percent approval rating, his worse since September 2011. Obama’s disapproval rating has hit 54 percent, his highest in two years.

And just 29 percent of the 1,000 likely voters polled September 17-18 said the country is heading in the right direction.

Zogby said that Obama is suffering from the bad debut of Obamacare and his fumbling of the crisis in Syria. Plus, he said, the president is at the mercy of a deeply divided Republican Congress that has even worse approval ratings.

But as has been the case for months now, Zogby’s polls have found a steep decline in support from the groups that helped to re-elect the president. Among blacks, Obama won 93 percent of their vote in 2012, but they now give him an 81 percent approval rating. Support of younger voters has dropped from 61 percent on Election Day to 47 percent. Hispanic approval has gone from 71 percent to 61 percent.

Via: Washington Examiner

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AP: Lois Lerner, Official at Center of IRS Targeting Scandal, Retiring

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Internal Revenue Service says an official at the center of the agency's tea party scandal is retiring.

Lois Lerner headed the IRS division that handles applications for tax-exempt status when she was placed on paid leave in May. While she was in charge, the agency acknowledged that agents improperly targeted tea party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status from 2010 to 2012.

Lerner first disclosed the targeting at a law conference in May, when she was asked a planted question about IRS treatment of political groups. Less than two weeks later, she refused to answer questions at a congressional hearing, citing her constitutional right not to incriminate herself.

 Republicans in Congress have repeatedly called for her to be fired.

Via: Fox News

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For Those Who Don't Believe in Election Fraud

"Yes, the Rizzo-Royster race turned on vote fraud," admitted the Kansas City Star's Barbara Shelly in a crow-eating column nearly three years after it would do any good. For years the Star has routinely mocked anyone who dared suggest vote fraud was a problem.

Among those mocked was Will Royster, a retired Navy fighter pilot who seemingly lost in a northeast Kansas City Democratic primary for state representative in 2010 by the final count of one single vote. The seeming victor, endorsed by the Star, was neophyte J.J. Rizzo, the son of Democratic machine honcho, Henry Rizzo.

What follows is a letter from a young Democrat Nick Moreno who observed the process up close named. The letter details the various tools Democrats use to steal elections and kill would-be Democratic reformers in the womb. It is edited only for length and clarity.

Via: American Thinker

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Obama’s Beached Whale

ObamaCare, Debt Ceiling, Continuing resolution, Ted Cruz

ObamaCare—the Affordable Care Act—will not be defunded and the government will not be shut down.

ObamaCare is a putrefying beached whale, even if it is “the law of the land” as the Democrats keep telling us. Well, Prohibition was once the law of the land until it was repealed. Slavery, too, was the law of the land at one time. Even the Supreme Court said so.

The vast majority of Americans already hate ObamaCare and not a day goes by that it does not demonstrate that it is unaffordable, unworkable, and a cancerous law that kills jobs. Eventually it will kill people.

ObamaCare, passed without a single Republican vote, will become a Democratic Party poison pill. It was passed when the party controlled both houses of Congress and, by the following midterm election in 2010, the Democrats lost the House.

If the Republicans can manage to avoid doing something really stupid, the 2014 midterms will give them control of both houses. For now, though, the efforts of Sen. Ted Cruz and others are misguided and mistaken.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Obama facing pressure from lawmakers to stand ground against Iran

On the heels of criticism over his handling of the stand-off with Syria, President Obama is facing pressure from Congress to stand his ground with Iran -- in the run-up to the U.N. General Assembly session in New York where Hassan Rowhani will make his debut visit as Iran's president. 

Rowhani has sent signals over the last few weeks that he's willing to engage the U.S. in talks over his country's nuclear program. Obama revealed in an interview a week ago that he and the newly elected Iranian leader have been exchanging letters. 

The communication raised the possibility that Obama, or perhaps Secretary of State John Kerry, might meet on the sidelines of the U.N. session, and jump-start a new round of talks aimed at convincing Iran to abandon any pursuit of nuclear weapons and open up its program to inspectors. 

Sens. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., though, urged Obama to tread cautiously. 

"Like you, we viewed the election of Hassan Rouhani as an indicator of discontent amongst the Iranian people and we have taken note of recent diplomatic overtures by Iran," they wrote. "However, whatever nice words we may hear from Mr. Rouhani, it is Iranian action that matters." 

They wrote that a "credible and verifiable agreement" would be welcomed but "we also recall, however, Iran's prior use of negotiations as a subterfuge for progress on its clandestine nuclear program, as well as Iran's continued financing of terrorist activities." 

Via Fox Political News

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The ObamaCare Disaster Finally Hits Front Page of New York Times

Lower Health Insurance Premiums to Come at Cost of Fewer Choices

WASHINGTON — Federal officials often say that health insurance will cost consumers less than expected under President Obama’s health care law. But they rarely mention one big reason: many insurers are significantly limiting the choices of doctors and hospitals available to consumers.

From California to Illinois to New Hampshire, and in many states in between, insurers are driving down premiums by restricting the number of providers who will treat patients in their new health plans.

When insurance marketplaces open on Oct. 1, most of those shopping for coverage will be low- and moderate-income people for whom price is paramount. To hold down costs, insurers say, they have created smaller networks of doctors and hospitals than are typically found in commercial insurance. And those health care providers will, in many cases, be paid less than what they have been receiving from commercial insurers.

Some consumer advocates and health care providers are increasingly concerned. Decades of experience with Medicaid, the program for low-income people, show that having an insurance card does not guarantee access to specialists or other providers.

Consumers should be prepared for “much tighter, narrower networks” of doctors and hospitals, said Adam M. Linker, a health policy analyst at the North Carolina Justice Center, a statewide advocacy group.

“That can be positive for consumers if it holds down premiums and drives people to higher-quality providers,” Mr. Linker said. “But there is also a risk because, under some health plans, consumers can end up with astronomical costs if they go to providers outside the network.”

Via: New York Times

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10 COMMANDMENTS MONUMENT TOPPLED IN WASHINGTON

A stone monument of the Ten Commandments that sits on a street behind the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington and was the subject of controversy in the past has been toppled by vandals.

The 3-foot-by-3-foot granite monument weighs 850 pounds and sits out front of the headquarters of Faith and Action, a Christian outreach ministry. The group installed the tablets in a garden outside its offices in 2006, and the group's president said the tablets were angled so that justices arriving at the high court would see them.

The Rev. Robert Schenck, who heads the organization, said the damage to the monument happened sometime between Friday night and Saturday night. A minister who works in the area alerted the group to the damage around 9 p.m. Saturday.

The monument had been pushed over so that the words of the Ten Commandments are now face down. Vandals bent a steel rod that secures the monument to a thick concrete base to an almost 90 degree angle. The monument itself is not damaged, Schenck said.

"Whoever did this was determined to get it done because it's not something you could easily do," Schenck said, adding that the vandals also installed a "For Rent" yard sign by the monument and that the vandalism was reported to police.

Officer Anthony Clay, a Metropolitan Police Department spokesman, said Monday that the case remains open.

Schenck said he did not know how much it would cost to bring the tablets upright, but the organization plans to reinforce the monument and install a security camera that monitors the area. He said they also plan to ask a neighboring organization and the U.S. Supreme Court for their security footage during the time when the monument was vandalized.

Schenck said that he wasn't angry about the damage and that, in a way, the vandals had helped the organization convey important messages: "We all violate the Ten Commandments" and "We all violate God's rules."

The group bought the stone tablets at a charity auction in 2001. They were one of four removed by a federal court order from the fronts of public schools in Adams County, Ohio.

Via: Breitbart
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Obama hides aid for criminals in immigration bill

The White House is trying to hide unpopular provisions in the Senate’s immigration bill that would allow immigrant criminals to stay in the country and would increase the inflow of low-skill refugees from war-torn countries, says a top White House official.

“The bill has a number of other important provisions that have stayed under the radar, and we’d actually like to keep them under the radar,” said Esther Olavarria, the White House’s director of immigration reform.

“We haven’t played [them] up because we want to be able to maintain them as we go through the legislative process,” she told about 50 attendees at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual conference, on Sept. 19.

At the CBC foundation event, Olavarria described the sections in the Senate bill that she’s trying to hide from the public and the GOP.

The first section reverses parts of the 1996 immigration reform, which allowed law-enforcement authorities to deport long-term residents who have committed crimes.

The Senate bill “redefines ‘convictions,’ it redefines ‘sentences,’ to make it more realistic, so individuals who get suspended sentences would not be found inadmissible or deportable under these new provisions,” she told the attendees.

The liberal pre-1996 rule “was a very good provision,” and its revival in the Senate bill will “allow long-time residents who committed minor crimes to be able to stay here,” she said.

By accepting criminals and increasing the inflow of poor refugees, “they’re putting non-citizens in a higher position than native Americans,” said D.A. King, who runs the Dustin Inman Society, which seeks to reduce the annual inflow of legal immigrants.

Via: Daily Caller

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Gingrich: Obama's big debt limit deception

(CNN) -- As a historian and a former speaker of the House who negotiated successfully through two government shutdowns, a successful welfare reform bill, the first tax cut in 16 years and four balanced budgets, I am offended and a little frightened by President Barack Obama's deliberate dishonesty about the debt ceiling.

On Wednesday, speaking to the Business Roundtable, Obama said:

"You have never seen in the history of the United States the debt ceiling or the threat of not raising the debt being used to extort a president or a governing party and trying to force issues that have nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt."

This is just plain false, and he knows it. That he would say something so factually false in a prepared text is very worrisome.

First of all, issues such as Obamacare don't have "nothing to do with the budget" and the idea that it is unusual for Congress to bring them into the debt ceiling debate is absurd. Far from having "nothing to do with the budget and nothing to do with the debt," Obamacare is a major part of the budget, and it is now projected to cost twice what the president promised.

The president's historical claim is completely wrong, as well. Let's set the record straight.

Debt ceilings have been used since President Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s to enable conservatives to put limits on government spending.

Via: CNN

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'OBAMA EXPRESS' GROCERY STORE CAUGHT IN FOOD STAMP TRAFFICKING

After Obama's election in 2009 a small grocery store/convenience store in Florida changed its name to the Obama Express. Several other stores across the country did the same thing. One of those was a location in Baltimore, Maryland. Now, in 2013, the Maryland outlet is under investigation, accused of illegally trafficking in food stamps.

On September 17, WBAL reported that nine retailers in Baltimore County had been arrested for illegally redeeming food stamps for cash and kicking back a portion to food stamp recipients. The retailers did not sell them any merchandise or food.

One of those indicted was one Abdullah Aljaradi who allegedly obtained $2 million in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) cash from Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards.

Abdullah Aljaradi, age 51, of Baltimore; Second Obama Express and D&M Deli and Grocery, 901 Harlem Avenue, Suite A and B, respectively. From October 2010 through July 2013, Aljaradi allegedly obtained more than $2 million in payments for food sales that never occurred.

The office of the US Attorney, District of Maryland, has further information on the charges:

The indictments allege that the defendants exchanged EBT benefits for cash, in violation of the food stamp program rules. The indictments allege that the defendants typically paid half the value of the EBT benefits in cash. To avoid detection, the defendants often debited the funds from the card in multiple transactions over a period of hours or days. As a result of unlawful cash transactions, the defendants obtained more than $6,898,000 in EBT deposits for transactions in which the stores did not provide food.

If convicted, the nine retailers could get 20 years each in jail.

Via: Breitbart

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