Ghost From Clintons’ Past Surfaces In Explosive, Newly-Discovered Audio Sure To Haunt Hillary

Newly uncovered audio sheds light on the state of mind of the White House during the Clinton administration toward a “right-wing conspiracy” years before Hillary Clinton ever uttered the phrase.

Former Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Donna Shalala, interviewed in 1994 by the late Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Haynes Johnson, shed light on the early attitudes of the Clinton White House. “They’ve become paranoid. Paranoia. They think people are out to get them – this right-wing conspiracy stuff,” Shalala said at the time.

The audio, which you can listen to below, was first acquired by The Washington Free Beacon from the Wisconsin Historical Society at the University of Wisconsin. Quotes from the interview were featured in the 1996 book, The System, written by Johnson with David Broder, which focused on the 1990s health care debate, but were not attributed to any specific person until now.

“There is a feeling in the White House,” Shalala said, “and I don’t know whether it’s [James] Carville or [Paul] Begala or who’s giving them the materials. But sitting on the desks of their staff there’s these materials on this right-wing conspiracy. My reaction to that is, ‘So what? So what’s new?'”

“[The Clintons are] feeling sorry for themselves. They talk about [conspiracies] all the time,” she added. “That there really is a conspiracy out there to get us. That we don’t have a chance, people don’t understand how much good we’ve done. Our message isn’t getting across because these people are beating us up.”

Via: Western Journalism

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Charleston Church Massacre Happened In Gun-Free Zone

The Charleston, S.C., church massacre is already drawing comparisons to the tragedies at the Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn., and at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo. because it happened in a gun-free zone.

What do you think?

Nine people were were fatally shot at a historically black church Wednesday night.

What do you think?

Although South Carolina is one of several states around the country that issue concealed carry licenses on a “shall issue” basis, legal gun owners are not permitted to carry their firearms into places of worship.

What do you think?

States that issue such permits grants gun licenses to residents without the “arbitrary bias and discretion, compelling the issuing authority to award the permit,” Buckeye Firearms notes.

According to South Carolina law, civilians may not carry their legal fire arms “on school premises (including day care and preschool facilities), in law enforcement offices or facilities, in court facilities, at polling places on election days, in churches or other religious sanctuaries, or in hospitals or medical facilities. (S.C. Code Ann.§ 23-31-215.)”

What do you think?

The penalties for carrying a firearm in such places include a fine of at least $1,000, up to one year in jail, or both.

What do you think?

The alleged gunman, who was captured in Shelby, N.C., Thursday, is 21-year-old Dylann Storm Roof, a white male from Lexington, S.C. Reuters reported Thursday that Roof’s father gave him a .45 caliber pistol for his 21st birthday in April.

What do you think?

That’s also the day when he became eligible to apply for a concealed carry permit. It is unknown if he is a South Carolina permit holder.

Via: Daily Caller

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Pope Comes Out Against Carbon Credits, Disappoints True Eco-Believers

Listen to what that preposterous priest just said. He breathlessly claims he’s “concerned about the negative consequences for humanity and for all creation resulting from the degradation of some basic natural resources such as water, air, and land, brought about by an economic and technological progress which does not recognize and take into account its limits.”

Yes, that John Paul II was quite an eco-leftist, technophobe, and doomsday prophet. No, wait a second. He wasn’t, of course. Yet he published a Common Declaration on Environmental Ethics with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew back on June 10, 2002, just 13 years ago. His successor, Benedict XVI, preached along the same lines. And his successor, Pope Francis, earlier today released his environmental encyclical to great acclaim by the global Left and their acolytes in the mainstream media.

Well, not quite universal hallelujahs. The National Catholic Reporter quotes Pennsylvania State University meteorology professor and longtime global warming alarm activist Michael E. Mann as saying although the consensus among the climate alarmist friends he has communicated with is that the pope “got the science right,” Mann is disappointed at the pontiff’s “overly conservative” approach. Some people are never satisfied.

On the whole, however, the MSM have hailed the pope’s statement with breathless excitement. They have not suddenly gotten religion, of course, but are simply using the pontiff for their own advocacy efforts. For decades they ignored or ridiculed the doings of conservative popes, but when a Jesuit liberal from Argentina was elected pontiff, they suddenly started kissing his ring.

As it is so difficult, takes incredible skill, and is quite time-consuming to do a Web search of the words “the Pope” and “the environment” for the writings and sermons of the past few popes, the MSM has no context for understanding the current pontiff’s teachings on ecology.

Via: American Spectator
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Black activists fear ‘race war’ amid Charleston shooting

CHARLESTON, S.C. — Black community activists raised alarms Thursday about the mass murder at the historic black church potentially sparking race riots in Charleston, South Carolina.

“We don’t need any more bloodshed and we don’t need a race war,” pleaded J. Denise Cromwell, a black community activists. “Charleston has a lot of racial tension. … We’re drowning and someone is pouring water over us.”

Ms. Cromwell said that nerves were still raw from the fatal shooting two months ago of a black man, Walter Scott, by a white police officer in neighboring North Charleston, which ignited major protests.

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SEE ALSO: Obama calls for gun control in wake of ‘senseless’ S.C. church murders

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Black activist Michelle Felder, 58, said she feared the city’s young people “aren’t thinking” and might seek revenge, an emotional reaction that she said she understood but was mature enough to resist.

“This is 2015 and we are still going through the same things we went through 50 years ago,” she said. “This is so sickening. We are so tired.”

Religious and political leaders have repeatedly called for calm since the shooting Wednesday night.

Via: Washington Times

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Feds Charge More Than 200 People With Medicare Fraud

The West Miami drug store was called E-Z Pharmacy. A more apt name would have been “E-Z Money.”

The former owners — Eklis Almanza and husband Juan E. Diaz Gonzalez — pocketed $4.8 million from the taxpayer-funded Medicare program by submitting bogus claims for prescription drugs that none of their customers ever needed or received, according to a federal indictment.

In Little Havana, Enemisis Torres is accused of selling forged and altered prescriptions of Medicare patients at her rehabilitation clinic, Palmetto Comprehensive Healthcare, to a ring of Miami-Dade pharmacy owners. They in turn fraudulently billed the federal program $21.2 million, prosecutors say. Her clinic was raided early Thursday.

The defendants are among 73 South Florida suspects charged this week in Miami federal court with bilking Medicare, including dozens accused of defrauding the Part D prescription drug program that was implemented a decade ago during the Bush administration. The total amount of fraudulent claims in the regional sweep: $262 million.

“By stealing from Medicare ... they have robbed all of us,” U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer told reporters Thursday.

The South Florida arrests — carried out by armies of FBI and Health and Human Services agents — are part of this week’s nationwide take-down of 243 Medicare fraud offenders in states across the country, extending to Alaska. The tally of false claims in the nationwide crackdown: $712 million.

The Justice Department in Washington and U.S. attorney's office in Miami held back-to-back news conferences Thursday to spotlight the latest schemes to fleece the Medicare program, which continues to be plagued by billions of dollars in losses to fraud every year.

Ferrer called the latest healthcare fraud take-down the “largest ever” over the past decade, with Miami, the capital of Medicare fraud, accounting for one-third of all defendants charged this week. “It’s unacceptable, staggering and pretty shocking,” he said.

Via: Miami Herald

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Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article24842470.html#storylink=cpy

Subsidies and the Price of Health Insurance

Back in 2010 when ObamaCare was enacted, the Pelosi-Reid Congress was running its second trillion-dollar deficit, with two more still to come. So just when they were borrowing money like never before, Democrats passed the biggest entitlement in decades.

At Forbes on January 4, Ben Munro wrote that “2015 looks to be the first year healthcare spending will reach $10,000 per person.” From that alone, one might conclude that Americans are a sickly lot, for that $10K a person adds up to well more than $3T for the nation. And now it’s being reported that health insurance companies need to raise the price of premiums for 2016.

On June 1 in “Will these big Obamacare rates get approved?” at CNBC, Dan Mangan reported: “There are some eye-popping proposed Obamacare rate increases for next year.” Mangan quoted Blue Cross Blue Shield: “The main driver of the increase in the proposed rates is that the actual claims [are] significantly higher than expected.”

On June 2 in “Health insurers seek big premium hikes for ObamaCare plans in 2016,” Fox News reported: “Dozens of health insurers selling plans under ObamaCare have requested hefty premium increases for 2016, according to preliminary information published Monday by the White House […] many of which are in the double-digit percentages.”

On June 10 in “Why Are The 2016 Obamacare Rate Increases So Large?” at Forbes, Robert Laszewski, a frequent guest on cable TV news, wrote:

You just can’t look at this data and come away with a conclusion other than the big cost increases driven by too few people signing up has started. And it has started a year earlier than most of us expected. … What has concerned many actuaries is how the market penetration for Obamacare slowed considerably in year two in the states with the best first year enrollment results.

Via: American Thinker

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GOP Not Quite Ready for the Health Care Victory It’s Dreamed About

Sisters hold a sign at a rally outside of the Supreme Court during arguments in the King v. Burwell case on March 4, 2015. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

With each passing day of Supreme Court suspense, the image of the dog catching the bus has come more warily into focus for congressional Republicans.

The wait could end as soon as Thursday, when the justices are expected to announce rulings in a few of the 17 cases remaining on this year’s docket. If there’s still no decision on the fate of the landmark health care law, many GOP members will indulge in a collective sigh of relief — because they will have been given a little more time to cobble together plans for a moment they’ve spent five years dreaming about.

There has been a striking disconnect between the overriding Republican policy wish for this decade, which is to see President Barack Obama’s signature domestic policy achievement eviscerated, and the party’s preparations for the very real possibility that wish could be granted. The volume and passion of their relentless Obamacare criticism has been inversely proportional to their public level of coordination and precision about what they’d do differently.

Their longstanding “repeal and replace” mantra has been all about the former until recently, although the political imperative to come up with a replacement has advanced from the theoretical to the potentially imminent as King v. Burwell has progressed to one step from ultimate resolution.

The Supreme Court has the power to take away a central tent pole of the law, the medical coverage subsidies now being provided to about 6.4 million people in the 34 states where the federal government runs the insurance marketplaces. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit argue the wording of the law only permits those subsidies for people buying coverage from health exchanges run by states. The Obama administration says some sloppy legislative drafting should not be allowed to countermand the statute’s universally understood intent.

But if the court calls a halt to the federal marketplace subsidies, the economic pain will be immediate for millions of potential 2016 voters, many of them in presidential and congressional battleground states.

The subsidies, delivered as a tax credit to people with lower incomes, average $272 a month, meaning without them many will no longer be able to afford any coverage.

The biggest population affected would be in Florida, where 1 in 12 people younger than 65, or 1.3 million, are now getting federal help. The same is true for 3 percent or more of the adults in the likely presidential swing states of Michigan, Virginia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Via: Roll Call

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Manhattan Institute's Steve Malanga: 'Our Elected Representatives Played Chicken With Pension Funds'

You can thank your elected officials at the state and local level for making a mess of the public pension system, says Steve Malanga, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

"Around the country, state and local officials have increasingly discovered over the years that they can exploit the complex and sometimes ill-defined accounting of government pension systems, as well as loopholes in their own laws governing those pensions," he writes in the Washington Examiner.
"Over time, elected officials came to promise workers politically popular new benefits without setting aside the money to pay for them, declared 'holidays' from contributions into pension systems and changed their own accounting systems midstream to make the systems seem better funded — all just ways of passing obligations on to future taxpayers."

Special: Al Gore Attacks Scientist for Exposing Global Warming Lie

Laws and rulings that make it difficult to reform pensions have contributed to fiscal meltdowns in places such as Detroit and Stockton, California. 

The ugly results have now become apparent.

"Our elected representatives played a deceptive game of chicken with pension funds. And now the chickens have come home to roost," Malanga says. 

America's states and municipalities face a $1.5 trillion pension shortfall, and possibly $4 trillion if the funds' investment returns don't match expectations, he explains.

"In places with the deepest debt, taxpayers face rising taxes and declining services, which is hardly the sort of place that a family or a business wants to call home," he says.

For example, he said that places that cannot reform pensions, or where legislators were slow to act, are inevitably seeing tax increases to finance steep obligations. 

Via: Newsmax

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WashPost Blogger Pleads: 'Do Not Foist Brian Williams on MSNBC' -

“Do not foist Brian Williams on MSNBC,” he begged in a headline. Doesn’t MSNBC have enough problems? 

Someone inside the network must think: MSNBC’s schedule is fracturing and struggling, they want to have better breaking-news chops. Why not bring in the “news” man to make it less of a leftist talk-TV channel? Wemple won’t have it: 

Putting aside the structural problem that liberals are splintered in their brand loyalties, MSNBC has caused a great deal of its struggles. Lifeless programming, tepid panel discussions, excessive liberal agreeing and the occasional nasty comment followed by an excellent apology — these are the dynamics that help to account for the cable channel’s worm-level ratings.

One problem it doesn’t need is Brian Williams. By one count, this is the guy who’s been busted by an internal investigation for 11 quite outrageous embellishments regarding his past. At the same time, Williams is a smooth news delivery vehicle with a high name recognition: If he is unloaded on MSNBC, how much worse can things get?

Considerably. MSNBC’s critics are a motivated bunch and are already busy enough with Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews & Co. Just watch what happens when Williams pilots a report having to do with Iraq or helicopters or Israel. Then again, there really aren’t a lot of places to hide a liability like Williams, whose six-month suspension is up in August. Newsrooms don’t designate set-asides for embellishers.

Via: Newsbusters

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Rand Paul: "Blow up the tax code and start over"

Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul unveiled his version of a flat tax on Thursday, proposing to "blow up the tax code and start over "in a Wall Street Journal editorial.

"The tax code has grown so corrupt, complicated, intrusive and antigrowth that I've concluded the system isn't fixable," Paul, a freshman senator from Kentucky, wrote.

In its place, he called for "an over $2 trillion tax cut that would repeal the entire IRS tax code...and replace it with a low, broad-based tax of 14.5 [percent] on individuals and businesses." Under Paul's plan, all forms of income would be taxed at that level, including wages, dividends, capital gains, and interest.

"All deductions except for a mortgage and charities would be eliminated," Paul wrote. "The first $50,000 of income for a family of four would not be taxed. For low-income working families, the plan would retain the earned-income tax credit."

The plan, dubbed "The Fair and Flat Tax," would also eliminate "nearly every special interest loophole," Paul explained, along with the payroll tax and federal taxes like the gift tax and the estate tax.

A flat tax has long enjoyed support among some elements of GOP. Businessman Steve Forbes based his presidential campaigns on the idea in 1996 and 2000, and Republican candidates have periodically resurrected it since then, most recently Texas Gov. Rick Perry in 2012 and businessman Herman Cain, whose 9-9-9 flat tax made for a memorable campaign slogan.

In this cycle, several GOP candidates have advanced some form of a flat tax. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, for example, called in March for "a simple flat tax that lets every American fill out his or her taxes on a postcard."

Via: CBS News

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‘SHUT UP ALREADY!’ – Sheriff Clarke responds to ANOTHER pool party accusation of police RACISM

And of course there’s yet another charge against police being racist at a pool party! This time you can clearly see a kid punching a cop, and a mom resisting arrest, but somehow, if you have the right melanin amount in your skin while watching the video, you see racist police instead! It’s magic!

Here’s Megyn Kelly interviewing the mother involved in the altercation and her mumble-mouth lawyer:

OK well that was annoying, but don’t worry dear reader, I have a palate cleanser! Here’s the awesome Sheriff David Clarke to respond to EVERYONE who says racism is to blame for this latest altercation:

BOOM! Love that guy!

Via: Red State

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Liberals Call For Disarming All White People

Liberals go on mass shootings rampages yet they blame conservatives.
Check it out:

Liberals reacted to the tragic shooting at an Episcopal Church in Charleston last night by calling for an immediate gun ban in order to disarm all white people.

Police are still on the hunt for a 21-year-old slender, clean shaven white suspect who opened fire on a bible study group at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, killing nine people before fleeing the scene.

One of the victims included Rev Clementa Pickney, a state senator and pastor.

The incident is already being exploited by liberals to push their twin agendas of gun control and racial division, with many advocating that a total gun ban targeting only white people be immediately enacted.

Comedian Rohan Joshi, who has 395,000 Twitter followers, reacted to the shooting by calling for the NRA to be designated a terror organization and for hateful “crazy white people” to be disarmed.

Via: Conservative Byte

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Poll: Majority of Americans Don’t Believe Human Activity is Causing Earth to Warm

The Pew Research Center has released the results of a poll that examines the ideological divide over global warming in the United States.

Only 45 percent of all Americans—regardless of their political leanings—believe that the Earth is warming and that the warming is caused mainly by human activity. This is a decline from 50 percent in 2006.

The remaining 55 percent either don’t know whether or not the Earth is warming or what is causing the warming, don’t believe the Earth is warming, or believe natural changes are the dominant determinants of any changes in the global climate.

Just 22 percent of Republicans—and only 15 percent of conservative leaning GOP members—believe human activity is causing the Earth to warm, compared to 46 percent of Independents and 64 percent of Democrats.

Among Catholics, 47 percent believe that any warming is caused by human activity, down from 53 percent in 2006. A sharp difference exists between Catholic Republicans (24 percent) and Catholic Democrats (62 percent) on this issue.

By age group, 36 percent of the 65+ cohort believe global warming is caused by humans, increasing slightly to 43 percent for the 50 to 64 age group, 47 percent for the 30 to 49 year olds, and a slim majority (54 percent) for those in the 18 to 29 year old bracket.

Whites (41 percent) and Blacks (44 percent) both have a minority of their total populations believing in anthropogenic forces driving the Earth’s climate, whereas Hispanics have a solid majority (62 percent).

None of the major Protestant divisions surveyed had a majority believing that global warming is caused by humans: all Protestants, 37 percent; white evangelicals, 25 percent; white mainline members, 42 percent, and Black Protestants, 43 percent.

Via: Canada Free Press

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Treasury says woman will be picked for $10 bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — Alexander Hamilton, who has been featured on the $10 bill since 1929, is making way for a woman.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew is to officially announce Thursday that a redesign of the $10 will feature the first woman on the nation's paper money in more than a century. The plan is to decide which woman sometime this summer.

The bill will have new security features to make it harder to counterfeit and will be unveiled in 2020, the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. The date it will be put into circulation will be announced later.

Lew is asking the public for suggestions on who should be chosen for the bill, as well as what symbols of democracy it should feature. Ideas can be submitted by visiting thenew10.treasury.gov website.

Various groups have been campaigning to get a woman honored on the nation's paper currency, which has been an all-male domain for more than a century. The last woman featured on U.S. paper money was Martha Washington, who was on a dollar silver certificate from 1891 to 1896. The only other woman ever featured on U.S. paper money was Pocahontas, from 1865 to 1869. Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea are on dollar coins.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire, who is sponsoring legislation to put a woman on the $20 bill, praised Lew for moving forward with a decision to use the $10 bill, which is the next denomination of currency scheduled to be redesigned.

"While it may not be the twenty dollar bill, make no mistake, this is a historic announcement," Shaheen said in a statement. "Young girls across this country will soon be able to see an inspiring woman on the ten dollar bill."

A grass roots group, Women on 20s, had been pushing to get a woman's portrait on the $20, which currently features Andrew Jackson. They had conducted an online poll that gathered over 600,000 votes. African-American abolitionist Harriett Tubman was the top choice in that poll.

Lew said that Hamilton, the nation's first Treasury secretary, would still be honored in some way. He said one possibility being considered would keep Hamilton's portrait on some of the redesigned $10 bills. Lew said no final decision had been made yet.

Via: CNS News

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NEIL PEART – RUSH TO STUPID!

AWD is a drummer. Which means I’m really a frustrated guitarist. Neil Peart is one of the greatest drummers on Earth. Which means he is a frustrated intellectual idjit.

Yeah, we all thought Neil was smart with all those Ayn Rand-inspired lyrics in the early years. Who can forget the lessons about the evil of absolute government tyranny from the album 2112? Or the Rand-inspired lesson from “The Trees?” Well, it appears the guy who wrote the lyrics to those songs forgot the message!

It appears Neil Peart is just the latest rock star libtard! Don’t know what it is with those guys! He recently said as quoted in the Washington Free Beacon:

Peart outgrew his Ayn Rand phase years ago, and now describes himself as a “bleeding-heart libertarian,” citing his trips to Africa as transformative. He claims to stand by the message of “The Trees,” but other than that, his bleeding-heart side seems dominant. Peart just became a U.S. citizen, and he is unlikely to vote for Rand Paul, or any Republican. Peart says that it’s “very obvious” that Paul “hates women and brown people” — and Rush sent a cease-and-desist order to get Paul to stop quoting “The Trees” in his speeches.

“For a person of my sensibility, you’re only left with the Democratic party,” says Peart, who also calls George W. Bush “an instrument of evil.” “If you’re a compassionate person at all. The whole health-care thing — denying mercy to suffering people? What? This is Christian?”

So Neil thinks the Democrat Party is the place with a person of his sensibility? Does he really believe Hillary Clinton is the answer? He now embraces socialism??? And Rand Paul hates women and brown people? Well, Rand has been ‘randering’ to black people at every chance while railing against voter ID laws and fighting for allowing felons (mostly black) to vote.

I do agree that George W was an “instrument of evil” while President because he spent money like a socialist Democrat, gave us the worthless and hugely expensive Homeland Security and TSA, and partnered with Ted Kennedy to give us the stupid No Child Left Behind. Not to mention the ridiculously expensive Medicare Part D. Yes, W was an instrument of evil but not in the ways Neal Peart thinks!

And didn’t W spend billions of dollars we don’t have to solve AIDS in Africa (which cannot be done?).

I don’t have a problem with Neal Peart wanting to do charity work for the unwashed masses worldwide, just let him use his own millions! And if Neil isn’t a Christian (he isn’t), then shut the hell up about Christians and what we should do and think!

Via: Angry White Dude

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[VIDEO] CA drought a result of environmentalist priorities

“Taxifornia” author James V. Lacy explains to Fox’s Stuart Varney that CA’s water scarcity is a result of misplaced environmental priorities.

Via: California Political Review

The Federalist: The Media Doesn't Want Americans To Know Anything About King v. Burwell

According to a new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 7 in 10 Americans have heard little or nothing about King v. Burwell, the U.S. Supreme Court case that will, any day now, decide the fate of Obamacare’s health insurance subsidies for millions of Americans. Yet 63 percent of those surveyed also say that if the court rules against the government, Congress should act to keep those subsidies in place.

Got that? The vast majority of Americans know almost nothing about this case, but 63 percent have an opinion about what Congress should do in response to a ruling that carries certain policy implications. How can this be?

Other recent polls about Burwell and Obamacare also appear to be contradictory, as David Harsanyi noted about the recentWashington Post-ABC News poll, in which the conflicting results stemmed from how pollsters framed the question:

Harsanyi’s response: “Chew over the absurdity and bias of that query (it’s worse when you dig deeper). For starters, it has absolutely nothing to do with the legality or constitutionality of the Obamacare challenge—the reason the case is in the courts. It’s about the theoretical consequences should the court side with the challengers.” In philosophy, this is called petitio principii, the Latin term for the logical fallacy of “begging the question”—when one assumes in the premises the very conclusion one is trying to prove.

Via: The Federalist

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Lawmaker to Vilsack: In Your Thinking, What’s the Limit to ‘the Role of the State in Caring for Our Kids?’

(CNSNews.com) – Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.) challenged Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Tuesday about the extent of the role he believed the federal government should have in school lunch programs.

“Is there any upper bound philosophically in your thought to the role of the state in caring for our kids?” he asked during a House Education and Workforce Committee hearing.

Brat said he didn’t “want to be sitting here at the federal level, micromanaging all these micro issues” which he said “belong to the state and local and optimally at the parent level.”

Referring to an earlier remark by Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), Brat said, “The ranking member made a comment, ‘it’s our job to provide nutritious meals.’ I think most of us agree with that statement in the short run, but I want to get your thoughts on what you’d make of that in the long run – both on the economic front and on the ethics front.”

Vilsack said the questions were “really important” ones.

“Frankly, as you were asking your question I was actually thinking back to my childhood,” he continued, “adopted into a family where my mother … she was a mean lady when she drank and she was a wonderful lady when she stopped, but during the time that she was drinking she was not there.”

“You know somebody’s got to be there, somebody’s got to be there. I’d like it to be mom and dad but sometimes that’s just not possible, so somebody’s got to be there,” Vilsack said.

“You know we send our children to school and obviously you know when they’re in school this whole [in loco parentis] notion, you would hope that the school district is taking care of them, protecting them, feeding them well, and teaching them well so that at some point in time the light bulb turns on and the kid basically says, I want a better life, I want a better way. I’m going to work hard. I’m going to do what I need to do.”

Via: CNS News

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