Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Obama official once said train-safety cost outweighed benefit

In this May 12, 2015 file photo, emergency personnel work the scene of a deadly train wreck in Philadelphia. Five years ago, federal safety officials proposed requiring video cameras in train cabs, but it didn't happen. That's left a gap as investigators try to unravel last week's fatal Amtrak derailment. Photo: Joseph Kaczmarek, AP Photo/ Joseph Kaczmarek/file / Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- When a Republican lawmaker in 2011 asked an Obama administration Office of Management and Budget official to name regulations where costs were not justified by benefits, the official had a ready answer.
"There is only one big one that comes to mind," said Cass Sunstein, then administrator of the White House OMB's Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs. "It is called Positive Train Control.''
Even though the regulations for the $13.2 billion rail-safety system were mandated by Congress, "monetizable benefits are lower than the monetizable costs," Sunstein told then Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C., at a House Energy & Commerce subcommittee hearing. "There aren't a lot like that.''
Four years later, those words may come back to haunt the Barack Obama White House and Sunstein, who has since returned to teaching law at Harvard. Safety investigators are still trying to piece together how an Amtrak train went off the track in Philadelphia last week, killing eight. It was a crash that a National Transportation Safety Board member, Robert Sumwalt, said might have been prevented had PTC been fully operational.
Sunstein's pooh-poohing of PTC in 2011 is all the more remarkable because the Obama administration's efforts to push forward regulations in a variety of areas -- notably air pollution and climate change -- against Republican accusations that they would cripple the economy.

Clinton campaign aims for style, substance points amid scrutiny


In the weeks since she formally, finally announced her campaign for the presidency in April, Hillary Clinton has sought to score points for style and substance.
Style, to convince Democratic voters that she won't run like an incumbent who views the primaries as a mere formality — a complaint about her 2008 presidential campaign. Substance, to signal her liberal bona fides to Democrats who long for the bank-bashing Sen. Elizabeth Warren to get into the presidential nominating contest.
So Clinton took a road trip halfway across the U.S. from New York to Iowa in a van nicknamed Scooby Doo and stopped to grab a bite at a Chipotle in Ohio. She met with small groups of voters for "roundtable discussions" in which she nodded and listened — much as she did when she began running for the Senate in 2000, breaking ground as the first first lady to run for office.
Early reviews say Clinton has achieved what she set out to do when she launched her campaign on April 12. However, as she looks ahead to the next phase of her presidential bid and tries to continue to avoid the missteps that cost her in 2008, she will be challenged to put forward a clear rationale for her candidacy while dueling with scrutiny from press she has largely kept at bay.

Via: USA Today
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[VIDEO] Crazy Democrat Tries to Say White-on-White Crime Is Pandemic in America …Here Are the Facts

Liberal Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) had a heated exchange today with Sheriff David Clarke during the House Committee hearing on Community Policing.
Rep. Jeffries tried to convince Sheriff Clarke that white-on-white crime was pandemic in America.
Listen to this nonsense.
“Eighty percent of whites kill whites, correct?… Actually it’s 83%. Now is white on white violence a problem in America that we should also have a robust discussion about?”
Seriously?
Now here are the facts…
The truth is that young black men commit homicides at a rate 10 times greater than whites and Hispanics combined.
Blacks also commit twenty-five more assaults against whites than whites do against blacks.
It’s an inconvenient truth.
violent crime stats
Then there’s this…
Gun violence in the inner city is also disproportionately high compared to other areas.
The Secular Right reported this on inner city gun violence.
The most common gun violence, by contrast, is drearily predictable and is the source on average of nearly ten thousand homicides a year. Such violence occurs overwhelmingly in certain locations of cities—over the past 30 years in Boston, for example, 75 percent of the city’s shootings occurred in 4.5% of its area, whereas 88.5 percent of the city’s street segments experienced not a single shooting.
Urban shootings are retaliatory or the product of the most trivial of slights. They are committed by handguns, not assault rifles. Victims and perpetrators usually know each other, absent bullets going astray. Reforming the involuntary commitment laws and beefing up mental health services are largely irrelevant to these shootings, since though the shooters have serious problems with impulse control and are clearly a danger to themselves and others, few would be deemed mentally ill.
And both victims and perpetrators are disproportionately minority, by huge margins. New York City is emblematic of the country’s gun violence. According to victims and witnesses, blacks commit 80% of all shootings in New York, though they are 23% of the city’s residents. Add Hispanics and you account for 98% of all shootings. Whites commit a little over 1% of shootings, though they are 35% of the city’s population. These disproportions pertain across the country.
Similar statistics like these are repeated across the country.

DOCUMENTS: ‘HILLARY CLINTON SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM’ TRANSFORMED INTO NURSING SCHOOL

HRC Nursing
A former Clinton fundraiser committed $6 million dollars to the founding of the Hillary Clinton School of Journalism, made under the umbrella of the Clinton Global Initiative an offshoot of the Clinton Foundation — but the project was renamed”Hillary Rodham Clinton Nursing School” with no explanation a few years later.
Members of the Clinton Global Initiative are asked to make specific “commitments to action” around the world. In 2007, a charity run by former Clinton fundraiser and InfoUSA CEO Vinod Gupta committed to create a school of journalism named after Hillary Clinton in rural India. An explanation of the purpose of the school reads, “This program is expected to have a direct impact upon the lives of approximately 500 students graduating every year from the institute. The goal is to overcome the rural bias against educating young females.”
According to a description on the Clinton Global Initiative website, the journalism school commitment was for $6,000,000 over two years. Much of the money appears to have been directed toward the construction of a new building. A progress update from September 2007 reads, “Phase I of building construction started and targeted to be completed by July 31, 2008.”
2011 archive of the Vinod Gupta Charitable Foundation website shows the “Hillary Rodham Clinton Center for Mass Communication” as one of the facilities being funded by the charity. However, later in 2011 the same building appears under the new heading, “Hillary Rodham Clinton Nursing School.” No explanation of the transition from school of mass communication to school of nursing is offered.
The Hillary Rodham Clinton Nursing School has its own website and is continuing to enroll students.
HRC Prospectus
According to the site the school features up-to-date classrooms, a laboratory, a well-stocked library and a residence designed to host up to 200 students including a kitchen and dining hall. HRC facilities
HRC facilities 2
Here’s the class of 2013-2014:
HRC 2013-2014

The First 100 Days: Your GOP-led Congress

During the 2014 election, our Republican candidates presented solid, sensible solutions — to create jobs, strengthen the economy, gain energy independence, end the Washington gridlock and restore government accountability.
Now 100 days in, the new GOP-led Congress is delivering on these promises. As noted by USA Today, the first three months of the 114th Congress have seen significant bipartisan accomplishments.
For the first time in six years under Obama, both the House and the Senate passed a budget that BALANCES.
The GOP-led Congress also accomplished a feat rarely seen in Washington: passing the first real reform to strengthen Medicare in nearly two decades.
More than that, GOP leaders successfully passed reforms that will begin addressing the problems at the VA, fight the tragedy of human trafficking and protect hardworking taxpayers from government abuse and overreach. Just yesterday, the committee investigating Benghazi uncovered thousands of new pages of documentsdespite Democrats’ claims that there were no more questions to answer and no more information to uncover.
Finally, Congress listened to the 2/3 of Americans who support building the Keystone XL pipeline to boost American energy and job creation. Unlike Harry Reid’s Senate, the new Congress did its job and sent legislation approving the Keystone XL pipeline to the president's desk. 
Unfortunately, Obama chose to ignore the American people, cave to environment extremists, and veto the bill. And now it looks like Hillary Clinton is cozying up to the same people, like billionaire fundraiser Tom Steyer.
While Obama and the Democrats will continue to do everything they can to stand in our way, Republicans will continue to work to move America in the right direction. To do that, we need your input to help set our priorities for the next 100 days and beyond.
Let us know what Congress should tackle next. Take the GOP Leadership Survey.
100 Congress

White House Blames “AWOL” Republicans In Congress For Islamic State Seizing Ramadi…

Because nothing is Obama’s fault… ever.
Screen Shot 2015-05-19 at 4.12.21 PM
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Los Angeles poised to raise minimum wage to $15 an hour

Following the lead of other west coast cities, the Los Angeles city council appears ready to raise the minimum wage from $9 an hour to $15 an hour by 2020.
LA Times:
Workers are currently supposed to earn at least the California state minimum wage of $9 an hour, which will rise to $10 an hour in January. Under a plan endorsed by a key panel of City Council members last week, Los Angeles would increase its required wage year-by-year to reach a minimum of $15 hourly by July 2020 
Small businesses -- those with 25 workers or fewer -- would get an additional year to phase in the increases. Nonprofits that meet certain requirements could ask permission to do the same.
Under the plan, the wage requirements would continue to rise automatically every year starting in July 2022, based on the average increase in the consumer price index over the previous two decades. 
The wage proposal would hike pay more slowly than some activists wanted. But leaders in the Raise the Wage Coalition nonetheless heralded it last week as a sound plan to improve the standard of living for low-income workers and their families.
Via: American Thinker

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White House Says ISIS Strategy Is A SUCCESS!!??

The Right Scoop
I’m not sure how more insane the White House response can get to the news that the key city of Ramadi has fallen to ISIS.

Chelsea’s difficult personality chasing out Clinton Foundation staffers, sources reveal

Chelsea’s chasing them out!

Sources near the Clinton Foundation are divulging inside secrets and attributing the organization’s high turnover rate to Chelsea Clinton’s difficult personality.

clinton 3
“A lot of people left because she was there. A lot of people left because she didn’t want them there,” a source told The New York Post’s Page Six.
“She is very difficult.”

Chelsea reportedly manipulates  top staffers like pieces on a checker board, prompting many to quit in disgust.
Previous CEO Bruce Lindsey was pushed to the position of chairman of the board two years ago so Chelsea could bring in an old colleague, Eric Braverman, according to the Post.

But even that didn’t last long.

“[Braverman] was her boy, but he tried to hire his own communications professional and actually tried to run the place,” an insider told the Post.


“He didn’t understand that that wasn’t what he was supposed to be doing. He was pushed out.
Chelsea has embraced living high-on-the-hog as a corporate CEO and employs a personal staff almost as big as her father’s, according to the Post.

Chelsea who once commanded a $600,000 per year salary from NBC for doing virtually nothing, was apparently no easier to work with while working there, and co-workers allegedly called her “unapproachable.”


“If someone wanted to talk to Chelsea about something, they had to go through a producer,” an NBC source told the Post.

According to the Post, the high turnover rate at the Clinton Foundation also includes Matt McKenna, Chelsea’s ex-spokesman, and Ginny Ehrlich, founding CEO of the Clinton Health Matters Initiative, who now works for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Amidst growing scandals revolving around allegations that the Clinton Foundation has become a giant slush fund for Bill, Hillary and Chelsea, foundation loyalists are disheartened.

“The operational planning has gone downhill,” a source told the Post.
“It’s sad to see what’s happening.”

Via: BIZPAC Review

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House GOPers demand IRS investigate Clinton Foundation

Hillary Rodham Clinton, with husband Bill and daughter Chelsea (The Washington Times) **FILE**
House Republicans on Tuesday demanded the IRS open an investigation into the Clinton Foundation’s tax-exempt status, questioning whether the organization has broken faith with its charitable mission by hiding some donations.
The foundation, associated with former President Bill Clinton, his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, and their daughter, has been in the news as Mrs. Clinton’s campaign ramps up.
Foundation officials have admitted they made an “error” in inaccurately reporting certain types of grants, and have had to correct their filings.


“Media reports containing specific allegations have cast a cloud over the Clinton Foundation and call into question whether it is acting within the scope of its charitable mission for which it was originally granted tax-exempt status,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, Tennessee Republican, who led the letter, signed by 51 other House lawmakers.
The letter was to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen, and accused the foundation of using “the cloak of philanthropy” to facilitate major business deals for Clinton pals — including during the time Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state in the Obama administration.
The Clinton Foundation didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Via: Washington Times
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NURTURED BY CLINTON NETWORK, O'MALLEY NOW BECOMES 2016 RIVAL

WASHINGTON (AP) -- More than a decade ago, Bill Clinton spotted a political star in the making, someone he predicted would go from a big-city mayor to a national leader - maybe even to the White House. "I won't be surprised if you go all the way," Clinton wrote in a 2002 letter to Baltimore's mayor, Martin O'Malley.

In the years that followed, Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton showed up time and again as their young ally gained stature as governor of Maryland, hosting fundraisers, headlining rallies and connecting him to their sprawling network of political donors.

Now, O'Malley is just days away from walking down the path Clinton laid out for him more than a decade ago, as he prepares to announce his presidential campaign in Baltimore on May 30. And that means transforming himself from one of Hillary Clinton's most loyal supporters into her chief adversary for the Democratic nomination.

"It's certainly been a long and friendly relationship," said Steve Kearney, a former O'Malley aide. "Times change. He clearly thought she was the best candidate in 2008. We'll find out whether that remains true today."

Via: AP

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31M Left Underinsured by High Healthcare Costs: Report

Roughly one-quarter of people with health insurance are paying deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses that are so high they are considered underinsured, a new study has found.

The 2014 national health insurance survey by the Commonwealth Fund estimates that 31 million insured people are not sufficiently protected against high healthcare costs, a figure that has doubled since 2003, The Hill reported. 

The report said that rising deductibles is the biggest problem for those considered underinsured, even with the advent of Obamacare.

"The steady growth in the proliferation and size of deductibles threatens to increase underinsurance in the years ahead," the report warns, according to The Hill.

The survey also found that people who purchase the lowest quality health coverage are also less likely to see a doctor when sick or injured because they fear high out-of-pocket costs.

"People who have high deductibles do tend to skimp on healthcare," the study's lead author, Sara Collins, told reporters, according to The Hill.

According to the report, half of underinsured adults and 41 percent of privately insured adults with deductibles of at least $1,000 had medical bills totaling $4,000 or more. 

Via: Newsmax


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Dem. Congressman With Millions in Legal Bills Demands Pay Raise

Alcee Hastings
Alcee Hastings / AP
BY: 
A Democratic congressman who still owes millions of dollars in legal bills racked up while fighting corruption allegations said on Monday that members of Congress need a raise in order to cope with the District of  A Democratic congressman who still owes millions of dollars in legal bills racked up while fighting corruption allegations said on Monday that members of Congress need a raise in order to cope with the District of Columbia’s rising cost of living.
Rep. Alcee Hastings (D., Fla.) said at a Monday Rules Committee hearing that members of Congress, who make an average of $174,000 per year, “aren’t being paid properly.”
“Members deserve to be paid, staff deserves to be paid and the cost of living here is causing serious problems for people who are not wealthy to serve in this institution,” he said.
Observers scoffed at the comments, saying congressional pay and benefits are quite generous.
“Aside from access to subsidized travel, gym memberships, haircuts, and the like, congressmen have a retirement plan which averages about $40,000 a year for retired members,” said Ken Boehm, chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center, an ethics watchdog.
The average D.C. resident makes just under $60,000 per year, according to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Unlike most D.C. residents, members of Congress “have an automatic cost-of-living raise each year unless there is a vote to decline the raise,” Boehm noted.
Hastings is far from wealthy: he has the second-lowest net worth of any member of Congress. However, his own financial troubles may have less to do with the cost of living in D.C. than the exorbitant legal fees he amassed since the 1980s.
According to his most recent personal financial disclosures, Hastings is as much as $7.5 million in debt. With the exception of a 2009 mortgage on which he owes up to $250,000, all of those debts are legal fees stemming from decades-old corruption charges.

CNN Panel Explodes over Media Calling Baltimore Rioters ‘Thugs,’ but Not Waco Bikers

Screen Shot 2015-05-19 at 3.03.46 PMA CNN panel earlier this afternoon really went off over the media referring to the Baltimore rioters as “thugs,” but avoiding that label in talking about the Waco biker gangsCharles Blow and Sally Kohn agreed there’s a big double standard, while ex-NYPD detective Harry Houck said the comparison’s tremendously unfair.
Blow said it’s not just about white people, since President Obama and the mayor of Baltimore used the t-word to describe the rioters, but about “a culture that looks at blackness and says it sounds like a certain thing.”
Kohn added that no one ever notes the race of white shooters or talks about a “whiteness” problem when it comes to certain acts of violence.
Houck rejected the comparison and said that of course the bikers are thugs. As for the term itself, he said that he mean[s] ‘bad guy’ when I use the word,” and the reason it’s ascribed more to blacks is because it was embraced by the rap community. Blow told him he was way off on that one.
The second segment involved a lot more crosstalk and shouting, as Houck scolded Kohn and Blow for their “talking points” and them insisting there’s a serious problem with the pathologizing of the black community. Houck just told them to “quit looking at the past” and coming up with “excuses

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