Dem Mayor of One of Massachusetts Largest Cities Declares They Will Now Be A Sanctuary City For Illegal Aliens…

Under an executive order from Mayor Joe Curtatone, Somerville will no longer fully participate in a federal immigrant detention program.

• Page 2 of 3 - In an email statement, he told the Journal ending ICE detainers that happen without probable cause is moral, responsible and just common sense.

  “These are our neighbors and they should not be afraid to report a crime or afraid that they could be separated from their families and deported simply because they get stopped for having a broken tail light,” Curtatone said. He added, “We can’t keep our communities safe unless we have the full cooperation of the full community.”

  Acting Police Chief Charles Femino agreed.

  “In essence, what Secure Communities has done is built a wall between police and the community,” Femino said. He added, “We want to continue to partner with the federal government, but we want to do it in a fair way that’s equal to all citizens.

  Centro Presente Director Patricia Montes said the same.

  Via: Wicked Local Woburn
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The Insiders: More Obamacare enrollees doesn’t mean more success for the Democrats

The problems with Obamacare have moved off the front page recently, which is exactly what the Democrats have wanted to happen. They want to celebrate the “victory” of Obamacare by championing the alleged 8 million sign-ups, answering few questions and moving on.

But the political infection that is Obamacare is thriving in the body politic.

A new Politico poll shows that 48 percent of Americans support a full repeal of the law, 35 percent want to at least modify the law – and only 16 percent think it should be left as it is.

I have always said that the Democrats would get the headline enrollment numbers they wanted. They have the IRS for enforcement, and people need to buy insurance anyway – especially when their plans are canceled thanks to Obamacare. But this doesn’t mean that Americans are happy about what they are being forced to buy. Byron York reminds us that “Democrats, in their euphoria over the ‘8 million’ sign-ups to Obamacare, made a mistake in concluding that signups equal approval.” Signing up for Obamacare is only the beginning of a host of problems that will end up costing the Democrats at the ballot box in November.

Americans will face three big problems with Obamacare in the months to come:

First, voters will find that their provider networks are severely restricted. They won’t be able to keep their doctors, because Obamacare limits choices. Second, voters will find that the convenient provider facilities they want to visit for their health care may also be outside their network. They may not be able to visit the hospital down the street or the one they have used all their lives because again, Obamacare forces limits to be placed on what facilities you can use. And third, voters will find that their premiums are higher, and in many cases, that their deductibles are much higher than they were before Obamacare.

In other words, Americans are paying more and getting less under Obamacare. This is classic Democratic governance. Part of the reason that Democrats can’t govern effectively is because they over-promise and under-deliver.

Anyway, as we get closer to the midterm elections, the problems with the law are only going to get worse, for the reasons I have listed above. More Obamacare enrollees doesn’t mean more success for Democrats; it means the opposite because there will be more dissatisfied voters.  Democrats will try to tell voters to move on, but Republicans need to continue talking about the disaster that is Obamacare and about what they would do differently. Obamacare is still what will anchor the GOP case in the fall.

Via: Washington Post

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Treasury Outlays to VA Department Up 92.2% in One Decade

(CNSNews.com) -- In inflation-adjusted dollars, Treasury Department outlays to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) have increased 92.2% in the last 10 years, according to the Financial Management Service’s latest monthly Treasury statement, climbing from $73.3 billion to $140.9 billion since 2003.

As of the end of fiscal year 2013 (on Sept. 30,2013), outlays to the VA were $140,909,860,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars and included things such as medical services, medical support and compliance, medical facilities, housing accounts, compensation and pensions, and  insurance funds, to name a few.

As of September 2009, nine months after President Obama took office, outlays to the VA were $105,520,280,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars. This means that since September 2009, Treasury outlays have increased 33.5%.

Via: CNS News

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Al Sharpton Defends Anti-Jewish Remarks

Remember Al Sharpton’s history of racist and anti-Semitic comments? One reporter at The Daily Surge did and asked the civil rights leader and MSNBC host about them in an interview captured on video.

“In the spirit of Donald Sterling do you think you should be banned from TV for all the racist stuff you’ve said over the years?” asked the interviewer, who questioned Sharpton at outside of the White House Correspondent’s Dinner held earlier this month.

“What racist stuff?” Sharpton responded.

“When you referred to Jews as white interlopers,” the interviewer said.

Sharpton cautioned the reporter against misquoting him and clarified that he was only talking about one Jewish person.

“You went from one guy who paid people off the books and was wrong,” Sharpton responded.

The remarks that the interviewer referenced were uttered by Sharpton in 1995.

Sharpton had sided with a black record store owner against the Jewish owner of Freddie’s Fashion Mart. The owner of the fashion store was a landlord to he record store owner.

Via: Daily Caller

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Chris Matthews: Unlike IRS, VA Scandal Is Real, Except When He Compared IRS to ‘Profiling’ Innocent Arabs

MSNBC’s Chris Matthews seems determined to kill the idea that unlike the Veterans Administration scandal, past Obama scandals such as the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups are not in fact legitimate issues to investigate. 

Appearing on his nightly Hardball program on Wednesday, May 21, Matthews declared “For the first time, President Obama speaks out about the VA scandal and this is no phony IRS or Benghazi nonsense, this is the real deal.” [See video below.] 

While Matthews is correct that the VA scandal is in fact serious, his dismissal of the IRS scandal contradicts his past statements on the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups. On May 22, 2013, the Hardball host proclaimed that “profiling” by the IRS was akin to targeting innocent Arabs: 

I go to the airport and I'm running TSA. Instead of deciding based upon people's movements around the world that might be suspicious, going to countries that cause us trouble, I just look for everybody that looks Arab and I put them in one line. The American people would say that's outrageous.

While Matthews insisted that in 2013 “The IRS scandal is like profiling” he maintained on Wednesday May 22, 2014 that it was not a scandal. Speaking to the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and former Senator Bob Kerrey (D-NE), Matthews cheered “President Obama today, as you saw, addressed a growing scandal that unlike the phony, if you will, scandals like Fast and Furious and Benghazi, has the potential, the real potential, to cause some real political damage.”

The MSNBC host went on to promote Robinson’s recent article entitled “Heads Need to Roll at the VA” and swooned that “I loved the way you said this is a real one, not like the other ones.” The Washington Post columnist reiterated Matthews’ argument and maintained “It’s not like the phony ones. Bad stuff happened, right?” 

Despite Matthews’ decision to change his tune on the legitimacy of the IRS scandal, he was not the only MSNBC host who in 2013 held this same viewpoint. On May 16, 2013, Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski lamented that “Unfortunately the information and the guts of the story are there and it's an opportunity.” On May 10, 2013, MSNBC contributors Chris Cilizza and Ruth Marcus, who both write for the Washington Post, were stunned by the “outrageous dumbness” of the IRS.  

Via: Newsbusters

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Grimes & Nunn Dodge ObamaCare Questions

President Barack Obama and Senate Democrat Leader Harry Reid have publicly told their caucus to run on ObamaCare.  Yet it’s becoming more and more clear that the party bosses within the Democrat Party are telling red-state Democrats who weren’t in office to avoid any and all questions about ObamaCare.

In Georgia, Democrat Michelle Nunn has painfully gone out of her way to tell voters she doesn’t know how she would’ve vote on ObamaCare.  While in Kentucky, anti-coal Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes remains mum on if she would’ve vote for ObamaCare.  Yet they have no problem telling voters that they do not want to repeal this job-killing law.     

Below is a Tumblr post and statement from the RNC:

“Despite the happy face Democrats put on, it’s evident the liberal bigwigs in Washington are telling Alison Lundergan Grimes and Michelle Nunn that they shouldn’t discuss ObamaCare.  Sooner or later, Grimes, Nunn and the rest of the Democrats’ liberal recruits will need to explain why they’re stonewalling voters about their support for ObamaCare.”  Jahan Wilcox, RNC Spokesman        

• http://rncresearch.tumblr.com/post/86500890410/duck-duck-dodge-on-obamacare

Via: GOP.com

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Warren to Raise Money for Merkley in Oregon

Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren is bringing her name and fundraising prowess to Oregon next week to help her fellow Democrat, Jeff Merkley. Politico Playbook reports:

Elizabeth Warren heading to Oregon to help Sen. Jeff Merkley fend off an unexpectedly tough challenge: The senator is flying to Portland next Wednesday for a "grassroots fundraiser." Republicans nominated pediatric neurosurgeon Monica Wehby in Tuesday's primary, who they think can put the state on the map. Democrats have sent Andrew Zucker to be Merkley's deputy campaign manager, reassigning him from Louisiana - where he's been assisting Sen. Mary Landrieu's reelect. He ran communications for Ed Markey in the Massachusetts special election last June to fill the seat opened by John Kerry's elevation to State.

Merkley appears weaker than expected for reelection. One recent NPR poll found a third of registered voters in Oregon had no opinion or did not know of him, while other polls showed him below 50 percent support. The new Republican nominee, Monica Wehby, is considered even by GOP strategists to be a dark horse to win. Oregon remains a strongly Democratic state, but two factors give Republicans some hope in pulling off a surprise win.

The first is that Merkley might be considered an "accidental" senator. In 2008, incumbent Republican Gordon Smith had a moderately conservative record with some libertarian tendencies, but his party affiliation cost him in a year dominated by George W. Bush fatigue and high Democratic turnout to support Barack Obama for president. Still, Merkley, then the speaker of the state house, only beat Smith by three percentage points. Merkley was also didn't win a majority, winning just under 49 percent of the vote. Oregon may look and feel like a Democratic lock, but in 2008, that Senate race was one of the most watched and competitive of the cycle.

The second is that the politics of Obamacare in Oregon do not favor anyone who supports it. The implementation of the law has been a disaster, with the state-run health insurance exchange having so many problems that the program's been shut down and rolled into the federal exchange. (The FBI has been investigating the exchange, called Cover Oregon, for malfeasance, and just yesterday the state's U.S. attorney subpoenaed records from Cover Oregon.) Merkley voted for Obamacare in 2010 and continues to support the law, saying as recently as this month that it has "a lot that's going right in Oregon." As a medical doctor and former board member at the American Medical Association, Wehby has an added benefit of authority on the subject of health care, which may dominate the campaign.

Via: Weekly Standard

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The Obama Administration's Ethics Problem

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki cannot get a handle on the recent scandalous treatment of veterans in VA hospitals, where more than 40 sick men were allowed to die without proper follow-up treatment. A cover-up allegedly followed. When the Walter Reed Army Medical Center scandal broke under the George W. Bush administration, heads rolled. So far, Shinseki seems immune from similar accountability.

Almost nothing that former secretary of health and human services Kathleen Sebelius promised before, during, or after the implementation of the ill-starred Affordable Care Act came true. She was also cited by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel for violating the Hatch Act, as she improperly campaigned for Obama’s reelection while serving as a cabinet secretary.

Former IRS official Lois Lerner used the federal tax-collection agency to go after groups deemed too conservative. She invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid telling Congress the whole truth.

Susan Rice, former U.N. ambassador and now national-security adviser, flat-out deceived the public in five television appearances about the Benghazi catastrophe. She insisted that the deaths of four Americans were due to a spontaneous riot induced by a reactionary video maker — even though she had access to intelligence fingering al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists as the culprits who planned the attack on the anniversary of 9/11.

Rice recently blamed Obama foreign-policy failures on domestic political polarization. But that is best described as the give and take of democracy and was once thought to be our foreign-policy strength.

Rice also knows little history. In 2007, in the midst of the surge, when Americans were fighting for their lives to stabilize Iraq, then-senator Hillary Clinton implied that the commanding general in Iraq, General David Petraeus, was a veritable liar. Senate majority leader Harry Reid agreed and declared that the war was already lost. Then–presidential candidate Barack Obama prematurely wrote off the politically inconvenient surge as a failure. Was Rice then shocked that “polarization” affected foreign policy?

Via: Real Clear Politics

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McConnell vows ‘free-wheeling’ Senate under his leadership

Fresh off his resounding Republican primary victory Tuesday night, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Thursday laid out a broad vision of what the Senate would look like under his control.

Bottom line, McConnell, wouldn’t run the way Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., runs it now, the Kentucky Republican told the center-right American Enterprise Institute.

‘A Senate majority under my leadership would break sharply from the practices of the Reid era in favor of a more free-wheeling approach to problem solving,’ McConnell said in a speech. ‘I would work to restore (the Senate’s) traditional role as a place where good ideas are generated, debated and voted upon. We’d fire up the committee process. We’d work longer days and weeks, using the clock to force consensus.’

And McConnell’s money shot: ‘In marked contrast to the Reid era, we would allow an open amendment process – ensuring senators on both sides a chance to weigh in on legislation and alleviating the frustration that inevitably results when they can’t.’

McConnell and Republicans believe the Senate is within their grasp this election year. They need a net gain of six seats in November to gain control of the chamber.

Last November, Reid and the Democratic-controlled Senate changed the chamber’s long-standing rules to strip the Republican minority of its filibuster power to block many presidential nominations, a move that makes it easier to confirmed President Barack Obama’s appointees but increased partisan tensions in an already acrimonious chamber.

Via: McClatchy

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Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/05/22/228196/mcconnell-vows-free-wheeling-senate.html?sp=/99/104/244/112/#storylink=cpy

Harry Reid Offers 2017 Effective Date for Immigration, Sets August Deadline

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offered to make 2017 the effective date for an immigration overhaul Thursday so Republicans no longer can use President Barack Obama as an excuse not to pass a bill — and set an August deadline for the House to act.

“Let’s pass immigration reform today. Make it take effect in 2017. Republicans don’t trust President Obama,” Reid said. “Let’s give them a chance to approve the bill under President Rand Paul or President Theodore Cruz. To be clear, delaying implementation of immigration reform is not my preference. But I feel so strongly that this bill needs to get done, I’m willing to show flexibility.”

House Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, has repeatedly said that most Republicans want to act on immigration but don’t trust the president to enforce the law — a view he repeated again Thursday.

Reid warned that if Republicans don’t take the offer and pass a bill by August, President Barack Obama would go as far as he could to act on his own.

“If they don’t take our offer, then we’re going to have to go to the second step, which is not my preference,” Reid said. “Administrative rules cannot trump legislation but we’re going to have to do what we have to do as we proved with DACA,” he said, referring to Obama’s program to grant deportation relief and work permits to young illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children.

Reid’s offer of a 2017 effective date mirrors a suggestion that had been made by Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y.

In the press conference with Reid, Schumer, Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., and Budget Chairwoman Patty Murray, D-Wash., Schumer suggested there was a six-week window for action after Republican primaries on June 10 and before the August break.

Schumer was asked about Republican response to 2017 compromise after the press conference and he said, “We haven’t gotten yes and we haven’t gotten a no.”

Schumer also put the kibosh on smaller immigration patches, like the ENLIST Act that would allow young illegal immigrants to get legal status by signing up for the military.

“We are not going to go along with minor fixes that fail to address the huge systematic problems in our immigration system today,” Schumer said. “If the oil is leaking in your car, your muffler has a whole in it and you have a flat tire, you don’t change the windshield wipers. But that’s what they want to do with this ENLIST Act. Republicans are barely even considering that but it doesn’t even scratch the surface of our immigration system. We support giving those that serve in the military the opportunity to earn citizenship, but we also want to fix our agriculture worker programs, secure our borders … and provide a pathway for the 11 million that live in the shadows.”

The senators’ threats come as House Republicans continued Thursday to demand a public display of trust-building from the president before they take up any changes to the immigration system.

Via: Roll Call

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