70 Straight Days: Treasury Says Debt Stuck at Exactly $16,699,396,000,000.00

(CNSNews.com) - According to the Daily Treasury Statement for July 26, which the Treasury released this afternoon, the federal debt has been stuck at exactly $16,699,396,000,000.00 for 70 straight days.

That is approximately $25 million below the legal limit of $16,699,421,095,673.60 that Congress has imposed on the debt.

The portion of the federal debt subject to the legal limit set by Congress first hit $16,699,396,000,000.00 at the close of business on May 17. At the close of every business day since then, it has also been $16,699,396,000,000.00, according to the official accounting published by the Treasury Department.

If the debt had increased by even $30 million at any time during those 70 days, it would have exceeded the statutory limit. But, according to the Treasury, the debt did not do that. Instead, it remained precisely $16,699,396,000,000.00.

Even though the government's official accounting of the debt has not budged for 70 days, the Treasury has continued to sell bills, notes and bonds at a value that exceeds the value of the bills, notes and bonds it was redeeming.

In fact, according to the Daily Treasury Statement for May 17, the Treasury had by then already redeemed approximately $4,776,995,000,000.00 since the beginning of the fiscal year (which started on Oct. 1, 2012). As of that same day, the Treasury had already sold $5,354,508,000.000.00 new bills, notes and bonds during the fiscal year. That represented a net increase in publicly circulating U.S. government debt instruments of $577,513,000,000.00 for the fiscal year.

Via: CNS News

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Beware of Fatal Distraction. By Al Sharpton

This Monday afternoon I, along with a dozen other civil rights and voting rights leaders, joined President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder as we briefed them on our outrage at the Supreme Court's recent decision gutting Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. An unprecedented affront to one of the major achievements of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, the elimination of Section 4 is nothing more than a strategic maneuver to destroy voter equality. On my way to Washington, D.C., I happened to be on the same flight as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. When we landed, she and I had an impromptu conversation on this very issue, and I updated her on the August 24th march that National Action Network (NAN) and Martin Luther King III have planned to commemorate the 50thanniversary of the 'March on Washington' where his father delivered his historic 'I Have a Dream' speech. Today, as we continue to deal with the fight against 'Stand Your Ground' laws that set the climate for the George Zimmerman verdict, as well as the attack on voting rights, it's becoming apparent that the politics of distraction are in full effect. The chatter is being drummed up by people like Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, and cosigned by others like Don Lemon of CNN. Nice try, but we see you.

It's simply amazing how many on the right who never cared about 'Black issues,' or the fact that our youth are facing unequal access to education, jobs, housing and higher rates of incarceration, now suddenly want to act as if they are so concerned about what's going on with us. Shortly after participating in the President's inauguration activities this year, a 15-year-old honor student by the name of Hadiya Pendleton was viciously killed by a stray bullet just blocks from her school in Chicago. The first national show that her mother appeared on was my broadcast, 'Politics Nation' on MSNBC. President Obama invited the young girl's family to his State of the Union address, and the first lady even attended her funeral. Where was O'Reilly then? The issue of rampant gun violence in the community is one that I have been dealing with for years at NAN, as well as on my TV and radio programs. What has O'Reilly done to raise awareness? NAN has a chapter in Chicago that works directly on the ground with those suffering from the ramifications of violence and more on a daily basis; they console, comfort and fight for grieving families to bring an end to the destruction. I haven't seen O'Reilly at any of those meetings. And let's not pretend that the problem of excessive gun violence is cities like Chicago isn't the direct result of inadequate gun laws in the state of Illinois that make it extremely easy for people to purchase deadly weapons outside of the windy city and bring them back into their neighborhoods. If O'Reilly is so concerned about Chicago's violence, then maybe he and his cohorts should do something about gun laws in that state and around the country.

Via: Huffington Post

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SEN. SESSIONS' PLAN TO FLIP IMMIGRATION DEBATE

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) has sent a thought-provoking new memorandum to his GOP colleagues, laying out how the Republican Party can turn the ongoing immigration debate in Congress around so conservatives win and liberals and Democrats lose.

“The GOP needs to flip the immigration debate on its head,” Sessions writes in the memo. “The same set of GOP strategists, lobbyists, and donors who have always favored a proposal like the Gang of Eight immigration bill argue that the great lesson of the 2012 election is that the GOP needs to push for immediate amnesty and a drastic surge in low-skill immigration. This is nonsense.”

Sessions challenges the conventional wisdom and long-held establishment misnomer that Republicans lost the 2012 election because of the Hispanic vote. “The GOP lost the election--as exit polls clearly show--because it hemorrhaged support from middle- and low-income Americans of all backgrounds,” he argues.

“In changing the terms of the immigration debate we will not only prevent the implementation of a disastrous policy, but begin a larger effort to broaden our appeal to working Americans of all backgrounds,” Sessions says Republicans should do to turn the immigration debate around. “Now is the time to speak directly to the real and legitimate concerns of millions of hurting Americans whose wages have declined and whose job prospects have grown only bleaker. This humble and honest populism--in contrast to the Administration’s cheap demagoguery--would open the ears of millions who have turned away from our party. Of course, such a clear and honest message would require saying ‘no’ to certain business demands and powerful interests who shaped the immigration bill in the Senate.”

Sessions argues that what Democrats did in the Senate to pass the “Gang of Eight” bill would “ordinarily” be an “act of political suicide” for them.

Via: Breitbart

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Could ObamaCare Be Used as Detroit's Federal Bailout?

Michelle Malkin: ObamaCare Turned Into 'the Mother of All Bailout Vehicles'

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FOX NEWS INSIDER - Part of Detroit's bankruptcy plan could include shifting retiree health care costs to federal taxpayers, through ObamaCare health exchanges. The New York Times reported today that the city is eyeing the controversial solution as a way to get health care coverage for public retirees who are too young to qualify for Medicare.

Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/07/29/michelle-malkin-obamacare-turned-mother-all-bailout-vehicles#ixzz2aTCjZ6fi

FROM AMERICA LIVE WITH MEGYN KELLY //JUL 29 2013 // 2:13PM

AS SEEN ON AMERICA LIVE WITH MEGYN KELLY

Part of Detroit's bankruptcy plan could include shifting retiree health care costs to federal taxpayers, through ObamaCare health exchanges. The New York Times reported today that the city is eyeing the controversial solution as a way to get health care coverage for public retirees who are too young to qualify for Medicare.

You can read more about the plan at Foxnews.com.

Shannon Bream went over the idea with Michelle Malkin, pointing out that the Obama administration has said that Americans won't be asked to bail out Detroit and asking whether this is a "back door" way to use federal tax dollars to help Detroit.

"I really think that this is a front door bailout and it's turned ObamaCare into the mother of all bailout vehicles," said Malkin, calling it a "huge injustice" to responsible taxpayers and to people who live in places "that have not racked up these massive unfunded liabilities."

For the latest on the GOP's battle to defund ObamaCare, tune in to Hannity, tonight at 9p/12a ET!

Via: Fox Insider

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Besting Barry through Chattering Class Communication

Blog it! Write it! Tweet it! Skype It! Shout it! ‘Like’ it!

The most effective way to survive President Barack Obama is to keep right on doing what he doesn’t want you to do.  In one word: Communicate.

These are the days when Communication is more important than most anything else. Communicate to as many others as you can by every means possible.  Communication is how Obama keeps his control over America.

Patriots taking a page out of Obama’s book will one day turn the tables on the most anti-American president in history.

While he takes away jobs and deliberately stokes racial unrest, Obama wants you to suffer in silence. 

Don’t comply.

“He’s stealing our country!”  “He’s canceling the Constitution!”  “He’s disappearing individual rights!”  “He’s impersonating the Creator!”

Shout it from the rooftops!

Blog it!  Write it! Tweet it! Skype It!  Shout it!  ‘Like’ it!

Talk it up among your friends.  Put back real meaning in the term ‘Chattering Classes’.  Make yours ‘The Chattering Classes of all Time’.

Be like the iconic 9/11 picture of the firemen raising the flag at Ground Zero that almost never made it to the National September 11 Memorial and Museum all because it was deemed by Museum Creative Director Michael Shulan as “too rah-rah American”

.

When you have an American president traveling the globe putting down America, when he’s not at home working on fundamentally transforming America, it is impossible to be “too rah-rah American”.

Don’t worry about a mainstream media in the tank for Obama and ignoring the news that matters.

Patriots prefer the Internet over the mainstream media.  The pentagon’s so worried about it that this is the headline on Drudge this morning: ‘Pentagon vows American people should hear it from us, not as scoop on DRUDGE REPORT’.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Legal group requests IRS investigation into organization promoting Obamacare

A conservative legal group has filed a complaint with the Internal Revenue Service calling for an investigation into the tax status of a group responsible for promoting Obamacare.

Enroll America is a nonprofit, with ties to the Obama administration, whose mission is to “maximize” the number of uninsured Americans enrolling in health care options under Obamacare.

According to the complaint, filed Monday by Cause of Action, Enroll America should not have been classified as a 501(c)(3) and is in violation of the tax code as it operates more like a trade association and benefits private companies represented by the members on its board of directors and advisory council.

Dan Epstein, executive director of Cause of Action, explained to The Daily Caller that the charitable distinction should not apply to Enroll America.

“If everything that the organization does can be done by a for-profit, it already frames the organization as not having a charitable purpose,” Epstein said.

The complaint names three board members with “significant ties to for-profit healthcare providers” and “extensive experience lobbying executive branch officials regarding the Affordable Care Act” as well as six organizations on Enroll America’s advisory council that “have a vested commercial interest in the sale of health insurance policies through the state health benefit exchanges, and which actively lobby the federal government on healthcare related issues.”

“In short, insiders with substantial control over the organization and for-profit healthcare providers are unlawfully receiving a private benefit from its activities, and the earnings and assets of the organization are therefore inuring to their benefit,” Epstein wrote in his complaint letter.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has come under fire from Republican lawmakers in recent months for her fundraising efforts on behalf of the organization, soliciting donations from the healthcare companies HHS regulates.

Via: The Daily Caller

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As Treasury Secretary Dodges Questions on Investigation, IRS Scandal WIDENS

Issa expanding probe into IRS scrutiny of conservative groups
By Peter Schroeder, The Hill
  
The Internal Revenue Service subjected already tax-exempt conservative groups to additional scrutiny, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) charged on Monday.
Issa said his committee would expand its probe into improper targeting of political groups to determine if the agency systematically reviewed conservative groups years after they had already been granted tax exemption.

"It has come to the attention of the committee that in addition to inappropriate treatment given to some applicants for tax-exempt status, existing organizations already recognized as tax-exempt by the IRS, appear to have faced questionable treatment by the IRS," he wrote in a letter to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) Monday. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), an Oversight subcommittee chairman, also signed on to the request for another investigation.

For example, Issa said the Virginia-based Leadership Institute was audited in 2011 and 2012 for activities it engaged in during the 2008 election year, even though it had functioned as a tax-exempt organization since 1979.

Issa said the group faced "invasive questions," including questions about interns and where they went on to work. The Institute told Issa it ended up turning over 23,000 pages of documents at a cost of roughly $50,000 to comply with the query.

The Institute states on its website that its mission is to "increase the number and effectiveness of conservative activists and leaders in the public policy process." It also includes a disclaimer at the bottom of its website stating that it is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization, and does not endorse or oppose candidates or legislation.

Joseph Metzger, the vice president of finance at the Institute, told The Hill that the group had previously been audited twice before, once under President Clinton and again under President Reagan.

Via: Fox News
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Congressional Black Caucus recommends Sheila Jackson Lee for Homeland Security Secretary

THERE GOES WHATS LEFT OF THE SOUTHERN BORDER!!!

Conservative bloggers went wild Monday when they got wind of the Congressional Black Caucus’ suggestion that President Obama pick Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston for the post of Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

Rich Cooper, avid blogger for Security Debrief, responded to the news of the Jackson Lee recommendation in a post by saying, “Apparently, it is not a joke. For reasons that baffle any sense of reality, it is a serious gesture on the part of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to encourage President Obama to nominate Rep. Jackson Lee as a replacement for outgoing-DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano.”

A letter  dated July 25 and signed by CBC Chairwoman Rep. Marcia Fudge, an Ohio Democrat, urges President Barack Obama to consider Jackson Lee for the position formerly held by Janet Napolitano, the first woman to hold the position. Napolitano resigned earlier this month to become president of the University of California.

“Representative Jackson Lee would serve as an effective DHS Secretary because she understands the importance of increasing border security and maintaining homeland security,” the nomination letter reads.

Since entering Congress in 1995, Jackson Lee has served on several committees, including Foreign Affairs, Judiciary and Homeland Security, in which she was the Chairwoman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation Security and Infrastructure Protection.

“As Chairwoman, Representative Jackson Lee supported increased airplane cargo inspections and increased security for railroads, issues of great importance to the security of this nation and its citizens,” the letter continues.

Jackson Lee currently holds the post of Ranking Member of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, a position that the CBC says she “stands as a strong and honest ‘voice of reason.’”

Via: Houston Chronicle

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Bloomberg gun-control group facing internal backlash amid growing profile

Mayors Defect From Anti-Gun Group

WASHINGTON –  New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is losing part of his arsenal of local leaders as more and more long-time members of his gun-control group Mayors Against Illegal Guns say they aren’t happy with the coalition’s trajectory and want out.

While the group apparently is growing in membership overall amid an effort to assume a larger profile in the national gun debate, it's turning some members off. In the past five months, 50 members of the group have quit. Many say they did so because the organization abandoned its mission statement of going after illegal guns, and instead used its political clout to go after lawmakers who supported gun rights.

Most recently, the mayors of Rockford, Ill., and Nashua, N.H., dropped out after saying they felt misled by Bloomberg.

Nashua Mayor Donnalee Lozeau says she called it quits after the group launched television attack ads against New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte. Ayotte voted against legislation that would have expanded background checks to cover almost every gun purchase in the country.

“I said, ‘Wait a minute. I don’t want to be part of something like that,’” Lozeau told The Manchester Union Leader. “I told them, ‘You’re Mayors Against Illegal Guns; you’re not mayors for gun control.’”

Rockford’s three-term independent Mayor Lawrence Morrissey bowed out over similar concerns.

Via Fox News

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Republicans hit Obama on Keystone

Senior Capitol Hill Republicans hope to transform President Obama’s comments that downplay the number of potential Keystone XL pipeline jobs into a political liability as the White House focuses heavily on the economy.

“President Obama has resorted to a curious tactic in the administration's latest pivot back to jobs and the economy — disparage and dismiss jobs,” said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, in a statement Monday.

Upton’s comment is part of wider GOP and industry pushback against Obama, who said that there’s “no evidence” Keystone would be a major jobs engine.

Obama, in a New York Times interview published Saturday, said TransCanada Corp.’s proposed pipeline would create an estimated 2,000 jobs during construction, and noted it’s a “blip” relative to the need.

“Just days after the president’s most recent ‘pivot’ to the economy, we were more than a little stunned by his cavalier attitude about the new and needed jobs that Keystone XL would unquestionably create,” said Robert Dillon, a spokesman for Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
Industry and GOP critics, including Upton and Murkowski, also allege Obama is badly low-balling the jobs potential of the project that would bring oil from Canadian oil sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries.

Here’s more from the Times transcript of Obama’s interview:

“[M]y hope would be that any reporter who is looking at the facts would take the time to confirm that the most realistic estimates are this might create maybe 2,000 jobs during the construction of the pipeline — which might take a year or two — and then after that we’re talking about somewhere between 50 and 100 [chuckles] jobs in a economy of 150 million working people,” Obama said.

Dillon, Murkowski’s aide, said that even those estimates were right, the project would be worth it.

“[L]et’s stipulate that the president is somehow correct, and Keystone XL creates 'maybe' 2,000 construction jobs and then an apparently 'chuckle'-worthy 50-100 permanent jobs. We would contend that with unemployment at 7.6%, and millions of Americans in need of a high-paying job, this project is absolutely worth approving on that basis,” Dillon said in an email to reporters.

TransCanada’s permit application remains under federal review, and Obama reiterated in the new interview that he won’t approve the project unless he’s sure it won’t significantly add to carbon pollution.

Via: The Hill

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