Conservative Happenings

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Lois Lerner retires---courtesy of the American taxpayer

And Her Troubles are Just Beginning.

Top IRS official Lois Lerner has now "retired

Lerner, under fire since she confessed on May 10, 2013, that the IRS had singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for extra scrutiny, had been on paid leave while revelation after revelation demonstrated that she was not only instrumental in targeting Tea Party groups, but she also misled the American public when the agency "confessed" to IRS wrongdoing.

In fact, nothing about her original story has proven true. In May, she claimed that low-level officials applied extra scrutiny to conservative groups, that this scrutiny was “wrong,” and that the IRS put a stop to it when it learned of the abuse.

All these assertions were wrong.

Leaked documents show that Lerner, former Director of IRS Exempt Organizations, saw the Tea Party applications as "extremely dangerous,"

The documents show she took the lead in yanking their applications for tax exempt status from Cincinnati to Washington, D.C. -- where they were ultimately scrutinized in the IRS Chief Counsel's office -- and she hoped that the Federal Election Commission would "save the day" from conservative electoral gains.

Yet no other federal agency had to "save the day," as the IRS conducted its systematic targeting of conservatives and then kept targeting them even after approving their applications for tax exemption, actions that had an undeniable impact on conservative advocacy.

In other words, rather than providing the solution, Lerner was a key part of the problem.

As the evidence of her wrongdoing quickly piled up, Lerner improperly pled the Fifth Amendment before a congressional panel, proclaiming her innocence before refusing to speak – a move that would never work in federal court.

Via: Fox News

DOJ, IRS Grant True the Vote Tax-exempt Status

The scandal-scarred IRS has agreed to grant tax-exempt status to True the Vote, the Texas-based “election integrity” group that became one of the tea party and conservative organizations targeted by the tax collector.

True the Vote announced Monday the IRS and the Justice Department consented late Friday to grant its application for 501(c)(3) status.

Editor's Note: Should ObamaCare Be Defunded? Vote in Urgent National Poll

True the Vote calls itself a voters' rights organization, and was involved in efforts cleaning up voter rolls in some states, deterring fraud in Texas elections and verifying signatures in the Wisconsin governor recall election, according to the Washington Times

But earlier this year, the group discovered it was among a slew of applications the IRS had been scrutinizing and turned around to sue the agency to force it to approve the application.

News of the Internal Revenue Service decision came the same day the retirement of Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the center of the agency's tea party scandal, was announced.

True the Vote lawyer Cleta Mitchell said the fight with the IRS is far from over.

“This lawsuit is about getting to the truth and we are not going to stop until we find out the answers to these and many other questions,” Ms. Mitchell said.

Mitchell said the IRS still needs to answer for the costs and damages that resulted from the three-year delay, and to explain why they were looking at information the IRS's internal auditor says wasn't necessary for them to make a decision.

“We are pleased and relieved that the IRS and the DOJ are finally doing what should have been done three years ago, which is to recognize TTV as a charitable and educational organization, which we have always been and will continue to be,” True The Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht said in a statement to Breitbart News.

The group first filed for tax-exempt status in July 2010. With the belate

Via: Newsmax

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Green Energy Co. Folds after Obama gives it $99.8 Mil

For the third time in just a few months, another one of President Obama’s alternative energy ventures has failed after getting tens of millions of dollars from American taxpayers. It’s a tired old story that nevertheless keeps repeating itself as the administration moves forward with an aggressive plan to make America green.

This month’s failed green experiment du jour features a company (ECOtality) that makes charging stations for electric cars. Like many of the other bankrupt businesses that have received government handouts, it’s situated in northern California and Uncle Sam gave it $99.8 million before it collapsed. The cash was doled out by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which has distributed hundreds of millions of dollars for similar projects.

ECOtality was supposed to make charging stations for electric cars but instead it filed for bankruptcy which means that, once again, American taxpayers have been fleeced by another one of Obama’s alternative energy ventures. Get this; the company attributes its financial problems to “disappointing sales” and “a suspension of payments from the federal government.”

In the last few months two different fly-by-night companies went down after getting large sums from the government for their failed ventures. The first was Fisker Automotive, which received nearly $200 million to develop a wheelchair-accessible “green” van. The startup had been heavily touted by the administration as an innovator that would develop two lines of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that could run up to 300 miles on a rechargeable Lithium-ion battery. In fact, the Obama administration planned to give Fisker $528 million but the cash finally stopped flowing when the company laid off three quarters of its employees and announced it was on the verge of bankruptcy.

Soon after Fisker’s collapse another startup called Vehicle Production Group (VPG) went under after losing $50 million in taxpayer funds. VPG was supposed to create special vans for the disabled that run on compressed natural gas. Here’s how the Obama administration justified funding this experiment with public dollars: “This project invests in a socially and environmentally responsible product that will create new jobs, promote the use of alternative fuels, and help the U.S. maintain its competitive edge in the automotive industry.” The DOE has since taken the page down, but we got the quote straight from the agency’s announcement touting VPG.

There have been many other clean energy ventures that have also failed miserably after receiving exorbitant allocations from American taxpayers. Remember Solyndra, the northern California solar panel company—bankrolled by Obama fundraiser George Kaiser—that folded after getting $529 million from the government?

Despite the “serious concerns” of U.S. Treasury officials about the risky infusion, a federal audit exposed how the controversial deal was suspiciously rushed through for a politically-connected entrepreneur that had raised large sums for Obama. Judicial Watch is investigating the Solyndra scandal and has sued the administration for records related to the shady deal.

Then there’s the administration’s multi-million-dollar investment in “green jobs’ that will never exist. A few months ago afederal audit revealed that the government has blown half a billion dollars to train workers for the fantasy positions to fulfill Obama’s promise of creating 5 million green jobs over the next decade. It’s simply not happening and only half of the trainees in the program get work, most in areas unrelated to renewable energy.

Via: Judicial Watch

Sarah Palin is Right

This is not some sort of bait-and-switch where the Palin-hating liberal swoops in with a zinger, this is for real: Sarah Palin is actually right about something. Furthermore, she’s not just a little bit right, she doesn’t just have a point, the former Alaska Governor is absolutely, 100% right. While you arrange your lambs in snuggly positions with your lions, let me explain. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace revealed, yesterday, that “top Republicans” had sent him unsolicited oppo research and questions for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

Former Governor Palin (R-AK) tweeted, on Sunday, that Wallace ought to reveal which sources had sent him the dirt on Cruz. She tweeted “@FoxNewsSunday Keep it TRULY fair & balanced. Release the GOP names encouraging you to trash @SenTedCruz. No more anonymous sources.”

Many Republicans are angry with Cruz for engineering a strategy that has the House GOP demanding a government shutdown and/or default if Obamacare is not de-funded. Presumably, the research sent to Wallace was intended to undercut Cruz, and perhaps trip him up. Palin’s tweet appears to have been motivated, in part, by affinity for Cruz, but also a well-earned contempt for anonymously-sourced news. Regardless of her motives, though, Palin is on firm journalistic footing with her demand.

Oppo research like this typically makes its way too a reporter in one of two ways: either as a general blast to journalists, with no attempt to hide the source, or as a specific package delivered to a particular reporter. Wallace’s is obviously in the latter category. Oppo deliveries like this are usually appended with language like “off the record” or “not for attribution,” or are generally understood to be off the record. They don’t need to be on the record because they typically don’t consist of new reporting, but rather, point the reporter toward existing reporting that he can verify independently.

The catch is that an unsolicited email, even if marked “off the record,” or understood to be off the record, isn’t actually off the record until the reporter agrees it is. We generally don’t burn sources in these cases because it isn’t usually newsworthy, and a source that feels burned won’t ever be a source for you again. There are rare exceptions. It was less newsworthy that Barack Obama once wore a Muslim-y outfit than it was that Hillary Clinton‘s campaign wanted people to know that.

This might be the reasoning that Wallace used in not revealing the source of the information, that even if it wasn’t technically off the record, he wished to honor the spirit of that unspoken agreement. If that’s the case, though, then he had no business revealing that the research even existed; that, in and of itself, would be a violation of off the record communication.

The reason he revealed it was that the source itself was newsworthy, that “top Republicans” were trying to undercut Ted Cruz. If the public has an interest in knowing that, then they surely have an even greater interest in knowing which top Republicans were doing it. Simply put, something can’t be a little bit off the record, any more than you can be a little bit pregnant. If Wallace concealed his source because they were off the record then he shouldn’t have mentioned it at all. If he was serving the public interest in revealing it, then he abdicated that interest by not revealing the source of the oppo research, and the contents of it. Sarah Palin is right, he should come clean.

Via: Mediaite.com

Samuel L. Jackson to Obama: ‘Stop Trying to Relate’ and ‘Be F*cking Presidential’

Samuel L. Jackson has some harsh criticism for President Obama in a new interview with Playboy. The actor was lamenting the fact that it now appears to be “politically cool” for “white guys” on TV to use terms like “Pump your brakes” and “I got you” when speaking to black people. “We do still speak English, right?” he asked. “How the fuck did we become a society where mediocrity is acceptable?”

“Or one in which President Obama or other highly educated Americans consciously drop gs off the ends of words to sound like Joe Average?” Playboy’s Stephen Rebello suggested. This led Jackson to issue his tough words for the president:

“First of all, we know it ain’t because of his blackness, so I say stop trying to ‘relate.’ Be a leader. Be fucking presidential. Look, I grew up in a society where I could say ‘It ain’t’ or ‘What it be’ to my friends. But when I’m out presenting myself to the world as me, who graduated from college, who had family who cared about me, who has a well-read background, I fucking conjugate.”

At the same time, Jackson reaffirmed that he would like to see Obama get “scary” in certain situations that call for some anger. “He got a little heated about the kids getting killed in Newtown and about the gun law,” Jackson said. “He’s still a safe dude.”

But, he also said, “If Hillary Clinton decides to run, she’s going to kick their fucking asses, and those motherfuckers would rather see the country go down in flames than let the times change.”

Via: Mediate.com

90% of Top Newspaper Headlines Censor Islam in Nairobi, Pakistan Attacks

Dare a top newspaper journalist to play connect-the-dots and chances are he’ll fail miserably – at least with drawing the line between Islam and terrorism. In Nairobi, Kenya last weekend, Islamist militants took over a high-end shopping mall and began executing non-Muslims. In Pakistan, Islamist suicide bombers detonated at a Christian Church on Sunday.

Yet on Monday, September 23, 90 percent of the top ten (via circulation numbers) daily newspapers’ headlines in the United States censored the words “Islam” and Muslim” from Nairobi and Pakistan reports. One – the New York Daily News – didn’t even have a headline for the latest Islamic terrorist attacks. That’s journalism at its finest.

The Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) headline by Heidi Vogt announced that “Assault on Mall Stuns Kenya” and called the act a “terrorist attack” by “armed militants.” In a small reference to the Pakistan Christian fatalities, the newspaper credited a group linked with the “Pakistan Taliban.”

As the second most popular newspaper after the WSJ, The New York Times proclaimed “Carnage In Mall Shows Resilience of Terror Group” for an article by Nicholas Kulish, Mark Mazzetti and Eric Schmitt. In fact, on the front page the Times used every description but the Islamic connection to describe the aggressors: “the ferocious armed political movement known as the Shabab” – with ties to Al Qaeda and Boko Haram.

Only USA Today (number three in circulation) broke Islam silence with a headline admitting, “Islamists kill dozens in Kenya and Pakistan” (under an even larger headline: “Two New Terror Attacks”). Jim Michaels and William W. Welch’s story detailed how “Islamic extremists unleashed bloody attacks.” For Pakistan, the reporters called Sunday’s two suicide bombers assault “the deadliest-ever attack against the nation’s Christian minority” and included a picture with a caption describing, “a relative of victims of the Christian church bombings.”

Via: Newsbustrers

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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

[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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[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

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

Monday, September 23, 2013

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

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

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

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