[CARTOON] Democrats Face Reality

Via: California Political Review

Protesters Take Control Of Kiev As President Flees Capital

The Ukrainian parliament voted to set early elections for May 25 after declaring President Viktor Yanukovych unable to carry out constitutional duties.

The decision comes just hours after embattled Yanukovych said he wouldn't respect any decisions made by parliament.

Yanukovych stated Saturday that he has no intention to resign, and called the political crisis a coup while saying it resembles the rise of the Nazis in the 1930s.

The agreement reached Friday between Yanukovych and leaders of the opposition protests that have brought Ukraine into crisis called for early elections that were  to be held no later than December, and constitutional reforms to reduce the president's powers.

But the possibility that he could remain in office for the rest of the year angered protesters who want his immediate departure, and said the deal did not address what triggered the protests in November -- Yankuvych's abandonment of closer ties with the European Union in favor of a bailout deal with longtime ruler Russia.

Protesters took control of Ukraine’s capital on Saturday, seizing the president’s office as parliament sought to oust him and form a new government. An aide to President Viktor Yanukovych said he had left Kiev for his support base in the country’s Russian-speaking east, but that he has no intention of abandoning power.

Yanukovych left Kiev for Kharkiv, where governors, provincial officials and legislators gathered. Top Russian lawmakers joined the meeting, too, while thousands of angry protesters gathered outside chanting, “Ukraine is not Russia!”

The leaders gathered in Kharkiv approved a statement calling on regional authorities to take full responsibility for the constitutional order on their territory.

Some called for forming volunteer units to protect against force by protesters from western regions. The assembly urged army units to maintain neutrality and protect ammunition depots.

Russia, the United States and the European Union are deeply worried about the future of Ukraine, a nation of 46 million whose loyalties and economy are divided between Europe and longtime ruler Moscow.

In a special parliament session, lawmakers warned that the country risks being split in two. The country's western regions want to be closer to the EU and have rejected Yanukovych's authority in many cities, while eastern Ukraine -- which accounts for the bulk of the nation's economic output -- favors closer ties with Russia.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading....

Employees Petition MSNBC Hosts for Workplace Rights, Left-Wing Anchors Remain Silent

As much as MSNBC's left-wing prime time hosts portray themselves to be on the side of the workers, none of the anchors have responded to 10,000 petitions delivered to the network on Thursday from NBC writers and producers demanding more workplace rights.

Talking to TVNewser, Writers Guild of America East communications director Jason Gordon pointed out the hypocrisy of the liberal channel: "The company can't have it both ways – presenting the strong, progressive voices of the MSNBC hosts while at the same time depriving the [NBCUniversal] Peacock [Productions] employees of their own voices on the job."

This is not the first time MSNBC has been hypocritical when it comes treatment of its own employees. In a 2013 promo for the network, Now host Alex Wagner pushed for a hike in the minimum wage despite MSNBC refusing to pay its interns.

MSNBC has routinely backed such liberal policies while bashing conservative opponents:

MSNBC.com Hypes Fear That 'Workers' Could 'Lose... Right to a Weekend'

Ed Schultz to 'Heartless and Cruel' Republicans: Extend Unemployment Because of Cold!

MSNBC's Sharpton Slams 'Heartless Ideology' of GOP on Unemployment Benefits Extension

MSNBC's Hayes: GOPers 'Screwing Over' People, View 'Poverty as Punishment'

Chris Matthews: You’re ‘Racist’ If You’re Against Raising the Minimum Wage

NBC's Russert: Do Republicans 'Risk Looking Like Grinches' by Opposing Minimum Wage Hike?

Via: Newsbusters

Continue Reading....

Forget Obamacare. Get Worried About ObamaLoans.

Pete Souza

The U.S. government is simultaneously trying to shut down a legitimate industry and replace it with a taxpayer backed version. Pretty much everyone has heard of Obamacare by now, but what about ObamaLoans? No, this is not a joke.

Section 1205 of Dodd-Frank included a provision that turned a local San Francisco program (Bank On USA) into a national program by making Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) eligible to compete with payday lenders.  This competition will come at the expense of taxpayers because CDFIs receive nearly $300 million in taxpayer subsidies each year, all in the name of promoting economic growth in low-income areas.

CDFI’s and their affiliates, such as the Center for Responsible Lending, have been arguing that payday lenders are predatory because they charge exorbitant rates of interest – nearly 400%, they claim – to people who simply don’t know any better and have no other options.  This sort of argument is wrong on many levels.

First, value is subjective so there’s no way to objectively state that consumers are harmed when they pay, for example, $15 to voluntarily borrow $100 for two weeks.  Second, it’sillegitimate to claim payday lenders are charging a 400% annual percentage rate (APR) on a two week loan – the APR represents the yearly interest cost over the term of the loan.  The interest cost really is 15 percent.

Naturally, payday lenders’ competitors don’t argue that these loans shouldn’t be made at all. Instead, they want to make the loans and use taxpayer funds to help them do it. To help speed the transition to a fully government-funded financial industry, the Obama administration instituted Operation Chokepoint, a program which aggressively investigates banks and payment processors that deal with payday lenders. These actions amount to an abuse of power, and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) is investigating the matter.

The Justice Department surely knows it’s much less costly for banks to stop dealing with these companies than to submit to special audits, so the hope is that banks will stop dealing with payday lenders. All the while, the taxpayer-funded companies that will take the place of payday lenders are being supported financially as well as through legislation.  Aside from the CDFI grants, the President has asked for more than $100 million just to fund the ObamaLoan program.

Now, the US Postal service – an agency that has lost almost $50 billion since 2007 – wants in on the act. The only recent experience the Postal Service has with money is losing it, but now it insists it can step in and provide payday lending services for 90 percent of the cost that it currently takes private businesses to deliver.

In the span of five years, the Federal government has identified large financial institutions as too-big-to-fail, small financial companies as illegitimate businesses, and payment processing companies as public utilities.  Members of Congress have to dismantle ObmaLoans and Dodd-Frank before the entire financial industry is transformed into one large public utility.

Payday lenders should be applauded for filling a market niche that others don’t want to touch, not vilified for providing a service that others are happy to provide if they can use taxpayers’ money to do it.

Via: The Foundry

Continue Reading...

How Obama's Executive Actions Could Backfire on Dems - and Be Suicide for ObamaCare

Obama’s executive actions can backfire on Democrats if GOP takes the White House

Republican could dismantle his law

By Tom Howell Jr.-The Washington Times Sunday, February 16, 2014

President Obama's repeated use of executive powers to ease the rollout of his health care law could be setting the stage for Republicans to roll back the overhaul's most controversial parts if they retake the White House in 2016, say analysts who have tracked the law's shifting landscape. 

The president has tweaked or delayed Obamacare’s mandates on employers and individuals without Congress on multiple occasions, each in a bid to put out a political firestorm caused by the law’s rocky rollout.

Although he is taking advantage of discretion built into the Affordable Care Act of 2010, those executive powers also would give “a future President Rand [Paul] or other ACA opponent room to throw a monkey wrench into the works and help try to dismantle the law from the inside,” said I. Glenn Cohen, a health policy analyst at Harvard Law School.

“That said, it was not the president’s decision to delay parts of implementation, so much as the design of the legislation itself, that leaves open this possibility,” he said.

Whether or not Mr. Obama is insulated by the law’s text, Republicans have portrayed Mr. Obama as an imperial leader with little regard for the legislative process. Most recently, Republican leaders ripped into the Obama administration for pumping the brakes on a mandate that requires large businesses to insure full-time employees or pay fines.

The Treasury last week said midsize companies now have until 2016 to comply with the employer mandate, and businesses with 100 or more workers will have more time to comply. The White House previously delayed the rule’s implementation from the start of this year to 2015.

“The president is setting a very dangerous precedent, as are the congressional Democrats who condone it,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.

Via: Washington Times

Continue Reading.....

Some immigrants may lack documents for new driver's licenses

At a community meeting Thursday night in Bell, DMV officials listen to testimony on driver's licenses for immigrants without legal status. Immigrants can apply for the new licenses beginning Jan. 1, 2015, but some lack official documents proving who they are or where they live. (Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times / February 13, 2014)

By Cindy Chang

February 14, 2014, 5:13 p.m.

As the California Department of Motor Vehicles prepares for a historic expansion of driving privileges, some immigrants may be left out because they lack documents proving who they are or where they live.

The DMV is hiring about 1,000 workers and opening five temporary offices to handle a flood of driver’s license applications beginning Jan. 1, 2015, from immigrants without legal status. In a few months, the agency will issue regulations on the documents required to obtain the new license.

According to a law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last October, the immigrant driver’s licenses will contain a distinguishing mark but will otherwise resemble regular licenses. The applicants may include people from rural villages who never obtained birth certificates as well as day laborers with no fixed address to prove California residency.

At a meeting with DMV officials Thursday night in Bell that drew hundreds of potential applicants, many speakers asked the agency to accept church records, school IDs and other non-government documents.

“A lot of day laborers have lost all their personal identification,” said Ana Garcia of the Central American Resource Center. “We provide worker center IDs, and that’s all they have. They don’t have a permanent home.”

Moises Alfaro, a day laborer in the San Fernando Valley, said many of his coworkers do not have an ITIN – an identification number used to pay taxes – because jobs have been scarce. An income tax return is listed in the driver’s license law as an accepted document, along with official IDs such as a passport. The new DMV regulations may expand on the options mentioned in the law.

“I also drive and I would like a license, like all of us,” Alfaro said. “For all of us, it would be an improvement to get a car.”

Some immigrants do not have birth certificates because their births were never registered in their home countries. They are then unable to obtain official documents such as a passport or the matricula consular used as identification by many Mexican immigrants.

Over 40% of births in the developing world are unregistered, according to the United Nations Children's Fund. The figure may be as high as 60% in some Mexican states.

Via: Los Angeles Times

Continue Reading....

House Dems to use longshot tactic to force votes, tarnish GOP in midterms

FILE: Dec. 12, 2013: House Minority Leader, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., on Capitol Hill, in Washington, D.C.AP

House Democrats are vowing to try a rarely used tactic to force votes in the GOP-led chamber on the minimum wage and immigration reform, a strategy that will likely fail but might hurt Republicans with voters in this year’s elections.

The tactic is known as a “discharge petition." It would require the minority party, in this case Democrats, to persuade roughly two dozen Republicans to defy their leadership and join Democrats in forcing a vote on setting the federal minimum wage at $10.10 an hour.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said fellow chamber Democrats will push the issue when Congress returns from its break Feb. 24.

The attempt to force a vote on a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws could occur in a few months.

Democrats think that a majority of Americans support both issues and that attempting to use the discharge petition will at least portray House Republicans as the obstacle to their success.

However, the discharge petition rarely works.

Via: Fox News

Continue Reading......

Chuck Todd: ‘If Democrats Lost White House Tomorrow,’ Tensions in that Party Would Explode

ANOTHER LIBERAL MORON WHO JUS DOES NOT SEE TGE WHOLE PICTURE

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough remarked on Monday that the Republican Party looks more strategically focused than their Democratic rivals are giving them credit for. NBC News’ White House correspondent and MSNBC host Chuck Todd agreed and said that ideological and strategic recalibration is what parties that are out of power do. He added that the tensions within the Democratic Party would be “explosive” if not for former Sec. Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama. 

Scarborough began by saying Vice President Joe Biden’s remarks at a Democratic retreat on Friday were the equivalent of a hollow affirmation hung up in a locker room. “There is no Republican Party,” he said, “this kind of sounds like what people were saying about the Republican Party in 1979.”

RELATED: Biden: ‘I Wish There Was a Republican Party,’ But ‘There Isn’t’

“If we’re going to talk about the Republican Party, I like what I’m seeing,” Scarborough told Todd. “Seems like we’re in a much better place than we were six months ago leading up to the shutdown.”

“I’m trying to figure out when a political party out of power didn’t look like they were trying to sort themselves out,” Todd agreed. “This is what parties out of power do when they don’t have the White House.”

“You don’t think if the Democrats lost the White House tomorrow that everything that Hillary and Obama, frankly, are papering over in the Democratic Party wouldn’t pop up immediately?” he continued.

Todd said that contentious issues like trade would fracture the Democrats if the party wasn’t united by a sitting president.

Via: Mediaite.com

Continue Reading...

Obama Admin Denies New Jersey Quick Access to Rock Salt

The Obama Administration has not approved a waiver that would allow New Jersey quick access to tons of salt for ice-covered roads at a port in Maine despite the state being at dangerously low levels.

Townsquare Media reported that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denied the state’s request for a waiver of the Jones Act, a 1920 law requiring that all cargo and passengers moving between points in the United States be transported on American vessels.

A waiver would have allowed New Jersey to get the salt within days from a foreign transport in Searsport, Maine.

New Jersey Department of Transportation Spokesman Joe Dee told the Washington Free Beacon that a waiver from the Jones Act appears “unlikely.”

“We were pursuing a waiver, but we’ve been advised we wouldn’t get one,” Dee said. “It seems unlikely we will get it.”

DHS did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The numerous winter storms this year have left New Jersey low on salt to treat their roads.

“The recent series of winter storms in New Jersey have reduced the supply of rock salt to critically low levels,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R.) wrote in an executive order prior to the latest Nor’easter that hit the state last week.

“Rock salt is an essential to maintaining safe travel on state, county, local, and interstate roads as a result of the dangerous and icy conditions during these winter storms,” Christie wrote.

The state is now scrambling to access rock salt.

Via: WFB

Continue Reading.....

Obamacare employer mandate delay lets the IRS look into business hiring

The IRS scandal keeps getting worse. President Obama is siccing the agency on employers, as well as Tea Party groups, to silence his critics before the 2014 midterm elections. That’s the hidden purpose behind the employer mandate delay announced last Monday and the administration’s push for new IRS regulations.

On Monday, February 10th, the administration released 227 pages of mind-numbing regulations, preposterously claiming that the gibberish would “make the compliance process simpler and easier” for employers. Hidden in the gobbledy-gook (on pages 125-6)  is a requirement that employers attest to the IRS, meaning under penalty of perjury, that they have not reduced the number of employees or cut hours to shield themselves from the extra costs of Obamacare.

Monday’s announcement has been widely misrepresented as delaying the employer mandate. It does that for the small number of employers, mostly in the hospitality and retail industries, who have 50-99 full time workers and currently don’t provide coverage. They won’t have to in 2015, despite what the law says.

But the vast majority of mid-size employers already provide coverage, and the new regulation will make them continue to. It freezes the status quo. However,  most of these employers won’t have the choice of sticking with current health plans. Either state insurance regulators or insurance companies have already said no to renewing those “noncompliant” plans. Instead they will have no choice but to pay for the generally costlier Obamacare compliant ones. That’s hardly relief.

Monday’s announcement is actually a hush money scheme. Under the Affordable Care Act, as written, employers are penalized a whopping $3,000 each time one of their workers goes onto the Obama exchanges and gets a taxpayer subsidized plan. Now the administration is offering to waive that penalty, provided employers stop complaining. Employers who want to take this deal must attest that they haven’t laid off workers or cut hours to squeeze under the 99-worker threshold.

Via: Daily Caller
Continue Reading.....

Tenure, Temerity and the Truth

Los Angeles Times op-ed and teachers union defense of educational status quo are packed with malarkey.

Now in its third week, the Students Matter trial still has a ways to go. Initially scheduled to last four weeks, the proceedings are set to run longer. On Friday, Prosecutor Marcellus McRae told Judge Rolf Treu that the plaintiffs need another week and a half or so to conclude their case before the defense takes over. The coverage of the trial has been thorough, with the Students Matter website providing daily updates, as has the always reliable LA School Report.

The media have generally been either neutral or supportive of the case, which claims that the tenure, seniority and dismissal statutes enshrined in the state Ed Code hurt the education process in the Golden State, especially for minority and poor kids. The defendants are the state of California and the two state teachers unions – the California Teachers Association and the California Federation of Teachers.

Having studied and written about the case extensively, I am of the opinion that the defense has no defense and that the best that they can do is to muddy the waters to gain favor with judge. In an effort to learn what the defense will come up with, I have tried to read everything I can by folks who think the lawsuit is misguided. I have written before about California Teachers Association president Dean Vogel’s rather inept argument presented in the December issue of CTA’s magazine.

The CTA website has been posting more about the case as the trial has progressed, and it would appear that desperation has set in. The union’s old bromides hold about as much water as a ratty sponge.

The problems we face with layoffs are not because of Education Code provisions or local collective bargaining agreements, but lack of funding.

No, the problem is who is getting laid off; we are losing some of the best and the brightest, includingteachers-of-the-year due to ridiculous seniority laws.

The lawsuit ignores all research that shows teaching experience contributes to student learning.

Not true. Studies have shown that after 3-5 years, the majority of teachers don’t improve over time.

The backers of this lawsuit include a “who’s who” of the billionaire boys club and their front groups whose real agendas have nothing to do with protecting students, but are really about privatizing public schools.

Oh please – the evil rich and the privatization bogeyman! Really! Zzzzz.

Via: California Political Review

Continue Reading....

OBAMACARE INSURERS REJECT LOUISIANA AIDS PATIENTS

HIV-AIDS advocacy groups say the three insurance companies in Louisiana that offer healthcare plans under ObamaCare are rejecting payments from a federal program that was meant to assist low-income HIV patients.

According to Reuters, the Louisiana Health Cooperative and Vantage Health Plan--two smaller insurers--followed the decision of the state’s largest insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, at the end of last year to reject the payments for the HIV patients.

In response, Lambda Legal, a nonprofit group, filed a civil rights complaint with the Obama administration about the two smaller insurers’ action on Thursday, following their complaint against Louisiana Blue last week, in which they argued that the insurer’s refusal to accept Ryan White payments flouted a key provision of ObamaCare, namely its requirement that insurers must accept customers with pre-existing conditions.

“Additional carriers are jumping on the discrimination bandwagon,” Susan Sommer, director of constitutional litigation for Lambda Legal, said.

The legal nonprofit works to protect the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, and people with HIV.

“The worst nightmare for people with HIV-AIDS is coming true in Louisiana: they’re being turned away in what’s become a race to the bottom by insurers,” Sommer said.

At issue is the federal Ryan White HIV/AIDS program that, for 23 years, has made grants to states, cities, and nonprofit groups to assist low-income people with HIV in the purchase of health insurance.

The advocacy organizations assumed the federal funds could be used to purchase premiums for Ryan White beneficiaries who bought private insurance on the ObamaCare exchanges, in the same way the funds had been used to pay insurance premiums prior to President Obama’s signature healthcare reform law.

Recently, however, both Louisiana Blue and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota began rejecting Ryan White payments made on behalf of poor HIV-AIDS patients who had enrolled in a plan on the ObamaCare exchanges.

Via: Breitbart

Continue Reading.....

The Stimulus That Wasn’t: Five Years Later, It’s Clear Obama’s Stimulus Was A Waste Of Taxpayer Dollars

On February 17, 2009, Obama Signed The Stimulus Into Law, Promising It Marked “The Beginning Of The End” Of America’s “Economic Troubles.”“President Obama on Tuesday signed the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act into law… ‘Today does not mark the end of our economic troubles,’ Obama said before signing the bill at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. ‘But it does mark the beginning of the end – the beginning of what we need to do to create jobs for Americans scrambling in the wake of layoffs; to provide relief for families worried they won’t be able to pay next month’s bills; and to set our economy on a firmer foundation.’” (Jeanne Sahadi, “Stimulus: Now For The Hard Part,” CNN’s Money, 2/17/09)

FOR EVERYONE – INCLUDING OBAMA – THE STIMULUS FAILED TO LIVE UP TO EXPECTATIONS

In 2010, Obama “Admitted That The Enormous Sums Of Money” In The Stimulus “Had Fallen Short.” “Yet he also admitted that the enormous sums of money had fallen short. ‘If we’re honest, part of the controversy also is that despite the extraordinary work that has been done through the Recovery Act, millions of Americans are still without jobs. Millions more are struggling to make ends meet. So it doesn’t yet feel like much of a recovery. And I understand that. It’s why we’re going to continue to do everything in our power to turn this economy around.’” (Richard Wolffe, Revival: The Struggle For Survival Inside The Obama White House, 2010, p. 155)

According To Obama’s Former Chief Of Staff Bill Daley, The Obama Administration Gave Up Defending The Stimulus Program Two Years After It Was Passed. ” Then, early in 2011, with unemployment hovering above 9 percent, Obama’s aides made a calculated decision to stop expending the president’s political capital to defend the program, either by its name or the generic term stimulus, said Bill Daley, Obama’s chief of staff at the time.” (Hans Nichols, “Stimulus Back In Obama’s Vocabulary After Year On Don’t-Say List,” Bloomberg, 10/26/12)

• Daley: “You Could See The Investments, But You Couldn’t See The Returns On Those Investments.” “‘It was pretty obvious that people didn’t see a difference in the economy yet,’ Daley said. ‘You could see the investments, but you couldn’t see the returns on those investments.’” (Hans Nichols, “Stimulus Back In Obama’s Vocabulary After Year On Don’t-Say List,” Bloomberg, 10/26/12)

FactCheck.org: “It’s Accurate To Say The Stimulus Has Failed To Live Up To Initial Expectations.” “CBO’s high estimate is still short of the 3.5 million jobs that Obama had said would be created by the end of 2010, so it’s accurate to say the stimulus has failed to live up to initial expectations.” (Lori Robertson, “Dueling Economic Ads,” Fact Check, 6/30/11)

Via: GOP.com

Continue Reading....

A Destructive President

President Barack Obama never admits to a mistake. Instead, egregious lawlessness is fluffed away as "not a smidgen of scandal" in relation to the IRS targeting of Tea Party and other conservative groups. Instead of being a great leader, Obama distances himself and lets his appointees hide behind the law or simply exempt themselves from total disclosure. Thus, Lois Lerner can refuse to answer any questions or testify when she is brought before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and Cindy Thomas, who was in charge of the IRS's Exempt Organization office and who illegally released confidential information about nine conservative organizations, can be promoted.

How else does Obama evade taking responsibility for his actions? Even though the president claimed he had no knowledge of the gun running program known as Fast and Furious, he claimed executive privilege. But one cannot assert executive privilege over documents that one has allegedly never seen. This is just one in the litany of obfuscations by Obama. And instead of taking responsibility for Fast and Furious, Obama falsely attributes the program to President Bush. Operation Fast and Furious began in October 2009, nine months after Obama took office. In fact, under President Bush there was a program known as Operation Wide Receiver, an "entirely separate program that implemented tactics in a profoundly different way;" furthermore, Operation Wide Receiver ended in 2007.

Via: American Thinker
Continue Reading...